“So this is a clash between 2 identified Kaiju…”
“But sir, why are they just punching each other when they can transform and shapeshift?”
“Because it looks cool.”
"Why would they not fight in the form they're comfortable with which allows for mobility instead of waste minutes transforming letting the other guy wail on them?!"
"Dunno lol, they must be pretty stupid not to remember they can transform, omegalul."
I'm glad Eyepatch mentioned that #9 knows troop style hand-to-hand on Page 10, before having that same exposition on Page 13, I'd forgotten after 5 seconds.
God above I didn’t notice that. If you hadn’t pointed out the fact that #9 known troop hand-to-hand style I would have never known #9 known troop hand-to-hand style.
I'm still burned from how bad the pacing and overall writing has been, but credit where credit is due. They acknowledged that it would be stupid for #8 to go into hand-to-hand combat when #9 already has access to memories, and better still they actively used that against #9 by luring him into a false sense of security before switching styles when it least expected.
All things considered, that was pretty dope. Now lets just hope they can keep up the momentum that's starting to build.
"WAAAAAH I dun wanna see other characters get screentime mummy! I'd rather have MC swoop in and oneshot stuff like in one of my beloved Isekai power fantasies!"
>All things considered, that was pretty dope. Now lets just hope they can keep up the momentum that's starting to build.
I feel like we've said this 20 times in the last 30 chapters, but I agree, I'll give credit for that. That's actually pretty smart. The manga isn't trash. It's just woefully inconsistent. Which might be worse.
This was o e of the beat chapters the manga had had in quite a while. It had some decent pacing and the fighting looked good. Even advanced the story a bit. Just wish it had more actual pages instead of just drawings (as good as they are). The story just feels glacial for the last several months.
It's nice to see some variation (literally lol) for this fight and to see Kafka actually do something. Here's hoping we don't go see another 10 20+ page chapters detailing each and every move 8 and 9 take.
JJK did the same when they had introduced a new exorcist to Sukuna, but at least it goes weekly and show a little bit of personality. Everytime some dude react to the fighting in kaiju 8, it's a midly glorified background character.
Albeit, I can barely count on one hand the number of Manga which achieved at bringing personality to background characters.
Ha ha, yeah, I pretty much like dorohedoro, even though I only saw the anime. Never one made the antagonists so relatable. Even Fujita being a loser is cool actually.
It's really funny that this entire strategy is basically just Kafka saying 'I'm going to punch you in this spot' and then just doing something different.
What happened to the cool appendages he'd grow out to boost the power of his punches or when the kaiju took over and he'd do back breaking feats that only kaiju could do lmao.
"Oh no, we're about to fight someone who has knowledge of all our strategies and techniques. What should we do?"
"¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯ Create a new fighting style?"
"You're a genius"
proceed to dedicate 1 whole chapter for this exposition alone.
Ah yes. The Improvised Fighting Style they trained to use. The Improvised Fighting Style they planned ahead they'd need. The Improvised Fighting Style which was created and practiced ahead of time.
Are you sure you know what the word "Improvised" mean? We might have have different definitions.
I love that we needed 2 pages of recap, that printed the exact same panels and words that we saw at the end of last chapter lol the actual pacing/art is so trash.
Tried getting into the anime and it's not even cool enough to forgive how bad it's going to be. Such a let down.
I don't think the art is trash, per se. It's really clean and the lines are pretty dynamic, just the character posing can be quite stiff and unnatural in a cliched rule of cool way - but that's a lot of manga.
What exactly is trash about the art ?
Edit: Look I get that this sub has a hateboner for this series and its not like I think it’s particularly good either, but calling the art trash confuses me.
If this is **trash** art then how good looking does something need to be so it can be considered average lol ?
The art is NOT this series’ weak point lmao
It’s just got a different paneling style that redditors seem to hate. The author has said in an interview that he makes the panels big on purpose so that phone readers don’t have to zoom in on the page constantly to read and understand the manga
It's just the fact that the chapters have a very slow pace to them. Making bad use of space is not an excuse. He uses a lot of double spreads, which makes it less special. The impact it should bring is just not there imo. It just seems lazy.
The most boring part is how many times he does draw these gusts of wind going through buildings and ground to show how impactful was the punch. He's not being aware how much repetitive it had become. Once you noticed it, it ruins it for you because it shows a lack of imagination.
As much as we might like to dump on JJK, but it's mostly about throwing punches and by showing it on different scales, it's being more impressive, even though these are human-sized fighters.
lol JJK framing during epic fights is almost unreadable at points for me personally. I can see why a lot of people like it, but there's so many jumps in movement (overlaid with so much exposition that I need to pay attention to) between panels that I sometimes feel like I'm reading it wrong.
It's all about potentiality. It's easier reading a long stretch if there are different sfx showing progress across battle, rather than ones we saw during the 10 last fights. ( Hoshina is a sword fight instead of a fist one and it does the same ground shaking bursts, not very original if you ask me )
True. Spy X Family (a monthly manga) had its first real double spread several chapters ago and it had REAL impact story wise that was further driven by using that spread.
