Kaiju No. 8 vol. 2
After secretly defeating the Kaiju that attacked the people who tried to join the Defense Force, Kafka as well as Reno get selected as new recruits. Kafka continues to struggle with training, while Reno shows very promising results. Also, people start learning about Kafka's relation to Commander Mina. Soon the new recruits get called for their first Kaiju extermination assignment. There, Kafka realises that while he's not as powerful as his colleagues, his vast knowledge of Kaiju helps him prove himself useful. At the same time, Reno starts becoming one of the most powerful recruits. Everything is going well, until another half-human-half-kaiju creature appears and attacks Reno.
This was a great second volume. Kafka finally gets into the defense force, like he always wanted, but his troubles don't stop there. He learns that if he doesn't improve like the others, he'll be out in three months. This gives him motivation to try even harder to improve, while it also keeps the stakes very high. Due to his ability to transform into an extremely powerful Kaiju, there's never the feeling that he's in danger, but thanks to the clever writing, the stakes remain high all the time and the story is never boring. On the contrary, the entire volume is captivating. There's a lot more action here than in the previous volume and it's all very well written and entertaining. Something else that's very well written is the characters. Every character is great. The protagonist, Kafka, is very interesting and unique, compared to most manga protagonists. Not only because he's 32, but also because he's kinda silly, in a funny way and actually not that great at what he does, most of the time. This is good because it gives him the ability to evolve, as the story continues. Another great character is Reno. The two of them have great chemistry and in this volume we start realising how powerful he actually is. I'm sure that we'll get to know him better in later volumes, which is going to be very interesting. Other than these two, who are the main characters, I think that Kikoru Shinomiya is very interesting. We didn't get any deeper into her character in this volume, but based on what has been established about her in the previous volume, I believe that he's one of the most interesting characters in the series and she'll certainly play a huge role in later volunes. Yet another interesting character is vice captain Soshiro Hoshina. He's very lighthearted, even at serious situations and in this volume he was one of the characters that I enjoyed reading the most. Other than the characters, something I love about this manga is the great world building. The world is pretty crazy, but it's all written so well that it makes a lot of sense. Furthermore, this manga combines action, drama and comedy in a great way, that makes it extremely enjoyable and fun to read.
The artwork in this manga is gorgeous. The designs for the various Kaiju are very beautiful and unique. The action scenes are beautiful and filled with power and excitement and the facial expressions always work perfectly, for both dramatic and comedic affect.
Overall, this was a great volume that continued the story in a very interesting and satisfying way, while also adding some very interesting new elements to it.
10/10