Sakamoto Days

Episode 17

The good news is that it seems like the post-episode comedy sketches are back, and this week's centers around our villains. Specifically, we get a flashback of Slur and his crew giving a send-off to one of their associates who was unceremoniously killed off last week after infiltrating the JAA on their behalf. Sadly, while this might have been a chance to give a little more depth to these baddies or at least whip out some decent jokes, this doesn't accomplish either. The best we get is seeing Slur give the guy a very badly drawn sketch as a present, which is weirdly cute, but when it's contrasted by Gaku spending this whole farewell party playing his Nintendo Switch, I'm not quite sure what the intended effect was meant to be here, much less the punchline.

Unfortunately, that feeling extends to the bulk of the main episode, as Sakamoto and Shin attempt to break into the JCC by posing as transfer students and partaking in one of their entrance exams. As always, it's really funny to be reminded of how casually the existence of professional assassins is treated in this show's universe, and learning that this assassin school has a public web page, with graphs for graduation statistics makes for some excellent commitment to the bit (especially since the casual attitude here is only broken when it's pointed out that the handful of dropouts were all students who died during their “studies”). I also liked the idea of these two having to make their way through some kind of rigorous exam since similar setups like the Hunter Exam in Hunter X Hunter and the Chunnin Exam in Naruto are prime examples of how shonen battle series can use these scenarios to present their heroes with problems that have to be solved through ingenuity rather than just fights. Much as I love Sakamoto's overpowered beatdowns, they do make the flow of the show's fights feel a bit repetitive, so an attempt at coming up with more non-combat-related scenarios would be welcome.

So far, that's not quite what we're getting in practice. Sakamoto and Shin's first challenge here involves them having to steal some bullets from examiners while they're all on a flight. While that could have been used to test their deduction skills or instincts as pros, it mostly just serves as an excuse for more fight scenes. The most prominent one featured sees Shin squaring off against a teen edgelord assassin whose gimmick is also being a germaphobe, and to the show's credit, the action here does look pretty good. There's a clear attempt to make some of the action here look cinematic through some fish-eye lens camerawork, and there's fluid animation sprinkled throughout the fight. Beyond that, there isn't a whole lot to this matchup, especially since it ends with Shin just reaffirming how much better he's gotten at using his mind-reading to predict people's movements. It was solid enough, but it did leave me wishing it had a little more going on.

Sakamoto's side of the episode is at least a little stronger, though more so from the comedy than the action. While he does do his usual thing of overpowering any would-be attackers through the most mundane tools possible, the actual laughs here stem from his dealings with a mysterious blue-haired girl. Even putting aside how much a ditzy, blue-haired anime girl feels out of place in similar shows, it's clear from the second she opens her mouth that she has no business trying to become a pro assassin. She's a complete wreck, and it's funny seeing how extremely earnest she is in doing her best to pass, even when it involves clumsily shooting at other assassins with a giant machine gun. The best part of this, by far, is how she's convinced that Sakamoto and Shin are a couple of nervous newbies just like she is, and that impression somehow doesn't change even after watching Sakamoto brutalize several guys with a regular pen.

She does at least recognize how strong he is, and while this skill gap makes her start to think she might not have what it takes to be a pro, Sakamoto gently assures her it's possible. This would be a sweet moment in any other show, but it is a little comical here when you consider he's encouraging her to be a contracted killer (to be fair, it is a perfectly respectable line of work by this show's logic). Amusing as this all was, I wish the show would do more with this exam scenario, and that it opted to be a little more creative with the dangers Sakamoto and Shin are facing than just defaulting to its usual brand of John Wick beatdowns. Considering Slur might be looking to recruit some students to expand his ranks, we're probably in for a shakeup sooner rather than later, and I'm hopeful that whatever conflict that provides will bring something a little fresher to the table

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Sakamoto Days is currently streaming on Netflix on Saturdays.