By Dustin Cabeal

I’m happy to say that the second volume of Kaiju no. 8 continued the entertainment from the first volume. The instantly charming thing about the story is the balance between embarrassing situations that Kafka creates for himself and the bad ass action.

For instance, the story picks up with Kafka transformed in front of Kikoru Shinomiya the seemingly spoiler daughter of one of the higher ups. He saves her from a kaiju and then in kaiju form begs for her not to tell anyone about his transformation. Speechless, due to the blood loss, she’s taken aback by his raw power while fighting the kaiju. Eventually, they’re defeated, and he transforms back just in time. He barely squeaks by and is added as member of the defense corp.

This leads to him calling out his childhood friend in front of the entire class and letter her know that he’s going to standby her or surpass her. Obviously, not the best timing. Soon after they’re on to their first mission, but the second-in-command is watching him closely as he already suspects him to be Kaiju no. 8. This puts Kafka in an interesting situation in which he can’t afford to transform his body at all. He uses his previous work to help the entire team defeat the swarm of kaiju and the weird little kaiju spawns. There is another kaiju that can transform present as well. He sets his sights on Ichikawa and another new member of the team. Again though, Kafka is being watched… so how can he transform and help his friend or will two members of his team meet their end at the hands of this evil kaiju.

It adds an interesting layer to the story by having other human/kaiju mixes. Kafka is the odd one out in that he wants to defeat the kaiju with his power rather than help create more monsters or kill humans. Our un-numbered kaiju is his opposite, looking to create stronger and more dangerous kaiju with the goal of killing people. If he doesn’t die in the next volume, he’ll need a lot of character development as of right now he’s just a stereotypical villain. There’s not much build up for him or understanding of why he’s doing what he’s doing. He is very evil though and has a great power that makes the battle with him entertaining. He just hasn’t reached a level in which he’d be memorable should he be killed at this point in the story.

The writing continues to balance the humor with the seriousness of the story. It is impressive how seamless and easy it does this. What ever formula Naoya Matsumoto has cracked is perfect for this story. It’s a shame that we’re not going to spend more time with the team building up as heroes because this story seems to have a fire lit underneath it and will likely take the My Hero turn of events and build quickly and often. One wonderful thing is that the disposable characters introduced in the first volume have begun being developed. Otherwise, they’d just be annoying background characters waiting to die.

The artwork is still one of my favorite things about this series. The deep detail on Kafka in kaiju form is stunning. The design is creative and unique, but never off putting. Then is makes that hard shift to comedy and you see this same unique design looking silly and it’s equally wonderful. Matsumoto is talented at both action and humor and often they’re on display together. The panel sequence when Kafka punches the giant fist of a kaiju and it goes from contact, to the just the bones, to and explosion is reminiscent of a Mortal Kombat X-Ray hit and manages to capture the movement and action behind the action. Sometimes I wish there were more pages dedicated to the artwork, but manga is a killer, and I wouldn’t want to see Matsumoto fall ill pumping out even more pages.

This is by far, one of the best new manga’s I’ve read in a very long time. It has well-developed characters that are only getting deeper as the story goes on. The humor and action are well-balanced and neither feels out of place in the story. The artwork is detailed and brilliant giving the book this incredibly cool look and feel. Frankly, I’m in a rush to finish this review so that I can sit down and start the third volume.

Naoya Matsumoto
Viz Media

Score: 4/5