Since
Sunday, Crunchyroll began airing the Kaiju No. 8:
Mission Recon compilation film, which condenses the events of
the anime's first season and adds an original episode
titled "Hoshina's Day Off." The film is available
in America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the Indian
subcontinent and the CIS, with dubbing in
Spanish, English, Portuguese, German and Russian.
A film
with exclusive material
The film
was originally released in 32 Japanese theaters on March 28, 2025 for
only three weeks. Subsequently, it had a special screening in the U.S.
and Canada on April 13, 14 and 16, with performances subtitled and
dubbed into English. In its bonus segment, the story follows Reno during
his day off, when he suspects Hoshina of acting strangely and
decides to follow him along with Iharu.
This
episode was written by Yūto Tsukuda (original author of Food
Wars!) and adapted to the script by Yūichirō Kido (Dr.
Stone), with several members of the original staff returning.
International
musical themes
The
episode's ending theme, "Invincible (from Kaiju No. 8)", is
performed by the American band OneRepublic, marking their return to
the franchise. It was also confirmed that Norwegian singer-songwriter AURORA will
perform the opening theme for the second season, while OneRepublic
will be in charge of the ending theme with the song "Beautiful
Colors."
The
second season already has a date
The anime's
second season will premiere on July 19 via TV Tokyo and
affiliated networks. It will also be streamed in real-time globally via X
(formerly Twitter). The special episode "Hoshina's Day
Off" previously aired on July 5 at 23:00 JST (17:00 in
Spain) on TV Tokyo and was simulcast on X.
A
high-level production team
The first
season, aired in April 2024, had 12 episodes and was produced
by Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell), while Studio
Khara (Rebuild of Evangelion) was in charge of the design of
the kaiju. The direction was in charge of Shigeyuki Miya and Tomomi
Kamiya, with scripts by Ichirō Ōkouchi (Code Geass)
and character designs by Tetsuya Nishio (Naruto).
The
manga is about to conclude very soon
The
original manga, titled Monster #8 on Shueisha's MANGA
Plus platform, was created by Naoya Matsumoto and
began publication in July 2020. The story will come to an end with
the next chapter, which will be published on July 18. Viz
Media publishes the manga in English in digital and physical formats.
The story
follows a man frustrated with his work life who, after an unexpected twist,
becomes a kaiju and decides to resume his childhood dream: to protect humanity.
