It’s a new age for the shounen anime genre, with recent powerhouses Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer already cemented as all-time classics. Amid this hype, a dark horse has emerged: Kaiju No. 8. Beneath its setting of a post-apocalyptic Japan overrun with giant monsters is a grounded, character-driven story that has gained even more traction after the anime’s first season debuted on Crunchyroll.
We had the chance to sit down with the cast, including Nazeeh Tarsha, the voice of the main character and Kaiju No. 8 himself, Kafka Hibino, Abigail Blythe (Kikoru Shinomiya), and Adam McArthur (Reno Ichikawa). We got stuck into what makes the anime stand out from the rest and how it feels to voice characters fresh off the manga press.
Kotaku AU: After reading Kaiju No. 8, the major theme that stuck out to me was not being afraid to pursue your dreams, no matter how old you are, no matter if there’s a giant monster in front of you. What struck you at first reading or watching Kaiju No. 8?
Adam: What drew me to this story was not only are we seeing a main character who’s a little bit older, but it’s […] exactly what you said – like, it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you have this dream, you should go try and achieve it.
And then as we’ve been getting into the show, it’s this idea of found family. And these people who have come from different walks of life who are now together in a group and what that means. It’s been awesome.
Abigail: Bouncing off of that found family concept. Whenever I read the manga, it was after I was cast as Kikoru, and so I just had like five days before my first session. So I sped read through the entire source material, to make sure that I knew exactly what was going on with her and seeing it through her eyes.
Specifically for her, as someone who is very hyper-independent and emotionally guarded, this idea that you’re not in this alone and you don’t have to do it alone, I think, is something that she learns, and also the readers get to learn through her. As someone who is so headstrong and who has always really been alone, she can finally rely on others.
Nazeeh: Being that it follows a 32-year-old protagonist, you have a person who has life experience and the kind of trials and tribulations that may mirror a lot of people watching. So bringing that sort of relatability to the table is [an] instant draw.
What [Kaiju No. 8] does exceptionally well is that there is so much more to the surface of each character. The fact that there are so many characters with this level of characterisation and character building makes it so that you know you are bound to find a character that you will latch on to. And if you haven’t, you will at some point.
Nazeeh, for Kafka, how do you switch between going kaiju mode and Kafka mode when you’re acting? I was really curious, did you come up with a normal voice, and then a separate kaiju voice? Or did you try to make them really distinct?
Nazeeh: For the most part, they both live in a very, very similar baseline, because at the end of the day, it is still Kafka behind Kaiju No. 8. But when doing the performances, because of just how wide the spread of emotions that Kafka displays are, I try in normal speech to have it chest voice oriented. However, once he starts getting into his screaming fits, that immediately starts going into the falsetto, head voice sort of range.
When in kaiju form, more so during battles, I definitely try and have that a little more guttural, a little more visceral, so that you can really feel the intensity of the scene. Outside of those intense points, I try to bring a little more of the humanness.
Adam, you’ve worked in anime, games, TV shows, a lot of different stuff. Do you tackle voicing characters from those different mediums differently?
Adam: It’s kind of all like, very similar. Technique might vary slightly. In the case of Kaiju No. 8, we’re getting to see the scenes before we start, and we know where our start point is, where our endpoint is. I always say dubbing is like acting in a box, because you have this fixed space that you have to fit everything in. So ultimately, it all comes down to acting. No matter what format of voiceover you’re doing.
It’s also like patting your head and rubbing your stomach, or whatever it is. Because you’re doing multiple things at once, and you kind of have to flow as you go. Somebody told me once that voice acting is a little ‘v’, capital ‘A’ because it’s more about the acting than it is the voice.
Abigail, I personally really love Shinomiya’s combination of cute and badass, I would say, she’s a bit of a Tsundere. Do you find that difficult, finding that balance between cute and cool?
Abigail: I think it’s very natural for her. And I think it a lot of the time has to do with her circumstances. I think her cooler side is more of a front – I think that’s that silly side to her that we see really only around Kafka. I mean, her age is a very playful age. She’s a teenager, but she doesn’t really get to act like a kid a lot. Which is sad, but true.
It is so circumstantial to play off of Nazeeh’s reads in the booth and play off of Kafka in that way, because a lot of the time her motive for acting so silly that she’s able to let that guard down, because she’s around someone that she doesn’t take seriously. That makes it easy and very natural for me.
I have a question I really wanted to ask everyone. If they made a Kaiju No. 8 video game, what genre do you think would fit the most?
Nazeeh: I think [it could take] the form of a[n] over the shoulder third person, alien beat ‘em up sort of genre, because there’s a lot of the tactical strategic elements to the Defence Force that you could play around with, placing units and troops. But also you can have the sort of up close, beat ‘em up.
Abigail: I agree with that, where [the game is] really broken up mission by mission – not really like an RPG or open world. I don’t think it would suit it as much. Story building and slowly going from mission to mission […] would fit it very naturally.
Adam: I keep playing devil’s advocate with myself in my mind, because obviously [it could be] just a straight up fighter where you could pick your favourite person from the Defence Force and you could fight each other. But then, everyone would just pick Kafka, because then you could just go Kaiju No. 8, and just dominate everybody. Maybe a game similar to Smash Bros or something like that can be fun?
A dancing game?
Adam: Yeah, you know what? There’s so many options. The world is your oyster and we’re ready.
Kaiju No. 8 is currently airing its first season on Crunchyroll – you can also pick up Volume 1 of the manga on Amazon Australia.
Image: Crunchyroll, Kotaku Australia
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