Tag Archives: Kaiju

Kaiju No. 8 Review

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Kaiju No. 8 is one of those titles that really took the world by storm. It was a manga that promised to bring in a whole lot of action and Kaiju throughout. Well, I can definitely say that the title delivers on that with nonstop action throughout the series. At the same time, I can understand why some fans were a bit disappointed. If you really enjoyed the opening chapters about Kafka being a part of the cleanup crew and learning how to master his powers, then that was a different series. Me personally? I prefer having high octane action shows so this was more up my alley.

The series begins by introducing us to Kafka who has always wanted to join the defense force. He has the drive for it but unfortunately lacks the skill or the energy for it. Kafka flunks out every year and is forced to stick around as one of the monster cleaners. He comes in after the heroes have beaten the Kaiju and just does his best to get the remains off the street. Well, one day a mini Kaiju goes inside of him and Kafka becomes Kaiju No. 8. Kafka passes the exam this time and can finally fight alongside his childhood friend. Can he keep his new status as a Kaiju secret from the rest of the team or is he absolutely doomed?

The idea of an older main character certainly appealed to folks because it does feel like most of the big action series are about kids or teens. Well, it doesn’t really end up being a big factor here since Kafka acts like a teenager anyway. He certainly has a fun time goofing off but when the villains show up, Kafka is able to lock in. I would say that he’s a good main character even if he may not stand out a whole lot. Essentially he is the kind of character who will make the right decisions and get out there for the fights. He wants to protect his friends and will defy orders in order to accomplish that objective.

In a way his not standing out matches the series a bit where some would say that this one is just a generic battle Shonen by the end. I would say to a large degree that’s true but the execution is really good so that makes up for it. There’s nothing wrong with being generic as long as you’re fun and that’s the approach that Kaiju No. 8 is going for. The art is also really good for this series and that makes a difference. You can feel each hit and there are a ton of memorable shots here. The series is absolutely at its best during the action scenes but the artwork stays consistently good throughout.

Partially because of all the nonstop fighting, the character cast is rather small for a 16 volume series. There are a bunch of side characters running around as part of the Kaiju company of course but in terms of characters who get a real role, well that never expands too much. Perhaps it’s a good thing, this gave us more time for battles after all. Additionally, there are only so many times you can give someone a new Kaiju weapon without it feeling excessive. Anyone without a Kaiju ability was rendered powerless by the end so they would have gotten power creeped out of there anyway.

Reno is a prodigy for example but the limits of the human body are far too low to really give a Kaiju a tough fight. I should differentiate between numbered Kaiju and standard ones though. Standard monsters can absolutely be defeated as they usually are by the company. It just so happens as this series starts that a big villain known as Kaiju No. 9 has been amping them all up to new heights. If not for that then things would be different. We went from having one super Kaiju in 10 years to suddenly having over 7 in one shot.

So Reno is one of the fighters who ends up having to use an experimental Kaiju weapon. While it is not as impressive as Hoshina’s, I would say that it’s pretty good. Reno’s is ice based so he is able to freeze his opponents and keep on fighting. He never quite caught up to Kafka but at least this way he isn’t a liability on the battlefield or anything like that. Reno is able to hold his own and he’s a nice guy in general. His character archetype in these titles doesn’t always get to contribute a lot so this was nice to see.

Kikoru is the main heroine here. Some would argue that Mina takes the role but Kikoru absolutely gets more screentime. At first she has fun mocking Kafka and his efforts but gradually begins to respect him as a father figure. She is the greatest rookie to ever join the defense force and we find out that her parents were both influential figures. In a way she was born for this role and certainly has no problems living up to the hype. Even before she gets a super weapon, Kikoru was dominating fighters left and right. By the time she does get a power up, Kikoru is easily one of the strongest fighters in the series.

She ends up fighting one of the best villains as well so that worked out. In general she has a fun personality. I always like the fiery characters who can banter with the villains. She’s not here to make friends or negotiate with the villains. Kikoru definitely did her mother proud. Her mom only appears in flashbacks but we see how she was also a living legend in her days. With virtually no backup she was able to deal quite a blow to the opposing Kaijus.

Kikoru’s father Isao also gets a decent role although it was a bit smaller than I would have expected. He is a really gruff guy and believes that justice has to be tough sometimes. He pushes this to such an extent that I considered him to be more of a villain throughout the series. Easily the lesser of two evils compared to the Kaiju but anyone who would so quickly sentence his allies to death is definitely not a hero. He has the power to back up his sharp rules though and could have taken out nearly anyone in the series. It’s really impressive how well he did against No. 9 even while he was so much older. If Isao had been in his prime, then he probably would have won.

Gen is yet another prodigy on the hero side. You already see how many prodigies we have right? This is why you couldn’t expand the cast too much farther because the word would probably lose its meaning after a while. Well, Gen can use his eyes to read opponent weak spots as well as almost predict what their next action will be. He has a lazy persona which is the only thing that keeps him from rising up the government ranks. It’s not really something that Gen is interested in anyway though. He just wants to destroy Kaiju and being a platoon leader allows him to really do that without having to hold anything back.

This guy ended up being one of my favorite characters in the series. It may seem at odds with how I typically enjoy characters who are super gung-ho and ready to fight but I do enjoy the lazy ones as well when they are justified with it. If Gen was weak then he would likely end up being a bad character. So he is walking a fine line but that’s just something that will always come with the territory of being this kind of character.

He is rivals with Hoshina who is….another prodigy! Usually it is unheard of to try and fight a Kaiju without a gun but that is exactly what Hoshina does. He relies on his short blades and just tears into them. This requires him to have a great amount of speed and piercing power. A few good hits could take him out of commission permanently. It’s a high stress kind of fighting style and there are probably very few fighters who would have the sheer talent needed to support this kind of style. He does his best to train Kafka and is a good right hand man to Mina.

Hoshina tends to be very serious so the series did a good thing by pairing him up with a very talkative Kaiju. This leads to a whole lot of banter from both sides and it ends up being a fun dynamic. It’s not a dynamic that we get to have around for very long since the series is already starting to wrap up by then but it was still nice to see. Hoshina was one of the first big fighters to appear in the series and he actually remains relevant throughout the whole run.

His boss is Mina who also serves as the goal post for Kafka. She fights using a powerful sniper rifle. Her sheer amount of power means that she can effectively take out a Kaiju from any distance. It does feel like this limits her a bit in battle though because there are only so many ways you can draw her shooting at an opponent. It isn’t like a handgun where she can fire on the go. This one has her stay in one place to ready the giant gun and fire it. For this reason the final arc lets her fight without the gun briefly to remind us that she is a well rounded fighter too. Until that point though, she ends up feeling a bit one note.

While we are told continuously that she is stronger than Hoshina and most of the other characters, you just have a hard time buying into that because of how she doesn’t get to show off her physical abilities more. Either way she is a good character. She makes sure to give Kafka a hard time so that he continues to improve more and more while also always being ready to fight. She will surpass her limits in order to suppress casualties so it’s clear why she is a platoon captain.

