The Weekly Planet - Japanese Spider-Man Is Bonkers - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

In 1978 Marvel struck a deal with Japanese company the Toei Company licensing out their most popular characters. The result was Japanese Spider-Man (スパイダーマン) which was a huge success and ran for 41 episodes. However their were some changes including a mentor from the Planet Spider, Peter Parker being replaced with a motorcycle racer, along with Leopardon, a giant robot he uses to fight his greatest foe Doctor Monster. It's a wild ride. Thanks for listening!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/R6UkKP42jrIHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Welcome back, everybody. Creaky as shit, do you hear that? Those are your bloody hips, mate. I bloody wish. You wish you had bad hips. Yeah, I wish. Okay, great. Welcome back everybody to another episode of Caravan of Garbage where this week we take a trip back in time and also internationally. Yeah, and into another dimension probably.

Probably another dimension because we are of course talking about Spider-Man. But not just any Spider-Man. But another dimension, because we are, of course, talking about... Spider-Man. But not just any Spider-Man. But it's called Spider-Man, isn't it? It's called Spider-Man. It's called Japanese Spider-Man in the West. That's right. Officially.

Leave a like if you could, because this show... Bonkers. It's absolutely insane. Or whatever the Japanese term for bonkers is. Yeah. It's probably still bonkers I reckon It's one of those words that translates directly It'd be in katakana though

The translation alphabet I hear exactly what you're saying I do want to talk about the creation of this show And how it came to be Okay, great It's a fascinating tale Because people might not know this They might not know that they can leave a like on a video

But guess what you can But they might also not know They might not know that this exists at all. Yeah. Because it only really was released in Japan, and then it was buried for various rights reasons and never got a DVD release until like... It was officially released in 2009,

but of course it came out in 1978, just after that Spider-Man telemovie, which we maybe looked at some of that series at some point. Yeah, we did. Night of the Clones. The Clone Saga, the TV Clone Saga. And this has very similar vibes. It's got that late 70s fashion. It's got

a relentless waka waka guitar soundtrack, which I loved. I was a big fan of it. But this is way sillier and it sort of embraces more Japanese superpower traditions. Absolutely, yeah. And the things that were big and hot and huge at the time. And I think it even sort of pioneered a couple of things

that were big and hot. It totally does. And we'll talk about that. So Gene Pelk, who was an American producer who was working with Marvel, he lived over in Japan with his wife and he got together with uh toro hirayama and susumu yoshikawa and they created this whole series with the

japanese audience in mind i apologize for how i pronounce things and by that i mean they pretty much throw everything in the bin outside of the costume and his powers. Yeah. As I understand it, Toei Productions and Marvel, they came to an agreement that for a few years they just had carte blanche to use each other's characters however they wanted. Yep. So Marvel produced Shogun Warriors, which is a sort of a giant robot comic series.

I believe Gene Polk was also involved in some of that also. There you go. And I think the Japanese production team and I believe Gene Polk was also involved in some of that also there you go yeah and uh and I think the Japanese originally intent the Japanese production team originally were like let's make a story about uh an ancient warrior who is projected into modern times and then Spider-Man can be his sidekick and it's just regular it's just Peter Parker Spider-Man but then they were like, why would we waste the license like this? If we can use Spider-Man,

let's just make Spider-Man, let's make a Spider-Man series. And that's what they did. But they, like you said, they just evidently threw everything out and gave him Ghost Rider's origin. Did you notice that? He's a motorcycle daredevil

and his dad dies and then a mysterious stranger shows up and is like, do you want some themed powers? Here you go, you've got them. And he's like, all right. Revenge? Absolutely, all the time. Yeah, I'll have some revenge, thank you.

Yes, please, don't mind a bit of revenge. So when they actually took the pilot back to Marvel in the US, and so there's a group of executives sitting around the table along with Stan Lee. Oh, I bet Stan Lee's loving it. Well, they showed the group, and they're like, this sucks. You've been bet Stanley's loving it. Well, they showed the group and they're like this sucks. What have you been in Japan for too long? This is absolute insanity.

