Ossan Newbie Adventurer: Kaiju No. 8 Comparative Analysis
Kaiju No. 8's fans are clearly reeling over the fact that season 1 just finished, and while Crunchyroll swiftly announced a second season, a wait time is still expected. Apart from reading the original manga, these fans can at least experience a version of Kafka Hibino's unique type of character in a new series on Crunchyroll that just debuted called The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained To Death By The Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible. Though Kafka is interesting for many different reasons, readers were first drawn to him since there are hardly any over thirty year old, past-prime heroes.
Comparative Study of Ossan Newbie Adventurer and Kaiju No. 8 Protagonist
Rick, the namesake newbie adventurer, is exactly that kind of person. Rick started his adventure at the ripe age of thirty in his universe where the time to start is in a person's 20s, or even earlier. Rick thus faces constant ridicule from his younger colleagues and even teachers when he passes an adventurer test in secret for two years.
Though the main difference is that, if Rick were Kafka, his story starts after Rick unintentionally consumes the power-grating parasitic kaiju and speeds the process whereby his peers discover he is the titular eighth kaiju. This sounds like Kafka's unique and compelling situation.
Rick presents Kakfu No. 8's situation for Kafka. Comedy Spin
For fans of Kaiju No. 8 as well as for those simply drawn in by Kafka's original dynamic, this is problematic on several levels. Though only featured in one episode, Kaiju No. 8's introduction was so powerful since Kafka's origin tale was tragic. Kafka had tried and failed to fulfill his dreams, and given his "old" age, it was quite unlikely he would get another chance. Because it implied the great distances Kafka would need to pull himself out of his existential state, and since the continuous passage of time drastically reduced his chances significantly, the implication that he would most likely not change any time soon made his outlook even bleaker. How brilliantly the anime portrayed his deep depression exacerbated his situation even more.
Starting with Kafka in kaiju form, it's like Kaiju No. 8 showing viewers for the first time memories where he's still a cleaner living in his unkept room. Starting The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained To Death By The Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible loses this whole dynamic. Of course, the anime does show Rick's version to some degree, but only as very brief flashbacks, which greatly lessens their impact since Rick has already accomplished what he's aiming for in these sequences. Starting with Kafka in kaiju form, it's like Kaiju No. 8 showing viewers for the first time memories where he's still a cleaner living in his untidy room. Though emotional, the situational immediacy is lost.
Furthermore, Rick's fast proving of his own strength to his peers in the first episode removes the time needed for Kafka's colleagues to discover he was the eighth kaiju. Kaiju No. 8 deftly caught the successful trope popularized by One-punch Man whereby the protagonist is mocked for not displaying their actual strength. In Kafka's case, his kaiju powers were the only thing that gave him strength; since the kaiju were rivals of the very company he was trying to join, he had to keep that power a secret for as long as possible, so extending what fans wanted—that which was for Kafka to prove himself to everyone.
Isekai Anime Inspired the Ossan Newbie Adventurer Also
Like many others before it, the new series expands on tried-true devices from its forebears. Rather of this, The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by The Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible focuses an outrageous amount of attention on a very different but well-known cliché where the protagonist believes everyone is far stronger than they themselves and does not fully grasp their own strength. Sadly, the kind of misinterpretation that fans really care about—where the protagonist is supposed to be weak but this is not the case at all—is virtually instantly corrected.
Though not an Isekai, The Ossan Newbie Adventurer also draws greatly on some of the fundamental story lines of the genre. More precisely, it uses the one whereby the overwhelming strength of the overpowered protagonist breaks their world's definition of a person's power to the point that a much lower reading is shown since the measuring device just couldn't register such a high level. Fortunately, episode 1 seems to have run almost all the possible combinations of events used in these particular stories, so providing some hope that this cliché is an isolated incident with a different formula later on.
Although it's regrettably unlikely that The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible will explore every aspect of what made Kafka so appealing in Kaiju No. 8, Crunchyroll has plenty of time to prove these critics wrong, just like the characters who first doubted Kafka and Rick.
