Kaiju No. 8 Review

There’s no shortage of shonen anime on the market right now. Solo Leveling just wrapped up its first season not long ago, My Hero Academia’s seventh season just got a release date, and One Piece is still being released every single week, with 1088 episodes having aired so far — and that’s to say nothing of Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer.

It might seem like the market is saturated, but there’s always room for more. Kaiju No. 8 is almost here, and Crunchyroll was kind enough to let us watch the first episode early. Folks, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that it’s absolutely incredible. The bad news is that I have to wait another week before I get to see more.

Kaiju No. 8 is set in Japan in more or less the modern day, except for one key difference: the city is frequently overrun by giant kaiju. Think Godzilla and his monster friends — big, giant monsters with hugely destructive capabilities. Kaiju attack so often that there are systems in place to alert the public, a kaiju light on traffic lights, and specialized teams for dealing with them.

The team that takes down the kaiju are known as the Defense Force. They’re hotshot celebrities beloved by all, and they are very good at what they do. Our hero Kafka is not a part of the Defense Force, as much as he wishes he could be. Instead, he’s on the cleanup crew.

Being on the cleanup crew means disposing of kaiju bodies after they’ve been defeated, and as the first episode very clearly points out, that is messy, smelly work. Normally, an episode filled with poop jokes would be a bold and off putting start to an anime, but somehow here it works. There’s a nice level of humor, handled in a mostly mature way, and mixed in with very real emotions.

I feel very deeply for Kafka. He wanted to be in the defense force so badly, but just could never make the cut. Now, he’s stuck cleaning up after the people he wished to be. That’s rough, and he dulls the pain with jokes, but you can see the pain behind his words and it stings.

His unlikely and reluctant friendship with Reno, the new kid in the cleanup crew, is a nice touch, too. Reno wants to be on the Defense Force, too, and vows he’ll do anything to get there. Kafka sees a lot of himself in Reno, and the two do eventually inspire each other to work harder to achieve their dreams — though only after Reno is subjected to poop duty. You’ve gotta start somewhere, and shared suffering is a good way to come to an understanding with one another.

The whole thing is topped off with some fantastic animation. Kaiju No. 8 was animated by Production IG, the studio behind Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass, and quite a few more, but this might be their best work yet. It’s dynamic and bouncy, quickly switching between cool, sharp artwork and deliberately lo-fi caricatures as seamlessly as you could hope for. Action scenes are readable and fluid, and it’s all just a delight to watch.

And the music, dang. I typically categorize musical scores in media into two categories: passive scores, and active scores. Passive scores follow the scene, they bring context to what’s happening on screen and help to accentuate key moments as needed. Active scores are like a character in themselves, helping shape the scene and creating a vibe that the action then follows, rather than simply hiding in the background and doing the work without much fanfare.

Kaiju No. 8 has what I would call an active score, with highly energetic bangers blaring whenever things are about to happen. It reminds me a lot of something like Bleach, which famously played Number One by Hazel Fernandes when stuff was going down . Kaiju No. 8 doesn’t quite go that far, at least not yet, but it’s got the same vibe, and it works incredibly well.

In an environment packed with same-y shonen anime, Kaiju No. 8 stands out as a breath of fresh air layered on top of oodles of potential. It’s polished to a mirror finish, with almost unmatched presentation, and packed with action, humor, and heart. It’s deeply cool and exciting to watch, and I’m very keen to keep watching.

Score: 10/10