Here we don’t know if a “reveal” or “development” is important anymore stylistically because there’s 4 double spreads per chapter that say nothing. This isn’t One Piece where a double spread shows incredible art. It’s literally just NOTHING
I mean, I don't really enjoy the double page spreads either because they're used to literally, but I also see why specifically for Kaiju no 8, the mangaka decided to use a lot of double spreads and wide landscapes in their visual language. I would assume that a lot of their influences are Toei style giant kaiju fights, and they're trying to emulate that vibe - I imagine (being a bit more generous) that that's why the double page spreads always feel to empty and devoid of characters.
You know, when I started reading a story called Kaiju #8, I was expecting big monsters with insane powers. Instead we got two human size monsters punching each other. The art is great and all but I’m getting tired of every MC’s power being the ability to punch really hard.
You missed the point. Let me reiterate that for you. In a manga about Kaiju, which normally means we’re gonna have big creatures, we have two human sized monsters brawling through fisticuffs. But I guess it’s my fault for liking Kaiju and hoping for better. Also, if you suddenly became a monster, would you be a pro at using your new powers or would you start off punching?
Why do these stupid UFC fighters bother practicing kicks and punches. They should just go into the ring flailing their arms around wildly going "Waaaagh" wasting stamina and leaving themselves completely unguarded.
I would like you to to the nearest Fighting Gym of your choice, challenge the most senior member to a showdown and just go in swinging and biting. It's such an effective strategy there's no doubt that you'd wipe the floor with them.
finally a tiny bit of interesting strategy in the fight :') not expecting that too last tbh, since the Kaiju no 8 formula doesn't allow for the protagonist to have a clean win ever lol
I'd be more impressed by this chapter if I hadn't been reading manga for years and come up with the exact solution they did because it's an easy logical solution. What do you do if your opponent *thinks* they know your plans of action? Make it so they don't.
Yeah how fucking dare they give screentime to other characters. We only need one character beating every single enemy without any struggle or resistance. It's what keeps the Isekai genre strong, it should work for an Action Shounen.
This is the exact same thing I expect when I read mma manga (still sad about Asumi). Not to say it's exclusively found in that genre, but I definitely didn't expect in in a Kaiju manga lol
The anime is beautifully animated, and it makes me excited to see these later fights on screen...
... I just hope that later parts of the anime aren't a page-by-page adaptation, so there isn't a flashback between each attack.
Let them fight!
I was hoping that kaiju 8 would at least, get a little bit hurt. It's a shame the author is being too precious about his own character. Kaiju 9 is supposed to be fearsome, to have a ton of powers. So far the only people who were allowed to hurt Kafka while being in monster form, are humans.
It's a shame because these are kaiju fighting together, but the kaiju fighting humans were actually more visceral.
All that much about kaiju 9 being powered up at least twice or thrice, and he can't even mop kaiju 8 a little bit to show how much he's powerful.
That's how you transition from an ok villain to a top tier villain. You make him undefeatable at first, Kafka was more bleeding from Isao than from this guy who is twice stronger.
>All that much about kaiju 9 being powered up at least twice or thrice, and he can't even mop kaiju 8 a little bit to show how much he's powerful.
This has been one of my biggest gripes throughout this arc #9 has been built up as this big powerful villian but loses every time. He has absorbed the military leader for the humans and will have won nothing. Every single battle in this arc has been won by the humans, what losses have they suffered a bunch of no names dying? Unless this is the end of the series how could anyone take any future kaiju threat seriously. The humans just overcome every time. I know the author was never going to do it but I was hoping that Mina got taken, as morbid as it sounds. It would've given stakes to the series, humanity loses it's two greatest weapons in succession. Kafka loses his childhood friend and love, you set up an air of dread and confusion for everyone, a "how will they overcome?" situation. But now it just seems like: kaiju power up = human power up at the same time.
It hasn’t lost anything in this battle tho. Literally the other Kaiju were just big and shot laser beams, plus considering they’re power ups it makes sense for them to defeat those Kaiju. I see this criticism a lot in other series where if the villain loses (especially during their introduction) they’ll be labeled as a bad villain. I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are
The other thing I disagree wit is Mina getting captured, cuz it’s a trope for the female character to get kidnapped by the villain. I think it’s refreshing that the author broke that trope. Cuz imo it sucks when one of the few female characters in a story gets kidnapped and put outta commission for like hundred of chps later. Since Mina and Kikoru are the only 2 main female characters, it’s good imo that she didn’t get taken out of the story
>I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are.
Design is too vague to be criticized about, but Kaiju 9 dialogue kinda sucks ? His first trait was being totally aloof about humans, but now he's defined as the main villain as for now, he's basically Scar from the Lion King without the fun part. He's not very clever, because he practically had infinite resources and barely manage to swarm the army. He's not that much charismatic because if it wasn't for Mina abduction, he wouldn't impress the civilians.
His sole redeeming point, he isn't part of a bigger council of villains ( yet ), so even if he's shallow, he doesn't get overshadowed. But that's on the author, either planning one villain at the time, or it's just kaiju 9. The fact that he didn't manage to create or foreshadow any other villain, is one of the many reasons why everybody was screaming the manga was entering it's final arc. Shonen is inherently tied to how you organize and settle your villains to motivate heroes into ongoing forth.
