#hell I'm pretty sure the author hasn't even thought this far ahead or even has an in-canon excuse for his appearance..

[mechazushi]

A bit of a Theory. {Kaiju Number 8}

So I've been spending some time sketching out this OC idea that I have and her whole thing is that she's like Kafka and is a half Kaiju. Her transformation is supposed to look like a mixture of Bakko (Mina's tiger) and Kaiju Number 8. I'm sitting here looking at the first take on the design and I'm hating it because it's just looking like a muscular Furry in a mask so I decide to add on some extra details to her Shoulders and Thighs/Waist to tie in the fact she's an offshoot of Kn8. As I'm turning design ideas in my head, I decide to have it take on a more samurai look as a sort of nod to the original host of the Kn8... bug? Dragonfly? Mini Kaiju? Progenitor? Progenitor. (From now on though, I'm just gonna use sonicsura's term for the thing and call it Tiny)

And I'm tossing the ideas around in my head and suddenly I'm thinking "Wait. Kafka doesn't have pauldrons in his design? And the Samurai does?" And now I'm wondering why that is? And the longer I'm thinking about it, now I'm wondering why he's wearing a suit in the first place?

(This is the only shot of the samurai that I can get off of Google images, apologies)

Now I can hear what you would be saying, "No shit he's wearing armor Zushi! He can't be caught by the public in that form, less they murder him on the spot!" I understand that is still very much the case and it's of course better to fight alongside a group of people when they aren't actively viewing you as a threat at the same time, so the armor in this case can help him blend into the crowd as he fights.

But hear me out for a second. Traditional samurai armor has a LOT of layers, and if they were wealthy enough (Which most were) they typically had a helper (Though, most were expected to have knowledge on how to put it on/take it off themselves) And I know we joke about Kafka's Kaiju form having a thick ass, but when paired with the idea of someone in that specific form, wouldn't it be difficult to don armor over an unusually shaped frame? Even if the armor was custom made and he had someone he trusted to help him put it on, I still think that the armor crafted would have a distinctly different look about it. So much so that I think that it would show up in history book, wouldn't it? You can't tell me that there wouldn't be a chapter dedicated to an oddly shaped samurai in and around the Meireki era that had notable displays of super strength and agility. He fought to help humans in their endeavor to protect humanity from the kaiju, he had to, at some point, do something crazy and superhuman considering we are just now seeing what that samurai went up against thanks to the latest chapter.

This is where most of my theory is. Kafka's Kaiju form didn't always look like that. My theory is that not only does Tiny function as a biological version of a Numbers suit, something happens at the point of the user's death and it absorbs whatever the user is wearing at that moment and recycles the fit onto the next user. I'm starting to think that in the first iteration of the human Kaiju form, it looked a lot different than what we have now. I'm leaning towards it looking something similar to the Colossal Titan from AoT.

No natural armor, just exposed, heightened muscle. That way, having the samurai armor makes more sense because now he has protection. Now he won't get injured as much as he taps into his super powers and can still move around easily AND blend in with the rest of the soldiers.

While we can't confirm for sure if the samurai is the only iteration of Kaiju Number 8, I'm going to again lean on the Numbers suit comparison and say that Kafka can only see the samurai due to 1) Tiny can sense what they're about to go up against and the Samurai is the most knowledgeable on the subject. Or it's most likely 2) The samurai is the most recent user and it has the easiest time coming to the forefront of Kafka's psyche. It should also be said that it's not said one way or the other whether or not Kaiju number 8, or more specifically Tiny, existed before Number 9's time, only that 8 really hates 9. I do want to point out something that I've noticed from the Kikoru verses 15 fight where she starts seeing her mother, that her mother is also wearing the Numbers suit. Which, I mean, sounds like another No Shit Sherlock situation, but I think it adds something interesting to the lore behind the suits

The suits can still "see" their wearer, even as a suit. While 10 is the only suit that can talk back, the others can, in a sense, invade the wearer's mind (Since the suits don't come with visors) and project an image of the previous wearer's actions, even down to what they were wearing at the time. Which, of course, makes sense because how could they if the suit isn't active any other time. Which brings me to my next question, "What if whatever Tiny is can do more than that?" If it already fundamentally changes the user into a Kaiju, core and all, who's to say it can't also absorb what they're wearing at the time?

And if that IS the case, why doesn't Kafka's Kaiju form look more like a samurai suit of armor instead of the glowing six pack that we get? Here's my ongoing thought. Let's assume for a second that the placement of the core doesn't change from User to User, since the placement of Kafka's core is centered around his heart (Thank you for the breakdown kujoestars). It can be confirmed via logic that the previous samurai is dead, but lets play with the how.

To kill a Kaiju, you hit its core, so to kill a Human shifting Kaiju, you hit its chest. What if the samurai got hit in the chest so hard, he not only died from it, it destroyed his chest plate. So when he died, the only thing that ended up getting absorbed at time of death was his helmet, his face mask, and his pants, leaving his chest open in the next iteration and thus revealing the glowing six pack we've come to love! (And some of us hate, but we ignore them because we don't care, it's glow-in-the-dark abs.)

I don't know about you, but I feel better having said this. Even if I'm going to be called crazy and be debunked seven ways from Sunday. And I'm also aware that this might not be the easiest to follow along, but all this is coming from some half formed thoughts that I had at the tail end of my work day, so excuse the shitty frame work.

(Bonus thought. If this is the case and Kafka dies (IN THE DISTANT FUTURE) he's probably more than likely going to be wearing the defense force suit. If the next reincarnation on n8 puts on a defense force suit (and we're assuming they're going to be even more technologically advanced at this point) what would happen? Would it still read a 0%, or would it give an Error 404 code and say something like "It is not advisable to wear one suit over the other" "Uuuhhh... they're not wearing another suit..." "Huh, that's weird, don't know why THAT could be happening. *Sweating bullets*"