Gene, what were you thinking, Gene? But Stanley... You've got native gene. But apparently... You've become the Colonel Kurtz of Marvel Entertainment. This has gone too far. We're sending Martin Sheen in to kill you, Gene. But apparently Stanley loved it.

And he was like, look, it's camp for adults. Kids will love it. This is terrific, genuinely. You can sell some toys. You can sell some toys. And everyone else in the boardroom was like, yeah, no, we agree with that, actually. That's true. But then also Marvel said, this will not leave Japan.

I see. Sure, yeah. This stays on that Japan. I see, sure, yeah. This stays on that island. And again, wasn't officially released until 2009. Now, they do a lot of things here in terms of stunt work, which I think is impressive, especially considering the budget, because most of this is shot in a quarry. We watched the first three episodes.

They all end in a quarry. Look, and you know, these are, like you said, they're camp, you know, a bit of ironic fun for adults, big-time fun for kids, but some formulas need to apply. Like this sort of stuff eventually ended up, you know, sort of pioneering, sorry, this sort of stuff, you of stuff resulted eventually in stuff like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Directly, yeah. They all end the exact same way.

Spider-Man fights a monster. Then the monster gets really big. And he's like, well, I can't fight a big monster because I'm little. So then he gets in his GP7 spider machine, his little race car. Which leads him to the Marveller. It can fly into a big spaceship called the Marveller that he got from his friend Garrier, who is from the spider planet, Planet Spider.

Planet Spider, yeah. And then he goes into... Well, his friend Garrier came to Earth 400 years before to fight Professor Monster, but he ended up falling into a cave. So he stayed there for 400 years until the next Spider-Man came along. And then this Spider-Man, he showed up falling into a cave. So he stayed there for 400 years until the next Spider-Man came along. And then this Spider-Man, he showed up in the cave

and Garia injected him with some spider blood and gave him the spider powers. But anyway, then Spider-Man, he gets into the Marvler in his GP7 spider machine and then Marvler turns into Lepardon, who's a leopard robot man, and et cetera, et cetera, and then he blasts the monster with some missiles and then Lepardon produces various weapons, including a big sword, and then he kills the monster,

and it's always the same, as far as we know. I mean, we only watched three episodes. No, no, that is essentially it. There is an ongoing storyline, and it does resolve at the end where he does kill Professor Monster. Thank God. Spoiler alert.

But, yeah, this pioneered a few things, first of which being that it transforms. Yes. Like, we'd seen big robots before in Japan, and as a result of that, the toys sold, like, insanely well. Because, like, action figures here, it's not enough. You need, like, a bigger thing. And you mentioned Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

So this is apparently the first series in Japan to have a superhero as opposed to a costume pilot ride a giant robot. And then the success of this led directly into the Super Sentai series, which then became Power Rangers when it was repurposed for the West. There you go, yeah. So this is directly responsible for Power Rangers. Makes a lot of sense. And obviously Spider-Man does spend a lot of time

fighting the Iron Cross Army. Yes. These little sort of grey men and they've got sort of little chicken beaks. Yep. And they are very similar to putties. A hundred percent, yeah. From Seinfeld.

Just an army of putties from Seinfeld. Don't know why he's got a leopard head. This leopard on man. Why is any of this anything? It's just sort of a vague, there's sort of some vague web decals on it to be like, but was this originally intended for a different series? And maybe they,

should we remodel and give it a spider head? No. No, I think they would just like like, put a robot in it. Maybe, like, lion heads and leopard heads appeal more to kids or something like that than the horrible, ugly spiders. So what I love about Garia, his mentor, is that he dies and promptly turns into a spider. Yes.

And then that spider gives him advice. But then in, like, episode two, the spider dies. That's correct, yes. Never to be seen again, I would imagine. Yeah, I think also we would be remiss if we didn't talk about Shinji Toto. Again, I'm sorry for my pronunciation. Who plays Takuya, who is Japanese Spider-Man

or in his country, regular Spider-Man. He's wonderful. He's so great. So there is actually a short documentary on Disney+, which you can watch about this and a lot of this he has interviewed. And he's just so, like, happy to be involved in it and still talk about it, you know what I mean? And he loved it, like, Stan Lee loved it.