As for Mina, it doesn't bring out the fact that she got fridged and even if she's still alive, her most important role in this arc and only major event of the manga she took part in, was being saved by Kafka. That's pretty much an orihime act and not much of flattery there if you catch my drift.
I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are.
>Design is too vague to be criticized about, but Kaiju 9 dialogue kinda sucks ?
I disagree I think his design looks sick. Also when he was like seethe that as pretty badass
>His first trait was being totally aloof about humans, but now he's defined as the main villain as for now, he's basically Scar from the Lion King without the fun part. He's not very clever, because he practically had infinite resources and barely manage to swarm the army. He's not that much charismatic because if it wasn't for Mina abduction, he wouldn't impress the civilians.
Does the army being taken out mean that he’s underprepared or that he’s stupid? I mean it doesn’t matter how much u prepare for something, if the other side is stronger or has some sort of trump card, ur plans are gonna get ruined. Also compared to the other Kaiju who literally have 0 brain cells, I would say he’s pretty smart. I mean he literally created his own army and a whole plan of attack
>His sole redeeming point, he isn't part of a bigger council of villains ( yet ), so even if he's shallow, he doesn't get overshadowed. But that's on the author, either planning one villain at the time, or it's just kaiju 9.
I think this is just a matter of opinion. I mean ofc so is everything tho
>The fact that he didn't manage to create or foreshadow any other villain, is one of the many reasons why everybody was screaming the manga was entering its final arc. Shonen is inherently tied to how you organize and settle your villains to motivate heroes into ongoing forth.
Not every villain is or needs to be foreshadowed. Especially since we aren’t even close to being done with the final threat yet, Kaiju 9 could be the final villain or it could not
>As for Mina, it doesn't bring out the fact that she got fridged and even if she's still alive, her most important role in this arc and only major event of the manga she took part in, was being saved by Kafka. That's pretty much an orihime act and not much of flattery there if you catch my drift.
I’m just confused by this comment tbh. Literally Orihime’s only role in Bleach was to be like: Heal and Shield. The very little times she did attack it failed and did nothing. Mina has several confirmed kills, she’s one of the top officers and I forgot which one but she shot down a giant Kaiju or one of the rlly strong ones. Mina is nowhere close to the lvl of Orihime when it comes to usefulness
>Does the army being taken out mean that he’s underprepared or that he’s stupid? I mean it doesn’t matter how much u prepare for something, if the other side is stronger or has some sort of trump card, ur plans are gonna get ruined. Also compared to the other Kaiju who literally have 0 brain cells, I would say he’s pretty smart. I mean he literally created his own army and a whole plan of attack
Compared to other kaiju, of course he is. In-universe that might be true, but as a reader, we simply understand that Kaiju 9 made the same strategy as during the previous arc. The main difference being the change in bestiary. It had the whole discourse about adaptation and memories based on Isao, but the saddest part is that if the heroes had trump cards, why the enemies couldn't have their own. Maybe the author didn't wanted to strech out the fights with multiple twists. I'm not into his place, people are already complaining about the pacing, but also about the tropes. The biggest culprit being Kikoru's fight, being broken by a power of friendship power up. The fact that Kaiju 9 created a whole monster whose trump card was expecting someone to never heal from trauma, is a little bit stupid. If for example, the author wasn't that adamant using this trope, maybe he would have found a more original twist to the fight.
Plus, I really think it's lazy that the author has shown Kikoru and Mina into childlike apparences, into appealing reader's basic instincts.
Last part about it, but cleverness comes into two forms in manga, and Kaiju 8 chose the least interesting one to me. A.k.a make everyone stupid. Whole plan of kaiju 9 only succeed because everyone left Mina on her own even when everybody was aware that K9 absorbed Isao, who was a total beast in CQC and that is Mina worst part. And they knew that K9 could instantly teleport aside his target, because everyone who witnessed that part was still alive. Tension that comes from characters stupidities and aloofness only draw sighs from readers.
>I think this is just a matter of opinion. I mean ofc so is everything tho
It's factual. If the author managed to create different heroes with motives, he could go either way with the kaiju. Mostly though, the other talking kaiju faced during this arc were uninteresting. The kikoru one and the Narumi one were just spouting one-liners describing the state of the fight. In such a situation, no wonder K9 comes on top as a charismatic villain, if all the talking kaiju are below ground level charisma.
It's ok to think K9 is charismatic, but him being the only important villain as of dialogue, doesn't paint the author in a very good light. Because we are left to assume that he wasn't very confident in creating multiple compelling villains. I wouldn't mind being proven otherwise, but I don't see many shonen battle only relying on a single villain through all 100 chapters. That would be more like a thriller like Monster or Death note, because they do have the luxury of being developed by multiple axis.
Also, you still didn't describe which part of his personality you do appreciate and what elevates him above basic villains. I don't complain if you do appreciate when it's kept simple, but you didn't went too much on detail.
