Sakamoto Days

Episode 12

Sakamoto Days is back after a three month break and it kicks off pretty much exactly where it left off. I found the first cour of the show to be a decent, if not exactly exceptional adaptation of the manga, and for better or worse, that seems to still be holding true for this one. Anyone who was hoping that the break would result in some kind of massive uptick in production quality is likely to be let down, and given how this half is going to be a lot more action intensive, I'm a bit more afraid of how well the animation will keep up. On the positive side, we do at least get a much better OP than the first one, and the visual presentation of it feels a lot more in line with the visual style of the manga, so I'm willing to take small victories where I can get them.

As for the episode itself, it basically drops us right back into the fray with the group of serial killers currently after Sakamoto. We're also reintroduced to each of their gimmicks, but since we got a good enough handle on that in the last episode I don't feel like it was particularly necessary. One important piece of new information that we get though, is that these guys are also on the radar of The Order, and they're planning on dealing with them personally. The Order is more than willing to resort to lethal methods to deal with these killers but since they're the only clue Sakamoto has to Slur, he'd rather keep them alive—and this seems like it could be setting up a big three-way conflict as we get deeper into the season.

While all this is going on, Shin and Lu are out shopping as they try to figure out how to avoid slowing Sakamoto down, but end up having the misfortune to run into one of the serial killers, Saw. He's frankly not all that interesting aside from his gimmick of wanting to give people exciting deaths so they'll be less boring to him, but it's always a delight to hear David Vincent in a villain role—and he's pretty entertaining here. Fighting Saw gives Shin and Lu the opportunity to learn how they stack up against the rest of the underworld—and while this does mostly veer into discussing power levels, it does at least result in a good punchline. Since he's gotten rusty over the years, Sakamoto apparently only registers as a B-rank level threat as opposed to the members of The Order who are all considered to be ranked S—even with Sakamoto still otherwise being portrayed as an unstoppable machine of violence. That sounds pretty par the course for shonen power scaling though, so the real surprise comes upon discovering that Lu is somehow ranked as a C, while poor Shin is ranked just above the bottom in D. He obviously doesn't take this very well, especially since Lu's only really threatening while taking a drink—and seeing Shin contemplating this while being comforted by a bunch of puppies is the funniest thing to come out of the episode.

As for the fight itself…it's mostly just okay. Much like with the show's first half, the action here looks perfectly serviceable and rarely ever feels so stiff as to be actively distracting, but there's not a ton of movement either, and anyone paying enough attention can probably tell where the team is cutting corners with speed lines and impact frames. Again, it's not very ideal, but it's functional enough that bringing up the shortcomings would feel like beating a dead horse, so I'm gonna keep trying to refrain from doing so unless something looks particularly rough. Aside from that, there isn't really much else to bring up about the episode since it feels like more of a direct continuation than a mid-season opener—and we're gonna have to wait till next week to see how the fight here actually ends. Despite the adaptation's imperfections, it's nice to have Sakamoto Days back. And so long as it can keep holding itself together, it should keep making for a good time—even if it's not always a great one.