REVIEW: ‘Kaiju Girl Caramelise’ Episode 5 — “A Gyaru And Lipstick”

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5 is an excellent reminder that sometimes people just need a little more confidence. While still gripping, with strong themes like body image, self-esteem, and self-acceptance, Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5, “A Gyaru and Lipstick,” adds a new layer to Akaishi’s journey toward self-acceptance — how confidence acts as the bridge toward that ultimate goal. While the implementation of this layer isn’t perfect, Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5 cleverly uses it to drive the story forward.

School is back in session, but in the weeks leading up to it, since becoming official with Minami (Daishi Kajita), Akaishi (Hikari Senga) has been making more appearances as the giant kaiju known as Harugon. As they walk to school on the first day, Akaishi’s insecurities about people treating Minami poorly for dating her appear, and she makes Minami agree that they’ll pretend that they’re just friends.

To keep up the appearance, he goes on ahead, but his young sister stops Akaishi on the street, not knowing who she is and asks him to take Minami his lunch. The way his sister goes on and on about how devoted Minami is to her makes her stop to wonder aloud, “I suppose this Akaishi-san person must be very pretty.” The short interaction allows Akaishi the confidence to go ahead and deliver Minami his lunch, and also be seen hand-in-hand with him as they enter the school.

You can see the improvement in Akaishi’s confidence at the beginning of Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5.

The mean girls are back, and they’re upset that “Psycho-Tan” must have done something nefarious to have attracted Minami’s attention. They head over to complain to a new character, Khono Raimu (Haruka Shiraishi), expecting her to commiserate with them. Instead, she runs to Akaishi’s side. She introduces herself, insisting that Akaishi call her by the nickname Rairi. Rairi then helps Akaishi by putting on lip balm, lipstick, and gloss.

Even the mean girls must admit that the color looks good on Akaishi. Meanwhile, Akaishi’s inner dialogue feels conflicted because this isn’t just a popular girl; this is a gyaru, which, for context, is a subculture of Japanese fashion that in this context is best translated as an outgoing fashionista or trendy girl. Still, the simple addition of a bit of lipstick gives Akaishi the confidence to seek her help again after school to go buy more lipstick.

After visiting the makeup shop, Rairi and Akaishi walk down the street when a construction site ends up getting water all over the two girls. The water washes away Rairi’s makeup, leaving her appearance to look like that of a gorilla. After finding her makeup bag, she and Akaishi sit at a cafe talking while she fixes her makeup. She explains how she began using makeup as a way to escape people’s reactions to her, even going so far as to call her “Gori-Rairi” in reference to her simian facial features.

Through Rairi, we see how makeup can be transformative but also help boost confidence in one’s appearance.

The story she tells Akaishi is about her struggles to fit in, to find love, but it ends with her ultimately finding love for herself. Hearing that Rairi understands what it’s like to be judged for her appearance gives Akaishi a renewed sense of confidence and a new tool to work on herself.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5 has virtually no kaiju but still manages to stay interesting from start to finish. Despite taking a slower pace and giving a lot of exposition, Rairi’s inclusion in Kaiju Girl Caramelise is important. It takes a story about a girl struggling with insecurities and pushes her toward becoming someone who, perhaps for the first time, sees herself as worthy of love and affection. Rairi’s story is entirely relatable to Akaishi because when she looks at Rairi, she now sees someone who knows exactly how she feels.

Rairi is ultimately a great vehicle for building Akaishi’s confidence. Because she’s a gyaru, Akaishi already has an immense trust in Rairi’s ability to put a look together. She doesn’t feel the need for Rairi to prove her worth, which keeps the story from slowing down.

Rairi’s story is incredibly relatable and shows another approach to tackling insecurity.

Another more endearing characteristic of Rairi is that she doesn’t seem to care too much for Japan’s name culture. She introduces herself by a nickname, which emboldens Akaishi to introduce herself by her given name instead of her surname, which would have been more typical. Rairi then shortens Kuroe into Kuro and adds taso to the end of it. Adding “taso” to the end of her name is a noticeable break in convention, but it also plays on internet meme culture in Japan by saying something along the lines of “you’re adorable!”

Rairi’s arc involving makeup to give her a confidence boost is certainly something to keep an eye on. Kaiju Girl Caramelise has, whether intentionally or unintentionally, created a dynamic where Akaishi is at risk of learning the wrong lesson. If the lesson here is that small changes can create huge leaps in confidence, then the use of lipstick and other makeup is totally defensible. The risk remains, though, that Akaishi could lean into the makeup as a way to redefine herself and treat her body image issues with cosmetics instead of acceptance.

To be clear, this isn’t an indictment on wearing makeup. If Rairi’s advice ends up landing closer to wanting Akaishi to feel comfortable in her own skin and letting her outward appearance be a manifestation of that, it will enrich and support the greater lesson that people should learn to love themselves as they are. Rairi even explicitly states that she began wearing makeup before she started loving herself.

Introducing Rairi adds another character to a growing ensemble to keep track of.

Another issue that Rairi’s inclusion presented is that she is now yet another player in what is quickly becoming a massive roster of characters. While Manatsu sits squarely in comedic relief and only operates as a support character, Rairi’s backstory gives her teeth. She seems to be more than just a one-off with a lot more to say. For now, that works because her story is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the main narrative, but having so many characters to keep track of runs the risk of it weighing the whole show down.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise continues to build a story that’s both interesting and heartwarming. Though Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5 doesn’t focus too heavily on the relationship between Akaishi and Minami, it continues to propel the story forward and gives Akaishi some concrete ideas on what being more confident could look like.

Despite a few noticeable flaws, Kaiju Girl Caramelise continues week after week to deliver a captivating love story. The question now is whether the series can maintain the distinction between Akaishi finding confidence in herself and believing she needs to fundamentally change who she is, as the latter would undermine one of the series’ strongest themes.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise Episode 5 is available now on Crunchyroll.

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