There are some other fighters on the hero side but they don’t have fancy Kaiju weapons so they get left in the dust. For example we have Iharu who thinks of himself as Reno’s rival. It’s a nice thought but at the same time the gap between them is simply too vast. He would lose in an instant against Reno because he doesn’t have the speed to compete or even the firepower to put him down. This quickly becomes the case for all of the non Kaiju enhanced fighters. There really needed to be some way to have reduced the gap here.

On the villains side, Kaiju No. 9 may have set the bar too high. He shows up early on and remains as a big villain throughout the series. His whole existence implied a higher form of Kaiju would always be able to talk and strategize. Unfortunately that is dropped after the first 2-3 and then most of them end up being completely mindless. Yes, they have pretty cool designs and awesome powers but they aren’t actually talking. It was too bad because there was a lot of potential there. This also feels like something that the author walked back on because initially it definitely seemed to have been part of the plan. This is a series that needed to keep going to 20+ volumes.

No. 9 is cool but the kind of villain who overcomplicates things. The heroes only have around 5 fighters who can give him a real fight and of those, probably just 2 who have a chance at beating him. He should have attacked straight up with a bunch of his monsters. Alternately he could have picked them off. No. 9 has the ability to shapeshift and tends to appear out of nowhere. The heroes are rarely ever fully mobilized so all he has to do is gradually take them out. There would usually be something to prevent that from happening but no such concept exists here.

The heroes are the underdogs by a wide margin and the author put them in too much of a hole here. There are countless ways to put the heroes out of their misery and instead No. 9 decides to have them all mobilized and then splits up his own forces to get picked off. Definitely a terrible general when you really think about it. I suppose he still came close to winning but it wasn’t exactly due to his own abilities.

No. 10 was another fun villain. This guy liked a good fight and he is the one who ends up partnering with Hoshina. He has a lot of pride and basically acts like one of the humans. This is exactly what I was hoping for. A Kaiju who could hold his own and wasn’t just roaring all the time. He was also really powerful as Kafka had to go all out here. No. 10 does have the misfortune of being one of the first Kaiju to show up so you could make the case that he is technically weaker than most of the numbers. I dunno, he still felt stronger than most to me but it’s hard to scale since he had to fight Kafka directly.

Then we have No. 15 who ends up fighting Kikoru. She really stands out because now we had a Kaiju who not only had character and dialogue but one who was even being manipulated. No. 9 is constantly dangling the lure of parental respect in front of her and shifts the goal posts so that she is always having to keep on fighting. He doesn’t actually care about her and that’s obvious to the reader but No. 15 still hopes that this can somehow happen.

No. 15 then tries using mind games in Kikoru as well. The only other one we see doing that kind of thing is No. 9 himself. So 15 feels like she is really a higher ranked Kaiju and she is incredibly memorable thanks to the design as well. She is like a dark Kikoru. While the other Kaiju could not live up to that, it was at least good to have one more complex villain like this.

These are the scenes that just made you feel like the series had more meat left on the bone. We also have the whole mystery of the Kaiju that gave Kafka his powers and the ghost samurai. It is explained by the end but it’s a bit more on the lackluster side. I just feel like it was shoved into the ending instead of being a cool subplot. Additionally the ending immediately reverses on itself which almost defeats the purpose of the storyline they decided to go with for the samurai in general. The final chapters have quite a few twists to hit you fast and hard with lore so maybe one day we will get a full sequel series.

At the end of the day you shouldn’t think too hard about missed opportunities though. There are no “ifs ands or buts” when you finish a story. It’s all about what was actually on the page and I was still more than satisfied with what we got. This was a great story with solid action throughout and a lot of battles. The fundamentals were all sound. The series may not have the strongest cast or excel in the peace between action segments but that’s exactly why it focused on action so much. You should always play to your strengths.

Overall, Kaiju No. 8 is definitely a great title. While it may have ended rather quickly where you felt like there was a lot of met left on the table, it did still give us a ton of battles. The series also lasted a bit longer than you would have expected and the final fight in particular was really satisfying. Both fighters really would not relent and just kept on getting up over and over. I also liked the ending which could have easily gone sideways. Maybe one day we will get some kind of a sequel series here.

Overall 8/10

Godzilla: History’s Greatest Monster Review

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How many of you all remember Godzilla, King of the Monsters? That guy was an absolute beast and so having a comic about how he is history’s greatest monster is a pretty good idea. It’s a pretty fun comic to be sure. At first it starts off a little slow for me and I never cared too much for the humans but that climax is absolutely intense. Space Godzilla really gets his props here and it has some of the best Kaiju fights that I’ve seen. This absolutely needs to be adapted into a movie at some point.

The series introduces us to Boxer, a guy who has a ton of combat experience and now works as a bodyguard. Unfortunately he is unable to save her when Godzilla shows up and trashes the place. This is the second time that he has lost everything and so he finally cracks. He is desperate enough to call up his ex, his estranged son, and a combat buddy of his. Boxer announced the unthinkable, this rag tag group of people are going to take down all of the Kaiju of the world. Godzilla, Anguirus, Titanosaurus, etc. They’re all going down and Boxer will be charging 10 million a piece. The question isn’t if he can take down all of the Kaiju, it’s just a matter of how long will it take him to do it?

Now you might be thinking that this is absurd. Kaiju can’t lose to random humans right? Well yeah you’d be right so lets just try and suspend our disbelief for a bit. The humans have invented something called a headache ray which works on almost all of the Kaiju except for Godzilla. So what they do is they hit the Kaiju with this and then drop a building on him. That works pretty well and then a government will show up later on to take care of the body. Sure it’s unlikely that this would work in practice but the humans get a whole lot of hype here.

To the comic’s credit, it’s not like this is portrayed as a super easy task either. Often times Boxer and his crew only win out of complete luck and are usually completely out of their depths. I still have my reservations about the whole thing and think they would be dead immediately but it’s all to buy time for the real plot. Some Kaiju are attacking from outer space which leads us to the big Kaiju war in the climax. It’s definitely a super high tier climax and the kind of thing you’d love to see in the movies.

Having Monster X show up for example is epic because that’s the best incarnation of King Ghidorah. Naturally Space Godzilla is another really big one because of how mysterious he is. How is it that this guy even exists right? Depending on the continuity there can be a lot of Godzillas so they even existed before the bomb but having one from space that can fly brings up a whole lot of questions. The 3 way battle with the two Godzillas and King Ghidorah is really excellent.

By this point the humans aren’t doing much but we do get to see Mecha Godzilla get some action in during the B fights to swing things a little bit. I thought the rich American guy looked really good there to be honest. Boxer may have been mocking the guy but I would argue his plan makes more sense than Boxer’s. Yeah he lost but at least he gave it a good try as opposed to a lot of other characters who were just hiding and waiting for the inevitable. That’s not a good way to pass the time with the world at stake. Needless to say, the government looks pretty bad here.

