In an unexpected turn of events, 2007’s sentai was the main toku of the year that brought us the best action, grit, badassery and drama. The villians stole the show and made it so I never missed an episode. And in 2008, it looks like Kamen Rider is the horse to bet on. The fandom’s leading expert in all things Rider, Igadevil, has put up a blog detailing everything we need to know as we close up our time traveling adventures with Den-O and “WAKE UP!” with Kiva. You can read the first bits here for a running start, then hit the jump to read the rest over at Igadevil’s Blog. Ready…..

Kamen Rider Kiva Update

Chances are that by now, you’ve heard about 2008’s Kamen Rider series. The one that was called “Kamen Rider Kiba”. Until suddenly Toei revealed that it’s “Kiva”, but some still go with “Kiba” since it makes just as much (if not more) sense and is, after all, what it literally is pronounced as. But then, “Kiva” is a pun, right? On both “Kiba” and “vampire”, plus Toei said that’s what it is, so they must be right! Then again, they also said that the group which backed up Kamen Rider G3 was the Squid Against Unidentified Lifeforms and that Kabuto’s enemies were called the WARM. And that apparently a good translation for kaizô-ningen is “clone men”.

In any case, until I can see a reason not too, I’m sticking with the Kiva spelling on account of the fact that it appears multiple times in various places (well, magazines, the official series title, and it will probably be on the toy packaging) so I do think that it was fully intentional and not some goofy romanization or something. And also, just for simplicity’s sake (since I assume everyone and their dog will be calling it either Kiva or possibly, with much bitterness, Blood or Vlad.)

In any case, Kamen Rider Kiva is 2008’s Rider series! Starting (or waking as the tagline goes) up on 1/27, it’s just a few weeks away. Details about it have been out there for-freaking-ever by now, although as usual I’ve waited until the major Rider-covering magazines (Hyper Hobby, Figure-O, Terebi Magazine & Terebi Kun) are out before making any fuss about it. And now that those are out (and have been out for some time now), I present my initial thoughts.

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