Titan Promises to Fix Kamen Rider Kuuga Manga After Translation Controversy

Image:  Titan Comics
Image: Titan Comics
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

After days of fan concerns about the state of the Kamen Rider Kuuga manga’s English translation, publishers Titan Comics and StoneBot have announced plans to fix the litany of errors and disparities in future releases and re-prints.

“We at Titan have been listening very carefully over the past few days to your feedback on the highly anticipated Kamen Rider Kuuga manga translation,” a new statement released on social media by Titan reads in part. “As a result, we wanted to let readers know that we are now actively resolving the issues that the community has raised for existing volumes.”

Read more

According to the statement, Titan plans to correct both the digital release and future printings of the first two volumes of Toshiki Inoue and Hitotsu Yokoshima’s Kamen Rider Kuuga manga, fixing “any identified art errors and textual inconsistencies.” Furthermore, the publisher claims that it will now implement “extra internal editorial processes” and “continue to work closely with our translators and Kamen Rider brand experts” in order to improve the accuracy and coherency of translations for future volumes.

Neither Titan nor StoneBot’s statements particularly dive further into the controversy around the originally released preview pages for the manga, which used a different—and stronger—English translation, or why Titan continued to promote the manga with those previews after the releases of volumes 1-2. StoneBot, the actual licensee for the Kuuga manga, alleges that the preview pages were translated by themselves with Argentinian sister publisher OVNI press, which publishes Kuuga in Spanish. Those English-language pages were created to match the stylization of the Spanish-language release, but “it was later decided to go on a different direction” for the actual book, in order to have it appear “similar to current manga localizations in the market.”

While there’s still plenty of questions around just why the first two volumes were released in the state they were, at the very least Titan’s new statement promises changes will be made in the wake of the Kamen Rider community’s criticisms of the release. Time will tell just how extensive those changes will be—hopefully enough to make Kuuga’s English translation a release worth supporting by a fandom eager to grow Kamen Rider’s appeal around the world, instead of one they’re asked to begrudgingly accept in the name of official support.


Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

More from Gizmodo

Sign up for Gizmodo's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.