Boxer’s final appearance is definitely pretty funny I gotta say though. I know it’s going for themes and narrative and all that fancy stuff but at the end of the day he’s just jumping straight into his doom. For a guy who always had a plan and lots of contingencies, he really just threw it all away when it counted. So much for this guy eh? Even his partners all seemed a little taken aback for a minute there. Just when they were becoming a real team too.

The explosives guy at least saved a lot of people when he checked out. The son had his big man up moment which was good but for now I’ll need to see more of him. The ex is probably the most interesting character even if the romance itself is super cliche’d and kind of annoying. You have to actively ignore it because it makes no sense with how she and Boxer keep on bashing each other.

As for the artwork, it’s not bad. I don’t generally love a lot of the styles they use for the Godzilla comics. It’s a mix of trying too hard to be realistic and gritty without being streamlined and artistic enough to really make it work. It does still service the Kaiju fights really well though. Seeing the big blue energy burst when Ghidorah knocked both Space Godzilla and Godzilla away was epic. The fights are definitely where the comic comes alive and Rodan also gets a lot of respect. I was glad to see it. People forget but Rodan is one of the top tier alphas. He can hold his own with all of these top tiers.

Overall, This climax definitely sets the tone for what I want to see in Godzilla adventures. I could do without the humans, just give me tons of big battles and lots of Kaiju around every corner. That’s absolutely the best way to do this and I admit it’ll be tough to top this one. It basically went into Final Wars territory with how many monsters were around and all of the team ups. It’s such a great theme, you could have a whole series just dedicated to the Earth Kaiju taking on the outer space ones and it would work super well. I would be there right away when my library got the collection for sure. Either way this is a must read for any Godzilla fan.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Minus One Review

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It’s time for the return of Godzilla! Japan likes to bring him back from time to time although lately we haven’t really seen any big opponents for him. This is a return to form of a more serious Godzilla film and what would happen if he really did show up. It’s a solid modern take on the Kaiju and delivers with some solid special effects. It doesn’t stand out compared to the average Godzilla film but having any Godzilla film show up is always awesome!

The movie starts with Koichi deciding to dodge his suicide bomb run and just head to an island to recharge for a bit. No way he’s dying in futility! Nobody is particularly thrilled about this but they don’t have time to convince him to be destroyed because Godzilla shows up and starts laying waste to all of them. Koichi and Tachibana are the only survivors. Tachibana escapes to parts unknown while Koichi visits his home but people are also upset at him. A suicide bomber cannot return alive, it means that they didn’t follow through. The only thing keeping Koichi together at this point is taking care of a lady named Noriko and a baby she is helping out. They are homeless after the attacks and so he lets her crash at his place. Can he redeem himself now?

A lot of the story is really about Koichi dealing with the fact that he survived and wondering if he made the right choice. He has survivor’s guilt and a whole lot of PTSD to unpack so it’s definitely not easy. I would say this also tends to be a cultural distinction here as Japan always was really big on the family honor dynamic. Koichi knows he would have died for pretty much no purpose and yet he still can’t shake the guilt because it’s what was expected of him. Defying the rules and doing your own thing is more of an American ideology and that’s where I tend to stand. To me it makes sense to keep surviving and make the rational decision without guilt but of course that’s easier said than done.

So the film keeps up this very somber tone for a long while with Koichi and it’s a bit hard to connect to. I do appreciate that he is trying to take care of Noriko though. The film can’t help but try to force a romance later on though which I thought was rather unnecessary. Having Koichi help a pure stranger out of the kindness of his heart or some kind of belief that he needed to even out the scales would have been really good. In saving her he would save himself or something like that. The romance just muddies that message a bit I’d say. At least it does take place over several years so I won’t give the usual complaint of it being rushed. It really wasn’t in this case, I just felt it didn’t really support the themes.

Noriko is a good person as well with how she takes care of the baby and everything. She also tries to move on so that she is not a bother to Koichi at all. I can appreciate that like her getting a job and everything. Her reaction times are also a lot better than Koichi’s and her instincts are sharp. She even has the best durability feat among the humans in the whole film. As a whole she is definitely a quality character, dare I say easily the best human in the film?

There are some other characters but they tend to be more on the annoying side. You have the inventor who barely knows what he is doing and who gets drunk a lot. You’ve got the young guy who is out of his depths but really wants to help. Then you have the older, more jaded guy who is ready to step up when needed. They aren’t bad but don’t do a whole lot. Tachibana was a good rival at least in that he wouldn’t let Koichi off easily but didn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of things by the end. When it was time to buckle down and do his job, he did it 100%.

Now as for Godzilla, unfortunately this is one of his weakest incarnations. That is usually going to happen when you have him up against humans though. In this case, conventional weaponry is enough to heavily damage him to the point of needing to use his regeneration. The main ships are nearly able to destroy him on their own. This Godzilla would not last for very long against someone like Orga, I can tell you that for sure. I liked the regeneration and how fast it worked, but being at the cost of his overall durability was a little unfortunate. You have to try and strike a balance of course but I don’t think this was it.

Naturally it’s all going to get a little cheesy with the humans fighting Godzilla but that’s how it goes I suppose. Whenever the power balance is drastic enough, that is going to happen. The ending actually had another cheesy event aside from Godzilla going down, but that one I was fine with. I always root for the Hollywood type ending where things go well and so this worked out really well. Why have a grim ending when you can have a happy one right? If not for that part of the ending you could argue that the costs were just way too great.

We do have a pair of cliffhangers at the end of the movie. We know most likely they will never be followed up on but I still appreciate having them in there. It’s an ending that reminds you just how doomed everyone is going to be in the future. Humanity has no idea what they have just gotten themselves into! It’s also a very realistic human setting so the odds of building some kind of Mecha Godzilla this time feel very remote.

The soundtrack is all right. The standout is definitely when they play the main Godzilla theme from the good ole days. None of the other tracks were nearly as intense. Godzilla’s new roar isn’t bad although I prefer the original one. The design itself is definitely solid on all accounts though. The Atomic Breath may take a little too long to fire and recharge but these nerfs were likely necessary to give the humans a fighting chance and even then they feel super outmatched anyway.

The writing was solid in the film and I appreciate that there is a lot going on. The graphics are definitely good all around. In general it’s just not quite as fast paced as the average Godzilla film though. It’s hard to go back to the days of not having an opponent Kaiju. Shin Godzilla did that to better effect with all of the humor throughout the film and poking fun at how everything needs a meeting. This one was going for a much more somber tone which was never really going to work out quite as well. It’s just tough to really pull that off in general but thanks to Godzilla the film is still pretty solid.

Overall, Godzilla Minus One is a pretty good film. It may not reach the usual Godzilla standard at times but that’s because they were trying to lean a bit more on the humans here. I don’t think that plot ever becomes super compelling as Godzilla steals the show without appearing for a while. So you’re left just wanting Godzilla to appear every time even when the humans are supposed to be dominating and it’s hard to really balance both ends. Still, I definitely recommend checking this one out as soon as possible. It’s not every day that we have a Godzilla film!

