English Dub Review: Kaiju No. 8 “Destiny”

Overview:

Kafka learns to fight without having to rely on Kaiju No. 8’s power.

Our Take:

This show has both great character development and bad character development. I loved to see Furuhashi grow and not become distraught with not being the main guy. Ogata even mentioned that Furuhashi isn’t too far behind Ichikawa, and he’s not a prodigy by any means. He’s had to work to get where he is, which is almost the same when it comes to Kafka, but in my opinion, Kafka’s arc isn’t as enjoyable to me.

A part of Kafka’s hand hasn’t changed back from his Kaiju form, and now he’s worried that if he keeps changing, he won’t be able to change back eventually. Since that might be the case, Hoshina challenges him to become stronger and not rely on his transformation. They decide to spar to see how far he’s come, and to me, it didn’t go well. But according to Hoshina, he says that Kafka has grown and become a lot stronger. It looked like he couldn’t land a hit or anything, and he hasn’t grown one bit. My favorite thing about Kafka is how unique he is as a shonen protagonist. He’s in his thirties, and he isn’t afraid to cry and show emotion, but that isn’t growth either.

It’s been a while since I talked about an OP or ED, and I love that OneRepublic is doing the ending song again. It’s called “Beautiful Colors,” and not only is the song great, but the imagery that goes along with it is great. I love when an ED can make me feel something, and that is the case with this one. I never recommend skipping the end credits anyway, but you definitely shouldn’t skip this one because it’s fantastic.