JSM@CDS: The Time For Revenge Has Come! Attack The Iron Cross Army!!

Episode 1: The Time For Revenge Has Come! Attack The Iron Cross Army!!
MONSTER OF THE WEEK: Machine BEM Bokunryu: He can: Smash stuff, be a dinosaur, kill Prof. Yamashiro, go BIG.

The first episode of Japanese Spiderman sets up the premise immediately and without a lick of subtlety. Within minutes, the alien spaceship known as Marveller has been psychically crash-landed. Before the ad break, madcap cyclist Takuya Yamashiro's astro-archeologist (?) father looks for said Marveller, and is killed by Professor Monster's robot dinosaur. And after a brief tussle with the bird-like agents of the Iron Cross Army, Takuya meets Garia, the spaceman from the planet Spider, who seeks revenge on the Iron Cross for his planet's destruction, and gives Takuya "the SPIDER EXTRACT!" (plus Marveller/Leopardon) and then becomes a Spider. Cue ad break. After the break it's time for some wacky hero adventure, a la Adam West!

And when I say Adam West, I mean Adam West. The show is goofy, dated, thinly plotted, and completely enthralling. However, the show goes one step ahead of the Batman show, with thorough disrespect for its source material. Whereas Batman worked slavishly to replicate the comics of the time down to the Pows and Bams, Supaidaaman completely ignores its origins, and in my humble opinion, benefits from it. A burglar? Why not a dinosaur instead? Power and responsibility? Try BLOWING UP A DINOSAUR WITH A FREAKING ROBOT SWORD! It may be laziness on the part of the writers and staff, but the ignorance makes the show feel genuinely fresh. I had fun watching this premier episode of Spiderman, I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't, and in the end, that's all that matters.
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