One of my other hobbies besides AMVs is collecting retro video games, which is how I first discovered the existence of Eight Man, which has an also-obscure game for the Neo Geo. The series was originally broadcast in 1963/64, and is the origin of Japan’s first cyborg superhero, predating Kamen Rider by about eight years. A few years ago, I saw a post on then-Twitter announcing that the series was getting a BluRay release in Japan, and on a whim, I decided to jump on it, and it sat in my collection waiting for an idea to strike.
Inspiration finally struck right after the deadline for RICE 2024, and just before the deadline for Sakuracon, when I stumbled across a copy of the Fleischer Superman shorts in a store and the Superman/Eight Man parallel jumped into my head. I listened to quite a few different Superman themes to figure out which one fit best, and settled on the Lois & Clark version, partially because I could use the original opening as a reference to make a shot-for-shot parody, since I wanted to send something new to Sakuracon and only had a few days to put it together.
I managed to find the matching fonts from the original L&C opening for the credits, and also put the accurate matching credits for Eight Man (though with character names instead of actor names). There were a few shots I had to stretch a bit to find a match to the original shots (especially for some of the Lois shots), but mostly managed to find something that was close enough to work.
This was fun to make, and I want to use the series again someday.
Video – Eight Man
Audio – Jay Gruska – Lois & Clark Main Theme
Completed February 2024
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