Sakamoto Days

Episode 13

While last week's episode kicked off the show's second cour with its usual mix of action and comedy, this one is all about the action as the battles against the serial killers kick into high gear. Although Sakamoto Days has never been shy about its action movie aesthetic, this episode is a good example of what happens when it leans into it, as this one is largely just concerned with moving from one action scene to the next. It's a fun time, but it also makes for an episode that's a little light on substance.

Continuing from last time, we get the end to Shin and Lu's fight with the serial killer, Saw. Shin learns how to use his mind-reading powers to start detecting how Saw is going to move just reading his motor functions, which is cool, but nothing too unexpected for a solution in a standard shonen fight. What's a bit more inspired is Lu's contribution to this battle as she uses her Drunken Fist to help bail Shin out of trouble, but rather than being a happy drunk or a sad drunk, she's somehow become “Mafia Drunk,” which equates to her suddenly becoming more domineering and ruthless. Since Lu is usually a silly character, the contrast here manages to be cool and hilarious simultaneously, and watching Saw go from talking about how much he loves killing people to begging Lu not to kill him is just as fun. Having him escape from Shin and Lu only to be killed by one of the Order members was a bit anticlimactic, but the comedic timing of Saw realizing who he was sharing a taxi with right before getting splattered was pretty impeccable, so that more or less balanced it out.

The other big action scene this week pits Osaragi from The Order against another one of the serial killers, Dump. Fighting take place while Osaragi is at a local shrine praying that she'll have the opportunity to kill one of these killers herself is a good bit, and having Osaragi “demonstrate” how to pray at a shrine by bashing Dump's skull into an offering table feels like an exchange that could have been ripped right out of an action blockbuster. Sadly, the actual fight isn't as memorable as that bit of violence, but it's consistent enough that it mostly serves its purpose. There's also not much going on with either of the characters, as Osaragi has largely been portrayed as being a bit scatterbrained when it comes to anything but her job as an assassin, while Dump's M.O. has been that she finds people to be at their most beautiful before dying, and kills as an expression of love. The episode does up play Dump's obsession with her brand of love as she doesn't quite comprehend why the world wants to punish her for it, but there isn't much there to empathize with, and it's not all that interesting of a motivation, so these attempts at drama fell a bit flat for me. I did at least get a bit more out of Osaragi's response to this, as she's accepted that killers like the two of them shouldn't be allowed to exist, and only loves having ones like Dump around because being tasked with keeping them in check gives her a sense of purpose. This isn't the most in-depth characterization, but it works for an action series as straightforward as this one. Seeing Osaragi tell Dump she loves her before cutting through her with a saw is probably the most metal thing to happen in the show so far.

Beyond the action, there isn't much else going on here. We do see that the alliance between the serial killers and Slur's group isn't very tight, and of them slices up Kashima, which would be a shocking twist, if not for the bigger shock of Kashima surviving this. In fact, not only does he survive, but he even holds a full conversation with Slur while most of his body parts are all over the floor, and it gets across the heightened cartoon reality this series runs on. There's also the threat of one of the killers coming after Aoi, but we'll have to wait until next week to see how that shakes out. Being such an action-focused episode didn't leave a whole lot to discuss here, but since that's part of the show's bread and butter at this point, that's just a sign that it's still running smoothly, and I hope the series can maintain that as we get deeper into this arc.

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Sakamoto Days is currently streaming on Netflix on Saturdays.