Kaijuu 8-gou
Kaiju No. 8

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TLDR: Great manga with some really good characters, great MC and peak action. If you want to have a good time this is a good option.

This manga is, along with Undead Unluck, the great underrated among the new gen shonen. Kaijuu 8-gou is a master class in how to make a simple but solid story. Although it follows certain clichés and ideas that we have seen before in other stories, Naoya Matsumoto knows how to use these elements well, achieving as a result a great story that quickly finds its own identity.

This manga has two strong points in which it stands out notably, these ... are the action and its characters. In terms of action, the scenes are very dynamic and intense, achieving fights that are spectacular. In this sense, the power system is also worth mentioning, since this manga is one of the few that has managed to use numerical values ​​to measure the power scale without it getting out of control or losing its meaning. In addition, the power increases are coherent and with good foundations, so you never feel that the script is forced.

Finally, the characters. They have endearing and comical interactions while developing a great sense of camaraderie. Each character has their moment to shine and to a greater or lesser extent each one contributes something to the story. If you add the Kaijuu to all that, you have a great story that I'm sure you'll enjoy.

So, as usual, recommending this series or not, really depends on the person, mostly their experience and age. It would be much easier to recommend something of this caliber to someone less experienced in reading manga and younger, as it's not a great series, though it's not terrible either.

First off, the art, to me, is not great. It isn't terrible either but, it seems like it's probably digitally drawn. The lines are very clean, and there's pretty much no shading using the pen, it's all black and white with screen tone. This gives it a webtoon or manwha look which, I'm not very fond of. ... However, if that's you're thing then, I guess you won't mind. I think the art has improved as of late. I read the series sort of fast so, I'm not really sure why but, it seemed to me like it wasn't as obvious that it was digitally drawn; there wasn't as much empty space filled up by screen tone or just plain black and white. But definitely early on it was very noticeable. Maybe I just got used to it.

I really love the idea but, the execution is a bit lacking for me. The general plot idea reminds me of Attack on Titan, except, the series doesn't really go there in terms of darkness and I think that sort of cheapens the idea. As the story progresses, it does get darker but, it takes a little while to get to that point and even then, it doesn't do a whole lot. This can be good and bad as, series like AOT, sometimes go overboard. This series does find a nice middle ground I'd say, especially since it gradually eases it's way into upping the stakes and getting more serious.

The series is also a bit too fast paced for my liking. I feel as though the series is already getting to end and we've seen the type of powerups found in other much longer series in half the time. This could work better if time skips were used but, they are not.

I almost feel like the story thus far, would serve as a decent prequel to an even better story. A quick sort of, here's the land before the modern era type of thing. Maybe the series would just be better in another author's hands? The humor in the story is really well done, as is the minor attention to details, I think the author is unusually good in these areas but, as a whole, I think the series is lacking some of the star power that makes a series really stand out.

So, all in all, not bad, not great, a good in between. It impressed me enough to finish it so, it's certainly worth a read. It has really got more interesting closer to the hundred chapter mark, with interesting backstories coming to light. The writing lately is more worthy of an 8 or 9, but, it can't make up for such a long drought earlier on in the manga. Before that it sort felt like your average battle shonen, done relatively well but, also with nothing to really write home about.

Alright, I might piss some people off, so please bear in mind this is just my opinion.

Come here after the promising episode 1 and 2 of the anime, and 105 chapters into Kaiju #8. So far, the last arc has been. Meh. Honestly Kaiju #8 has been a blast from the start. The best part is definitely our main character, but the side characters man.

Holy f*** the side characters. Omega mid. Like seriously. Every single one of the "new generation" is boring as f***. We got Narumi, the "Gojo" from Walmart. We got the what's-his-name Levi/Zoro knockoff. We got the "rival" lil-bro side character ... which is also boring as f***. And we got the mary-sue turned into damsel in distress (The Mary sue has to be a damsel in distress in order for our MC to be a Gigachad, otherwise what's the point?). A fate for all strong beautiful female characters in your typical shonen.

Yes, unfortunately it's true, typical shonen! Especially the power-scaling after training is just too cringe for me. It's like screaming, hey I'm just your typical shonen. This is just Bleach with different flavors. Literally the best part of this series is the main character development. The author kinda try to subvert the trope and try to make things darker, but ended up going back into PG-13. I'm sorry but. Holy boring. I don't know what I'm expecting though, I guess I come here expecting a mature story with dark comedy, like the level of Chainsaw-Man writing since the main character is a full-grown adult. But I just met with another typical shonen formula series.

Again. My god. The only appeal is the main character Kafka. He's the only interesting character, but when you don't make him grow and make the focus too spread-out, you undermine the best thing in the whole series. This ain't One Piece, where the side characters are far more interesting than Luffy. It's the actual opposite. My god everyone is boring as f***.

Conclusion, Mann. I don't know though. Maybe I'm writing the review too early. So far the latest arc hasn't been concluded yet. But after seeing how the power-scaling results after training. It's too predictable it's not even funny. I don't have much hope for this manga to be honest. Regardless, maybe, just maybe the author will make the best plot twist ever. Maybe the show will get darker as I wanted it to be. Or maybe, as I expected, it'll be mid. Hell, less than mid. At least Bleach had villains that were kinda fun to watch! Most of these Kaiju chumps don't even put up a decent fight or interesting designs.

I don't want to do this. But I'm sorry y'all. 6/10. Great starters, very bad executions until this point. Let's hope I'll be proven wrong in the next chapters. Will wait for a year or two and redo this again. Maybe.