Warning! Spoilers ahead for Kaiju No. 8 chapter 66!
An unfortunate development in Kaiju No. 8 that strips the hero Kafka Hibino of his most appealing tragic flaw could actually serve as a mechanism to help bolster a prospective betrayal.
What initially appealed to readers about Kafka, and what subsequently drew them into Kaiju No. 8's world, was that he is essentially a nobody who would have never been able to achieve his dreams if he hadn't been ambivalently chosen by a kaiju to become the eponymous numbered monster. By the first chapter, readers discovered that Kafka had failed not once but numerous times to get his dream job at the Defense Force. To successfully battle kaiju, Defense Force fighters wear specialized equipment consisting of kaiju cells and muscle fibers that draw out their inherent powers. And, unfortunately, using such equipment doesn't do much of anything for poor Kafka, making him effectively useless. But since becoming Kaiju No. 8 randomly, Kafka can naturally draw upon that power because he's essentially a kaiju himself.
Because of this, Kafka has always been useless in his normal human form. But in chapter 66 of Kaiju No. 8 by mangaka Naoya Matsumoto, Vice Captain Soshiro Hoshina has begun teaching the young recruit a certain mode of fighting called Squadron-style Combat Technique that will allow him to battle kaiju without having to transform, initially allowing him to obtain power via a specialized shortcut. In other words, once mastered, Kafka will become special not because of another power that was granted to him, but because of his own inherent skill.
The irony is that Soshiro began training Kafka in the first place because of a massive game-changer in Kaiju No. 8. Before, Kafka's only problems were getting discovered as Kaiju No. 8 and losing control while in his monster form. But once those challenges were solved, it was implied that Kafka could now transform as much as he liked without experiencing any adverse consequences. But he recently learned that every time he became a kaiju, a part of him would not revert back to his human form. So, this new technique became a way for Kafka to keep transforming at a minimum to prevent him from losing his humanity. But once mastered, his tragic flaw, which basically confirmed that Kafka was only special because of dumb luck, will be no more. Before now, readers had been automatically inclined to root for Kafka as the protagonist, and since they want him to succeed, the fact that he can't get anywhere significant the normal way (by having his power drawn out from the Defense Force's specialized equipment) causes them to feel badly for him. Removing that dynamic only accomplishes in diminishing the overall emotions they have in relation to the series' main character. It also panders to an annoying shonen trope where a hero who received their power by unprecedented means, like Kafka, undergoes a special training regime - or some other shortcut - that helps make them just like everyone else.
Luckily, Soshiro is in jeopardy of losing control of himself and possibly even betraying the Defense Force since he will be taking the unprecedented risk of pairing with a live kaiju. This would, consequently, mean that the mind-controlled Soshiro could likely battle against Kafka. It would be incredibly ironic if Kafka is forced to defeat his former teacher with the same technique that Soshiro himself taught Kafka to use. If Kafka is forced to employ Squadron-style Combat Technique against Soshiro then that will justify him mastering a technique that, in turn, eliminated the tragic flaw that made him appealing from chapter 1 of Kaiju No. 8.
