Keeping on with double feature seasonals, it’s time for us to actually get down to business with the Defense Squad.
Episode 5 is largely downtime, a breather between the previous arc and the one that starts in Episode 6. In it, we find that Ichikawa and Kafka have both been accepted to the Defense Force, but Kafka only as a cadet rather than an officer – the vice-captain noted his skill in a supporting role (seriously, assign this guy to ops) and also wanted comic relief. So, we spend most of the episode in training, and getting to know the other members of the new squad, who are repeatedly noted as being a terribly good crop compared to the usual.
In episode 6, we get a call: a Kaiju has emerged, and it’s time to deal with it. This one, looking like something of a giant mushroom-crab, is particularly troublesome because it’s outputting hordes of lesser spawn. Kafka, once again having an eye for detail, picks out where the cores are in the spawn, how they’re defended, and also that the spawn can themselves produce spawn if nothing is done to their corpses. This is probably a good thing for him, since it means he’s at least got something useful while Mina is showing off by shooting the building-sized main Kaiju to bits.
At the end of the episode, we come upon the hostile humanoid Kaiju, bemoaning that the traps he set up don’t seem to have been that effective. Given that we’re also told that the normal officers are beginning to suffer from exhaustion, especially the rookies who don’t know how to pace themselves, it’s clear that we’re setting up for a quite tough fight.
As we go through the anime of Kaiju no. 8, I find I’m appreciating different things than when I was reading the manga. In the Manga, I didn’t take much note of Mina – she didn’t have that many lines and I figured we’d get to know her better somewhere down the line. In the anime, she doesn’t have many if any more lines, but there’s a lot of storytelling with her motions, body language, and just how scenes around her are cut and framed that seems to be more telling regarding her character. Similarly, while I recognized Hoshina had a funny side in the manga, in the anime his goofball traits come out a bit clearer even as he’s still obviously a terrifying combatant. On the other hand, Kafka’s antics are a little more wince-worthy when you’re not the one controlling when the page turns.
On the whole, I’m enjoying it greatly, and kind of regret that I feel like it’s only giving me enough material to do these lumped summaries. But I don’t want to write, nor presumably you to read, the same dang thing every week, which has now and then been the downfall of trying to do things episode by episode. I’ll probably go back to that format for the Summer season, but right now this is comfortable.