Why Kaiju No. 8 Never Caught Fire in Japan: Japanese Fans React — "They Made a Mediocre Story... Mediocre."
「アニメ版怪獣8号はなぜウケなかったのか」日本のファンの反応
“"Why didn't the anime catch on?" The way you phrase it makes it sound like the manga is the good part……”
なぜアニメがウケなかったのか？ それだとまるで原作は面白いみたいじゃないか……
Kaiju No. 8 was one of the biggest manga launches of its era — 14 million copies in print, a glossy Production I.G anime, an OP by an internationally famous band. So Western fans are often surprised to learn it left a lot of Japanese readers cold. This reaction thread, built around a Japanese fan-critic's video literally titled "Why didn't the Kaiju No. 8 anime catch on," is one of the bluntest looks you'll find at that homegrown disappointment. The recurring themes: that the genuinely great opening hook — a middle-aged ex-kaiju-cleanup worker using his cleanup know-how to fight monsters — got quietly abandoned the moment Kafka joined the Defense Force; that these "kaiju" feel less like Godzilla and more like talking, human-sized people in monster suits; that the much-memed "left elbow, right elbow" copy-paste panel became a punchline; and that fans kept name-dropping a different manga, Rai Rai Rai, as "the Kaiju No. 8 we actually wanted." The most quietly devastating line in the whole thread isn't even an insult — it's a correction to the video's own title.
Scroll while you watch
Japanese fan reactions (excerpted from 1534)
- @三谷-x3k👍 2,964
See, a kaiju isn't supposed to shrink to human size, it isn't supposed to talk, and everything it does is supposed to be unhinged enough that it levels a city.
怪獣はね、人間サイズになんてならないし、言葉も喋らないし、やること全てがめちゃくちゃで街を破壊しないといけないの
- @べーだま👍 547
Godzilla Minus One is what made me realize that.
マイゴジがそう気付かせてくれた
- @って他の人が言ってた👍 357
And Godzilla has stuck to exactly that and built itself into a franchise that lasts, you know…
ゴジラとかはそれずっと貫いて人気コンテンツとして確立してますしね…
- @slaru8665👍 125
Kafka isn't really a kaiju (monster) — he's more of a kaijin (humanoid creature), right?
カフカって怪獣じゃなくて怪人だよな
- @itachoco_sweet👍 83
I keep wishing the early stuff — using his kaiju-cleanup knowledge to attack a monster's internal anatomy — kept showing up throughout. I always think that.
序盤の怪獣清掃の知識活かして内部構造から攻める感じが節々にあったら良いのにっていっつも思う
- @ぬぬぬpdh👍 65
The opening is unbelievably good, honestly. But once you hit the big mushroom-monster operation… yeah.
序盤はバチクソにオモロいんだよね まぁエリンギ討伐大作戦はいってからは…
- @プリンにしてや👍 298
Even the best part — using cleanup-industry know-how to find a monster's weak point — overlaps with Delicious in Dungeon, and that left a weird taste too.
特に面白いとこだった清掃業の知識を活かして 怪獣の弱点を探るってとこも ダンジョン飯と被ってたとこもなんとも
- @Shibanago👍 133
People keep pointing out: how does a cleanup worker know things that the dedicated, specialist extermination force somehow doesn't…
清掃業が知ってる事を、なんで専門の討伐組織が知らないのかと突っ込まれてまして…
- @センかな👍 61
If kaiju had only just started appearing and research and the response org hadn't caught up, fine — but the setting says they've shown up for hundreds of years. That doesn't hold.
最近になって急に怪獣が現れるようになって、研究も対策組織の整備も追いついてないというならともかく、何百年も前から出現してるって設定でそれはねえ
- @紫雅-x7r👍 23
A mangaka who doesn't like his own protagonist — that's a problem, in my book.
自分の主人公が好きじゃない漫画家はダメだと思う
- @パーリ-e6m👍 134
You can tell he made a video on Kaiju 8 before because he had high hopes for it. In the serialization, the back half is just "exactly what I expected" or "worse than I expected" (mostly the latter) — to the point where you realize you'd only read it if it were free. It's sad.
