Kaiju No. 8 Uses This Shounen Formula Really Well

Summary:

• Kaiju No. 8 does a lot of shounen-typical things.
• Kaiju No. 8 has the vibes of many other shounens.
• The series adds something unique, that's why it works well.

Kaiju No. 8 (Kaijuu 8-gou) is definitely this season's big hit. If you don't trust us, you might want to check the MyAnimeList score (8.24), which is pretty high for such a fresh series.

There's a reason why Kaiju No. 8 works so well: it chose the overused shounen formula that has proven to work really well.

Weak Protagonist Who Gains Power

There's a seemingly normal protagonist: Kafka is nothing special, he has no powers or abilities, he dreams big but keeps failing, since he's not strong enough to join the Defense Force. Then magic happens and he gains superhuman powers ― becomes a kaiju.

To make the series look even more like a typical shounen anime, there's a training/exam arc where Kafka has to prove that he's worthy of becoming a Defense Force member.

We've seen it in plenty of shounens before. Kaiju No. 8 gives fans a lot of My Hero Academia vibes. Deku failed to become a hero before, but then something "magical" happened and he's a hero now. Deku also had vast knowledge on superheroes, just like Kafka knows a lot about kaiju due to his job as a sweeper.

A Lot of Shounens Are Like That

But My Hero Academia is far from being the only shounen to follow this route. Attack on Titan is another series that comes to mind. Both Eren and Kafka vowed to free the world from titans/kaiju, but became one of them instead. They went from 0 to 100 in a couple of episodes.

There can't be a conversation about shounens without mentioning Naruto. The guy was practically a class clown who wanted to become the next Hokage. He started as nothing, just like Kafka, Deku and Eren.

Training or entrance exam arcs are also quite typical for shounens. Both the aforementioned My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan had it, Demon Slayer had its Final Selection, which is basically the same thing. You can always be sure that when an anime is a shounen, there'll be an arc like that.

But it doesn't mean that Kaiju No. 8 just keeps re-exploring the same tropes and feeds you the things you've seen before. The anime manages to stay charming and unique while following the overused shounen formula.

There's no need to change something that works, you just have to add a bit of creativity to it, and Kaiju No. 8 is doing it successfully. It takes a bunch of great but overused ideas, throws some new ones into the mixture and surprises viewers with its great quality.