Kaiju, as Japanophiles will know, are Godzilla-style giant monsters that double up as A-bomb and/or natural disaster metaphors, and Naoya Matsumoto’s YA spin is a smart addition to the outsized genre. This film is an omnibus recap of the 2024 TV anime’s first season, directed by Tomomi Kamiya and Shigeyuki Miya, and tacking on a new 20-minute episode. Taking place in a high-school-style training academy for anti-kaiju troops, it plays like Pacific Rim meets Starship Troopers meets The Incredible Hulk.
Kafka (voiced by Masaya Fukunishi) wants to join the Defense Force like his childhood buddy Mina (Asami Seto), who has become the kaiju-reaping star of the outfit. But having flunked the entrance exam, he is stuck as part of the cleanup crews who dispose of city blocks’ worth of gore after the battles – and is normally assigned intestine detail to boot. After newbie faeces-mopper Reno (Wataru Kato) encourages him to reapply and they both scrape through, Kafka is invaded by a parasite that allows him to transform into a hench skull-headed kaiju; an alter ego he must, of course, conceal from his new colleagues.
From the power fixation (they are assigned special suits that augment them in proportion to their natural abilities) to the petty rivalries between recruits, there is little that is new here for connoisseurs of the likes of My Hero Academia. But it is underpinned by a pressing social anxiety, with thirtysomething “old dude” Kafka desperately playing catch-up to join the warrior elite; his specialist knowledge of kaiju anatomy swings things in his favour. And Kamiya and Miya execute it all with an addictive punky relish, starting with a bestiary – from human-headed spider-demons to wyverns and proliferating fungal colonies – unfailingly eviscerated with maximum overkill.
Though the character work is at times rudimentary, Kamiya and Miya keep things interesting by mixing up animation styles: sophisticated 3D urban fly-bys (the studio is Ghost in the Shell’s Production IG), kaomoji-style cutaways for extreme emotional reactions (there are many), and an almost expressionist rawness in the fury of battle that meshes with Yûta Bandoh’s strident score and the odd LOL proclamation from Kafka: “I’m gonna try punching it as hard as I can!” After 90 minutes of this fast-forward kaiju-trouncing, the bonus episode – about deputy captain Hoshina’s day off – is soothing, if sentimental, respite.
• Kaiju No 8: Mission Recon is in UK cinemas from 16 April, and is in Australian cinemas now.
