The legend has been revised once more.
A manga adaption of the 2000 series of Kamen Rider.
The manga starts off similarly to the original TV show. A man named Yusuke Godai gains the power of a ancient warrior named "Kuuga", and with the help of officer Kaoru Ichijo, fights the Grongi to save people.
But things start to diverge when a Kuuga-like entity appears, as well as the police building an anti-Grongi suit...
It was written by Toshiki Inoue.
Titan Comics has licensed the series for English release under their Titan Manga imprint with the first volume released in late 2021.
This adaption of Kuuga contains examples of:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: Of both Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Agito due to the story being written by Agito's head writer Toshiki Inoue.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Agito in this continuity rather then being from an evolutionary trait implanted into humanity, is instead connected to the Grongi as a type of superior Grongi created when a human is turned into one by a Maternal Spirit Stone and implanted with an Alter Ring spirit stone. This gives it a connection to Kuuga's Amadam Spirit stone implanted inside of the Arcle belt. It also removes the rule of "Only one true Agito at a time".
- Adaptational Badass: In Kamen Rider Agito, Yukina Sawaki was shown to be able to use the powers of Agito, but we never got to see her in action. Here, not only is she able to use those powers to defend herself from the Grongi, but she even goes toe-to-toe with Kuuga at one point!note
- The Grongi in general are much more deadlier than in the TV series, with the Spider Grongi racking up over 400 kills when it's introduced.
- Adaptation Expansion: In general the manga expands on the huge amount of lore that was only found in side material, including having Kuuga's last bearer Riku survive long enough to defeat Zu-Gumun-Ba and pass the Arcle to Yusuke.
- Adaptational Heroism: Me•Gadra•Ba and Me•Garima•Ba of the Me tribe have no interest on killing humans whatsoever, Me•Garima•Ba, is not only one of the nicest Grongi but also became Godai's Love interest. A shame that they both got killed by both Agito due misunderstandings.
- Adaptation Name Change: Downplayed with Shoichi; because the amnesia plotline from Agito doesn't happen, "Shoichi Tsugami" is his real name and "Tetsuya Sawaki" doesn't exist. His sister Yukina's surname changes from Sawaki to Tsugami as well.
- Ascended Meme: For a while, fans continuously joked about how Kaoru Ichijo is the Heisei era's first Secondary Rider due to his Badass Normal status. In this adaptation, he becomes the Heisei era's first Secondary Rider, Kamen Rider G3.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official translation by Titan Comics appears to be a barely edited machine translation, despite preview pages showing a better, more dynamic translation with better lettering.
- Darker and Edgier: While the TV show was among one of the darker Heisei Kamen Riders due it's Genre Deconstruction and the brutal methods the Grongi kill, it was still fairly tame in graphic violence. The manga doesn't pull any punches starting with a Serial Killer who turns his victims into fireworks, and introducing us to Zu-Gumun-Ba with it killing hundreds of people on a train by sucking out all of their internals, leaving skin behind.
- Driven to Suicide: Me•Garima•Ba's actual fate, she knew Shouichi wouldn't spare her life due wanting all Grongi dead so to avoid Godai to blame him for her death she decapitated herself, Godai didn't knew and blamed it to Shouichi until her spirit told him herself.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Godai seems to be unaware that 15 years have passed since 2000.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Shouichi Tsugami appears as a baker, and even transforms into Kamen Rider Agito to defend his sister.
- Mythology Gag: In the original TV series Godai says he has 2000 skills to reflect the coming Turn of the Millennium and 2000 being the Arc Number. Here, he realizes it's 2016 and updates it to having 2015 skills to keep in line with the reference.
- Zu-Gooma-Gu was already an Expy to the original Kamen Rider's Bat Kaijin, but now he gains it's ability to turn women into vampire minions as well.
- Poor Communication Kills: Given who's the writer, yes.
- Setting Update: Updates from taking place in at Turn of the Millennium to The New '10s. Yusuke notes this by referring to his original plan of making friends with 5 billion people (The approx population of Earth in 1999) and having to update it to 7.1 billion and due to not being in Tokyo for a long time with the presence of the Sky Tree (Which was completed in 2010).
