Toei's alien-fighting, robot-piloting, Tokusatsu Spider-Man deviated rather a lot from the American version of Peter Parker, but that's not the half of it. Around the same time as Kazuo Koike's incredibly weepy Hulk, Kodansha also got a hold of the rights to Spidey, with the intention of localising Peter Parker for a Japanese audience. Teenage superheroes in tight costumes is already a safe bet for otaku (good old bishonen), but in order to better acclimatise the wall crawler for Eastern eyes, Ryoichi Ikegami made a few...changes. Ikegami is the other leading light in the gekiga movement, the men's comics that Kazuo Koike so exceeded in. Makes sense, right? More angsty dudes and violence. Right up Spider-Man's alley. For the most part the manga Spidey was much more in line with the US original than the live action version, as the young Yu Komori gets bitten by a radioactive spider and subsequently fights a bunch of crazy supervillains, all whilst looking after his dear old Aunt Mei (Japanese for "May"). The series was originally written by Ksei Ono with art by Ikegami, and simply adapted classic Spider-Man stories from the American comics. Then things started to get weird. Ono was replaced by Kazumasa Hirai, who collaborated closer with Ikegami to include a lot less comedy and a whole lot more murder, attempted rape, masturbatory fantasies and Yu spending time as a member of a biker gang rather than a superhero. Spidey started taking his enemies out permanently, with more blood spilled across each issue than the Crazy 88 scene of Kill Bill; he thought about the Japanese equivalent of Mary Jane whilst jacking it; and, yeah, he pretty much gave up on the outfit and became Mad Max. We're scared. Why is Andrew Garfield doing all these things, mum?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