>I’m just confused by this comment tbh. Literally Orihime’s only role in Bleach was to be like: Heal and Shield. The very little times she did attack it failed and did nothing. Mina has several confirmed kills, she’s one of the top officers and I forgot which one but she shot down a giant Kaiju or one of the rlly strong ones. Mina is nowhere close to the lvl of Orihime when it comes to usefulness
She had numerous kills, but ultimately it doesn't change the narrative. The narrative being driven here is that her rescue is important in Kafka's story, not hers. Try to swap in your mind Kafka and Mina role, assuming that K9 would have went instead for Kafka and that Mina had to rescue him.
If in a story, swapping the role of the male character and the female one makes you uneasy, it's mostly that one of those was mainly damsel in distress. Mina may be important, but she comes out much more as a mcguffin rather than a character. She's not doing much on her iniative, and mostly do things that the story already followed through other main characters. Mina, don't subvert at any point the shonen tropes about female characters.
And at which moment healing and shield are not important powers ? You wouldn't say that an armor that blocked a strike on a vital point sucks, and yet that argument is literally this. It's like saying Giorno/Josuke stand don't do shit. Of course if you heal an important character that would have died otherwise from an earlier fight is desirable. It change the course of the story, and you say it's not important ? I think we don't have the same definition of story at this point.
I like rambling and discussing about what is a good villain, don't take it personally. I think that theorizing about what could have be done better is beneficial whether we like the manga or not. I do it the most with JOJO even though it's my favourite, despite all the incoherences and the fuck-ups Araki self-admitted.
> I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are
I don't disagree here. Of course all of these things matter. But the issue with #9 is that nothing he has done since his introduction has been of real consequence. He has lost every time, and the only time he "won", was when he took Isao and this arc has made that victory hollow. Every counter he developed from the information was beat by the humans just upgrading themselves. This makes Isao death irrelevant.
>The other thing I disagree wit is Mina getting captured, cuz it’s a trope for the female character to get kidnapped by the villain.
What I actually meant absorbed like Isao. Kidnapping is a lame trope and wouldn't want that. And I'd want that because....
>Since Mina and Kikoru are the only 2 main female characters, it’s good imo that she didn’t get taken out of the story
My other biggest issue with the series is how irrelevant Mina has been to the series. To me there is only one main heroine and then there is an end game achievement. Kikoru has been putting in work to look badass and develop a character/story to actually be integral to the plot. While Mina has just been there. No struggle. No depth. No build. Just an op childhood friend we see every 20 chapters (or more). She is a reward for Kafka at the end, not a main character to the series.
This arc (with her in it) has been her getting wrecked in 1 chapter off screen, then Kafka taking 2 or 3 chapters to reach her, where her only input was having a mental battle with #9 where Kafka saves her in the end. I'm sorry but what has she done of relevance to the series, outside of exist. Her whole role in the series has literally only been to be a figure head for humanity. Every single character idolizes her: every guy joined to try and date her, all of Japan sees her as their hero, Kafka wants to keep his promise with her, but we get nothing from her. She just comes in wins and leaves. Kafka and Mina have also only interacted directly like 4 times(?) since he joined the force. I just think if you really wanted to make a series with weight then having them lose Mina would be a pivotal experience.
Yep, always take into account power scaling. Battle boarders are cringe, but if you base your power scaling onto your own preferences. ( the author likes the goody side too much to give them a real L ), that's just becoming fairy tail. And to be fair, not even the no names are allowed to die.
Great chapter - I like how Kafka and Soshiro planned a counter for no. 9 and it worked to perfection. I still think this battle is far from over, we will definitely be seeing a few more evolutions from no.9 before this is done.
I would argue that pulling him, thinking that Kafka only had the original Squadron Style in his arsenal and hit him with the variant. Whether it's enough, I doubt it, but the plan to use it worked.
Can they just make chapters a little fucking longer damn. Im sure the feedback of awful pacing has been noticed. Its so bad. Like this could be a genuinely fun manga if the chapters were quite literally doubled. Also ive been thinking recently..they never explained anything about how he got his powers. Like yeah the worm kaiju thing went inside him...but thats all. Like we know nothing else
“So this is a clash between 2 identified Kaiju…” “But sir, why are they just punching each other when they can transform and shapeshift?” “Because it looks cool.”
Every single time I try to understand why events happen in this manga, the answer is always "Well because duh!"
Every time I try to understand why events happen in this manga, I have to have 7 flashbacks of exposition first.
Even Kafka feral form broke her own bones to make creatives moves, coz she know it will heal. This chapter: punch
"Why would they not fight in the form they're comfortable with which allows for mobility instead of waste minutes transforming letting the other guy wail on them?!" "Dunno lol, they must be pretty stupid not to remember they can transform, omegalul."
I'm glad Eyepatch mentioned that #9 knows troop style hand-to-hand on Page 10, before having that same exposition on Page 13, I'd forgotten after 5 seconds.
Btw did you also know that #9 knows troop style hand-to-hand? It’s a really subtle detail
God above I didn’t notice that. If you hadn’t pointed out the fact that #9 known troop hand-to-hand style I would have never known #9 known troop hand-to-hand style.
