Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, our weekly check in on Viz’s various Shonen Jump series. Viz has recently changed their release format, but our format will mostly remain the same. We will still review the newest chapters of one title a week, now with even more options at our disposal. The big change for our readers is that, even without a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read these most recent chapters for free at Viz.com or using their app.
This week, Vince checks in with “Sakamoto Days.” If you have thoughts on these or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
Sakamoto Days – Chapter 1: The Legendary Hit Man
Written & Illustrated by Yuto Suzuki
Reviewed by Vince J Ostrowski
Let’s get this out of the way at the start: “Sakamoto Days” features a well-worn premise and does not deviate from that concept in any unexpected ways. Once you understand the basics of the plot, the chapter will not do anything in its 50-odd pages that will come as a surprise to you. Every instinct that you have about the small handful of principal characters will come to bear before the issue is over. What you will find, instead, is perhaps the most entertaining, classiest execution of this concept that the manga form has to offer. It is the “retired hitman dragged back into the game” genre done to near perfection.
Taro Sakamoto left the assassin game as a young man at perhaps the peak of his powers, opting for a life of love, family, and relatively humdrum toil at his little convenience store in the city. But of course there is a hierarchy to the world of assassins, and a code, and his betrayal of the life of the organized killer must be paid for in his own blood eventually. In comes the hot shot clairvoyant hit man, Shin, who is sent to take out the man he’s admired all his life. What follows is a series of violent, botched encounters on Sakamoto’s life, both real and imaginary, and a good deal of humor about the man that Sakamoto has become versus the man he once was.
I can’t express how charming the entire ordeal is. The relatively silent Sakamoto (his mouth is rarely if ever seen behind his distinguished mustache) still manages to project a quiet warmth and appeal. Inside and outside, his shop is filled with fun little details, carefully filling out the world with bustling character. A couple of kids poking at a piece of feces outside the store doesn’t add anything to the plot, but it gives flavor nonetheless. A few cracks are made about how Sakamoto has let himself go since leaving the life, but you never get the idea that he’s not as effective as he once was, and the art really sells this as possible. The younger Sakamoto is depicted as lithe and swift. At present, Sakamoto is a bear of a man, but the art powerfully depicts his slight movements with precision and heft, lending a credible air to his ability to still fight through a room of assassins. The first chapter is gloriously detailed throughout, but when the fight scenes kick in, it takes on hyper-detailed, deliberately paced quality. Writer and artist, Yuto Suzuki, shows you all the subtle moves in close detail and appropriate levels of brutality. I was reminded of a less over the top version of Geof Darrow’s “Shaolin Cowboy”, where several entire pages could be devoted to the protagonist slicing a person into pieces. “Sakamoto Days” isn’t as dramatic, but the image of the heavy-set Sakamoto deliberately moving through a wave of enemies definitely gives off similar vibes.
“Sakamoto Days” may not shock you with twists and turns, but it creates a charming protagonist and an intriguing foil for his character, while serving up tense, detailed action scenes. In that way, this opening chapter expertly balances out the morbid past of Sakamoto with the humor and humility of his now humble life.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – There’s very little fault to find in “Sakamoto Days”, other than a premise that has itself already been done a time or two.
