Story & Art Matsumoto Naoya | Translation David Evelyn | Lettering Brandon Bovia
Shonen Jump has come a long way! While it’s easy to remember “The Big 3” and be nostalgic, you can’t deny these new generations have taken the spotlight.
{Taken from Kaiju No 8 Fandom Wiki}
Kafka Hibino, a 32-year-old man, is unsatisfied with his job as a sweeper. From a young age, he has aspired to join the Defense Corps and kill kaijuus for a living. After a few failed attempts, however, he gave up on his dreams and resigned himself to the mediocrity that provided a decent paycheck. Nevertheless, when an ambitious, 18-year-old recruit named Leno Ichikawa joins his cleaning team, Kafka is once again reminded of his desire to join the military.
After taking a long hiatus from reading and diving back into the SJ app has really opened my eyes. Look how diverse the shonen genre has gotten! A while back I wrote an initial piece about Boichi-sensei’s Dr. Stone Reboot and was absolutely floored by the story and art. Then came My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, SpyxFamily and countless others.
Viz is on fire.
So, naturally, when Kaiju No. 8 dropped, I picked it up. There’s something amazing about shonen; how it gives you everything and nothing new at the same time. The childhood friendship/competition, the underdog, and a new loyal friend – but this time he’s my age. Seeing the struggle of trying to make ends meet, and then being inspired to relive his dream hurts in such a good way. I can live my life through Kafta (which I thought was a kabob; they’re delicious).
I could string together a few things from JJK to Kaiju No 8, mainly eating foreign objects. If that’s all t takes to make a name for myself, please find me some weird out of this world food ASAP!
Since shonen is normally for young boys, I always aged myself down to get in the same headspace, which is more reason I love our dear protag. I completely understand his outburst in professional settings, his passion, his desire for more. It all hits a very center part of me that no longer relates to the terrible throws of grade school. Yes, there are seinen and josei titles, but there’s something about shonen that really takes the cake.
Kafta is the character, like many, that show that you’re more that what you’ve done. You work hard and often times your hard work doesn’t match the results. That seems to be the save in this story until manages to grow slowly (and organically) without his new secret talent. Being a new highly ranked kaiju on a base of kaiju exterminators doesn’t help his case, and with a swarm attacking their base, the switch from turning to a kaiju to ahuman will only increase the risk of being killed.
I am excited to see more of what happens in this manga!
Volumes 2(JPN) | Series Status Ongoing Weekly | Action – Horror – Shonen
Religiously Nerdy 