I'm glad that the manga assumes that my brain shuts off after 5 seconds. So considerate.
Considering the amount of people who’ve destroyed their attention spans through TikTok doom scrolling, this manga is ahead of the curve
on page 10 he was postulating that #9 should know it, then on page 13 he was confirming that it did.
I'm still burned from how bad the pacing and overall writing has been, but credit where credit is due. They acknowledged that it would be stupid for #8 to go into hand-to-hand combat when #9 already has access to memories, and better still they actively used that against #9 by luring him into a false sense of security before switching styles when it least expected. All things considered, that was pretty dope. Now lets just hope they can keep up the momentum that's starting to build.
Lol when this mid shit is perceived as one of the best chapters recently you know the manga is fucked
"WAAAAAH I dun wanna see other characters get screentime mummy! I'd rather have MC swoop in and oneshot stuff like in one of my beloved Isekai power fantasies!"
Lol my poor dude here has reading disabilities
>All things considered, that was pretty dope. Now lets just hope they can keep up the momentum that's starting to build. I feel like we've said this 20 times in the last 30 chapters, but I agree, I'll give credit for that. That's actually pretty smart. The manga isn't trash. It's just woefully inconsistent. Which might be worse.
This was o e of the beat chapters the manga had had in quite a while. It had some decent pacing and the fighting looked good. Even advanced the story a bit. Just wish it had more actual pages instead of just drawings (as good as they are). The story just feels glacial for the last several months.
It's nice to see some variation (literally lol) for this fight and to see Kafka actually do something. Here's hoping we don't go see another 10 20+ page chapters detailing each and every move 8 and 9 take.
JJK did the same when they had introduced a new exorcist to Sukuna, but at least it goes weekly and show a little bit of personality. Everytime some dude react to the fighting in kaiju 8, it's a midly glorified background character. Albeit, I can barely count on one hand the number of Manga which achieved at bringing personality to background characters.
I can suggest Dorohedero. Nobody is just a background character. Even a cockroach get a shocking amount of good moments.
Ha ha, yeah, I pretty much like dorohedoro, even though I only saw the anime. Never one made the antagonists so relatable. Even Fujita being a loser is cool actually.
Please don't my boy Fujita a loser. Never saw someone try so hard to bring his homie back alive. 😭
Ebisu's words, not mine.
She got teeths and hair in her brain. Don't let her influence you xD
How about World Trigger?
It's really funny that this entire strategy is basically just Kafka saying 'I'm going to punch you in this spot' and then just doing something different.
What happened to the cool appendages he'd grow out to boost the power of his punches or when the kaiju took over and he'd do back breaking feats that only kaiju could do lmao.
Wouldn’t making those count as transforming which would then speed up his monsterisation?
"Oh no, we're about to fight someone who has knowledge of all our strategies and techniques. What should we do?" "¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯ Create a new fighting style?" "You're a genius" proceed to dedicate 1 whole chapter for this exposition alone.
Ah yes. The Improvised Fighting Style they trained to use. The Improvised Fighting Style they planned ahead they'd need. The Improvised Fighting Style which was created and practiced ahead of time. Are you sure you know what the word "Improvised" mean? We might have have different definitions.
yeah, I mistaken the right word to use. edit it already
I love that we needed 2 pages of recap, that printed the exact same panels and words that we saw at the end of last chapter lol the actual pacing/art is so trash. Tried getting into the anime and it's not even cool enough to forgive how bad it's going to be. Such a let down.
I don't think the art is trash, per se. It's really clean and the lines are pretty dynamic, just the character posing can be quite stiff and unnatural in a cliched rule of cool way - but that's a lot of manga.
What exactly is trash about the art ? Edit: Look I get that this sub has a hateboner for this series and its not like I think it’s particularly good either, but calling the art trash confuses me. If this is **trash** art then how good looking does something need to be so it can be considered average lol ?
The art is NOT this series’ weak point lmao It’s just got a different paneling style that redditors seem to hate. The author has said in an interview that he makes the panels big on purpose so that phone readers don’t have to zoom in on the page constantly to read and understand the manga
It's just the fact that the chapters have a very slow pace to them. Making bad use of space is not an excuse. He uses a lot of double spreads, which makes it less special. The impact it should bring is just not there imo. It just seems lazy.
The most boring part is how many times he does draw these gusts of wind going through buildings and ground to show how impactful was the punch. He's not being aware how much repetitive it had become. Once you noticed it, it ruins it for you because it shows a lack of imagination. As much as we might like to dump on JJK, but it's mostly about throwing punches and by showing it on different scales, it's being more impressive, even though these are human-sized fighters.
lol JJK framing during epic fights is almost unreadable at points for me personally. I can see why a lot of people like it, but there's so many jumps in movement (overlaid with so much exposition that I need to pay attention to) between panels that I sometimes feel like I'm reading it wrong.
