Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”: Creepy Kaiju Surprise [Review]

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” features so many surprise appearances from kaiju. Not just Kafka either. Kaiju are popping up like daisies in this episode, and turns this anime into something resembling horror for a bit.

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”: Details

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” is the fourth episode (you can read reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, and Ep. 3 here) of this first (and hopefully not the only) season of this anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the military science fantasy adventure manga of the same name by Naoya Matsumoto. Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass, Haikyu!!) is the studio behind this anime. Crunchyroll is licensing this anime for its NA debut.

Kazuki Yokoyama is the director behind Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”, with Ichirō Ōkouchi as the writer, and Iwao Teraoka doing the storyboard. As for the Kaiju No. 8 anime as a whole, Shigeyuki Miya and Tomomi Kamiya are co-directing this anime. Ichirō Ōkouchi is the overall writer of the anime, while Yuta Bando composed the music for the same.

Speaking of music, this anime’s opening theme music is “Abyss” by Yungblud (AKA Dominic Richard Harrison). Meanwhile, “Nobody” by OneRepublic is the ending theme music.

Voice Cast

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” features the voices of Masaya Fukunishi (Nazeeh Tarsha in English dub) as Kafka Hibino, Asami Seto (Katelyn Barr in English dub) as Mina Ashiro, Wataru Kato (Adam McArthur in English dub) as Reno Ichikawa, Fairouz Ai (Abigail Blythe in English dub) as Kikoru Shinomiya, and Kengo Kawanishi (Landon McDonald in English dub) as Soshiro Hoshina. Other notable voice roles in this episode include Yūki Shin (Ben Stegmair in English dub) as Iharu Furuhashi, Keisuke Koumoto (Howard Wang in English dub) as Haruichi Izumo, and Sayaka Senbongi (Celeste Perez in English dub) as Konomi Okonogi. Lastly, this episode also features the voice of Hiroyuki Yoshino (Alejandro Saab in English dub) as Kaiju No. 9.

When and Where to Watch

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on May 4, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this anime as a whole only on Crunchyroll at the moment.

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”: Synopsis

Alas, Kaiju No. 8 is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” only made it debut just three days ago as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis for this episode from Crunchyroll instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can check out that synopsis below:

An unexpected incident during the exam forces Kafka to use his powers at the risk of revealing his secret.

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”: The Good

Honestly, the story of Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” is once again the best part of it. Just as it was in Naoya Matsumoto’s manga, really. There’s the usual action and comedy that the anime is best known for, yes. However, there’s also a good dose of horror in this episode as well. You can already see some of it in the screenshot above, but there’s even more of that. From kaiju zombies to some exceptionally gory fight scenes, this episode has it all. Matsumoto in his manga shows that he loves adding a dash of horror into his military sci-fi story. This is just the start of that horror. That is, if you didn’t already consider the creepy moments from the previous episodes to be horror already.

And of course, what’s horror without some horror music to go with it? Fortunately, that’s what Yuta Bando accomplished in this episode. The horror violin screeches combined with the other assorted horror music perfectly fits those moments of horror.

Lastly, the animation of this episode completes the horror, courtesy of Production I.G. You can see the zombie kaiju in their gory, corpse-like detail, and as you can see in that screenshot once more, the gore is very detailed. I would say that it’s even ludicrously so. You see blood, you see guts, and you even see shattered bones of kaiju raining down. All of these elements combined together gives you a horror magnum opus in this episode like none we’ve seen in this anime. At least, thus far.

Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8”: The Bad

Do you not like military sci-fi action, comedy, or even horror? Then I’m sorry, but I don’t think Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 4 “Fortitude 9.8” is for you. In fact, I don’t think this entire anime is for you in that case. Perhaps something like A Galaxy Next Door, Astro Note, or My Dress-Up Darling is more your speed then?