English Dub Review: Kaiju No. 8: The Man Who Became a Kaiju

I’ve been burnt before on Kaiju anime before. The Godzilla movie trilogy was…a thing. Singular Point was better, but it didn’t hit for me like going to see Minus One. If the first episode is anything to go by, this is the Godzilla anime we really need.

“The Man Who Became a Kaiju” tells the beginnings of a man named Kafka Hibino, who is the failure of the Anti-Kaiju Defense Force’s cleanup team. Things start to turn around for him when Reno Ichikawa starts on the cleanup team. Ichikawa shows all of the drive to succeed and none of the laziness Kafka just oozes.

This is the ultimate buddy cop pairing…until the poop hits the fan, literally. As the duo is suffering through cleaning up the Kaiju remains from the beginning of the episode. As they’re finishing up, they get a surprise Kaiju attack, almost causing Ichikawa’s death. What was cool was that you see how Kafka jumps into action, and takes charge. He gets the Kaiju away from the rookie, but severely injures himself in the process. Just in time, Ichikawa returns to distract it long enough for his childhood friend’s squad to destroy it.

The prologue is officially over in the final five minutes of the episode, where Kafka officially becomes the namesake of the episode. As Kafka and Ichikawa are sitting in their beds in the hospital, Kafka gets inspired by the words and actions of Ichikawa just in time to get spooked by a Kaiju, and then it squirms into his mouth. Five seconds later, Kafka is now a Kaiju, and Ichikawa is freaking out.

Kaiju No. 8 is an anime that’s a complete tonal shift from what I’m used to in anime. The mixture of drama/action and comedy is pretty even. I’m digging it. It’s nowhere near as silly or comedic as, let’s say One Piece, but that’s perfectly okay. For the most part, while there isn’t anything that screams outstanding, “The Man Who Became a Kaiju” was very enjoyable. The Kaiju attacks made me wish for a better Godzilla anime. Also, that definitely is a great thing. I have nothing but good things for episode one.

I had a good paragraph written about censorship. At first, I was getting flashbacks to High School DxD where things were unneededly censored with the “DxD” logo. During the cleanup, the insides and Kaiju poop were blurred and censored. This is a great lesson for anyone going in blind: stop doing that.

“The Man Who Became a Kaiju” was the foundation that the rest of Kaiju No. 8 needs to sit on to become a great anime. I’m not entirely hooked, but this has the makings of being kind of a sleeper hit as long as Kaiju No. 8 keeps this going as it is. It’s got amazing action sequences, and the story so far is funny enough to hook me. Let’s hope next week is more of the same.