Kaiju No. 8, Volume 1 by Naoya Matsumoto Review

The exciting life of a Defense Force Captain, taking down kaiju on the reg and keeping the world safe - that’s definitely not Kafka Hibino’s lot. He’s part of the crew who go in post-kaiju kill to clean up the mess left behind! After getting stuck on intestine duty two days in a row and finding out the age range has been upped due to the declining Japanese birth rate, 32 year old Kafka decides to try for the Defense Force one more time - and then he gets turned into a kaiju himself! Protagonists in mangas sure can’t catch breaks eh…

There’s a lot of stuff here that’s either derivative or predictable and yet Naoya Matsumoto does just enough new things, with some skill, to make the first volume of Kaiju No. 8 a pretty decent beginning for this new action/comedy manga series.

The concept is essentially the Japanese version of Marvel’s Damage Control, the team that goes in to clean up after the superheroes/villains have their city-smashing fights. The story beats are familiar: despite being powerless (prior to the kaiju transformation) Kafka shows what a noble hero he is by putting himself between a new recruit and a kaiju; Kafka and Captain Ashiro used to be childhood friends but now she’s a superstar kaiju hunter and he’s a cleaner - she’s the obvious love interest (who’s also of course incongruously single); and Kafka’s always gotta be the butt of the joke.

But some of the comedy is genuinely funny too, particularly when he first transforms into a kaiju. There’s a wink towards monster design which is always “smooth down there” so when he urgently has to pee, it unexpectedly comes out of his nips! I liked that the story jumped ahead three months after he got kaiju powers so we didn’t have to see him tediously learning his new power set and instead got straight into the meat of the story.

Kafka and Reno Ichikawa, a younger chap who’s the only other person who knows his kaiju secret, have great chemistry as a comedic duo. Kikoru Shinomiya, the teenage wunderkind, has a bit of cliched backstory though - classic overachiever trying to please a cold and authoritarian parent - and the Mina bathroom scene was gratuitous; it just reminds you that Shonen Jump’s main audience is still mostly teen boys.

As much as I could guess the story’s progression as it was happening, it took enough left turns to keep me engaged, and the first book ends on a strong cliffhanger that makes me want to pick up the next one. A fairly original manga with a good mix of action and comedy, Kaiju No. 8 won’t blow your hair back but it’s a fine beginning for this amusing new series.