He was really, like, excited by that. And I just think he brings a lot of energy and heart to this and also absolute revenge and madness. Because his famous line from this is when somebody says to him, who are you? He says, I'm an emissary from hell. You know, that classic Spider-Man line. Yeah.

And that is very Ghost Rider, isn't it? That's right, I'm from hell. Get ready to be punched. And there's, in terms of just, maybe it's a mistranslation, but like both the opening and ending themes, the lyrics are true insanity. The ending theme features lines including, Echoing in depths of darkness, the footsteps of hell,

under a grave marker lies my father. I hide in my heart my callous fate. Goodbye, my friend, my eternal friend. All alone I run through the deserted land. The quarry. The quarry, where all, my eternal friend. All alone, I run through the deserted land. The quarry. The quarry, where all the action takes place. I don't know. That does feel like the very depths of Peter Parker's despair.

Sure, yeah. That kind of vibe. Not gussied up with any of this work and rent and friends. Yes, exactly. Speaking of, what I enjoyed about this is that because in this series Spider-Man's civilian identity he is a motorcycle daredevil.

He doesn't have time to get pictures of Spider-Man. So he has a girlfriend named Hitomi and she is a freelance photographer who wants to get a sort of a prize winning photo and really make her career.

Which I enjoy because it's sort of like Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane but with something to do as opposed to just being, I'm dancing at the disco. And I guess she's also J. Jonah Jameson in a way. They have some fun interactions. There is a moment in, I think, the third episode we watched where she's like, Takuya, on the news, there was a monster.

The monster was, it's, you know, threatening the city. He's like, that's news there was a monster. The monster was threatening the city. He's like, that's crazy. You're crazy. What do you mean? You got spider powers from an alien guy in a cave and he brought you a little. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause,

causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost.

FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're

not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. A little car and a little ride. You've already fought two giant monsters. You've had two episodes of this. What's wrong with you? You talk to a spider.

To be fair, every time the spider shows up, he's like, a spider? A spider talking to me? Yes, it's the spider that's talking to you. I like also, because I just want to quickly talk about the budget again when they fall into that cave it's just like gray sheets just draped over some boxes so they actually shot for this two episodes a week that's the pace that they did this at and you probably notice they also reuse a lot of scenes and recycle the same footage like three times in a row often. Yeah, if Spider-Man's maybe

swinging on his web or his spider string, he'll swing and then it's just the same shot and the same shot again. Yeah, it's not good. It's not a good inclusion. I do not like that.

But you know, to be fair, there's a lot of practical swinging around and a lot of practical climbing and a lot of scuttling. I think we mentioned this when we talked about... He's got a particular run, doesn't he?

When we talked about the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man in Night of theuttling. I think we mentioned this when we talked... He's got a particular run, doesn't he? When we talked about the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man in Night of the Clones, I think I probably said something like, it's good to see Spider-Man scuttle about. Perfect. I bet Tom Holland has a clause in his contract that says he will never scuttle about.

You'll strut. Yeah, he'll strut. You'll strut and you'll slide and you'll dance, but you will not... He's got to scuttle in between the shadows. Yeah. Real creepy-like, like a real spider. Yeah, very intentional.

So a lot of this was also done by a stunt performer or stunt performers. So what they had to do for the opening shot of this, and you see this in the opening credits, you'll see he's up like 30 metres high on Tokyo Tower, and they were just like, just climb that, I reckon. Can I have a rope? No. No.

We're filming two of these a week. You cannot have a rope. Couldn't we just build like one of those, like the 1960s Batman could we just build build a building on the side and i can just walk across it no it's not the budget but you climbing that building is in the budget so go and do that if you wouldn't mind speaking of budget did you notice a bit i think it was episode one where he tries to web he's got all the spider-man abilities and they're in a big wrist watch i guess he's yeah it has it says spider-man on it he's got all he's got all the Spider-Man abilities, and they're in a big wristwatch, I guess. Yeah, yeah. It has Spider-Man on it. It says Spider-Man written on it.

