And that's it for this update. Really interesting on what's going on. Tagging some of these pages was quite difficult since I'm not familiar with all the characters. Not to mention being unable to read Japanese is also problematic. Anyways, hope to see the rest of this up to this point get translated sometime in the near future.
Interesting that the Professors have slightly different priorities than the Hunters, but very understandable. As far as the Professors can see, if Goji-chan keeps using her "fire" it's only a matter of time before the island burns to the ground. The Hunters share the concern, but would prefer that she learn how to control her power instead of banning her from using it. I find it interesting how it's unclear whether or not the professors know exactly what they're dealing with here, though. Yatagarasu and the rest of the mythological Friends are well aware that she is in fact the King Of Monsters, but the Professors do not appear to have figured out what she really is despite sitting on what is presumably the largest repository of human knowledge on the island.
Interesting that the Professors have slightly different priorities than the Hunters, but very understandable. As far as the Professors can see, if Goji-chan keeps using her "fire" it's only a matter of time before the island burns to the ground. The Hunters share the concern, but would prefer that she learn how to control her power instead of banning her from using it. I find it interesting how it's unclear whether or not the professors know exactly what they're dealing with here, though. Yatagarasu and the rest of the mythological Friends are well aware that she is in fact the King Of Monsters, but the Professors do not appear to have figured out what she really is despite sitting on what is presumably the largest repository of human knowledge on the island.
The owls definitely don't know. The owls' library is also ludicrously incomplete, and most of the joke about them is that this "professor" is half bluster, and mostly filling in for the vast holes in their knowledge with assumptions and bravado.
Besides that, in the next few pages, it's clear the owls are reacting to political pressure, as the Friends of the island are still too scared of fire in general.
Beyond that, while translating, it got me thinking about the nature of the metaphor Godzilla is supposed to represent. Going by the interpretation that Godzilla is the representation of nuclear war and American military power during the Cold War (at least, the original Godzilla, starting with Frankenstein was...), where the monsters represented massive, spectacular weapons of mass destruction that would also happen to destroy everything they were trying to protect when they were actually employed. Godzilla is supposedly the friend of humanity, protecting Tokyo from some horrible bigger threat, but always winds up smashing it himself, anyway. It's a message of how power needs to be controlled smuggled into a film outwardly about reveling in uncontrollable power.
When fighting among their own kind, animals almost never fight to kill. Even when it's for staying within a group that an animal depends upon to survive, males fighting to be the alpha male of a herd/pack/pride/whatever won't kill, and will accept being banished and losing all their females (and possibly having their children eaten) if they lose. As Friends, Lion and Moose can fight every day just for funsies without ever worrying about seriously harming one another, because the amount of force that it takes to kill (a lion generally has to latch onto the throat and strangle its prey to death - not something you do by accident) is vastly different from what it takes to win a brawl.
Humans, however, have built tools of killing that have vastly outstripped their instinctual ability to learn how to escalate threat and force. When people fought with sticks, it was easy to wave your weapon around while shouting as a threat, and stop at merely beating someone to the ground. When you have swords, injuries are easy, but it still isn't terribly common to go for the vitals by accident. When you have the fear that the other person has a gun that can kill you in a flash, however, it pushes one to escalate to preemptive force before the other guy can do so. When you escalate this further to nations with nuclear weapons... you get why Godzilla is a metaphor for why ultimate power needs to be restrained for those times when it really, truly is necessary...
... And this is a world where humanity apparently went extinct in exactly the kind of global war Godzilla warned against, at that....
The thing is, it's now Goji-chan that has to learn the lesson that her whole existence was meant to teach through her own bad example. It's the unavoidable plot that her existence would mean, especially in the anime Kemono Friends world built around how animals have inherited the world after humanity destroyed itself. Goji-chan's appearance is far less of a random crossover than it might at first appear.
... And this is a world where humanity apparently went extinct in exactly the kind of global war Godzilla warned against, at that....
If anything... Ceruleans are likely to be responsible for humanity's extermination in KF. Ceruleans, if I remember correctly, are formed when Sandstar comes into contact with inorganic materials. Imagine what would happen if an large eruption event (remember, Sandstar spreads naturally through volcanic eruptions on this island) sent enough Sandstar high enough for it to reach a major city on the wind. It would be utter panic and chaos to rival even Godzilla. The one saving grace is that Ceruleans have a deadly allergy when it comes to liquid water.
A cerulean outbreak was why the island itself was evacuated to begin with- it metasized into such a large crisis that all human staff were forced to evacuate. That's on a mostly undeveloped island. Now imagine what an outbreak in a major city would look like, and what sorts of weapons would be readied in response... actually, you don't have to imagine. Bombers were deployed to Japari Park, but at least some failed to reach their target and were downed- you can see what looks like a B-2 Spirit and another bomber, I think a B-17 Flying Fortress, in episode 11, along with a metric fuckton of undetonated, rusted bombs. I mean, it's essentially the worst case zombie scenario: They are only vulnerable to "headshots" on a specfic part which can be hidden from view, they regenerate completely if you fail to destroy said "head", and you cannot count on decay or decomposition slowing them down at all (they could in theory run out of Sandstar, but that's another issue). If their water weakness comes into play, you've just carpeted an area with volcanic rock. Oh, and the most dangerous ones at least are attracted to light.
