JP Nunez
We knew from the very beginning of Kaiju No. 8 that Kafka’s Anti-Kaiju Defense Force comrades would eventually find out about his alter ego. It was in Crunchyroll’s description of the show when the first episode aired, and I’ve been waiting for that moment ever since. So when I heard that this latest installment was called “Secret Revealed,” I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen.
The previous episode, “Raid on Tachikawa Base,” ended with Vice-Captain Hoshina facing off against a humanoid kaiju that just wouldn’t die, and things weren’t looking good for the poor guy. This creature kept getting bigger and bigger, and by the time the credits began to roll, he was a legit giant monster. It simply didn’t look like a fight Hoshina could win, so in my review of the episode, I speculated that this creature was going to force Kafka to finally let his vice-captain in on his horrific secret.
And you know what? Despite the seemingly blatant spoiler of a name, “Secret Revealed” didn’t play out the way I thought it would. Granted, it’s still as action-packed as just about any other Kaiju No. 8 episode so far, but it’s a different kind of action than the end of “Raid on Tachikawa Base” seems to hint at. Despite being totally outsized and outmatched, Vice-Captain Hoshina still takes it to this monster, and his performance is even more impressive than it was last week.
To be fair, the Vice-Captain doesn’t really do much damage to his giant-sized opponent, but he manages not to get stomped on right away. And in my book, that’s way more impressive than anything he could’ve done against an adversary closer to his size.
What’s more, this installment of Kaiju No. 8 also gives the rest of the Defense Force more time to shine than I was expecting. I thought “Secret Revealed” would be pretty much all Kafka all the time, but he plays a surprisingly small role in this fight. Instead, the episode spends much more time showing off what the Defense Force can do when the entire team works together, and they’re quite impressive.
I said last week that these fighters look like they can take on just about any threat, and somehow, “Secret Revealed” hammers that home even more convincingly. Hoshina, Kikoru, and the rest of the crew all work together to take down this apparently unstoppable threat, and their cohesion and synergy make for some genuinely great action. It almost makes you believe that no monster could possibly stand a chance against their combined might, so as the minutes flew by, I found myself starting to question whether Kafka would have to transform at all.
Now, normally I’d try to be really vague and let that question just hang in the air without answering it, but since the name “Secret Revealed” is so on the nose, I’m not going to beat around the bush. Kafka’s monstrous alter ego does end up making an appearance, and the poor guy completely blows his cover. All of the major players in Kaiju No. 8 now know the true identity of the show’s titular monster, and it looks like life is about to get a lot harder for our main character.
That being said, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Even though this installment of Kaiju No. 8 seems to give away its big secret in its title, it doesn’t feel nearly as spoilery as you’d expect. See, even though you know that Kafka is going to reveal his monstrous alter ego to his comrades, the reason why he does it isn’t quite what you think it’s going to be.
Granted, it’s not entirely different either, but it’s different enough that there’s still an element of surprise to it. It strikes a nearly perfect balance between giving us what we know is coming and catching us off guard, and that makes for a much more compelling story than the one I found myself writing in my head as I pressed play.
Last but not least, we have to talk about what this big revelation means for Kaiju No. 8 moving forward. I’m not going to spoil the aftermath of Kafka’s transformation in front of his Defense Force comrades, but if I had to guess, I suspect that a few other secrets are going to come out as well in the next week or two.
For example, back in “Fortitude 9.8,” Kakfka transformed in front of Kikoru to save her life, but she and Ichikawa were the only ones who saw it happen. Everyone else thought Kikoru got herself out of that jam, and at the end of the episode, she even lied and said she did it by herself. But now, I have a hunch that she’s going to tell her superior officers what really happened, and I think a few other Defense Force officers are going to have similar stories about Kafka’s secret heroism.
Of course, we’ll have to wait until next week to find out if that’s really what happens, but even if my predictions are totally off the mark, one thing is just about certain: we’re in for some really meaty storytelling in the next couple of episodes, and I absolutely can’t wait to see how it all plays out.
Kaiju No. 8 premiered its first episode on Crunchyroll on April 13, and the streaming service is set to roll out new episodes every Saturday.