Overall 7/10

Kaiju No. 8: B-Side Review

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It’s time for a Kaiju No. 8 spinoff that lasted for a little while. Miniseries like this are always fun to flesh out the side characters with material that we never got to see in the main title. It’s a good idea and I think more manga should do this. I would have liked it to have been longer if anything, but we still got to see 3 different characters and their origins which was fun. They picked really solid characters to do this with. I guess at this point there are just 3 more that I would like to see a full prequel with. Captain Ashiro, and then both of Kikoru’s parents. Maybe someday though.

The first story is the origin for Hoshino. All his life he has trained in the ways of the sword but the problem is that this is seen as very ineffective against Kaiju nowadays. Most of them are just too large so the sword won’t pierce and even for the smaller ones, it seems a lot more efficient to just mow them down with a machine gun. Hoshino really wants to stick to the sword though, that has been his family legacy after all. Finally he is being given a chance by Captain Ashiro. Can he live up to her hopes or is he about to just doom his chances of ever being a true Kaiju hunter?

It’s definitely fun to see Hoshino in the old days and he already had great speed and ability. Honestly I never thought the series made a good case for why guns beat swords. The gun blasts vary based on how much power you can get out of the suit and the way I see it, almost nobody can get a reasonable amount of power out of the suit. So in that case, it ends up feeling like they’re just spinning their wheels there. It’s not a great long term approach at all. So if everyone had swords, at least they could stab into the Kaiju because the power of the suit won’t limit the sword as much as it would a gun. Maybe there are more reasons for not using swords though.

Either way Ashiro made a wise decision in picking Hoshino for her team. He has definitely proven himself a whole lot and he really did good against the Kaiju fighters in the first story. He would go on to consistently be one of the best characters in the series. Following him up would be a tough choice but the series went with Kikoru which makes sense. She is also a prodigy after all. In this case we already know her origin from the main series though so what would the story be about?

The title decides to show us how she ended up picking out her custom weapon. Her normal weapon wasn’t strong enough to pierce the armor of the Kaiju that she was up against in the training exercises so she grabbed an axe and then the rest was history. You could tell that the writer was a little more constrained with this character since we see her a lot in the main story but this was a smart way to get us some more fights and everything. It’s definitely much smaller scale than the first story with the stakes not being as large but it was satisfying to see her rise up to the top.

The Kaiju corp is definitely lucky to have so many prodigies on the team. In some ways it’s why the series reminds me of World Trigger because the heroes have so many different hype characters on the roster. They just keep on coming and so you’d think the enemies might be in a bad spot but fortunately for them, they have a lot of strong fighters too. If they had actually made a move before the heroes grew so powerful, it would probably be curtains by now.

Finally the last story is about Gen and how he was recruited. The guy started out as a…guess what…a huge prodigy! As a kid without a suit he was already powerful enough to take down some of the smaller Kaiju on his own. Mix in the Kaiju suit and now he was basically unstoppable. This guy has the special kaiju eye implants that can let him detect future attacks. So mix that in with his relentless training/ability and he is one of the strongest in the series. I dare say that he easily surpasses both Hoshina and Kikoru in skill. I’d like to see a quick story with a rivalry between those 3 characters to be honest. That would have been a fun way to finish up the series as a bonus story of sorts.

Ultimately I suppose the point of the series is to hype up the main one and get more readers on it. It does a good job with that as each chapter ends with a flash forward to the main series as everyone gets hyped to take on the Kaiju. The monsters don’t stand a chance against the combined might of human ingenuity! The art is definitely really high tier and holds its own with the main series. All of the action scenes are drawn really well and the villains are definitely very imposing. Of course this is before we got to the intelligent Kaiju so they’re basically just classic monsters but the designs are really good.

This is a rare example of an anthology where I liked all of the characters/stories. Usually in formats like this, there will always be at least one that holds the others back but this wasn’t the case here. I guess it goes to show how solid the cast is for the series. Kaiju No 8 has a very small cast of notable characters next to other titles but that’s probably a good thing in this case. It allows each one to stand out way more than they ever would have if they tried introducing too many characters. Still, like I said before there are some other characters around if they want to go and start working on those in another anthology spinoff.


Overall, All 3 stories were really good. The series was really a bunch of nonstop action scenes across the 3 leads which worked perfectly for this one. That’s why you are reading Kaiju No 8 after all. You’re here for all of the fights and the intrigue. The series never holds back on this. The art is still really solid and so this is a must read for any fan of the franchise. Even if you don’t read Kaiju No 8 this works as a solid jumping on point. Then if you enjoyed this prequel, you can jump into the main story right away. That’s a good way to handle things.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Library Collection Volume 2 Review

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It’s time for a big Godzilla comic collection. Let me tell you something, this one brings a whole lot of issues. I would expect nothing less since it is a whole library collection though. It brings the full 12 issue Kingdom of Monsters series. In this one, the world is attacked by Kaiju and quickly begins to fold. We have several plots ongoing in this one. There’s a soldier who befriends a child whose parents were eaten by Kaiju. He vows to get her to safety. Then you have the President of the USA who is worried about his poll numbers and doesn’t know how this situation should play out. Of course there are a lot of different Kaiju attacking the planet as well. Godzilla may end up saving the planet or perhaps he is just going to murder everyone. At the moment it sure feels like it could go either way for a bunch of the characters.

Right off the bat you can tell that this series is having a bit of fun with everything. Almost every character is sarcastic and there is a lot of witty banter going on. Every character has something to say and they aren’t about to wait until the right time to say it. They’re just going to go and say their piece. Right away you can see how you are rooting for the Kaiju to end humanity. There’s no reason for the humans’ continued existence. It would be better to be reset through history and perhaps some day humanity will deserve the planet again.

I should let you know right now that there is a cliffhanger here so the series doesn’t end as completely as you might expect. It’s a pretty hype way to end the comic though so I was on board with that. Throughout the comic you see how everything is being completely destroyed and you might be wondering how the humans will rebuild and come back from this. Well, now you’ve got something to wonder about for afterwards. I’m guessing for the writers it was less interesting to think about the fallout and recovery so they wanted to keep every reader focused on the battles.

I get it, that is the most fun part. Also, it’s not like there’s a whole lot of humanity left by the end of the comic. So many people die left and right on every Kaiju battlefield. There’s no shortage of casualties to be found. The best of the subplots was probably with the soldier. This is where we see just how villainous all of the desperate people are. Now that food and water are scarce, they’ve all devolved into picking fights and trying to murder any other human they come across. Fortunately the soldier is strong and he does a terrific job of protecting the kid the whole time. He deserves a ton of credit for that since it’s not an easy task by any means. When you are surrounded by monsters and evil humans at every turn, it would be real tempting to run off on your own to survive.

Instead the soldier takes the hero call and helps her out. Along the way he even figures out how to pilot Mecha Godzilla and holds his own really well in a big Kaiju fight that starts. So that was a pretty fun subplot and I always looked forward to seeing it. I really liked the President stuff as well but those scenes were a lot more rare. In general the dialogue should have you laughing a lot at just how petty all of the characters are. They’re all rather unlikable to be sure to the point where the comics almost feel like a parody after a while but it’s a parody that works really well. As long as you are funny then you are good.

