Shonen Jump 032022 Columns 

This Week in Shonen Jump: Week of 3/20/22

By | March 23rd, 2022
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, our weekly check in on Viz’s various Shonen Jump series. Viz has recently changed their release format, but our format will mostly remain the same. We will still review the newest chapters of one title a week, now with even more options at our disposal. The big change for our readers is that, even without a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read these most recent chapters for free at Viz.com or using their app.

This week, Vince checks in with “Kaiju No. 8.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!

Kaiju No. 8 – Chapter 58
Written & Illustrated by Naoya Matsumoto
Review by Vince J Ostrowski

“Kaiju No. 8” has always worn its influences on its sleeve, which is definitely part of its charm, but it was its relatively small scale concerns with what happens after a kaiju attacks a city where it found its originality. Along the way, plot details and visual nods have paid homage to classic kaiju properties, as well as entries as more modern examples such as “Attack on Titan” and “Pacific Rim.” These lighter influences have been fun, and certainly welcome. Perhaps this is projection on my part, but I also have felt all along that “Neon Genesis Evangelion” has been an unavoidable reference point for the series, at least visually. However, I’ve been starting to worry that the influence is overtaking the heart of the series, and changing the level at which I am enjoying it.

Now we have underground bunkers where secret cabals of political figures and scientists gather to plan for the next kaiju surprise attack, and where child soldiers are raised and assigned to their kaiju based on vague notions of “compatibility.” The entire length of Chapter 58 is basically spent in preparation for the next attack, and the formation of a plan to surprise the kaiju with contingencies that they couldn’t possibly be ready for. This results in a few characters getting the spotlight that they otherwise haven’t, but again feels like its cribbing from “Evangelion” and its penchant for revolving the focus on its child soldier supporting cast and their prowess on the battlefield.

There’s nothing particularly awful about any of this, as decades of manga has been based on tipping the cap to its forebears, but the fact that “Kaiju No. 8’s” protagonist Kafka has taken such a backseat, while the manga plays out a storyline that other entries in the genre have done better, has the series feeling like its spinning its wheels a little. Visually, it still looks great. The kaiju are appropriately creepy, and there is one in particular that has taken a different, more skeletal form recently (not seen in this chapter, but nevertheless the subject of this chapter’s discussion) that is particularly chilling. Again the series cribs a little from “Evangelion” wherein the kaiju designs have bizarre eyes, sheathes, folds, and body parts that suggest biologically evolutionary elements to their organs, but they nonetheless are wonderful to look at. I wish there would have been more of that in this chapter vs. the clandestine boardroom stuff. The sooner “Kaiju No. 8” gets back to its charismatic main character taking center stage and driving the action, the less it will probably feel like a lesser “Evangelion” clone.

Final Verdict: 6.5 – “Kaiju No. 8” is a quality manga settling into cool down mode, where it appears to be content to pay perhaps too much homage to its influences rather than develop what makes it unique


//TAGS | This Week in Shonen Jump

Vince Ostrowski

Dr. Steve Brule once called him "A typical hunk who thinks he knows everything about comics." Twitter: @VJ_Ostrowski

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