Oh man, of course!  It seems almost a tradition at this point for the first two enemies a Kamen Rider faces are a spider followed by a Bat.  It’s such a trope by this point that deviating from it comes off as somewhat jarring (at least to me). This began, as all things did in the franchise, with 1971′s Kamen Rider. The very first enemy Takeshi Hongo fights after escaping from Shocker is the evil Spider Kaijin!

He is one of the most famous villains in the history of the franchise, even getting a revamped version in a recent movie:

And there were a ton more including the first enemy fought by Kamen Rider Amazon:

The first enemy Kamen Rider Black had to face:

One of the monsters fought by Kamen Rider ZO (the other being a bat):

Of course, there were some weirder ones like Kamen Rider X’s Spider Napoleon:

And the weirdo from 2008′s Kamen Rider Kiva, the Spider Fangire:

Who, in his human guise, had a creepy fascination with hand puppets:

Though not as traditional or iconic as their Kamen Rider analogues, there are several Spider Monsters in Super Sentai as well.  Such as:

Iron Spider Mask from 1975′s Himitsu Sentai Goranger

Devil Spider from 1977′s J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai

Kumorugin from 1990′s Chikyu Sentai Fiveman

and Tsuchigumo from 2015′s Shuriken Sentai Ninninger

Spiders just make great villains.  They are creepy, lots of people are scared of them and they are venomous things that trap their helpless prey in webs.  How can you not think of them as just the perfect villains?

Sorry Spidey but you know it’s true.

Oh I know!  Can you imagine the team as it was for the first 9 episodes meeting those two goofball groups?  As it was the Carranger crossover was weird but that serious team and those nuts?  It would have been a car wreck (pun intended).

It would be like having Herbie The Love Bug show up as a car in Mad Max.

This one isn’t even much of a hard decision for me.  I know it’s probably not the best objectively but I love it nonetheless.

There are a few reasons I love this one so much.  The first is that it was the start of the annual current season’s team meets last year’s team specials that have become an annual tradition since that point.  It wasn’t the first of course thanks to 1978′s J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai vs. Gorenger.

One of the major differences between the 1995 crossover and the 1978 one was that while the earlier was a theatrical release, the later was a straight to video V-Cinema special.  The annual crossovers would continue to be straight to video affairs for the next 14 years until 2009′s Engine Sentai Go-Onger vs. Gekiranger was released to theaters.

This brings me to my second reason this is my favorite crossover, it was the first crossover I ever owned, having bought a copy of the laserdisc back in 1997 from a local anime store.  I even had to buy a Laserdisc player to watch it and then go on a hunt for the right adapter to hook it to my TV at the time.  That took over a month from the initial purchase until I could watch it and the anticipation made the final watch entirely worth it.

My third reason is that then, as now, my favorite Super Sentai team was Ninja Sentai Kakuranger and seeing them come back for a special after their series had ended was amazing. I was also a fan of Ohranger back then, not so much now but I still enjoy the show, so seeing those two teams meet up made me so happy! The two teams were so different with Ohranger being much more serious and displaying military discipline while Kakuranger was much more comedic and not so good at taking orders or following decorum.

So, there is my answer.  Thanks for the question and I hope you get a chance to see this one, it’s a good crossover.

So, until next time: OLE!