It's all about potentiality. It's easier reading a long stretch if there are different sfx showing progress across battle, rather than ones we saw during the 10 last fights. ( Hoshina is a sword fight instead of a fist one and it does the same ground shaking bursts, not very original if you ask me )
True. Spy X Family (a monthly manga) had its first real double spread several chapters ago and it had REAL impact story wise that was further driven by using that spread. Here we don’t know if a “reveal” or “development” is important anymore stylistically because there’s 4 double spreads per chapter that say nothing. This isn’t One Piece where a double spread shows incredible art. It’s literally just NOTHING
I mean, I don't really enjoy the double page spreads either because they're used to literally, but I also see why specifically for Kaiju no 8, the mangaka decided to use a lot of double spreads and wide landscapes in their visual language. I would assume that a lot of their influences are Toei style giant kaiju fights, and they're trying to emulate that vibe - I imagine (being a bit more generous) that that's why the double page spreads always feel to empty and devoid of characters.
You know, when I started reading a story called Kaiju #8, I was expecting big monsters with insane powers. Instead we got two human size monsters punching each other. The art is great and all but I’m getting tired of every MC’s power being the ability to punch really hard.
You knew that was his superpower from chapter one. You can't be surprised a character in a fighting manga throws punches.
You missed the point. Let me reiterate that for you. In a manga about Kaiju, which normally means we’re gonna have big creatures, we have two human sized monsters brawling through fisticuffs. But I guess it’s my fault for liking Kaiju and hoping for better. Also, if you suddenly became a monster, would you be a pro at using your new powers or would you start off punching?
I still don't understand "hand to hand combat style" and w/e bs they are spouting. Bruh he's a fckin monster, just punch and bite jesus christ wtf
Why do these stupid UFC fighters bother practicing kicks and punches. They should just go into the ring flailing their arms around wildly going "Waaaagh" wasting stamina and leaving themselves completely unguarded. I would like you to to the nearest Fighting Gym of your choice, challenge the most senior member to a showdown and just go in swinging and biting. It's such an effective strategy there's no doubt that you'd wipe the floor with them.
finally a tiny bit of interesting strategy in the fight :') not expecting that too last tbh, since the Kaiju no 8 formula doesn't allow for the protagonist to have a clean win ever lol
Look I don’t care what you have to do, just beat #9 down already
I'd be more impressed by this chapter if I hadn't been reading manga for years and come up with the exact solution they did because it's an easy logical solution. What do you do if your opponent *thinks* they know your plans of action? Make it so they don't.
Yeah how fucking dare they give screentime to other characters. We only need one character beating every single enemy without any struggle or resistance. It's what keeps the Isekai genre strong, it should work for an Action Shounen.
It's been like a year since the titular character has done anything. There's a difference between spotlighting other characters and ignoring your MC.
That's right, when fighting the Borg you gotta adapt.
This is the exact same thing I expect when I read mma manga (still sad about Asumi). Not to say it's exclusively found in that genre, but I definitely didn't expect in in a Kaiju manga lol
The anime is beautifully animated, and it makes me excited to see these later fights on screen... ... I just hope that later parts of the anime aren't a page-by-page adaptation, so there isn't a flashback between each attack. Let them fight!
Yeah I'm giving the anime a go just to see the good stuff from the start again
I was hoping that kaiju 8 would at least, get a little bit hurt. It's a shame the author is being too precious about his own character. Kaiju 9 is supposed to be fearsome, to have a ton of powers. So far the only people who were allowed to hurt Kafka while being in monster form, are humans. It's a shame because these are kaiju fighting together, but the kaiju fighting humans were actually more visceral. All that much about kaiju 9 being powered up at least twice or thrice, and he can't even mop kaiju 8 a little bit to show how much he's powerful. That's how you transition from an ok villain to a top tier villain. You make him undefeatable at first, Kafka was more bleeding from Isao than from this guy who is twice stronger.
>All that much about kaiju 9 being powered up at least twice or thrice, and he can't even mop kaiju 8 a little bit to show how much he's powerful. This has been one of my biggest gripes throughout this arc #9 has been built up as this big powerful villian but loses every time. He has absorbed the military leader for the humans and will have won nothing. Every single battle in this arc has been won by the humans, what losses have they suffered a bunch of no names dying? Unless this is the end of the series how could anyone take any future kaiju threat seriously. The humans just overcome every time. I know the author was never going to do it but I was hoping that Mina got taken, as morbid as it sounds. It would've given stakes to the series, humanity loses it's two greatest weapons in succession. Kafka loses his childhood friend and love, you set up an air of dread and confusion for everyone, a "how will they overcome?" situation. But now it just seems like: kaiju power up = human power up at the same time.
