Back last summer, I wrote up on the opening theme for the Japanese TV version of "Spiderman"（スパイダーマン）that ran from 1978 to 1979. At the time, a lot of us were getting some major Spidey Sense tingles for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" that would come out around Xmas. Well, I have to confess that I never managed to catch the movie unfortunately due to all of the COVID circumstances although I could see some of the jaw-dropping scenes via YouTube. I will be trying my hardest, though, to get a ticket to see "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" when it shows up at theatres next week.
Considering all of the madness in the trailer, potentially anything could happen in "The Multiverse of Madness" so I'm hoping that there will be some solace for poor ol' Peter Parker. But I'm hoping that Sir Patrick Stewart gets his due in the movie; it's gotta be better than anything I've seen in Season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard".
Getting back to the Toei Spiderman though, the opening theme "Kakero! Spider-Man"（駆けろ！スパイダーマン）was the kickass banger by singer Yuuki Hide（ヒデ夕木）that a lot of the tokusatsu series liked to use to get the fans all excited and ready to battle along with their favourite heroes. By the same token and pattern, the ending theme, "Chikai no Ballad" (Oath Ballad) as sung by Hide as well, is an introspective and somber song to reflect the hero's often lonely journey and perhaps have the fans get all contemplative about what happened in the episode.
As was the case with "Kakero! Spider-Man", "Chikai no Ballad" was composed by Chuumei Watanabe（渡辺宙明）with Tohru Hirayama（平山亨）on words under the name of Saburo Yatsude（八手三郎）. It's arranged as if Spiderman was the lone wolf cowboy getting justice for a tumbleweed town and then having to leave without any hope of settling down. I thought that it felt especially poignant considering the conclusion of "No Way Home".
Strangely enough (no pun intended), it wasn't anything Marvel that reminded me to do this song. It was just that some minutes earlier, there was an NHK vignette about how to teach kids and the topic of discussion was introducing nature to the little ones, with the one animal that popped up being a spider!🕷
Morning, Brian. Yeah, this particular song does although I'm not sure whether the Toei producers really understood or were interested in Peter Parker's issues. But as enjoyment, I will always choose the 1967 theme over these ones.
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