Quick Thoughts on: Kaiju No. 8 Season 2: COPS in Springfield.

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Quick Thoughts has always been two different things. First, it is a format for me to either get out some kneejerk reactions of news without mulling it over. The second is a way for me to talk about a certain series that I WANT to talk about, but I don’t enough to say to warrant a full post. That is not a judgment on the quality or enjoyment of said piece of work, just a reality. Sometimes a series doesn’t give me enough to write about, good or bad.

Case in point is this show. I loved the first season of Kaiju No. 8. While it is a by-the-books shonen show, it’s use of a middle aged protagonist and crisp to-the-point storytelling reminded me of the best of shows like Black Cat. I’ve said many times that as I get older I’m a bigger fan of the shorter shonen series, I just don’t have the patience anymore for those series that go on for hundreds of chapters.

With that all said, the second season of Kaiju is really just more of the first. It has all the parts I love, and moves the story along at that steady pace I enjoy. There is an awesome battle between the old chief, then a training arc that gives some of the minor characters a chance to shine and just enough episodes to set up for the final season coming later this year. I just really enjoyed my time in this world and its characters, especially Kafka who again, is just such a breath fresh air for this kind of show. I maintain that if he had been another teenager or young adult alot of the charm of the story would be lost.

If anything, the biggest issue I have is that the streamlined story leaves little for the relationship between Mina and Kafka. For Mina, we really don’t know much about her at all, how she feels about Kafka joining or really, anything. She is a rather flat character who feels more like a plot device than a member of the cast. This will get fixed a bit during the climax, but it feels like a bit of a lost opprotunity for a character with a cool power and interesting design.

Overall Kaiju No.8‘s second season remains a solid bit of shonen action that feels very comfortable with what it’s doing. In fact I’d go as far to say it’s the best “bite-sized” shonen I’ve seen in the last few years. It doesn’t have One Piece’s longivity, or the budgets of Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer, but it is just a damn good show and honestly that is often enough.

The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: Recalled Out Summer and Epilogue!

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! Another gap week due to a trip, but here we are! There are only two posts left, this and the wrap-up, so we are still on track to get all of this done by September! Now while the story is all but done, there are two films left, and do they help add depth to this story, or it just filler? After cut let’s take a dive into the final (for really reals this time) parts of The Garden of Sinners: Recalled Out Summer and Epilogue!

I’m doing something a bit different this time around, as honestly, with the story finished I just want to do quickly fire off my thoughts on both of these films. Also no Jontron clips this time, as I kinda ran out of all the ones that can be used. Alright? Let’s do this.

Epilogue

  • This film, if you can call it that is probably the worst thing I’ve seen in the entire Nasuverse. Every critique that people have of the franchise: it’s too wordy, its too abstract, it wants to tell you, not show you. All of that is present in this film and it really doesn’t do it any favors.
  • I mean I had to sit there with a wiki open to just understand half of what was going on, which I can summise is that the third Shiki, called “Void Shiki” by fans, was the source of Shiki’s murderous impulses and is directly connected to The Root. While she offers to heal Mikiya’s wounds, his determination to live his life with the consequences of his choices impresses V-Shiki enough that she simply vanishes.
  • And had this story actually taken the time to seed this throughout the films, I think this intro would have made sense, or if V-Shiki had challenged Mikiya on the burdens and trials that will come on loving Shiki, it would have gone down better.
  • Like it would have wrapped up his entire journey and brought everything to a nice close, instead we get the equivilant of a video essay explaining something that really doesn’t change or affect the series as a whole. Eh, maybe I’m just not understanding it.

Recalled Out Summer

  • This film goes down far better than the previous, but there is also part of me that wishes it took place after the main story had been told.
  • Putting it in between some of the other films I think robs the film of a lot of the tension that could have helped move the entire story around. Because this is honestly a better film than Oblivion Recording, which felt very fillerish. This at least keeps the story focused on Shiki and Mikiya, with a new character who has a connection to them.
  • Because the back half of the movie, with Mana and Mitsuru going to the fortune teller and talking about fate, feels very much like a capstone to the overall themes of the story. What if all of the previous events had happened after the film? I think it would have tied everything together better.
  • Shizune Seo for example, feels like she doesn’t really add anything to the story, aside from being another example showing how Mikiya is a really good guy who is perfect for Shiki. That’s nice, but we’ve seen enough examples of that before.
  • Mana is a great addition but I wish she had gotten far more time with her parents, because we just see her on her own, and I would love to have see how she views her mother and father beyond the little bit we get. Again I don’t want to armchair write the story here, but there is just a better version of this film that combines the past and present together.
  • Finally, I think the conversations with Fujino and her fellow student who lost a friend to suicide is a great way to wrap up that character arc, and I’m so glad that she wasn’t just forgotten. Frankly I would have love more of a examination of the supporting cast, a sort of “where are they now?”
  • Overall confusion level: Fuck off Void Shiki

Overall, I find both of these films to be simple additons to an already finshed story. If you are an absolute fan of The Garden of Sinners and its characters and world, you’ll enjoy a chance to spend a bit more time here. If your not, then I would advise you skip both of these, because you don’t get anything that will change your view of what has come before.

And with that, we are at the end of our journey! Join me next week as we do a final wrap up of the series!

The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: Mikiya Kokutou: The Rock upon which I’ll Build my Church.

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! With the series all but finished, we now are taking a moment to look at another of the key characters. We already took a dive into our main heroine, but now it is time to talk about the hero! An oddity among the male leads of the Nasuverse, is he something worth talking about? Or is it something that just doesn’t work out? Well after the cut let’s take a character dive into The Garden of Sinners’ Mikiya Kokutou and find out!

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The Summer of Love VIII with The Garden of Sinners: A Study in Murder Part 2

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The Summer of Love VIII continues! This week we have reached the final climax of the series. Have all of these twists and turns and the Nasuverse being well, the Nasuverse paid off? Are the characters able to reach a proper conclusion? Or is everything so far up its own ass that it fails? Well after the cut let’s take a dive into the final main film of the series: A Study in Murder Part 2 and find out!

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