News

Kaiju No. 8 Launches Series of Anime Shorts

The TOHO animation YouTube channel debuted the first animation short for the television anime of Naoya Matsumoto's Kaiju No. 8 manga on Friday. New shorts will be released on Fridays. The first episode features Kafka, Reno, and Kikoru discussing the results of a popularity ranking of Defense Force members as voted on by Monster Sweepers, with Kikoru mistakenly thinking she'll be ranked #1.

A compilation of the first season and the new original episode "Hoshina's Day Off" will screen together in 32 theaters in Japan for three weeks only starting on March 28.

Multiple staff members from the first season are returning for the new episode. Yūto Tsukuda (Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma original creator) is credited as the writer for the new episode's original story, and Yuichiro Kido (Dr. Stone) is the scriptwriter. The story follows Reno on a day off, who senses something unusual with Hoshina, who is also on his day off, and follows him along with Iharu.

The anime's second season will debut in 2025. Crunchyroll will stream the new season.

Kōki Uchiyama will join the cast as Gen Harumi in the second season.

The first season premiered on TV Tokyo on April 13 and aired for 12 episodes. Crunchyroll streamed the anime with English subtitles, and also streamed an English dub. The anime streamed on X (formerly Twitter) as well worldwide in real time as it aired on TV in Japan, at the exact time the anime aired.

Shigeyuki Miya (Onihei) and Tomomi Kamiya directed the anime. Ichirō Ōkouchi (Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion) handled the series composition and screenplay. Tetsuya Nishio (Naruto) was the character designer and chief animation director. Mahiro Maeda (Shin Godzilla) designed the monsters. Shinji Kimura (Tekkonkinkreet) was the art director. Yuta Bando (BELLE) composed the music.

Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell) handled animation production, and Studio Khara (Rebuild of Evangelion) was in charge of kaiju designs and artworks.

Viz Media is releasing the manga in English digitally and physically. Shueisha also publishes the manga digitally on its MANGA Plus service under the title Monster #8, and it describes the story:

A man working a job far removed from his childhood dreams gets wrapped up in an unexpected situation…! Becoming a monster, he aims once again to fulfill his lifelong dream…!

Matsumoto launched the ongoing manga in July 2020 on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ website. The franchise also has a spinoff manga and an upcoming game for smartphones and PC.

Source: TOHO animation's YouTube channel