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.)