Of course, we all know why we’re really here. We’re here for Godzilla! Godzilla and all of the big Kaiju fights that naturally appear when you have this many Kaiju running around. The fights are definitely as good as you would expect. I had a lot of fun with them and you definitely see how Godzilla is known as the strongest here. He has a tough time with some of the Kaiju, usually because they land a cheap shot or gang up on him. One on one though? Always bet on the King of the Monsters without a doubt.

One thing that keeps the series from going further up though is that it doesn’t really do anything you haven’t seen before. The comic is a take on what would happen to the real world if Kaiju suddenly appeared and started terrorizing everyone. I get it, everyone wants to take a crack at that because the initial confrontation is always a lot of fun. People like seeing the origin but after a while I would argue that it is time to try a few different directions. While I didn’t care much for the pirate or Greek stories about Godzilla time travelling, it was a different direction. Lets have a story where Godzilla warps to the future and has to deal with a more advanced army. Maybe a story where he is stranded on an island filled with tons of monsters and has to get out. May sound a bit like Godzilla in Hell but you could do some things to differentiate it without a doubt.

I guess some credit I should give it here though is some of the human reactions. A lot of times in a story like this you typically have all of the humans panicking about these crazy giant monsters running around and all that. I get it but I think in real life you’ll have a lot of people who think its a hoax, others who think the Kaiju is friendly, and others who go about life as normal. This comic did a good job of getting a bunch of varied reactions from everyone. Even if some of these were used for comedic purposes, I actually think it was pretty realistic and more likely how people would react. Nowadays people are jaded enough where the craziest things ever could be happening and you’ll still have some people memeing and having fun. It’s just how it is.

Overall, Godzilla Library Collection Volume 2 is a lot of fun. I’m always up for more Godzilla comics and right now there are technically still a ton of issues I have not read from a bunch of different titles. At least now I can scratch this one off the list. It was not really doing much out of the ordinary so I don’t think it will rise up as one of the top ones but it was still good. For the next Godzilla comic I will hope for slightly stronger art and maybe a more unique plot. How have we not had some kind of big Kaiju tournament yet? That would be a lot of fun and is an example of a classic scenario that you could do well with.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons Review

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I’ve always been a massive Godzilla fan ready to see who he will vanquish next. I tend to really prefer the stories of him defeating other Kaiju but the stories involving the government can work well enough. Unfortunately this one goes all in on him just stomping around and not doing much of anything since the story is a story within a story. For the first time I would say that this is a Godzilla comic that I …didn’t like.

The story starts off with a pirate about to be executed. He knows that he has to do something quickly and so he informs the guards that he knows of a conspiracy that even involves the queen of England. This is considered blasphemy because he is in England so they get ready to take him down but then a high ranking government agent shows up. He explains that they have to listen to this and the prisoner will regret it if the story is fake. So the pirate begins his yarn about a giant Kaiju known as Godzilla and other monsters that walk the lands. He has actually gotten to see them and lived to tell the tale. Pretty spooky eh?

Lots of problems here right off the bat of course. For starters, the entire comic follows this story format. It’s not even in the style of a true flashback where I can just forget about the current plot and enjoy the story. No, it’s constantly told through through narration so it’s never actually happening live. This is a framing device that I really don’t like. It means there really isn’t a story. The comic is about someone talking about stuff to a few people and that’s it. So nothing happens live, the fights aren’t fully there and it just ends up being rather boring.

At least whenever Godzilla is on screen I enjoyed seeing him roar and stuff but I really could not care less about the pirates stuff. There’s some in fights with different gangs and everything….but is that the best that they can do? It’s just so very dull and since you figure the pirate is an unreliable narrator at best, you don’t know how much you can even try to get engaged with all of this. I want to say I can see where the author was going with this but it was definitely not the right direction and ended up backfiring big time.

There is only one interesting part of this comic and it’s the very last page. It works pretty well as a twist and cliffhanger. This is a plot thread that I would actually like to dive into because there is a lot of potential here. It means no more flashbacks though. I want to see what is happening in real time like a classic comic. If that can be pulled off then we can work in a lot of espionage and political drama in a sequel. Seriously I don’t think that would be hard and the sky’s really the limit from there. That would be so incredibly hype! But of course lets not get our hopes up for now. Rather than banking on the sequel to be good after this, I would rather place my hopes in a brand new Godzilla comic with a new setting and everything.

In general pirates don’t add much to the Godzilla lore. In fact, I don’t see them as a selling point at all. It’s not like they can hope to fight the King of the Monsters, instead they would just get absolutely crushed. It’s not going to be all that entertaining to just see Godzilla step on them over and over and over again. That’s not a true cinematic experience. Instead what we need is to see Godzilla absolutely devastate every opponent in his path. That would be something to write home about without a doubt.

But yeah there’s not much more to say here. At the end of the day the story is just really boring and that’s the biggest taboo you can have for a comic. Even seeing the cameos from the other Kaiju couldn’t really save it. This barely feels like a Godzilla comic so much as it’s a pirate story that happens to feature him. I was definitely disappointed here and the artwork isn’t anything to write home about either. The art is okay so I’m not going to say that it’s awful or anything but it doesn’t touch a lot of the other stories. What I can say is that the comic ends very quickly at least even with all of the dialogue.

Overall, Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons really made history because it’s the first time that I’m giving a downright negative score to the Kaiju. In general I haven’t given many comics a negative score either so it’s super rare. This one just made every kind of mistake possible. Seriously it’s just not fun and that’s a massive L to take at any point here. I want to have a good time and for that I need a story and some fights. It has to actually be happening though and not someone telling me how hype the whole thing was. So yeah…..this was not the way to go.

Overall 4/10

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review

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All right it’s time for the next film in the Monsterverse and you can bet that this is going to be a really intense one. Seeing Godzilla and King Kong take the stage again is definitely a lot of fun. The movie delivers on the action and while I would like to have seen Godzilla more, he does get several fights and shows up early so I’ll give the title credit there.

The movie starts off with King Kong running away from a bunch of creatures. He may be the King of this realm but even that has its limits when the numbers disadvantage is drastic enough. Fortunately his traps are enough to stop them and he continues his quest to find other members of his race. He does end up finding a bunch of them but unfortunately they are being led by the Skar King who has the help of a powerful monster known as Shimo. King Kong can’t handle these fighters on his own…it’s time to call in Godzilla.

A good portion of the film is really about setting up the team-up. You have Godzilla travelling across the world and destroying a bunch of Titans in order to stock up his power for the mission. Meanwhile King Kong actually takes a while to meet up with the Skar King as he first defeats a ton of opponents and bonds with one of the smaller creatures. Think of that one as a King Kong Jr in a way. I like the concept of the team-up a lot and my only issue with it is the lack of threat from the villains but more on that later. There is something really hype about seeing Godzilla gearing up like that.

