Our Kaiju No. 8 episode 7 review looks at how Iharu and Ichikawa survive an encounter with the mystery kaiju/human hybrid and Hoshina encountering Kafka in Kaiju form.
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The Kaiju No. 8 episode 7 review
Continuing right where episode 6 left off, Iharu and Ichikawa are forced into a fight against the kaiju/human hybrid (whose name we still don’t know). After Iharu is injured, Ichikawa tells him to leave and come back with reinforcements since the hybrid is blocking their communications, only for the former to come back and assist his comrade. They work in tandem to give Ichikawa an opening, but the deuteragonist ends up getting shot multiple times and is severely wounded.
Kafka and the rest of the team are alerted to their disappearance and once notified, uses his kaiju powers to sense the other hybrid’s location. He arrives just in time to pull Ichikawa and Iharu out of the fire and appears to unleash a new lightning shield ability before beating the tar out of the other hybrid, so much so that his core is exposed.
Kafka tries to go in for the kill but is distracted by the appearance of a couple of Defense Force soldiers, allowing the other hybrid to escape. Kafka does the same thing and Ichikawa and Iharu are both given medical attention. This chapter ends with Vice-Captain Hoshina finding the protagonist and attempting to carve him up before deciding to unleash 92% of his suit’s power to take Kaiju No. 8 down.
Sticking by your friends
Unlike the last episode, there’s no need to waste any time setting things up in the first half since the story’s already in progress. Things start dire for the Defense Force duo since they’re outclassed by an opponent they have little information on. For a little while, Ichikawa can dodge a few hits, with a flashback to episode 5 showing that Kikoru gave him information regarding how it generates and shoots its own body mass as bullets. It’s an easy and sensible explanation for how the deuteragonist can dodge the attacks when he’s never fought this entity before.
The moment when he powers us as much as possible and shoots a good portion of the hybrid’s flesh off, only to then find a pile of corpses where the enemy previously stood, is a great moment. It shows the guy’s commitment to taking down a kaiju even if he’s outclassed and the sadness he feels when he sees Kafka arriving in kaiju mode to save them makes you sympathize with him a little bit.
He clearly cares a lot about his friends and doesn’t want Kafka to be discovered and put down because he’s a human/kaiju hybrid. The punchy gunfire and the squishy sound effects of flesh being shot off the enemy hybrid’s body, combined with the blood and flesh being shed, help to elevate the ferocity of Ichikawa’s attack, even though it didn’t do that much damage.
Sadly, he still gets hit in a few places and needs the help of Iharu to survive. Iharu initially obeys his comrade’s request to go and bring in reinforcements but returns and assists Ichikawa with the hybrid, realizing he’s always relied on other people to save him and that hasn’t changed. He then uses conductor (electric) ammo to paralyze the hybrid long enough for Ichikawa to pump him with a few rounds. However, that’s about the end of Iharu’s usefulness. He plays a small, but still vital, part in giving Kafka enough time to arrive on the scene and the loyalty he displays to Ichikawa is pretty endearing.
Speaking of which, the leading man arrives just when Iharu starts praying for someone to intervene. After feeding the other hybrid a knuckle sandwich and removing his friend from harm’s way, Kafka takes on the other hybrid. His new lightning shield ability and ability to sense other kaiju are interesting, but I do wish the episode gave us an explanation as to how he’s manifesting these new abilities. Hopefully, that will be answered in a future episode.
Once his shield stops some of his opponent’s projectiles, Kafka powers up and starts landing multiple punches on the hybrid, causing the latter to be confused and maybe a little bit afraid of the main character. Just like in the entrance exam, Kafka uses his body’s ram bolts and boosters to launch a devastating final punch to his enemy, launching him through a good number of buildings before stopping some distance away from where they began fighting.
You can see that Kafka is none too happy with his friend being injured and his dialogue and demeanor reflect that. His appearance is also well-timed, since showing up earlier in the episode would’ve made things too easy for Iharu and Ichikawa and erased any suspense regarding what would occur next.
The beatdown he serves to the other hybrid is a devastating spectacle to watch. The flurry of punches he deals to the enemy results in chunks of their flesh being punched off and his final, booster-powered punch is the cherry on top since this is the attack that launches the other hybrid through multiple buildings. The visuals here do most of the heavy lifting, with the energy being unleashed from Kafka’s boosters doing a good job of selling just how powerful his final punch is.
Body blocking and bullet deflecting
Like in episode 4, the kaiju/human hybrid continues to be a complete mystery and a tough customer to take on. The reveal last week that he’s the one responsible for the ongoing kaiju attack makes him more interesting and raises more questions about his abilities. His soulless eyes, artificial-sounding voice, and creepy almost-smile are unnerving and the way he uses his ability to generate more of his body mass is also clever.
Besides shooting people with chunks of his flesh, he can use them to create more arms to either attack or defend himself, such as moving his arms fast enough to deflect bullets or creating more flesh to act as a shield. His ability to cut off communications helps to make things tense for Iharu and Ichikawa and he proves he’s also got a brain by using the pile of kaiju corpses from earlier to shield himself from Kafka’s attacks, though that doesn’t pan out.
Like with the main character, I hope we get to see an explanation regarding his abilities in the future, especially the communication jamming ability since that came out of nowhere. Aside from that, I think he’s a good addition to the episode since he presents a good challenge for the human characters to try and fail to overcome.
Hoshina doesn’t do much in this episode besides finding Kafka and trying to slice him up like with the Yoju seen in the last episode. This final scene sees both of them move very fluidly and like before, Hoshina is very fast, with Kafka barely able to dodge his blades. The ending where Hoshina’s eyes are open and he powers up to take on Kafka is a great hook for next week’s episode. Other characters don’t do much except for Kikoru, who uses a road sign to literally slice a kaiju in half. It’s a pretty wicked moment, but that’s about it.
Kaiju No. 8 episode 7 continues to have the great action the series has and wastes no time in getting into it. Though it was inevitable that Kafka would transform, this episode was still suspenseful to watch given Ichikawa’s and Iharu’s situation and the tease for Hoshina’s fight with Kafka is effective in making you want to come back next week.
Final score: 8/10
Kaiju No. 8 can be streamed through Crunchyroll.
