Long battles and a lingering finish – we’re going to be wanting more when 12 episodes are done.
We start with Ichikawa and Iharu taking that fight with the humanoid Kaiju, Kaiju No. 9. Though Ichikawa is somewhat prepared for some of the tricks it used against Kikoru, the fight really doesn’t go their way, and we spend most of an episode in a desperate battle before Kafka – in kaiju form – arrives and punches 9’s block off.
9, being a kaiju, is more inconvenienced by this than anything else, but can’t really hold out against Kafka. However, there’s a distraction enough when defense force troopers come across them, meaning that 9 gets away. Kafka tries to flee as well, but Vice-Captain Hoshina catches up to him and engages before Kafka can get away clean.
This leads us to a short if strong fight where Kafka is pretty much just trying to survive the Vice-Captain’s onslaught. He specializes in taking down smaller Kaiju, so even with Kafka’s abilities, he’s not the kind of foe who could be easily overcome even if Kafka wanted to pull out the stops. Ultimately, he’s able to disengage, but not before getting torn up and leaving Hoshina with a couple clues as to Kaiju No. 8’s nature.
We then follow up with downtime! We get a big party when the injured squad members are out of the hospital, and see how the team (as a whole) breaks down their first live operation and prepares to move forward from it. Additionally, Kafka is promoted to full officer in respect of the value his observations on the field have brought.
In all honesty, I have to admit that while I can usually liken Kaiju No. 8 to Dorohedoro, Kaiju is far more about the action spectacle where as Dorohedoro was more about the character building. You don’t really weave the same complex web of relations here, nor do you expect quite as many layers to the quirky side characters. That said, when Kaiju No. 8 does its character work, it does well for what it wants to be. We may not know a huge knot of details about Kafka’s squadmates, but we do learn enough tidbits for them to be more than warm bodies, which is enough.
The episode leaves us off with an aerial attack incoming, presumably related to 9’s schemes as it seems to be led by another humanoid Kaiju.
Kaiju No. 8 is progressing well, but as I said at the start, we’re going to be looking for more after 12 episodes. Knowing the manga, this entire section sort of felt like it was steadily rising action, in essence just the start. The anime’s pace feels somewhat less like that, which is good as it could be a problem otherwise, but we’re still only going to clear what seems like an opening act or two this way. Hopefully the final episodes will really knock some of the action out of the park and create what feels like a proper finale. They have material they can do it with, and so far the show has executed well, but failure is always an option.