Get Cultured: The Japanese do it Better!

I have an obsession with Japan and I’ve never even been! I love their films, their bizarre commercials, their giant monsters… So it’s no surprise that I like the Japanese versions of American invention much better than our own. But after this installment of “Get Cultured”, I think you will too!

Exhibit A: Spider-Man
It’s hard to imagine much to improve upon when talking about one of the most famous characters in Marvel Comic’s history. But consider this: Did American Spider-Man ever have a giant robot? Har har harrrr! I didn’t think so!

This is a seriously amazing series that should have been adopted by our franchise. But there still may be hope that Spider-Man 4 features a giant cat man monster and a samurai.

Exhibit B: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Again… How do you improve the perfection that is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Honestly, I don’t think our feeble American minds could conceive a way. But the Japanese realized that they should introduce the power of Super Mutation! Whoa!

And as if that wasn’t enough, they turned it up to eleven and gave the turtles the amazing ability to combine and become a single sentient being called “Turtle Saint”!

Wow. I’m going to be humming that theme song for months to come.

Exhibit C: Frankenstien
Okay, Frankenstein isn’t really an American invention, but who cares? The Japanese still did more with him than we ever could.

We had him fight the Wolf-man, Dracula, Abbot & Costello…

All at once!

But there was one avenue that we completely dropped the ball on with Frankenstein. We never turned him into a giant Kaiju monster and had him battle Baragon! Granted, Baragon is probably one of the lamest giant monsters in Toho history, but it beats the hell out of alternately strangling Lon Chaney before you fall off of a cliff.