Right up through the into of the hyped Skar King is really intense there. You’re ready for this and he’s even got a throne. From there though….the Skar King’s not a joke by any means but he’s not a final boss. The film makes it clear that he is weaker than King Kong and many times weaker than Godzilla. He would be lucky to last more than a minute against Godzilla and while he can so marginally better against King Kong, he would be taken down in short order. I like his design and fighting style though, they are both excellent but that’s all he has going for him.

Meanwhile Shimo has a really cool design but I’m afraid things aren’t looking good for her either. She seems to be stronger than King Kong by a good margin but still not a complete match for Godzilla. Still, it’s at least closer, my main problem is how she takes orders. I just don’t see this happening to one of the Alphas who would sooner die in resistance. I’d like to see more of Shimo in the future but yeah this film’s main weak point is that you never feel like Godzilla is in danger. Yeah King Kong is, but we need Godzilla to be pushed to his limits too unless you just keep him for the final climax or something.

Now you may be wondering, what about the humans? Well the humans are okay. You’re mostly waiting for them to get off the screen so you can have fun with the Kaiju though. The main plot is about Dr. Ilene’s daughter Jia to start seeing visions about Kaiju and some kind of a message. She hasn’t been fitting well into school anyway so she gets to go on a trip to the Hollow Earth to see what is going on. Jia’s a nice enough character, she means well and does help out a bit.

I’m not really a fan of Ilene though. The fact that she allowed Bernie to get railroaded by corporate despite helping save the world is pretty harsh. I thought that she looked really bad there and I wouldn’t trust her if I was Bernie. Bernie is easily the most likable member of the main cast and his humor moments tend to land the most. At times he can cross the line into being rather cringy and annoying though. Then you have Trapper who is the only one with absolute confidence at all times. I liked seeing him think of different ways to help out and he was always creative.

So the humans as a whole weren’t bad. The writing wasn’t always great but I’ve seen much worse. It can just drain a lot of time, it felt like their plot would just keep on going long past when you figure you’ve got the point of what they were talking about. I would argue King Kong also has a bit too much screen time of just walking around with Kid Kong. I wanted the big action set pieces you know, not the adventure. Also some of his kills against the local creatures were a bit much. I know they’re technically monsters but they did look rather like animals so that was a little dicey. Basically the King Kong survival moments didn’t really help the film go further.

Ultimately I would say it lost to the original Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla: King of the Monster films for that reason. Still, this is starting to sound negative so lets go back into the positives real quick. First up, the Kaiju designs here are all great. We’re finally talking S rank fighters here. I liked the spider a lot, the underwater Kaiju, etc. Each of Godzilla’s opponents were fun to watch. They were strong but nowhere near his level. This is why Godzilla is King of the Monsters. The difference is made very apparent when nobody wants to challenge Godzilla while everyone is trying to test King Kong.

One annoying thing about Godzilla being this powerful though is that the film has to constantly make him miss with the atomic breath. After all the fight would be over the instant he scores a direct hit on any of the enemies. Then the film acknowledges his Atomic Wave attack but he conveniently doesn’t use it in any of the big battles because it would end the movie. So I admire the attempt to try and keep this even but we all know Godzilla would have stomped everyone in this film. It’s why I thought it was a bit of a stretch how Shimo kept ducking him and landing sneak attacks on Kong. I don’t know about that but Godzilla’s strength was respected and I always like that.

The film does have a bit of an odd plot point with Godzilla being drawn to a signal the whole film and gearing up but by the end of the film some characters think he wasn’t going to make it. The simplest solution if you ask me is that the researchers were wrong and Godzilla was on the way. I can buy into that, particularly since in the last film we saw how he knows how to get to the Hollow Earth by just blasting into the ground. So that’s how I would answer that at least.

I’m surprised the government hasn’t made another Kaiju of their own yet. Mecha Godzilla did very well after all and they should be able to reverse engineer the specs at some point. It might have made things cluttered but it’s time to see the army do something different. I felt like chuckling when they sent some plans to go and take down Godzilla. I mean, are you kidding me?? It goes without saying that the special effects are excellent here. I also thought the soundtrack was good. I’d have liked some electronic type tunes like Godzilla Final Wars but I’ll take what we can get here.

The film delivers on the team up and I’d argue the final fight already makes the whole experience work pretty well. It’s an excellent spectacle and the decision to have the fight be in the real world was a great idea. In the Hollow Earth things tend to be a lot bigger so you can’t always appreciate the scale while in the real world you get to see everything get destroyed.

While this can sound like a bit of a diss, the film is really playing to its strengths when there is a lot of destruction on screen. I’m really here for the Kaiju fights and those go really hard. I could easily watch 2 hours of the Kaiju just fighting among each other. It’s incredibly entertaining and just great at all times. I’m definitely ready to see what they do for the next film in this series. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for it.

Overall, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a pretty good film. All it would have needed to cross the threshold into great territory would have been to have one of the enemies actually be powerful relative to Godzilla. You feel like Godzilla would beat them 2 on 1, much less when he has King Kong at the ready. There are a lot of fun easter eggs to the series and you even get to see an unexpected character. So that was great and it also shows that there are a lot of elements already ready for that future film. I think it’s time for a Destroy All Monsters adaption with Destoroyah as the final boss now.

Overall 7/10

Skull Island: Rise of Kong Review

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It’s time that we sat down and had a serious conversation about this game. It’s been getting grilled in the reviews and destroyed online for the poor looking graphics and short run time. Just how bad is it though? Ultimately I ended up pre ordering this game and while I can confirm that it’s not worth the full price..it’s not a bad game. It manages to do enough things right to stay in the middle and honestly that’s not the worst spot to be in. It’s a game that will constantly keep you guessing and wondering just what is going on.

The game starts off on a rather emotional note as a giant dinosaur appears and murders King Kong’s parents. Yes King Kong’s got his superhero origin in this game. He manages to survive in the wild but it’s not an easy journey and the narrator even notes that he grew up in fear. Many years pass and now King Kong is old enough to defend himself. He aims to turn Skull Island upside down until he finds this dinosaur and has his revenge. One Shall Stand….One Shall Fall! Nobody is getting in the way of this monstrous fighter.

I respect the attempt at the story here. There is actual voice acting and a serious story going on. While that may sound a bit condescending, I wasn’t expecting either to be honest. So that’s a nice little tough. The game is still way too short as some have beaten it in under 3 hours but granted I got lost so many times it was more like 6-7 for me. So the length is there even if it is for the wrong reasons. Also if we’re being honest it still should have been at least 10 hours.

