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, Rowan 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 31
Written and Illustrated by Naoya Matsumoto
Reviewed by Rowan Grover
We get a brief breather this week as it appears all is well in the aftermath of the Honju battle. This is a spot where Matsumoto really gets to sit with these characters and explore their more heightened emotional sides, honing in on Kafka but also seeing hints of other characters. Kafka’s immediate reaction to seeing the core officers conquer the monster without too much of a sweat and saluting each other with pinpoint precision timing is the exact kind of reaction you’d expect from a hardcore fanboy like him. It’s very endearing and solidifies his want to be a part of that squad one day, and Matsumoto plays this up for comic relief by having him ugly cry so much that Kafka’s comrade on the phone even tells him to calm down. He’s quickly able to swim through these emotions to have a moment of pride for his fellow teammates, displaying him as a solid and likable Shonen protagonist.
The moments we get to spend with the rest of the Defence Force are a lot of fun too. We see Soshiro as the workhorse that he when he tells the rest of the gang that he’s gonna go clean up the rest of the Yoju despite being at his wit’s end. On the flip side, Mina gets to show off her rational, protective yet aggressive side by hitting Soshiro and telling him to rest too. Once the mood flips and the giant Yoju bomb arrives, however, we get to see how these characters react in a quick and sudden panic. Mina is quick to bark orders and try and get everyone to safety whilst Soshiro gets stuck in his head trying to figure out the best thing to do. It’s a quick but intimate and effective little character study, showing them reacting to different stimulants.
Matsumoto’s art is clean and effective in this chapter. Being in the aftermath of a battle, we don’t get huge amounts of speed lines or other visual action techniques, so there’s much more focus on emotional action and clear panel structure. Watching Kafka progressively get sadder and closer to his ‘ugly face’ is both hilarious and kind of moving, just to see the range in which Matsumoto can portray believable emotions in his character. Having the other characters cycle through relatively grounded emotions gives them a good sense of depth too, and puts them in good contrast to Kafka whilst still making them feel layered. Soshiro’s seemingly easy-going workhorse look is flipped really well when the bomb appears, as he quickly goes to intense focus and fear.
The way that the tone of the chapter changes halfway through is well indicated visually through clever tricks and perspective changes. The first half of the chapter is very clearly set out, with defined panel and page borders that work most of the time in a simple grid format. Once we get to the point of the Yoju bomb showing up, however, the borders all explode away as we get a full-page image, which on its own is enough to indicate a major tonal shift. However, this shift continues after this as well, with the panels themselves becoming much bigger to display action and the borders themselves much more slanted and jagged to convey a sense of urgency. The way that Kafka runs through panels before transforming has a stunning visual consistency too. If you track his panel appearances across each page, they are positioned in a way that if you lined them up next to each other, it would appear the panels themselves are lining up and crouching before a big jump. It’s very subtle background work but it adds to how dynamic the final product ends up being.
“Kaiju No. 8” continues this week as being one of the stronger new Shonen series being put out. There’s a lot of character moments and heart, and great visual techniques on display.
Final Score: 8.9 – A great mid-arc chapter to show off the Manga-ka’s talent.
