Sakamoto Days Season 2

Following a fairly lacklustre season 1, which was fine but unexceptional, Netflix has aired cour 2 of the retired assassin series. The fact that I've had to drag myself to the keyboard to finish up the review (which I started writing on 29th September) probably speaks volumes for my enthusiasm.

The team find themselves dealing with Slur, a hitman from Sakamoto's past thought long dead, who has an eye on taking out the Japanese Assassin's guild. To do so, he's using the worst of Death Row's killers to track down and eliminate his targets, culminating in an attack on the JAA headquarters itself. So far, so shonen.

Once again, we're offered up a series of unusual individuals sent to test team Sakamoto in various surroundings, but even now as I try to recall exactly what happened across the series I'm largely drawing a blank. As mentioned in my previous review, the manga is widely respected because of the intricate detail and incredible fight scenes, but translated to screen it has none of the finer detail and honestly it all felt a bit... dull. Once you get over the fact that it's a fat man doing assassin stuff, it's really not that engaging. Just typical shonen villain of the week or short arcs, like the Assassin School arc at the end of this season. It reminds me a lot of an older shonen called Get Backers, which had gifted teens fighting a shadowy organisation. Like Get Backers, it's pretty run of the mill but helps pass 20-odd minutes with gimmicky villains showing how much of a threat they are by taking out red-shirt characters en-masse before our team of outcasts come in to mop them up, maybe sweating a little as they come up with a plan to counter whatever the gimmick is this episode.

Family Bliss, somehow

I want to like Sakamoto Days, I really do - I mean, I've sat myself down and watched all of it to date, written a positive first thoughts article and reviewed the previous season, but it's just so vanilla that I find myself wanting to do other things while it's on the screen. Unlike, say, The Summer Hikaru Died, Kaiju No.8, DanDaDan or Clevatess, there's just not enough that's compelling to hold my interest. Hell, the first half of Gungrave, with it's intricate gangster organisation and looming betrayal by one of a pair of scrappy underdog best-friends was infinitely more compelling over 20 years ago. 

Let's take Sakamoto himself - he falls in love with a woman. There's no reason behind it or anything exceptional about her, he just does because the plot requires it. She then tells him to give up being an assassin, so again he eagerly ditches his entire lifestyle to run a convenience store with his new bride. Maybe the manga makes her more exceptional, but if a man is going to give up everything he's worked for in a heartbeat, shouldn't it be obvious why? I'm sure this is the comedy of it, but even jokes should make sense. Then once he's married he lets himself go to an unhealthy looking degree - yes again, it's for comedic purposes, but are you telling me his wife won't tolerate him risking his life as a fit assassin but has no issue with him risking heart failure or diabetes? They don't really interact much on-screen either, shy of her bossing him about. Perhaps it's a clever commentary on Japanese social norms where men do what their wives tell them, but that seems outside the salaryman stereotype I'm used to where the man barely sees wife or family until retirement.

As I say, once you get past the premise (fat assassin surprises everyone with super killing ability except now he won't kill thanks to shrew wife) you're left with the surrounding cast, most of whom are very dull outside of their power/ability. Shin is likeable enough though Xiaotang's variety of drunken combat is endearing if a bit one note. The one new character that did catch my eye was Akao, who appears toward the end of the series and has links to a prominent part of Sakamoto's past. But whenever the series gets to something that feels like it has weight, it undercuts it with something stupid.

Sakamoto Days feels like an anime that arrived 20 years too late. Even back in the early 2000's this would be considered mid-tier, now it's as old, flabby and unkempt as it's protagonist, except it isn't as "killer" as it thinks it is. I've given it 2 cours, my interest has waned and now I just feel time is better served watching something better.