The war arc is full of evidence of Kishi borrowing anime character and even weapon designs. Even before this Raiga fiasco, it was obvious that Kishi borrowed the sword design the anime gave to Raiga:
In addition, Kishi borrowed the Pakura, Gari and Chukichi character designs from the 3rd Shippuden movie:
I don't believe at all that this character is Raiga. Instead, I believe he is simply a character design that Kishi borrowed to use as part of his manga.
Reasons it is most likely not Raiga:
Edit: Conceded the point about the hair :|
1. The Ninja is a grown man in Guy's flashback. Gai is around 30 and is flashing back to when he was a kid, presumably around the time he participated in the chuunin exams because he looks the same as he did then, as do his teammates. By my rough calculations, this would put Raiga between 40 and 50 years old when Naruto fought him. I don't find this logical.
2. In addition, if Raiga was a swordsman during Guy's youth than that means that the Twin blades passed from him to Ringo. We know that Ringo was the most recent wielder, hence why he was brought back by Kabuto and not Raiga. This proves that the character shown in Guy's flashback cannot be the Raiga we saw in the anime, since the character in the manga had the twin blades BEFORE Ringo, not after him.
3. Raiga doesn't have shark teeth.
While the manga doesn't confirm what his teeth look like, the Raiga character was designed before we knew all 7SM had shark teeth. This seems to imply to me that he isn't a canon swordsman. Again, Kishi likely took the character design, but its not actually Raiga.
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In addition, Kishi borrowed the Pakura, Gari and Chukichi character designs from the 3rd Shippuden movie:
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I don't believe at all that this character is Raiga. Instead, I believe he is simply a character design that Kishi borrowed to use as part of his manga.
Reasons it is most likely not Raiga:
Edit: Conceded the point about the hair :|
1. The Ninja is a grown man in Guy's flashback. Gai is around 30 and is flashing back to when he was a kid, presumably around the time he participated in the chuunin exams because he looks the same as he did then, as do his teammates. By my rough calculations, this would put Raiga between 40 and 50 years old when Naruto fought him. I don't find this logical.
2. In addition, if Raiga was a swordsman during Guy's youth than that means that the Twin blades passed from him to Ringo. We know that Ringo was the most recent wielder, hence why he was brought back by Kabuto and not Raiga. This proves that the character shown in Guy's flashback cannot be the Raiga we saw in the anime, since the character in the manga had the twin blades BEFORE Ringo, not after him.
3. Raiga doesn't have shark teeth.
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While the manga doesn't confirm what his teeth look like, the Raiga character was designed before we knew all 7SM had shark teeth. This seems to imply to me that he isn't a canon swordsman. Again, Kishi likely took the character design, but its not actually Raiga.
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