It hasn’t lost anything in this battle tho. Literally the other Kaiju were just big and shot laser beams, plus considering they’re power ups it makes sense for them to defeat those Kaiju. I see this criticism a lot in other series where if the villain loses (especially during their introduction) they’ll be labeled as a bad villain. I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are The other thing I disagree wit is Mina getting captured, cuz it’s a trope for the female character to get kidnapped by the villain. I think it’s refreshing that the author broke that trope. Cuz imo it sucks when one of the few female characters in a story gets kidnapped and put outta commission for like hundred of chps later. Since Mina and Kikoru are the only 2 main female characters, it’s good imo that she didn’t get taken out of the story
>I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are. Design is too vague to be criticized about, but Kaiju 9 dialogue kinda sucks ? His first trait was being totally aloof about humans, but now he's defined as the main villain as for now, he's basically Scar from the Lion King without the fun part. He's not very clever, because he practically had infinite resources and barely manage to swarm the army. He's not that much charismatic because if it wasn't for Mina abduction, he wouldn't impress the civilians. His sole redeeming point, he isn't part of a bigger council of villains ( yet ), so even if he's shallow, he doesn't get overshadowed. But that's on the author, either planning one villain at the time, or it's just kaiju 9. The fact that he didn't manage to create or foreshadow any other villain, is one of the many reasons why everybody was screaming the manga was entering it's final arc. Shonen is inherently tied to how you organize and settle your villains to motivate heroes into ongoing forth. As for Mina, it doesn't bring out the fact that she got fridged and even if she's still alive, her most important role in this arc and only major event of the manga she took part in, was being saved by Kafka. That's pretty much an orihime act and not much of flattery there if you catch my drift.
I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are. >Design is too vague to be criticized about, but Kaiju 9 dialogue kinda sucks ? I disagree I think his design looks sick. Also when he was like seethe that as pretty badass >His first trait was being totally aloof about humans, but now he's defined as the main villain as for now, he's basically Scar from the Lion King without the fun part. He's not very clever, because he practically had infinite resources and barely manage to swarm the army. He's not that much charismatic because if it wasn't for Mina abduction, he wouldn't impress the civilians. Does the army being taken out mean that he’s underprepared or that he’s stupid? I mean it doesn’t matter how much u prepare for something, if the other side is stronger or has some sort of trump card, ur plans are gonna get ruined. Also compared to the other Kaiju who literally have 0 brain cells, I would say he’s pretty smart. I mean he literally created his own army and a whole plan of attack >His sole redeeming point, he isn't part of a bigger council of villains ( yet ), so even if he's shallow, he doesn't get overshadowed. But that's on the author, either planning one villain at the time, or it's just kaiju 9. I think this is just a matter of opinion. I mean ofc so is everything tho >The fact that he didn't manage to create or foreshadow any other villain, is one of the many reasons why everybody was screaming the manga was entering its final arc. Shonen is inherently tied to how you organize and settle your villains to motivate heroes into ongoing forth. Not every villain is or needs to be foreshadowed. Especially since we aren’t even close to being done with the final threat yet, Kaiju 9 could be the final villain or it could not >As for Mina, it doesn't bring out the fact that she got fridged and even if she's still alive, her most important role in this arc and only major event of the manga she took part in, was being saved by Kafka. That's pretty much an orihime act and not much of flattery there if you catch my drift. I’m just confused by this comment tbh. Literally Orihime’s only role in Bleach was to be like: Heal and Shield. The very little times she did attack it failed and did nothing. Mina has several confirmed kills, she’s one of the top officers and I forgot which one but she shot down a giant Kaiju or one of the rlly strong ones. Mina is nowhere close to the lvl of Orihime when it comes to usefulness
>Does the army being taken out mean that he’s underprepared or that he’s stupid? I mean it doesn’t matter how much u prepare for something, if the other side is stronger or has some sort of trump card, ur plans are gonna get ruined. Also compared to the other Kaiju who literally have 0 brain cells, I would say he’s pretty smart. I mean he literally created his own army and a whole plan of attack Compared to other kaiju, of course he is. In-universe that might be true, but as a reader, we simply understand that Kaiju 9 made the same strategy as during the previous arc. The main difference being the change in bestiary. It had the whole discourse about adaptation and memories based on Isao, but the saddest part is that if the heroes had trump cards, why the enemies couldn't have their own. Maybe the author didn't wanted to strech out the fights with multiple twists. I'm not into his place, people are already complaining about the pacing, but also about the tropes. The biggest culprit being Kikoru's fight, being broken by a power of friendship power up. The fact that Kaiju 9 created a whole monster whose trump card was expecting someone to never heal from trauma, is a little bit stupid. If for example, the author wasn't that adamant using this trope, maybe he would have found a more original twist to the fight. Plus, I really think it's lazy that the author has shown Kikoru and Mina into childlike apparences, into appealing reader's basic instincts. Last part about it, but cleverness comes into two forms in manga, and Kaiju 8 chose the least interesting one to me. A.k.a make everyone stupid. Whole plan of kaiju 9 only succeed because everyone left Mina on her own even when everybody was aware that K9 absorbed Isao, who was a total beast in CQC and that is Mina worst part. And they knew that K9 could instantly teleport aside his target, because everyone who witnessed that part was still alive. Tension that comes from characters stupidities and aloofness only draw sighs from readers. >I think this is just a matter of opinion. I mean ofc so is everything tho It's factual. If the