Setting the stage: how Sakamoto Days separates itself from the battle shonen formula
In the last decade, it feels like the shonen battle manga has exploded in popularity. Series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Jujutsu Kaisen have been acclimated into pop culture, and for good reason; all these series attained their massive followings in different, yet equally valid, ways. However, there are some people that grow tired of these series, that feel as though they’ve “seen it all”. These people feel as if there’s nothing out there in the manga world that really differentiates itself from its contemporaries in a meaningful way. I empathize with these people, and to them I offer a newer alternative: a manga dealing not with magic systems and demons, but straight up ass-kickings and assassinations.
Written by Yuto Suzuki and published in Weekly Shonen Jump, Sakamoto Days follows Taro Sakamoto, a storeowner and a renowned family man with a secret past as a former assassin. The first chapter revolves around Shin, a contracted hitman with orders to assassinate Sakamoto, and ends with the former giving up his mission to work for the latter at his shop . From there, we follow the two along, with Lu Xiaotang, daughter of a wealthy family with a brash yet exciting personality, as they get pulled into sinister dealings with both new threats and former accomplices.
While this premise is certainly unique for Weekly Shonen Jump, it’s not exactly the most original pitch in the world. Fans of western television can probably see some objects of comparison between the series’s plot description and HBO’s comedy-drama Barry; even within the realm of anime and manga, Kousouke Oono’s The Way of The Househusband series is strikingly similar as a manga revolving around a former hitman turned, well, househusband. Additionally, many who have read this series have drawn a connection to legendary mangaka Hideaki Sorachi’s long-running Gintama series, particularly in the dynamic between the three protagonists of both series. However, what separates Sakamoto Days from the pack, in my view, is Suzuki’s deliberate and expert use of location and surroundings in his action setpieces to enhance the story being told.
The locations where fights in Sakamoto Days take place in are varied; from a school to an amusement park to even an airplane, these characters are focused on neutralizing their opponent by any means. This is distinctive enough in its own right, but its not what truly sets the world that Suzuki crafts apart from the typical action shonen. This comes via the use of location as its own character of sorts to progress fights and the plot forward.
Take, for instance, the aforementioned fight at the amusement park between Sakamoto, Shin, and a group of enemy assassins. As silent killers, the latter find it beneficial to sneak up on the former from behind as they likely won’t be noticed in a crowd of people; however, due to Shin’s ability to read thoughts, both him and his boss are alerted to the enemies’ presence and are able to prevent an attack.
Later in the chapter, as the group along with Sakamoto’s family board a rollercoaster, another assassin sneaks on and attempts an attack Sakamoto; however, again Shin uses his senses to make out the hitman’s bloodlust. He takes off his seatbelt, jumps off the ride, throws the assassin off as well, and they clash on the coaster tracks, all the while dodging the rollercoaster itself as it rushes towards them. The rollercoaster serves as a prop in the clash, with Shin adjusting his jumping approach with the rollercoaster the second time in order to feint out the assassin and lead him into a direct attack and takedown.
While the setting allows for a fun, captivating fight sequence such as the one described above, it also serves another role to build tension in the story; in this location, Sakamoto and the gang are at the amusement park to entertain his family, so any public displays of assassin-like behavior will let off a series of alarms in the minds of both his child, Hana, and his wife, Aoi. As such, once it’s become apparent that their lives and his reputation are in danger, Sakamoto has two goals: firstly, to eliminate the opposition — fast — and secondly, to do it discreetly.
As the group heads into a haunted hospital exhibit, Sakamoto Lu and Shin get separated from his wife and daughter pairing and a new duo of assassins strike, with one taking on/distracting both Shin and Lu while the other fights Sakamoto solo. The solo hitman, Boiled, goes toe-to-toe with the titular protagonist and quickly gains the upper hand, sending Sakamoto flying across the room while berating him for how soft he’s become since abandoning his former life. However, the situation is soon flipped when, seemingly out of nowhere, Sakamoto’s appearance radically changes to a taller, slimmer man, similar to how he appeared in Boiled’s flashbacks of the two as comrades. They resume brawling and it heads back outside with Sakamoto beating the assassin bloody, sending him flying into the air and crashing into a passenger car on a Ferris wheel, where the two men sit across from one another as Boiled quickly gives his former friend the respect he deserves.
The tension that comes with Sakamoto’s situation led him to make a drastic action, reverting to his previous form briefly in order to defeat his opponent in a timely fashion. The compelling action from the previous fight is still there, and it’s still entertaining, but it’s tied down with something more concrete: Sakamoto’s strong sense of protecting both his reputation and his family.
One of the stronger examples of setting building palpable tension in the series is one later in the manga in which one of the most fearsome antagonists to that point in the story visits Sakamoto’s shop, unguarded by any of the capable trio mentioned previously. It’s just this tyrant, Minimalist, and Aoi, and we know from previous chapters building him up as a menace that he’s more than willing to murder this poor woman to get what he wants. The setting tells the story here as we know that, with her husband gone away, Aoi will be tending to the store, but we desperately wish for her to be anywhere else.
Minimalist immediately exudes an air of menace, threatening the oblivious woman and breaking the cashier when she says she doesn’t know where her husband is. Eventually, he’s had enough, ripping the counter in two and grabbing Aoi by the neck, pressing her for her husband’s wherabouts. However, before the reader even has time to process this, the next panel immediately shows Aoi brutallly snap Minimalist’s arm; his expression of shock in the next panel reflects our own sense of bewilderment at what just happened. A two-page spread follows with Aoi proceeding to swiftly stab the man in the neck, all while he remains in a state of shock. The next page spread finally answers the question that popped into our heads, and perhaps our prayers as well: This isn’t Aoi Sakamoto at all, but instead prolific assassin Nagumo in disguise.
Obviously reading this moment will convey what Suzuki intended with this material better than I can ever describe it, but hopefully through my words you can see how he utilizes setting to his advantage. By telling us one thing we’re likely to believe, only to pull the rug from under us in such a fashion, it makes the series more unpredictable and, as a result, more compelling. The use of setting to enhance a fight is present throughout the series’s 100+ chapters, and is an integral part to setting it apart from what has come before it as well as what it’s currently competing with in and outside the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump.
With 10 volumes of material released as of the date of this piece’s publication, and an anime adaptation certainly on the horizon, I hope that this leads more people to check out the series. I believe that when it does eventually get an anime, it will explode in popularity, and it will be because it sets itself apart in the ways I describe here. The series is currently available to read on the VIZ website, or the VIZ/Shonen Jump app for $2.99 a month, and 5 physical volumes are available to purchase at your local retailer.
