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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:4903#628] | ||||||
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(Six episode watched): What we get for our first episode is an 'extra episode' entitled 'Hoshina's Day Off' (I noticed that Hoshina was listed as one of the four principal characters of this series at the ANN page). This episode re-familiarizes us with the staff of the Third Division in a whimsical manner. There's a typical misunderstanding which causes the troopers of the Division to jump to the conclusion that their leader, Hoshina, is engaging in fraud during his time off but of course the truth is the total opposite. Eh, I hope the regular episodes are more engaging than this special one, because it was pretty predictable and didn't make me LOL at all. A fight with a Kaiju seems the be brewing at the end of the episode. Of course the big problem is that Boss Kaiju we saw during the first season which is as intelligent and can take on the form of a human. But it's good to see that this fun show is back at last, and I'll certainly be watching it in its entirety. The story gets seriously started with 'episode 13' which, to my relief, felt much more like season one. The newly trained class of Kaiju fighters gets split up and sent to different units across Japan. Blond Kikoru Shinomiya gets sent to the elite 1st Division, which she finds has a leader, General Narumi, who is brilliant in combat (we see it in a fight with a Godzilla-like Kaiju called 'Diclonious') but laughable outside of it. I found it difficult to take this guy's personality seriously; it felt like a cheap rather than clever joke. Shinomiya finds that actually one of her classmates has also been assigned to the first division: Kafka Hibino, AKA Kaiju #8. Kafka is warned that he had better contribute mightily to the unit or else Narumi himself will kill him. And Kaiju #9 briefly appears. So, much more fun than that extra episode. In episode 14 a major attack of ant-like Kaiju occurs. The higher-ups watch closely to see what Kafka can do--but for some reason he can't transform into Kaiju #8. And it turns out that the attack was staged by Kaiju #9 to draw him out and kill him, which looks likely to happen. Shinomiya fights fiercely to compensate as Kafka tries to figure out what's wrong. The episode ends with a little omake segment hosted by Hoshina. In episode 15 we learn that Shinomiya's mother was once a popular hero of the anti-Kaijuu force herself until she was killed in action. Together she and Kafka figure out that #9 is somehow jamming his attempts to transform into #8, and they figure out how to get around this. But he's still one step ahead of them and though Kafka beats him in episode six it turns out he didn't actually beat him (don't ask me to explain exactly how this worked) and #9 is now taking on Shinomiya's father, Isao, the commander-in-chief of the anti-Kaiju forces. Isao fights heroically and sacrificially to save his staff. Last updated Wednesday, August 20 2025. Created Sunday, July 06 2025. | ||||||||