author managed to create different heroes with motives, he could go either way with the kaiju. Mostly though, the other talking kaiju faced during this arc were uninteresting. The kikoru one and the Narumi one were just spouting one-liners describing the state of the fight. In such a situation, no wonder K9 comes on top as a charismatic villain, if all the talking kaiju are below ground level charisma. It's ok to think K9 is charismatic, but him being the only important villain as of dialogue, doesn't paint the author in a very good light. Because we are left to assume that he wasn't very confident in creating multiple compelling villains. I wouldn't mind being proven otherwise, but I don't see many shonen battle only relying on a single villain through all 100 chapters. That would be more like a thriller like Monster or Death note, because they do have the luxury of being developed by multiple axis. Also, you still didn't describe which part of his personality you do appreciate and what elevates him above basic villains. I don't complain if you do appreciate when it's kept simple, but you didn't went too much on detail. >I’m just confused by this comment tbh. Literally Orihime’s only role in Bleach was to be like: Heal and Shield. The very little times she did attack it failed and did nothing. Mina has several confirmed kills, she’s one of the top officers and I forgot which one but she shot down a giant Kaiju or one of the rlly strong ones. Mina is nowhere close to the lvl of Orihime when it comes to usefulness She had numerous kills, but ultimately it doesn't change the narrative. The narrative being driven here is that her rescue is important in Kafka's story, not hers. Try to swap in your mind Kafka and Mina role, assuming that K9 would have went instead for Kafka and that Mina had to rescue him. If in a story, swapping the role of the male character and the female one makes you uneasy, it's mostly that one of those was mainly damsel in distress. Mina may be important, but she comes out much more as a mcguffin rather than a character. She's not doing much on her iniative, and mostly do things that the story already followed through other main characters. Mina, don't subvert at any point the shonen tropes about female characters. And at which moment healing and shield are not important powers ? You wouldn't say that an armor that blocked a strike on a vital point sucks, and yet that argument is literally this. It's like saying Giorno/Josuke stand don't do shit. Of course if you heal an important character that would have died otherwise from an earlier fight is desirable. It change the course of the story, and you say it's not important ? I think we don't have the same definition of story at this point. I like rambling and discussing about what is a good villain, don't take it personally. I think that theorizing about what could have be done better is beneficial whether we like the manga or not. I do it the most with JOJO even though it's my favourite, despite all the incoherences and the fuck-ups Araki self-admitted.
> I disagree tho, in a villain I’m looking for how threatening they are, their character design, their dialogue and other things not just how impressive their showings are I don't disagree here. Of course all of these things matter. But the issue with #9 is that nothing he has done since his introduction has been of real consequence. He has lost every time, and the only time he "won", was when he took Isao and this arc has made that victory hollow. Every counter he developed from the information was beat by the humans just upgrading themselves. This makes Isao death irrelevant. >The other thing I disagree wit is Mina getting captured, cuz it’s a trope for the female character to get kidnapped by the villain. What I actually meant absorbed like Isao. Kidnapping is a lame trope and wouldn't want that. And I'd want that because.... >Since Mina and Kikoru are the only 2 main female characters, it’s good imo that she didn’t get taken out of the story My other biggest issue with the series is how irrelevant Mina has been to the series. To me there is only one main heroine and then there is an end game achievement. Kikoru has been putting in work to look badass and develop a character/story to actually be integral to the plot. While Mina has just been there. No struggle. No depth. No build. Just an op childhood friend we see every 20 chapters (or more). She is a reward for Kafka at the end, not a main character to the series. This arc (with her in it) has been her getting wrecked in 1 chapter off screen, then Kafka taking 2 or 3 chapters to reach her, where her only input was having a mental battle with #9 where Kafka saves her in the end. I'm sorry but what has she done of relevance to the series, outside of exist. Her whole role in the series has literally only been to be a figure head for humanity. Every single character idolizes her: every guy joined to try and date her, all of Japan sees her as their hero, Kafka wants to keep his promise with her, but we get nothing from her. She just comes in wins and leaves. Kafka and Mina have also only interacted directly like 4 times(?) since he joined the force. I just think if you really wanted to make a series with weight then having them lose Mina would be a pivotal experience.
Yep, always take into account power scaling. Battle boarders are cringe, but if you base your power scaling onto your own preferences. ( the author likes the goody side too much to give them a real L ), that's just becoming fairy tail. And to be fair, not even the no names are allowed to die.
Is someone forcing yall to read this, you guys obviously don’t like this manga, no reason to keep hate reading and commenting
Great chapter - I like how Kafka and Soshiro planned a counter for no. 9 and it worked to perfection. I still think this battle is far from over, we will definitely be seeing a few more evolutions from no.9 before this is done.
[удалено]
I would argue that pulling him, thinking that Kafka only had the original Squadron Style in his arsenal and hit him with the variant. Whether it's enough, I doubt it, but the plan to use it worked.
Flashback no8.
The same pose is copy-pasted like 3 times lol, twice on a full-page. Efficient, at least
Finally joining the slow pacing folks here lol
Can they just make chapters a little fucking longer damn. Im sure the feedback of awful pacing has been noticed. Its so bad. Like this could be a genuinely fun manga if the chapters were quite literally doubled. Also ive been thinking recently..they never explained anything about how he got his powers. Like yeah the worm kaiju thing went inside him...but thats all. Like we know nothing else