WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chapter #9 of Kaiju No. 8 by Naoya Matsumoto, Ariell Sirmans, Kai Kyou and Kelly Davidson, now available in English from Viz Media.
Kaiju No. 8's latest chapter gives new meaning to the old saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer," as Kafka Himeno finally achieves his goal of making it into the JDF. Thanks to his kaiju-powered heroics during the examination incident, his superior's already suspicious of him. Moreover, he still has yet to meet what looks to be a rival kaiju-person: the yonju-resurrecting monster posing as a human at Kafka's old workplace. Kafka, still learning the ins and outs of his new abilities, is in a more precarious situation than ever before. He's made it into the Japanese Defense Force -- but he just might have boxed himself in.
The chapter opens on exam results day, and the anticipation is killer. In the hospital, Kafka was thankful to Ichikawa for helping him get through the examination. Now that it's finished, though, he's freaking out -- Kafka's terrified because the results of his last chance are finally in. If he makes it, he has the chance to stand beside his former friend Captain Mina Ashiro in the fight against kaiju. If he doesn't make it in, he'll have to resign himself to the same dreamless life he was living before.
Of course, he makes it in -- but not as an officer. At first, he was going to be failed outright, but second-in-command Soshiro Hoshina points out how he stood out by supporting others in the field combat portion and takes him on as a cadet. It's revealed that 27 officers were chosen, two of them being Kikoru Shinomiya and Ichikawa, though Shinomiya feels that it should have been Kafka standing in her place. It's a situation similar to One Punch Man, in that the hero doesn't mind others taking all the credit. And for Kafka, this might be for the best -- in a higher position, he's subject to more scrutiny and, by extension, more risk of being found out.
Of course, Kafka blunders on his first day after a rousing speech by Cpt. Oshiro, calling out that he'll one day stand by her side. Though Mina reprimands him and gives him a hundred push-ups, she actually cracks a smile, much to the shock of Hoshina. But it's soon afterward that we find Hoshina's real motivation for bringing in Kafka: he's incredibly suspicious of him, as his vitals disappeared off of the system when the 9.8 reading appeared (which, of course, was Kafka's transformation into his kaiju form). Hoshina vows to figure him out, meaning that Kafka's officially in danger from both the human and monster sides.
