Kamen Rider’s long history in the world of Japanese superheroes has a bit of a gap — after exploding in the ‘80s, Kamen Rider largely vanished from screens outside of a few movies for nearly a decade, while its sibling superhero franchise Super Sentai resurged in popularity. That all changed with the dawn of the 21st century — and the arrival of a legendary new Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider Kuuga marked the franchise’s return to regular TV screens in Japan in January 2000, the 10th Kamen Rider series but the very first of the Heisei period, a new, standalone series that revitalized and re-imagined what Kamen Rider could be in the 21st century. Clearly, it worked: 22 years later, Kamen Rider is bigger than ever, and slowly but surely on the cusp of making inroads into official access to its fandoms outside of Japan. Case in point, the long-awaited official release of the 2014 Kuuga manga adaptation, now at last arriving in English from Titan Comics.
For our last little sneak preview of all things Kamen Rider comics this week, Gizmodo is excited to give you a look inside the English-language release of the first two volumes of Kamen Rider Kuuga. Written by Toshiki Inoue and drawn by Hitotsu Yokoshima, the manga adapts the 49-episode TV series with some changes, not just onboarding newcomers to the Kamen Rider franchise — in many ways just as the original show did in 2000 — but also incorporated characters and worldbuilding elements from the events of Kuuga’s successor series, Kamen Rider Agito, which served as an indirect sequel.
The first two volumes of Kamen Rider Kuuga are set to hit shelves this November. Click through to see exclusive pages from the first volume, as well as a sneak-peek at volume two!
Kuuga Vol. 1
Kuuga Vol. 1
Kuuga Vol. 1
Kuuga Vol. 1
Kuuga Vol. 1
Kuuga Vol. 2 Cover
Kuuga Vol. 2
Kuuga Vol. 2
Kuuga Vol. 2
Kuuga Vol. 2
Kuuga Vol. 2
