Each year, new series appear on your TV set or streaming service. And at one time or another, you’ve likely clamored for news about whether your new fave is going to get another season. Although some will draw to a predetermined or natural conclusion, many will get canceled before the creators wished. Perhaps it was low ratings. Maybe it was a lack of interest in continuing from the actors. Or maybe the studio was just looking to make cuts.
However, a small number of shows manage to have long, near continuous runs. Sure, the series may change formats and cast, but several generations may have grown up with new episodes. For instance, The Simpsons set records for the longest running animated TV show and has had generally the same main cast, while another long-running animated series, Scooby-Doo!, debuted earlier but has had different series names, formats, and even main characters — and no new episodes were made for years. There are also long-running game shows like The Price is Right who have had mostly stable hosts over their tenure, while late night shows like The Tonight Show has had drama over who gets the gig (and their name in the title). All are iconic in their own ways, with often-quoted lines and setups that have inspired the creation of other similar series.
Every country has their own shows like this. And if you’ve been a fan of Japanese culture for a while, you may have seen some of them — or at least picked up references in anime and manga. For instance, Mumen Rider in One Punch Man is an homage to Kamen Rider, a tokusatsu (hero live-action) franchise about a man or woman transforming into a hero who rides a motorcycle.
A manga about Kamen Rider just so happens to be the center of a lot of recent controversy.
Kamen Rider has been around since the 70s, and in its various incarnations, different people have been granted the ability to transform into the masked hero. As you would expect from a media franchise, there have been several manga adaptations and inspirations featuring Kamen Rider. Seven Seas rereleased the first manga run in 2022 as an omnibus.
In April 2022, Anime News Network broke the news that Titan Comics, under its new Titan Manga imprint, would be releasing the Kamen Rider Kuuga manga. Titan Comics (and Titan Manga) are a part of Titan Entertainment Group, a British company. Titan Entertainment Group owns a pop culture retail chain called Forbidden Planet, most of which are located in the UK, but they are more well-known for its book division Titan Books. A large number of their library are media tie-ins, from Marvel novels to movie and gaming artbooks to The Simpsons comics and more.
Kamen Rider Kuuga was not Titan Comics’ first license. The company has brought over tie-in manga like Sherlock (an adaptation of a BBC series) and Assassin’s Creed (based on the video games) for years along with originals like Ryuko. But with the announcement in March 2022 that they had rescued Afro Samurai, Titan Comics seemed to be getting serious about manga with its new publishing line.
This was followed up a month later by news of them teaming up with independent publisher Stonebot Comics to release Kamen Rider Kuuga and ATOM: The Beginning, an Astro Boy prequel.
An original Kamen Rider Zero-One series was also revealed to be in development.
The first volume of ATOM: The Beginning came out in October followed by Kamen Rider Kuuga volume 1 in December. But it was volume 2 of Kamen Rider Kuuga that brought Titan Manga’s release of that series to the forefront of the news.
As you can see here, English-translated images of Kamen Rider Kuuga accompanied the announcement. But these were not the final versions. Which, granted, happens a lot with early previews; there’s still time to make changes before a product is released to audiences and consumers.
But Kamen Rider Kuuga didn’t have just a few touch-ups or editing tweaks between the excerpts and full release. The translation and the lettering are both different.
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