The game has 5 levels with the first level easily being the longest one. I want to say it takes up at least half of the game and in part that is because you are still learning all of the attacks at this point. You’re trying to figure out how to navigate through the game since the map is completely broken. I’m not sure if I got hit with a glitch or something but the map never shows where you are. So it is completely pointless and even for this game I just don’t see how that’s possible. So either I’m missing something, I’m overrating the game, or it’s a glitch.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter because I got hit with glitches 3-4 times where I had to reset the game. There was really not a lot of quality testing on this one. I can also confirm that the graphics really are awful. There was no real time or effort put into these. I’ve certainly seen worse of course but for a PS4 game you really are expecting a whole lot better. You may enjoy it in an ironic sense since that can make the whole thing a little on the humorous side but in a way you can say that’s just coping by that point. Deep down we all wanted top notch graphics here or at least something solid. There’s not much of a soundtrack either.

What the game does well is the combat. It’s nothing fancy I’ll grant you that but it’s a classic beat em up where you stomp a bunch of enemies. There is no EXP system though which means there is no incentive to fight the minions. As a result I recommend skipping literally every optional minion. There are times where you have to beat a few to complete a mandatory challenge but outside of that don’t give them the time of day. There’s seriously just no benefit or reason to beat them. Not to mention that they endlessly spawn anyway.

You can cheese the gameplay a lot as well. Your roll stun locks an enemy so the trick I found is to roll, land 3 hits, then roll again, 3 hits, etc. Outside of bosses this will take out any minion without you getting hit. Now the bosses can be a little tough for sure and may take you some attempts. Best thing is to just try and hit them as fast as possible. There is rarely a lot of strategy that you have to use and I wouldn’t even try to make big plans. The camera angles will likely mess you up if you try anything too intricate so you want to be careful about that. Just go in and smash stuff, trust me it works pretty well.

King Kong himself feels pretty out of character. I get why the underdog story is appealing for a lot of characters but that’s never been King Kong’s thing so it feels really forced here. Personally I would have just kept him as a pure threat the whole time. You can still have his parents get bumped off as it’s well established that Kong is the last of his race but make him look tough or put up a fight and lose in the intro. Then the rest of the game is his quest to avenge them. Immediately it’s a much more compelling story right?

Overall, King Kong is a game that surprisingly will not be forgotten because of just how bad the rep is. Make no mistake this is not a good game but it’s not as awful as you may be thinking. Personally I recommend giving it a shot when the game inevitably drops down to the $5 bargain bin. Once that happens then there isn’t really a downside to giving it a chance right? You can at least see the potential while playing through the game even if the awful level designs and lack of a map hold it back. It’s too bad that this will likely send the King Kong game franchise back at least 50 years. You never forget the rep of a title like this.

Overall 5/10

The X from Outer Space Review

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It’s time for a classic Kaiju film from way back in the day. I do have to admit that I was not very familiar with it but hey that happens. After watching it, it definitely does deliver on the Kaiju action but the human plot is particularly weak even compared to normal. You really don’t care about these guys and the random love triangle going on. It takes forever for Guilala to appear but once the monster does show up then things start to get real interesting. Get ready for a lot of buildings to be destroyed!

So the movie starts with a space crew heading off into space. Unfortunately their doctor gets sick so he has to be replaced with another one who is really not happy about being up here and makes this clear from the jump. Previous expeditions continue to disappear with all of the crew members dying but it’s unknown why that is happening. Well it turns out that there is some kind of tractor beam and an odd sponge/spore type object here. The heroes end up bringing this back to Earth and unfortunately it ends up being a massively powerful Kaiju that is determined to destroy the planet. They must find a way to reverse these effects or its all over!

While I mention Guilala in the summary that is still fairly deep into the film even though I mention it now. I like the deign a lot and Guilala seems to have a lot of powers but they are too much for the budget. For example at one point he starts glowing blue as if this guy thinks he’s Godzilla but then nothing happens. I do like the reaction times of plucking jets out of the sky even if they shouldn’t have been so low to begin with. Don’t underestimate the power of a Kaiju after all. Guilala is definitely the highlight of the film though.

Back to the humans though, so we have the weak romance going on. Sano is a guy in high demand as the local correspondent from Earth is in love with him as well as a new astronaut who is on the mission. It seems like Sano and the first girl are semi official but it’s hard to really know this for sure. She has a picture of him on her desk after all but it could just be her being possessive. During the first call to Earth the new girl makes sure to be extra clingy with Sano so the first girl quickly gets an attitude and gives off the silent treatment.

It all feels a bit unreasonable because Sano was actually doing really well on the ship. He refused the second girl’s offer to dance and basically dodged all of her flirting attempts. I don’t see how he could have handled it any better short of constantly talking about how he was in love with the first girl which would have been a bit tacky. Ultimately the astronaut gets the hint and near the end of the film it’s played off as a really sad moment. Look romance can be tragic, the person you like won’t always like you back but you just gotta buckle up and keep it moving. Don’t be desperate, don’t try too hard, and just move on.

All that being said, Sano is the only one who came out of this looking good. The second girl was moving way too fast and the first one was just way too insecure. She never actually made a move to talk to Sano about this or discuss rationally. Instead she just became super upset for no reason. If she is going to fly off the handle that much when any girl talks to Sano then I suspect this will be a pretty rough romance going forward.

As for the doctor who didn’t want to be on the mission, I think the idea of the character is good. I’d like to see this guy complaining constantly and bringing everyone down but his role is rather minimal so he doesn’t end up actually doing a lot. His role could and should have been a whole lot bigger. I guess he had the one moment where he cracked and ran for the controls at least….it’ll have to do.

Meanwhile the sense of distance was a bit odd here. So the whole mission is super dangerous and stuff because you have to go deep into space where people keep vanishing right? Well at one point they run out of fuel…so the main heroine flies in from the base with the extra fuel. She gets there in a matter of minutes but we could say it was hours in real time. Either way it seems like it was absolutely trivial to get to where the main characters were in space so how does that make any sense? It’s just a bit odd if you ask me.

The whole film I wouldn’t say is thought out all that well which is why the Kaiju is what is saving it the whole time. Without the Kaiju this film would have just ended up being boring. At least this way there was something to keep you engaged even if there could be some recycled animation at times. There wasn’t a whole lot of monster footage but it was a decent start. The effects of the Kaiju deforming were pretty good at least.

Overall, Creature X isn’t nearly as good as it could have been but I would still say it was fun enough. I had a good time watching the film even if I was taking shots the whole time. It’s an easy film to poke fun at for all of the missed opportunities and such. At the same time the Kaiju is still cool and while the characters aren’t good, the film avoids making any big mistakes. It’s short enough where even the poor pacing of the first half won’t hurt the replay value too much. I could watch this one again even if there is not much point as long as the main Godzilla films exist which absolutely crush this one.

Overall 6/10

Gamera Rebirth Review

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After all these years Gamera has finally returned to take names and show everyone why he is known as one of the all time powerful Kaiju. From the start this was being marketed as a show where there would be a Kaiju battle in every episode which was a really good thing. There are a whole lot of green flags to be found here. Ultimately it is a good show…but I would say one with fairly extensive issues keeping it from being a great title.

