Let's start of with the hero of our show - Supaidaman! At home he's the mild mannered Peter Par... I mean Takuya Yamashiro. And he's not mild mannered at all - as far as I can see he's a rough, motor cycle riding, leather jacket wearing, bad-assed slacker. When we meet him he's loungin' on a lawn chair in the sun, midday, having an anxiety day dream. I think that says a lot. This is both a huge difference between Takuya and the Peter Parker we know and love in the west, and kind of a similarity as well. Peter would either be at school, cooking something totally unexpected up in the lab (in order to help him fight crime) or pining over Gwen and/or Mary Jane. Peter Parker would never be daydreaming in the sun in the middle of the day. Alternatively... if he was, he would definitely be having and anxiety day dream about being trapped in an elevator shaft by a super villain, too. Takuya Yamashiro is, essentially, Peter Parker as a hip slacker.
Another interesting character is the somewhat enigmatic leader of the Interpol Intelligence Department, Hitomi Sakuma. Hitomi kind of reminds me of a director-of-shield type of character. Certainly not as hard-core as hard core as Nick Fury - in fact, much more of a bureaucratic figure. We don't really know much about him, except that he's very resourceful and very sneaky. He seems to always get what he wants from people... including Supaidaman! He tricks Takuya into rescuing is own sister and brother by giving information to the main villain group in the show, the Iron Cross Army (more about them later). It turns out that the Interpol Intelligence Department have figured out approximately where Supaidaman lives (though we're not sure exactly how) and have tipped off the Iron Cross Army in the hopes of drawing Supaidaman out in order to learn his true identity (now why didn't Fury think of that? Think, "Spider-Man, Agent of SHIELD!"). Why do they do this? Well, they need his help to fight the Iron Cross Army of course. Somehow they (the Interpol Intelligence Department) are able to kidnap (in a good way) Takuya's sister, brother and girlfriend whilst he's chasing (and fighting in his kick-ass style) the agents of the Iron Cross Army - they are spirited away to a resort so they can swim in a pool and have fun... and so Takuya will think something bad has happened to them. Did this seem weird to anyone else? I didn't quite get the whole thing, but it worked. Hitomi got Supaidaman to come to his office so he could let him know the dangers of a world where the Iron Cross Army is allowed to run wild. They blow stuff up. It ain't good. Hitomi somehow engineers this whole scheme in order to bring Supaidaman into the fold. Hell, he's crafty.
I also want to point something about John P. Marquand's character, Mr. Moto. In Marquand's novels Moto is a Japanese agent, but in the WWII era films (in which Moto is portrayed by Peter Lorre) Moto is... you guessed it, an Interpol Operative. I think having an agent of the empire in a Holiwood film wasn't seen as terribly appropriate during the war. I have a hunch that the Hitomi is somewhat based on Moto - they are both crafty as hell, for sure... however Moto (as portrayed by Lorre, at least) is also a kick-ass Judoist. Perhaps we can see something of Moto split between the two heroes? Perhaps Hitomi will prove to be kick-ass later in the series? I don't know. Anyway, it occurred to me so I said it.
I wonder if the Villains of the story are as interesting as it's heroes. Also, could a piss-poor translation of our heroes' names add to our understanding of their personalities? Further posts, I think, are required.
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