Sakamoto Days

Episode 20

If I have any major complaints about the current trajectory of this arc, it's that it feels a bit lame that Lu and Heisuke were written out of it, so it was nice to see them in this episode, even if it was just for the post-credits short. Sadly, this appearance doesn't last long as it only consists of them and Aoi wondering how Sakamoto is feeding himself before we see him grilling up some wild snakes for protein. It's a good bit, but it just makes me wish that these two were actually here. While I like Sakamoto and Shin, they work better when they have other characters besides each other. New additions like Akira or the whiny edgelord kid are doing a decent enough job of filling the void, but the dynamics here don't feel quite as strong.

That being said, Shin does bounce off pretty well against Toramaru, and the rest of their fight ended up being even more entertaining than I was hoping it'd be. For one thing, it's a notable step up from some of last week's action scenes as the animation here is a lot more fluid, and watching Shin trying to outmaneuver Toramaru's giant axe is a lot of fun (especially upon seeing that said giant axe is also a giant gun, which is just an excellent weapon design). The real joy of this fight is the difference in their ideologies, namely, what kind of Sakamoto fans they are. We discover that Toramaru was saved by Sakamoto during an incident in her childhood. Since then, she's become a full-on fangirl, with her devotion to her idol pushing her to figure out how to do things like make friends or learn to do makeup, all in the hopes of someday impressing him. It's almost weirdly heartwarming in a way, so of course it turns out that the version of Sakamoto she idolizes is an emotionless killing machine, and doesn't rely on anyone. Shin, on the other hand, understands that Sakamoto has become a much kinder person than he used to be, and does his best to correct her on what kind of guy he actually is.

A more boring version of this fight would have Toramaru snapping because she can't believe that her beloved Sakamoto has changed, but thankfully, this show is at least a bit more clever than that. What actually sets her off is the biggest blow to any devoted stan: the idea that someone could know their idol better than they do. Since she's not about to share her spot as Sakamoto's #1 fan, it puts Shin on her hit list, and that helps to keep the tone of this fight as funny as it is cool. In the end, Shin prevails, and his decision to save her from drowning allows Toramaru to see just enough of Sakamoto in him that she's willing to share in her fandom and wants to form a new Sakamoto fan club with him.

It's a pretty funny way to resolve all this, and that just made it all the more jarring when this bit of comedy was immediately interrupted by the two of them getting attacked by another examinee. More accurately, they get attacked by an examiner who's actually being remotely controlled by Gaku, like a video game character, as Slur wants to start testing some of these new JAA recruits. With how comedic the first half of this episode was, this makes for some weird tonal whiplash, especially when Gaku's meat puppet starts slaughtering the JAA examiners left and right, but the action here is so over the top that it's hard to be mad at it. Unfortunately, a lot of it doesn't look quite as smooth as the first part of the episode, but it more than makes up for it in terms of sheer violence, and it's great watching this exam into a total free-for-all. With just a few more episodes left to finish out the season, it seems like there's a very high chance that we won't get to see the rest of this arc finished out, and it might end up closing out on a cliffhanger. While that's a bit disappointing given that there's still plenty more action and escalation to come, it at least looks like the show plans on dishing out as much as possible before it's ready to hit the pause button.

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Sakamoto Days is currently streaming on Netflix on Saturdays.