Eric Zawadzki
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The Number of the Kaiju
🕑 Added 2025-09-13 11:11:27 +0000 UTCWe ultimately settled on giving Kaiju No. 8 a try as our (relatively) serious anime. It held our attention so well that we ended up watching its entire first season.
It had some echoes of Jujutsu Kaisen - a hero who swallows a thing that gives him powers that are going to get him in a world of trouble if he uses them too much - but it also has a lot of shonen trope subversion. For one, the protagonist (Kafka, because what kind of loving parents who wish their children well names their son Kafka?) is a 30-something guy who joins a monster-hunting outfit - rather than the usual fresh-faced teen. For two, his greatest advantage in accomplishing this feat is that he's had a decade of experience disposing of kaiju corpses and so is very familiar with the traits of various species. For three, although the monster-hunting organization definitely appreciates individual killing power (Kafka has none), it turns out that it also prizes people who are team players (which he epitomizes).
Yeah, occasionally, when no one is watching, he hulks up and murks some super-kaiju thing in one punch, but that's not his day-to-day M.O. you know? It was an enjoyable watch, and I look forward to season two in November. We're also likely to wrap up Dungeon Meshi then, which has been our drinking anime (the one that's ridiculous in some way and so is still entertaining after a bottle of wine) for the last few gatherings.