He's got all the skills. At one point, he's like, the Iron Cross Army, they're 50 kilometers away. Incredible. And then he just, I cannot imagine how long it would take to swing across a 50 kilometers of city. At that pace. Yeah, oh my goodness. Three days later. So he webs the monster, and then it just picks him up

and just fucking wrecking balls him into the side of a mountain and it's clearly just a toy. It's so great. I do want to talk about Lepidon as well. Lepidon? Lepidon. Lepidon. Only a pardon, I guess, depending on where you're from.

You may have noticed this, but this giant machine, it rarely appears in the same scenes as the monsters. It does earlier on. Okay. But what actually happens... I can't wait for whatever this is. So it ends up being like they launch projectiles at each other. He throws the sword.

Yeah, but very rarely in the same shot. You're right. Later on, sometimes he's not in it at all, and this is because it had had massive structural problems and the suit was difficult for the stuntmen to move in. On top of that, it was much bigger than the monster suits, so it would tower over a lot of them. And what ended up happening is it was damaged and then lost.

So in the later episodes they just reuse footage where they're never in the same shot. And the robot turns up and then they just kind of stare at each other and then shoot things, you know. In that quarry. In that quarry that they're always in, it seems. As we mentioned, Garrier, his mentor,

who becomes a spider and then dies. Yep. There is a flashback in the second episode where he first arrives. I love it. He first arrives on Earth 400 years ago. It's sort of feudal Japan and there's some sort of period battle scenes with samurai and Japanese warriors and so on and so forth. But my favorite part of it is he just arrived with all his like,

just all the equipment that modern day Spider-Man has. His Spider-Mobile still just has Spider-Machine GP7 written on it in English, like in 1970s Formula One fonts. I like that a lot. I like also how he fell into the cave and it was just like, I'll just stay here, I reckon. You've got all the Spider-Man stuff. He's like, I'm going to send the giant robot away. You'll need that.

What are you doing? Want to deliver the cave, this bloke? Yeah, I'm going to send the giant robot away. You'll need that. What are you doing? Want to deliver the cave, this bloke? Yeah, I think so. And by cave, I mean a room covered in sheets. You know? You want some trivia? I'd love some trivia. Spider trivia?

I mean, in relation to this, yes. Great Japanese spider trivia. You're even narrowing down what kind of trivia this is, more so, Mason. So part of the deal that Marvel made with Toei was that they could adapt any of Marvel's characters, as mentioned. So an additional result of this was a series called Battle Fever J, which was an adaptation of Captain America. And if you've seen even a second

of this... He's not really in it. It's not even close. It's not even like one red, white and blue character with a shield or anything. No, it's just like five or six people, I don't know. It's essentially Power Rangers again, I guess, or proto-Power Rangers. Because Spider-Man is a Marvel property, Toei was not allowed to rerun the series or use publicity stills of Spider-Man

from the show without paying licensing fees to Marvel. There were exceptions to the things, though, that they created. So that's why we haven't really seen that much of it over the years. But they ended up still showing and selling a lot of the merch for everything else. So the robot, you can still sell the robot. Of course, yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's why he's got a leopard head.

Yeah. Yeah, non-Spider related. So the popularity of this series, this is an interesting bit of trivia from IMDB, has likely led to Spider-Man becoming one of the most popular Marvel superheroes in Japan. While Marvel movies dominate in the global box office, in Japan they are huge domestic properties, right? So it says that Spider-Man pretty much beats out everything else. These are the things that the Spider-Man movies are also behind in Japan.

Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Toy Story, The Matrix, Alice in Wonderland, The Da Vinci Code, Terminator, plus Deep Impact and Armageddon. Those things are all more popular than the Spider-Man movies. The highest... Because of that Armageddon anime that they produced in Japan in the 70s. Oh, was that what it was? Yep.

Was Bruce Willis in it? Yep. Great! Straight off Moonlighting. Oh! Number four? I don't know. Sure. This isn in it? Yep. Great! Straight off Moonlighting. Oh! Number four? I don't know. Sure.

This isn't real, this thing that I'm saying. That's not a real thing. It doesn't matter. There's no continuity required. It's a joke, everybody. Calm down. So the most successful Spider-Man movie is Spider-Man 2002, which came in at number 68 in terms of the 100 most popular movies.

