An anime adaptation of the hit manga series Kaiju No. 8 by Naoya Matsumoto was announced on Thursday. The announcement came with a teaser trailer on TOHO Animation’s official YouTube channel which you can watch below (warning: flash imagery). No animation studio, staff, or cast for the series has been announced at this time.
The award-winning series first began serialization on the Shonen Jump+ app in 2020 and currently has 68 chapters released with 7 total volumes. US-based publisher VIZ Media bought the license to the series and currently has the first three volumes available in English. Fans can also read the manga digitally on the Shonen Jump app.
Kaiju No.8‘s critical reception shouldn’t go overlooked. Its first week’s sales in France (22,041), a hotbed for manga, were the most copies ever sold for a manga’s debut in the country. As of July 2022, Kaiju No. 8 currently has over 7.8 million copies in circulation. The series also has a couple of awards under its belt along with even more nominations. In 2021, Kaiju No. 8 won its first award in the “Web Manga” category at the 2021 Next Manga Awards. A year later the series won the grand prize at the 2022 eBook Initiative Japan Manga Awards.
Other awards the series has been nominated for are the grand prize at the 2021 Manga Taishō awards, “Book of the Year” (Da Vinci 20th Annual Book of the Year awards), “Cultural Prize” (26th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize), and most recently nominated for the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia category at the 2022 Eisner Awards.
Kafka hopes to one day keep his pact with his childhood friend Mina to join the Japan Defense Force and fight by her side. But while she’s out neutralizing kaiju as Third Division captain, Kafka is stuck cleaning up the aftermath of her battles. When a sudden rule change makes Kafka eligible for the Defense Force, he decides to try out for the squad once more. There’s just one problem—he’s made the Defense Force’s neutralization list under the code name Kaiju No. 8.
Manga synopsis by VIZ Media
Source: Official Twitter