There’s a scene at the start of Episode 14 that gives a brief look at Kafka and Kikoru’s new daily life at the First Division. Kafka more or less finds himself in a familiar situation where he’s struggling to keep up with everyone and he has to dedicate his spare time to some extra training. At least with the Third Division, Kafka was friends with a lot of the new recruits. Here though, he looks so lonely. I don’t blame Kikoru for keeping her distance from Kafka. Considering that Kikoru saw Kafka lose control of his kaiju form and almost killed her father, one would think things are pretty awkward between them. I imagine she’s also focusing on her training, in order to keep up with the evolving kaiju threat and to prepare for the worst case scenario of fighting a berserk Kaiju No. 8. You also get a short moment where Gen begs Kikoru for some cash, presumably so that he can spend for his otaku hobbies. I guess Kikoru ought to be richer than Gen but it says a lot about the captain that he needs money from his subordinate.
The First Division are soon called into action when ant-like kaiju emerge from underground and terrorize the local area. While Gen and his platoons fight the kaiju head on, he leaves key neutralization zones to Kikoru and Kafka, as a sort of test of their abilities. Kikoru of course wastes no time destroying the giant ants with ease and she develops a new rivalry of sorts with one of the Platoon Leaders, Rin Shinonome (Kana Hanazawa). It’s Kikoru after all. What else is new with her? Meanwhile, Kafka attempts to transform into Kaiju No. 8 to fight the ants heading his way. For whatever reason however, Kafka can’t maintain a full transformation longer than a few seconds. I have a couple guesses as to why this is happening. Maybe Kafka is subconsciously hesitating to transform after seeing how dangerous No. 8 is from his fight with Gen. Either that or that inner voice kaiju we saw earlier is preventing Kafka from tapping into his abilities.
As the battle goes on, Gen and Hasegawa remark the ant-type kaijus rarely fight on the surface, leading Gen to deduce that something is controlling them like with the wyvern-types during the invasion on the Third Division’s base. I half-expected the episode to reveal a new daikaiju but as it turns out, the mastermind of the attack is none other than Kaiju No. 9 (Hiroyuki Yoshino). Apparently, he stopped playing chess and recruited a bunch of ants offscreen. I’m not surprised that he can assimilate and merge with other kaiju but seeing him merge and effectively “pilot” one of the ant monsters is pretty creepy. Also, this episode does acknowledge that No. 9 has duplicated itself as both copies of it appear on the battlefield. While one copy faces Kafka, the other confronts Gen in an attempt to stall the captain from assisting Kafka. I’ve said this before but this guy seems harder to kill than the lizard guy.
With Kafka unable to defend himself, Kikoru steps in to protect him from No. 9. Considering how much No. 9 humiliated Kikoru back in Episode 4, this rematch was inevitable. I’m curious if Kikoru can beat No. 9 this time around. She has gotten stronger but so has No. 9 so it’s hard to say if she actually has this fight in the bag. Chances are, she’ll lose and someone else has to intervene. While Gen is the most likely person to fulfill that role, there is a curious scene where Isao is advised not to join the fight as too much usage of a Numbered weapon causes an adverse effect on its user. It could just be a conceit to explain why Isao is benched but it would make for dramatic effect if he takes the risk to save his daughter. Whatever happens next, I just hope Kikoru puts on a good fight. As cool as it is seeing Kikoru kill everything in one hit, I really want to see her face something that’ll actually challenge her again.
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