REVIEW: ‘Kaiju Girl Caramelise’ Episode 1 – “The Kaiju Girl Appears In Tokyo”

Kaiju Girl Caramelise is an important story about how the world shapes people’s identities. From the start, Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 explores a variety of nuanced themes like body image, mental health, self-worth, and the way in which people react to the world around them. Through the use of both humor and drama, Kaiju Girl Caramelise is crafting a story that has a real message, especially in a time when self-esteem issues are at an all-time high for teenagers.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 focuses on Kuroe Akaishi (Hikari Senga), a 16-year-old girl living with a rare and incurable disease. At times of great emotional stress, Akaishi’s body begins making ugly and monstrous transformations. The first time this happened was when she was a little girl, when she gave her crush flowers. He and many more people in the years that followed rejected her. Now, she lives in relative isolation. She’s called by the mean girls at school a “psycho.” So, she keeps to herself, sketching in all grayscale and just trying to get by without being noticed.

Those mean girls are enamored with an attractive boy in their class named Arata Minami. Akaishi doesn’t pay him any attention, believing him to be the epitome of a hot guy with zero problems. It’s an understatement to say that she is stunned, then suspicious, and then even more stunned when Minami takes an interest in her. She initially rejects him harshly, hoping he’ll just leave her alone, but her abrasive response seems to have the opposite effect.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 introduces us to Kuroe Akaishi, a complicated heroine who tugs at the heartstrings.

In fact, Minami tricks Akaishi into going on a date to get her favorite pancakes where she learns that maybe he’s not as shallow as she first assumed. After eating, the pair are spotted by the mean girls who assume that Akaishi is stalking Minami. He’s not having any of this, so he grabs Akaishi by the hand and leads her away.

This causes Akaishi’s emotional state to become so triggered that her hand begins to transform. She pulls away and runs off. In that moment, her grayscale drawings are finally understood as a reflection of her lived experience— an experience that now, possibly for the first time, is full of color.

As she leans against the railing on the bridge, her hand inadvertently destroys the railing, and she falls into the river. What emerges from the river is not a 16-year-old high school girl but a full-blown kaiju. The town is in panic, and Akaishi isn’t aware of how far her transformation has gone at first. Thanks to her dog, Jumbo King, Akaishi’s mother (Kotono Mitsuishi) is able to find her and get her back to safety.

The potential for romance is present from the first episode, but Kaiju hijinks kick into gear.

Every minute of Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 is a compelling look into the mind of someone who longs to be seen beyond the surface. It’s an emotional look at how the world can either build people up or tear people down. There is a lot of potential to really dig into how a person can and should be seen and loved for who they are instead of who society expects them to be.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise draws on familiar anime and manga tropes of involuntary transformation, seen in works like Parasyte and Inuyasha, while adding its own distinct romantic flavor. While the surface of its story may seem familiar in that sense, it is clear from Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 that the series is forging its own path with its own distinct voice.

Audiences have seen romance stories and kaiju stories, but Kaiju Girl Caramelise is on a path to make something worth watching using both genres.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 1 is streaming now, exclusively on Crunchyroll.