It has been announced that Kaiju No. 8 is getting an anime adaptation soon. Don't know the studio whose doing it. My thoughts are that I knew that this was going to happen but it's too soon to do adaptation of this manga. It's only 6 volumes or so out and the story has yet to really spread its wing sorta speak. I would have waited another year or two before announce something like this.
Finished my first complete yanki manga. I dabbled in a yanki mangas before but this is the first one I finished. And damn, I love it.
Clover
Plot summary (from Manga Updates): Misaki Hayato returns to his hometown and enrolls in the same high school as his two childhood friends. A lot has changed in the years he has been gone, his former best friends are seemingly distant from each other and leading relatively normal high school lives. Hayato's sudden arrival soon changes that and sends shockwaves through the entire town's delinquent population with his willingness to do anything for his friends and his love for a good fight.
Man, I was not expecting to enjoy this manga as much as I did. This was quite a ride. Firstly is the theme. The theme of brotherhood and stickign together with your bros is so prevalent in this and I really appreciated it. That theme is one of the best parts about the manga. You see, what's funny you see other series like Naruto that try to nail down that theme but fail so hard with it. It's refreshing for sure and welcoming it. It makes you appreciate and understand characters' motivations more. Speaking of characters, I feel like there isn't a single bad character in this that made the series worse or put a damper on the manga. Even the character that is suppose to annoy you and be turned off by her being loud and crass ends up by being the best female character. Characters I thought were going to be one note and end up being on the side of the protagonist and then having their own battles and development. It definitely helps that the series has such strong supporting cast. Maki, a character that is introduced in the later half of the story, ends feeling like more a MC than Hayato, who is the main character, because of how he is portrayed as a character.
Speaking of the main character, Hayato Misaki is not your typical main character in terms of his design. This is how Hayato looks at the start of the manga:
Not your typical highschooler shonen protagonist, isn't he? Hell, I could see twittards getting their panties in a bunch on how this is cultural appropriation, but it's really not. But what makes him so endearing is that he is a big goofball who rags on his friends but has their backs no matter what. IIRC this plot point of Kenji, Hayato's childhood friend, thought he was being dump and Hayato giving his shit over it and then as he walking away, Kenji has this look of how dared she, and utters unforgivable and decides to find out what happened. That right there shows how much of a bro Hayato is. Makes him a compelling character.
Also a lot of the manga is influenced by American culture, the clothing, hairstyles, and food (one of the favorite spots of Hayato is McDonalds). Hell, there were Jay-Z and Eminem posters on a character's wall at one point. But I don't think that this is sort of high jacking one's culture, I think it's more of appreciation of it than anything else. Also the clothing these characters wear, holy shit, are they dapper as hell:
They look like they're just got done shooting for a GQ magazine, lol. Also characters would wear something different every time, another plus in my book.
Another thing is the art. Man, the art is great. It doesn't look off or anything, it is consistent throughout the entirety of the manga. Very dynamic and action oriented. The panels are easy interpreted and read. The slower, more dialogue scenes are consistent on that front as well and usually have something comedic relating happening. So you'll have no trouble blasting through reading this.
The only real complaint I can see people having with this, is that the storytelling is simplistic. It usually involves the main character unknowingly beats a delinquent scrub or underling who works under some crazy bad ass that Hayato and co. has to beat down or gets involved in another character's plight and has to save them from going down a dark path. But honestly, this isn't a really much of an issue with me because everything else is so good that this is a noncompliant with me.
Finally, I have to say that this manga is really easy to read. It's about 400 chapters but man, I could not put this down. I thought that I was getting burnt out on manga but boy, this revitalize me to keep going and reading and finishing this. I could easily see this being one of the best yanki mangas out there. It's just shame that yanki mangas aren't as popular over here than it is in Japan. Outside of GTO and Tokyo Revengers, it is not much a thing here. I am happy that I did stumble upon this and love it as much as I did. (finished 9/10)
Best girl btw: