Sakamoto Days

Episode 14

Since the show has been veering more and more away from comedy lately, I'm glad that this episode provides some in the form of a brief short featuring Shishiba and Osaragi from The Order. It's nothing too special, as it mostly just centers around Shishiba trying to enjoy a bowl of food while Osaragi's tendency to think too literally keeps getting in his way, but it's a decent enough setup for a comedy skit and does a good job of getting across their current odd couple dynamic. I'm not sure if this is a one-time deal or if we'll get more shorts across the season, but since action scenes will probably dominate the show for the foreseeable future, I don't mind getting a little something to help break away from them a bit.

The main part of the episode also kicks off on a fairly light note as Sakamoto takes Shin and Lu to recover at the place of an old healer friend of his named Chiyo. It's a nice bit of cooldown after how action-heavy last week's episode was, but the scene doesn't do much beyond that. We do get some comments from Chiyo about how being around these kids has softened Sakamoto for the better, but since we don't know much about what he was like before settling down, other than his rep, this doesn't help in giving us any deeper insight into his character. What the scene does accomplish is helping to set up Sakamoto's next battle, as Chiyo warns him that he's only about 30% as strong as he used to be, and decides to help him out by striking one of his pressure points to make his body lighter. We only get an idea of what that does for him when Heisuke ends up running into another one of the serial killers and Sakamoto intervenes to help him out. Sakamoto quickly realizes that Chiyo has prevented him from being able to slim down like he normally does and, is now forced to fight at his regular size, but rather than being a hindrance, the situation allows him to learn that being overweight doesn't mean he can't still get around, and to accept his body for the way it currently is. Given that the show hasn't been without its share of cheap fat jokes at Sakamoto's expense (and the early parts of the manga even more so), it was refreshing to see the series finally pull away from that. Even if it might have been due more to the overall shift in the story's tone than actually rectifying that, the result is nice either way. Plus, I can't think of a better advertisement for body positivity than watching Sakamoto launch a serial killer off Tokyo Tower and punch him the whole way down. Despite being the most action movie-esque part of the episode, this was weirdly the one with the most notable animation shortcuts. I'm willing to give that a pass because a lot of what preceded it featured moments like characters swinging across buildings or Sakamoto catching a bullet with chopsticks, and since those theatrics were better animated than last week's offerings, I'm overall pretty happy with the action scenes we got here.

That extends to the other fight we get this week, where we see what happens after one of the killers goes after Aoi. At first, it seems like we get an interesting subversion in expectations when Aoi suddenly starts beating down on him, but we quickly discover it's Nagumo in disguise. I wish the show had followed through on that instead. Sure we know disguises are Nagumo's thing, and we haven't seen any indication that Aoi is much more than an ordinary woman, but it's not like she isn't aware of Sakamoto's former life, so I could have just as easily bought into the idea of him teaching her a few of his tricks in the event some assassin came looking for revenge, and revealing that she could be as dangerous as her husband would certainly fit with the show's energy. Slight disappointment aside, the fight itself is still pretty good as Nagumo just keeps messing with the guy by doing things like stealing stuff out his pockets or letting him decide which of his blades he'll use on him, and the latter sees some of this episode's best animation as Nagumo whips out his set of blades before using one to pop the killer's head off like a can opener. With how much the show has pivoted towards action, it would be nice if these kinds of sequences were more consistent in quality across the board, but it is an improvement over some of what we saw in the first cour, so I'll happily take that over nothing at all. While Nagumo's fight has a gruesome finish, the episode stops before we can get an end to Sakamoto's tower battle, so we'll have to wait another week to see how it wraps up. If it's as over the top as anything we got this week, though, I'm sure it'll go out with a bang.

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Sakamoto Days is currently streaming on Netflix on Saturdays.