Kaiju No. 8, Volume 2 by Naoya Matsumoto Review

The cadets have graduated to fully-fledged members of the Defense Force - except for the hapless Kafka Hibino, aka the secret Kaiju No. 8, but whose training performance has intrigued the higher-ups enough to take him on anyway as a trainee. As they head out on their first mission to take down a giant mushroom kaiju, they also encounter the mysterious humanoid kaiju - and for some of the new grads, this debut mission might be their last…

Kaiju No. 8, Volume 2 is a weak follow-up to the decent first book. Volume 2 opens by resolving Volume 1’s cliffhanger predictably before spending nearly half the book on the characters doing more dull training and reiterating the team dynamics. The second half sees them fight a giant mushroom kaiju - although I use the term “fight” very loosely as the mushroom kaiju just stands there while the Defense Force shoots it. Zero tension there.

The only interesting part was the subplot involving the (not Kafka) humanoid kaiju whose motivations are still unclear (he’s masquerading as a member of the Monster Sweepers, Kafka’s old unit, for some reason) but we see how deadly he can be when he isolates and attempts to kill two of Kafka’s colleagues, Reno and Iharu. He’s a cool villain.

Other than that, this was an unimpressive second book, which is unfortunately how it goes for most mangas that start well. Here’s hoping Naoya Matsumoto gets the series back into shape with the next book but if you were a fan of the first one, don’t expect much from Kaiju No. 8, Volume 2.