The official Twitter account for Kaiju No. 8 announced on August 4, 2022, that an anime adaptation is in production. The announcement was first teased on August 1, still on Twitter, with a countdown to August 5 midnight JST. That countdown ended with the reveal of a cinematic trailer for the anime.
The countdown made it quite obvious this would be a big announcement, and seeing Kaiju No. 8 had no anime yet, most fans correctly guessed this is what would be announced. It’s also important to note that the announcement doesn’t specify whether this is an anime movie or a TV anime series. The trailer doesn’t show any actual anime footage either.
The trailer features Toho Animation’s logo. Toho is a kaiju-sized company in Japan and one of the biggest movie distributors there: it most notably owns the Godzilla IP and several cinemas. Toho Animation is an anime studio that was launched in 2012, but rather than a traditional anime studio, it’s more like a gathering of producers who scout talent to work on their shows. I believe it’s a company similar to A-1 Pictures in how it doesn’t really have actual animators directly integrated into its staff.
In other words, the staff and the actual studio(s) working on Kaiju No. 8 will be announced at a later date, and the trailer literally doesn’t reveal anything. Drip-feeding information like this is a pretty common marketing tactic in the anime industry nowadays, as a mean to stretch out hype and interest for a series on social media. An English Twitter account was also launched with the trailer and more information will be published there in the future.
Introducing Kaiju No. 8 By Naoya Matsumoto And Its Quirky Premise
The original Kaiju No. 8 manga is written and illustrated by Naoya Matsumoto, and it’s his first long-running series. The manga started its run in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine on July 3, 2020, so the series just celebrated its second anniversary.
Kaiju No. 8 initially focuses on a pretty interesting concept. Unlike popular belief, kaiju and mecha series have always been focusing on their characters’ inner conflicts, psychologies, politics, and the like. Even Mazinger Z starts with Kouji pointing out all the destruction he can cause when fighting kaiju in his mecha. Kaiju No.8 has a similar spin and starts by focusing not on the battles against kaiju but their aftermath.
The protagonist, Kafka Hibino, starts out as a cleaner, disposing of kaiju corpses in the city once the cooler heroes have defeated them. Kafka failed the kaiju defense force exam several times, but through a certain twist, he finally gets the means to fight the kaiju himself. In other words, Kafka ends up getting his own “mecha” at the end of chapter 1. You should read it yourself to avoid getting the surprise spoiled though.
Overall, Kaiju No .8 is an action shonen with some comedy and grotesque kaiju designs mixed in. Naoya Matsumoto also worked on other popular shonen as an assistant, most notably Beelbzebub with Ryuhei Tamura.
Kaiju No. 8 can be read officially every week on Manga Plus just like with most manga per-published in Shonen Jump magazine.