The show is only 6 episodes long but each one is double length so that helps. We kick things off with a trio of kids, Boco, Junichi, and Joe. They’ve been friends for a long while but Boco is worried that they may drift apart after summer vacation ends so he wants to build a communication device. It’s nearly finished when the trio are attacked by a bully named Brody who beats them up severely and steals all their money. The heroes want revenge but then the kaiju known as Gyaos attacks and before you know it all of the kids are wrapped up in some kind of massive government project. Will they ever be able to go back to the simple days of just being kids?

Right off the bat I can tell you that giving the kids such a big role was a mistake. They are the weakest part of the show and take up so much screentime that you can’t get around them. You’re supposed to sympathize with the kids on their trials and gradually see how they can even teach the adults a few lessons. Instead you just find them annoying. The only interesting thing about then comes in the 5th episode. It was hinted at earlier but that’s where we get the answers and even by then you’d prefer it was handled differently.

As the main character Boco can be a bit too emotional. He is pro Gamera all the way which actually isn’t bad but he gets rather intense about this to the point where he won’t hear any other sides of the argument. He blows up at Joe pretty much unprompted which was unfortunate. Their friendship was so tight and yet he was willing to ruin it like that. I’m glad he wanted to stick up for himself near the beginning but ultimately what that would have most likely have done was just get them all murdered.

Junichi is the smart one of the group and she’s always ready to come up with a plan. So for the most part she’s solid but then also starts to get emotional and lose perspective near the end. She definitely didn’t handle some of the twists very well. I would say the only kid who was pretty solid the whole time was Joe. He tries to watch over the other two as best as he can but it’s not an easy job. He ends up getting badly beaten for his efforts but I like that he always tries. He easily had the most heart out of the group and was willing to do whatever it took to save the day. That’s the kind of hero you want to see.

Then you have Brody and well the guy starts out as a big bully beating up literal kids for their money. Sure he’s a kid too but definitely older than the others. Gradually he realizes that this isn’t good and calms down to the point where he ends up being the reasonable one at times like when talking to Boco. I think they all got used to him a little too quickly considering how they met though. You’d think they would hold a grudge for a while after that.

What about the adults? Well there are two main ones. The first is James, a guy who reluctantly works for the foundation. He makes it clear from the start that he is after his own interests and the company doesn’t really care. My main problem with this guy is he talks so tough and is constantly postering but always falls down when the going gets tough. He looks horrible in episode 3 and from there on he definitely never really does great. The guy is emotionally manipulated and constantly outsmarted. I also don’t trust that he would make the right call in the end. While he plays off the hero card near the end, it’s only because a very specific event happened.

Otherwise I think he’d have been totally find still being a villain stooge all the way to the end. He was willing to abandon the kids more than once and is generally not a good guy. Now that could work if you put him as the villain the whole time but he’s not really portrayed as the villain either. The janky animation does end up giving him a lot of fun facial expressions but that’s not exactly going to save the character.

The best human by far is Emiko and she really has no competition. She has a really solid drive and is determined to get to her goal no matter what. I like the resilience she has and it’s this kind of single minded motivation that you would usually just see in the main character. I wouldn’t have minded if the show made her the main character instead of the others. She could absolutely pull it off, I have no doubts about that at all. She gets a lot of great moments near the end.

Now in terms of the animation, it’s definitely on the sub par side. The humans don’t look great and all of the movements are really stiff. Nobody walks normally and it’s like these are pre rendered models for a video game that can’t actually move freely. It’s just a bit bizarre and reminds you why it should have been hand drawn. I will say at least that the kaiju scenes are really solid though. I like all of the energy blasts and there is good movement there. In particular the best fight was easily with Guiron. That guy could really jump and he dished out a lot of serious damage to Gamera the whole time. The guy earned his rep of being an immensely powerful Kaiju. Gamera very nearly lost that fight.

The soundtrack is mostly forgettable but I do appreciate that the show has a real theme song. The ending theme is also really solid and I like Gamera’s main theme. So that’s 3 good themes and since the show is only 6 episodes long anyway, I’d consider that to be a success. The technicals here were on point when it counted even if again the animation could have been a little better.

The writing is definitely more on the weak side. Giving Joe a potty mouth was definitely a really odd decision considering that he’s still a kid. Probably 90% of the swearing tends to come from him. I guess it’s to show us how serious business the show is but really? I do appreciate the show’s restraint in the fight scenes though. Initially I was expecting tons of blood and viciousness in the fights to show us how intense Gamera is but for the most part the fights are still stylized and using a lot of energy blasts. It can get a little violent at times but never super over the top and out of line or anything like that.

Gamera definitely looks impressive throughout when you consider that he is fighting all of these Kaiju back to back with minimal time to heal. For example in one fight he loses an arm so then for the rest of the fights he still doesn’t have it back. There’s good consistency there and you can tell that even for a Kaiju at his level there is only so much durability/stamina that he has. At full power I don’t think that any of these Kaiju would be doing a whole lot to him. He has a lot of attacks at his disposal like the fire blasts and spinning while in the shell. It’s always real fun to see him fight.

Gyaos is also a really fun Kaiju here. His moveset may be a bit more simple but he’s always been an iconic Gamera villain so I was glad to see him get his shine. He really does well against the government too. Then there’s Jiger who is still the most forgettable Gamera villain. She’s strong sure but there’s just not a whole lot to her. There’s nothing iconic compared to say Guiron. Guiron is awesome because his design is fantastic and then his whole fighting style is built around the design. If that’s not hype then I don’t know what is! Viras and Zigra are also fun to have around.

In general it’s a great showcase of most of the big Gamera villains. It would be nice to see Legion and Irys of course but I can see why they are mostly focusing on the older villains for max nostalgia. The show tends to be at its best with the fights and in the early episodes I’d have loved to focus on just that and not the kids. Now the plot really gets going in episode 5 though and that’s when the human stuff got really interesting. I was half expecting Ultraman and Godzilla to show up with all the twists we were seeing. The show just made the universe 100X more interesting in a flash.

Unfortunately episode 6 opts to close some of these plot lines rather quickly which is a shame because that had a lot of potential for season 2. There is still an after credits scene so make sure you watch that. It is a big plot line for season 2 and I liked the scene but I would have kept my options open a little more. I really wanted the moon plot to continue and there were a ton of possibilities with different groups going at it. You can always add more of course but I think this show left a lot of meat on the bone. It should have leaned a lot harder into the mystery angle of the show and less on the kids growing up and trying to be helpful.

Overall, Gamera Rebirth is definitely a good show but one that is heavily held back by the kids. Their scenes can be rather brutal or boring might be a better phrase there. You would just be waiting for them to leave already and their massive amounts of screentime remove most of the replay value out of this show. You’d probably just want to fast forward to the Kaiju battles each time. It’s too bad because the adults tend to have a very interesting subplot going. I was interested in hearing what they were planning at least and learning more about the Kaiju. There’s a pretty interesting backstory here and again episode 5 adds a whole lot of intrigue and different things to think about. It just takes a little long to get there but if you like Kaiju action then you should not miss this one. It’s not like we get a ton of Kaiju shows out there after all so you want to enjoy them while you can.

Overall 6/10