I mean, that is the 100 most popular movies ever. It's still pretty high. I agree, but it's like there are bigger movies as well. That's very true. Mason. Also, they decided to go with Motorcycle Guy because of Kamen Rider. So they were like, motorcycles? Yeah.

We think so. Great. Let's steal some off the set. They won't miss them. So interestingly enough As we begin to wrap things up So this version of Spider-Man actually appeared In the 2015 comic book storyline

Spider-Verse He's popped up a few other times as well So it features multiple versions of Spider-Man From alternate universes And does include his classic robot Leopard headed Japanese robot Also That's looking good because it can move Yeah it can move include his classic robot, leopard-headed Japanese robot. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, and it's looking good because it can move. Yeah, it can move. It actually has a bigger range of motion. Do all sorts of things. Because the budget is unlimited. Exactly. You can literally draw anything and it costs basically nothing. It costs nothing.

It's a fun little joke we do at the expense of... Hardworking artists. Hardworking illustrators and artists. Hardworking and underpaid, quite frankly. But people might be excited for this, and I know you are. So the upcoming Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, parts one and two. Yeah. Somewhere in that... He's going to be in it.

...Japanese Spider-Man is going to appear. With Shinji Toto? I fucking hope so. You have to, right? If I remember correctly, Lord. Yeah. Phil Lord of Lord and Miller, I believe, asked on Twitter, would you put him in the new Spider-Verse?

And he said, if this movie makes $200 million, we'll do it. Yeah. And it did. Excellent. Right? I love it. Check it out, man. It's good.

I mean, it's... Is it? It's serious. It's good. I mean, it's... Is it? This series. It's entertaining. Yeah, it was all up on YouTube briefly. Marvel put it up. Yeah, it was. They released a bunch of it.

But, you know, it is available. But now we've got clips of this. That's right. Until it gets taken down, maybe. Toei Animation do that, apparently. They're not a fan of any of this. It would seem. But listen, maybe you're a fan of this.

Maybe you're like, man, I love clicking on a video called Caravan of Garbage and I'm like, oh, I'm going to get angry about this because this is my favourite property. And then you're like, wait a minute, they're saying good things about this. What is this series even about? It's whatever. We don't know anymore.

We don't know. Look, there's Spider-Man movies and we've already done all the Spider-Man movies. So we have to just dig around for other stuff at this point. That's right. Yeah. But if you... You want us to buy some Spider-Man action figure play sets

And smack them into each other? We'll do it You want us to watch one of those weird Spider-Man Elsa But Spider-Man's pregnant YouTube videos for kids or whatever That are very weird and shouldn't be online? Mmm

Well, you know, kids shouldn't watch them at least Have you seen any of those? I'm aware of them You'll kill yourself Don't look it up. Oh, no. Anyways, here's a hint towards what we're doing next week. Whoa.

Animatrix Mason. We've finally come back to it. Let's do it. So excited. Is it long? How many are there? Let's find out. Oh, terrific.

Yeah. And if you want to see that early, you can actually head over to bigsandwich.co. It is basically our Patreon, our private Patreon. There's also bonus podcasts. There's an early version of our podcast, The Weekly Planet, where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. It normally comes out Monday, comes out Sunday.

They're ad-free. We do movie commentaries. We do a comic book club. It is all literally happening all of the time there. That's right. Yeah. So much content. You love content?

Heaps of it. Yeah. Stacks. Your favourite content will be there. That's right. Anyways, thanks for watching this. Thank you to Ben and Lawrence for the wonderful edit and let's all go about our days. Love it. Me too. In the dark

valleys between buildings, Spider-Man. His eyes flashing anger. Spider-Man. He abandons peace. He abandons all and races through the sky chasing evil. Why do you continue to fight, risking your life earnestly, invincible man,

Spider-Man? Not invincible. No. I thought that was really touching when his dad died. Apparently he drew on personal experience for that. Oh. I thought it was quite good. He's very good.

Anyways, thanks everybody. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. This podcast is part of the Planet broadcasting network visit planet broadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates i mean if you want it's up to you fx is the veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil,

starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.