Kaiju No. 8 vol. 1

Here’s another Shonen Jump title that’s been giving off “Next Big Thing” vibes for a while.  It was originally published first on Shonen Jump+, the magazine’s digital edition, and when its print volume hit it quickly became the first one to top one million copies in circulation.  The title’s popularity has only grown from there, and what got it on my radar was the fact that it’s not about some kind of teenage kid who wants to be the best there ever was at [insert your choice of profession here].  No, it’s about a 38-year-old man who feels that he’s missed his shot in life and is doomed to spend the rest of it on viscera clean-up detail.

Cleaning up the viscera of what, you ask?  That would be kaiju.  Kafka Hibino works for Monster Sweeper, Inc., one of the many companies in Japan who specialize in cleaning up after kaiju attacks.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this for him.  After their town was pulverized when they were kids, Kafka made a promise with his childhood sweetheart Mina that they were going to join the defense force to save as many people as they could from attacks like this.

This turned out really well for Mina, who is the current ace of the defense force.  Kafka, however, washed out after the second round of testing and now makes his living cleaning up after his childhood friend’s successes.  He’s made his peace with this, until a new employee, Reno Ichikawa, joins his company because he wants to get some experience in kaiju clean-up before taking the test to join the defense force.  They both rub each other the wrong way at first, but quickly bond during an attack that ultimately puts both of them in the hospital.  It’s there that Kafka has an encounter that’s as disgusting as it is life-changing.

It’s here that mangaka Naoya Matsumoto shows his hand and lets you know what kind of series “Kaiju No. 8” is going to be.  I’m not going to spoil it here (come back for my eventual review of vol. 2 if you want that), but it’s one that’s made up of a lot of other series.  There’s the misunderstood hero angle of “The Incredible Hulk.”  The transformation aspect of “Attack on Titan” also rears its head here.  There’s also a whole lot of “Pacific Rim” in here as well, after it’s been scaled down to human size.  Also, it’s not for nothing that our main protagonist is named after the man who gave us “The Metamorphosis.”  

…Actually, it kind of is; but, it’s a nice tip of the hat nonetheless.

All of this means that the series isn’t offering us anything that we haven’t seen before.  The optimism and can-do-it’ve-ness that our protagonist displays both in his daily life and while under pressure also marks him as a true shonen protagonist even if he’s old enough to read seinen manga.  This sense of familiarity doesn’t breed contempt here, thankfully.  That’s mainly due to the fact that Matsumoto’s execution is as slick as you’d expect from a Jump manga as he wastes no time with the setup in the first chapter before throwing varied threats and challenges at Kafka in the subsequent ones.  It feels like a lot of ground is covered in this first volume, but in a way that comes off like the mangaka knows what parts to focus on to keep his audience invested.

I’m also intrigued to see where things are going to go for future volumes.  While the focus of vol. 1 is solidly on Kafka and the rest of the humans, there are a couple scenes which indicate that the kaiju aren’t a mindless attacking force.  The explanation for this could be anywhere from government conspiracy to cosmic horror, but it’s still nice to see that Matsumoto does have some kind of long-term plan beyond having his characters fight kaiju for volume after volume.  Of which vol. 1 is a good start to, provided you’re in the mood for some storytelling and action that’s solidly and successfully in the Jump mold.