Sakamoto, a former legendary assassin, runs a neighborhood store in the Ikoraizaka shopping arcade, but this street lined with various stores can be a little dangerous… To protect his beloved family and enjoy his days off, Sakamoto takes on the mission of revitalizing the area to make it the most peaceful shopping arcade in town! This hilarious spin-off of Sakamoto Days is now open to the public!

Sakamoto and Shin catch a shoplifter, but the shoplifter returns with his gang to ambush them. Can Sakamoto and Shin defend themselves without spilling blood, keep Hana unaware of what's happening, and complete the housework perfectly?

Sakamoto Holidays has a story by Tetsu Ōkawa and art by Yūto Suzuki. English translation is done by Max Greenway and lettering by Arbash Mughal. Published by Viz Media (March 17, 2026). Rated T.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

The Ikoraizaka shopping arcade is looking a little seedy these days. Windows are broken, tough-looking guys are walking around, and Sakamoto, former legendary hitman, now retired shopkeeper and devoted husband to Aoi and father to Hana, wants to do nothing more than spend pleasant days with his family. With the help of his employees psychic Shin, who knows his secret, and Lu, they endeavor to make the shopping arcade safe for everyone…and expand their business while they are at it. When a prize is announced for the team that cleans up the most garbage, the guns come out and it's every team for themselves in an all-out battle.

Khachaturian's Sabre Dance playing in the background as completely normal everyday concerns become raging battles. Who can clean up the most garbage, taking photos of the shop owners and solving every day problems like whose ramen is best, always ends up in a huge fight. The details of every situation are amusing, especially when other characters show up with weapons that get sillier and sillier and the competition between businesses get personal.

The only complaint I have is a running gag about Sakamoto having gained weight, which isn't funny and just feels tired by the second time it's used. Other than that, it's good fun. No emotional commitment is needed to enjoy this volume or the volumes to come. The quest to turn the Ikoraizaka shopping arcade into a safe and family-friendly place continues with more fight-filled gags about a retired hitman and the assassins around him, cleaning up the neighborhood in the most violent ways possible. This silly series' even sillier spin-off can be enjoyed on it's own or by fans of the series who want to spend a few more pages in the company of these characters.

Bolts
Rating:

I love Sakamoto Days. What seemed to be an exaggerated comedy quickly turned into a high-stakes action series that I am still up-to-date with right now, wondering how it's all going to end. The idea of a comedic spinoff series was appealing, especially since this volume seemed to initially focus more on the early chapters of that original run. The comedic appeal was in Sakamoto being this chubby dad bod guy who is secretly a super capable assassin. The early chapters were about how that exaggerated life was now being forced to interact with the everyday life of running a store. However, once the stakes were raised even a little bit, that premise was abandoned. This manga brings it back to those humble beginnings, but also exaggerates them in different ways.

Initially, I thought this manga was a bunch of side stories that were maybe cut from the original manga, but this is technically a different story entirely. The book features a lot of the same characters, and I think Sakamoto's backstory is more or less the same, but the major difference is that there is no assassination organization, and the scale is significantly brought down. If anything, reading this kind of story reminded me a bit of Gintama, where the overall setup is really simple, but all of the characters are still crazy, dangerous personalities. Instead of fighting for the assassin world, it's all about characters from the original manga competing as shop owners in the arcade district. Everyone more or less has the same abilities and similar relations, so initially, I wondered what the point was, but I think the idea is that this is, overall, a far more lighthearted and comedic take on the initial setup.

On those grounds, I did find a lot of enjoyment here. I like the characters in Sakamoto, so seeing the same characters just operating under slightly different circumstances was still enjoyable. The smaller scale initially made me think that things wouldn't get as intense or high octane as the main series, but there's surprisingly a lot of effort into the artistic presentation here. While I'm not a fan of the fact that a lot of the character designs were simplified and squished down, literally and figuratively, there is some really impressive framing here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that some of the action choreography in this spinoff has more of an artistic presence than in the main series.

Whether it's the creative ways that a lot of iconic moves from the main series have been simplified or how action setpieces literally take advantage of the multiple different frames of the manga to convey unique ideas, almost as if they're all homaging action scenes from movies, it was genuinely inspired. There's so much effort put into this to the point where I feel like even if you never read the original Sakamoto Days, you can still find a lot of joy here. In fact, I'm curious about those who might read this as its own self-contained. It's fast-paced, quirky, and the characters are still likable. Pick it up if you want a good time.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Are shonen manga spin-offs ever any good? Sometimes. I really liked My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, which at times surpassed its progenitor. I couldn't say the same of Kaiju No. 8: Relax, which bored me to tears. Sadly, Sakamoto Holidays is of the second type. I don't really understand why it exists. The whole point of Sakamoto Days is that it mixes up humorous slice-of-life shenanigans with heightened action. Series protagonist Taro Sakamoto is an ex-assassin who keeps on getting dragged back into his old world by unwelcome former colleagues and enemies turning up to disrupt his quiet family life. There doesn't seem to be much difference about this spin-off, other than a few cosmetic changes.

Sakamoto's clairvoyant assistant Shin is now aged down to become a first-year high school student, as is mob boss daughter Lu (presumably this means she can't use her Drunken Fist anymore, which is lame). The various members of The Order are now responsible for various stores in the local shopping district, and it's all so terribly uninteresting. It's like someone thought that the main series wasn't slice of life enough, yet still proceeded to include random action scenes in the resulting derivative work. The central premise is barely changed, yet any real danger or plot progression has been completely excised, making the whole thing feel pointless.

As the artist is a former assistant of Sakamoto Days' author Yūto Suzuki, the characters at least look the part, and are more or less indistinguishable from the original. However, this volume commits the cardinal sin of being boring. I've only just finished reading it, and I'm struggling to remember any details at all. That's not a great sign. I'd forgo this unnecessary spin-off and stick to the original.