Well, the time has come. Tonbo! failed to impress me through five episodes, and as a result, I am dropping this show. Really, not much happened in this episode. Igaiga taught Tonbo a few things, then they both jumped into the water, and then there was some more talking, and… really not much of any real consequence happened. Couple that with the poor voice acting and the fact that I’m not a slice-of-life guy… it’s time to drop it. Sorry, Tonbo!, hopefully you get better in the episodes to come, which I won’t be watching.
So, it’s time to attack the Demon King’s army! Except that when Kazuma goes to do so, he gets killed. Meanwhile, Darkness and Megumin have pretty much defeated the army, while Aqua got drunk. I love Aqua, but man is she useless. Kazuma has a conversation with the one who pads her chest, and then she lets him back into the world of the living.
That’s when Megumin and Kazuma talk to that other Princess Iris about this gold object she has. Inscribed on it is this statement, and I quote exactly: “Surprise! Goku is Ginyu and Ginyu is Goku?!”
And then comes some hilarity with Kazuma and Iris switching bodies. Believe it or not, this trope can be used to great effect. Your Name was the best ever at making this work. Yes, it had some humor, but it told such a beautiful story that you’d have to wonder how it was even possible that Makoto Shinkai did it so well. A Nintendo Adventure Book by the name of Brain Drain also did this very well, and to be honest, while it was funny, it wasn’t all about the humor portion of it either.
But this is Konosuba, so it’d better be humorous! And it is. Kazuma (in Iris’s body) decides to do things like getting to see Darkness’s enormous pair of you-know-whats, with Claire persuaded to do so as well. Meanwhile, Iris (in Kazuma’s body) gets pounded into submission because everyone thinks she’s Kazuma. Needless to say, this is not going to turn out well for Kazuma. You can almost guarantee he gets a bad ending that George Costanza would even flinch at.
Megumin was great in this episode. I changed my tune on her once I saw her very successful spinoff. But don’t worry, my allegiance is to Darkness. In any case, what a funny episode, and I just love this series. I need to go back and watch season 1 again because I missed a lot due to just not paying good enough attention and not understanding the personalities of the characters. It’s a lot like The Eminence in Shadow in that sense.
A funny thing happened when this show added cliche to cliche to cliche… it actually became quite good. Everything that happened in this episode was so predictable, yet it was so enjoyable to watch. Shinomiya has turned out to be a fantastic character, everything that I was hoping Mina to be (if only because I saw Mina first). “Sir” (the main character as he’s always called) isn’t too bad a character either. Yes, I saw Sir saving Shinomiya a mile away, and yes, now it’s been revealed that other Kaiju are humans, too, which means we’re in Attack on Titan territory here. Nevertheless, this show has so much potential now that it’s given us some good characters. Even Sir is providing entertainment.
But at some point I hope Kaiju No. 8 subverts some of these cliches and takes on a life of its own. Yeah, it’s nice that Sir is an older character, but let’s face it, no one ever thinks of characters like Asuka and Rei as 14-year-olds. In most otakus’ minds, everyone is the same age. So the idea of Sir being older isn’t really resonating with me. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s not ground-breaking, either.
Can Kaiju No. 8 take the next big step in the next few episodes? Boy, I hope so. Or, should I say, “Sir”?
In the latest episode of this golf-themed anime, Tonbo does tricks with her golf clubs, while Igaiga eats goat poop and makes “scary faces.” The pace of this anime is slooooooooooow. It’s slice-of-life with golf. It’s not bad, it’s just not good either. It’ll probably be forgotten from my mind within a year. I think it would have potential if not for the slooow pace that it’s going on. With that, I expect it’s going to crawl every episode until the finish. And that’s a shame, because I want to like Tonbo.
Tommy A. Phillips 