2,964 likesKaiju No. 8: Why the Anime Never Caught Fire Back Home — What Japan Said
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.