怪8に関しては前も動画出してたしかなり期待してたんやろな―ってのが分かる 連載でも後半からは「予想内」or「予想より酷い展開(こっちのが多い)」の2択ばっかになってて無料じゃないと読んでないってレベルになってるの分かってしまう悲しさ
- @三陣👍 724
The Chainsaw Man anime took a masterpiece and made it mediocre. The Kaiju No. 8 anime just took something mediocre and made it... mediocre.
チェニメな傑作を凡作にしたけど 怪獣8アニメは凡作を凡作にしただけだから
- @十文字十蔵👍 156
The director isn't to blame — which is the tragic part.
監督は悪くない、可哀そうなことにな
- @プチショコラ621のパズドラ動画👍 64
It's because the author supervised it and slowed the anime's pacing down. If episode 1 had pushed all the way to Kaiju No. 8 saving the little girl, audiences would've been hooked way harder.
作者が監修してアニメの話の進み方も遅くしたせい 1話で怪獣8号が幼女を救うくらいまで進めていたら視聴した人の食いつきは良かったはず
- @7colors_spica👍 886
Right after the anime started, it busted out the "look at the right elbow, look at the left elbow" copy-paste trick — that was genuinely shocking.
アニメ開始直後に右ひじ左ひじ交互に見てのコピペ芸を披露したの衝撃すぎた
- @親愛なる隣人-c9p👍 88
Right elbow ♪ left elbow ♪ right elbow ♪ left elbow ♪
右肘♪左肘♪右肘♪左肘♪
- @レジスチル-v1u👍 99
It's the quality of a Jujutsu Kaisen one-off gag photoshop meme. The only series allowed to pull that are Baki and Bobobo.
呪術の一発ネタ コラ画像みたいなクオリティ こんなんやっていいの刃牙とボーボボだけやろ
- @ガブガブさん👍 81
It's wild that random meme-edit videos on YouTube have higher copy-paste quality than this.
ユーチューブとかの淫夢劇場の方がコピペのクオリティ高いのヤバいだろ
- @水に溶ける猫-x9p👍 628
It's true — these days anime OPs flood your YouTube Shorts feed nonstop, but I didn't even know the Kaiju No. 8 OP existed…
確かに最近のアニメOPってYouTube shortsで呆れるほど流れてくるのに、怪獣8号のOPは存在すら知らんかったな…
- @osakana-c3z👍 208
A friend of mine called the OP visuals "AI-generated-looking."
友達が｢生成AIみたいなOP映像｣って言ってた
- @デニムハンバーガー👍 407
The despair of having THIS channel — which scours the internet for whatever's trending — tell you "it's not being talked about on social media" is brutal.
ネットの話題を収集しまくっているこのチャンネルに「SNSで話題になっておりません」って言われる絶望感えぐいな
- @キーアッ-x1m👍 773
He's trashing it this hard and literally no one in the comments is defending it, lol.
ここまでボロクソ言ってんのにコメ欄誰も擁護してないの草
- @user-fr5tn5ml6i👍 81
The people who'd defend it aren't watching a video like this. I find it unfun so far too — manga included. It feels like Attack on Titan with the pacing slowed down and the emotion and plot watered down.
擁護派はこんな動画見ないやろ 俺も今の所面白くないと思うけど原作含めてね 進撃の展開を遅くして感情と展開を薄くしてるイメージ
- @妖怪ガチぼっち👍 261
I read as much of Rai Rai Rai as I could, and it felt like "the Kaiju No. 8 readers actually wanted at the start." It was good.
雷雷雷、読める範囲で読んだけど「当初の読者が求めてた怪獣8号」って感じで良かった。
- @バックパック-x4v👍 26
This reaction video is how I found Rai Rai Rai, so honestly I'm grateful to both the uploader and Kaiju 8.
この反応集のお陰で雷雷雷に出会えたので主と8号には感謝している
- @nanashino_narsan👍 630
This guy really does love Kaiju No. 8. Not as a blind stan — this video comes from genuinely caring about the work.
この人ホントに怪獣8号好きだよな 信者じゃなくてしっかり作品を愛してるからこそのこの動画だと思う
- @ななは-n5l👍 64
Come on, there's no love left at this point.
もう愛なんか残ってないだろ
- @ぐりーもん👍 857
At this point it's just Mushroom Legend.
これもうただのキノコ伝説だよ
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