MANGA REVIEW | "Sakamoto Days" - Vols. 7 & 8

In order to gain the knowledge you need, you sometimes have to go back to school. Even if you are already a great assassin like Taro Sakamoto, that doesn’t mean that important info comes easy. As he and Shin find out in the latest volumes of Sakamoto Days, the best way to grab intel is to return to your stomping grounds. In the case of Taro, that means heading back to the place that honed his assassination skills.

This endeavor begins after a fight with X, who winds up being a former student of Taro’s. It’s a fight that gets close to snuffing out Taro’s flame, until a certain blind assassin arrives to cause wanton chaos. With his need to protect his family, Taro asks the Order for any intel they can spare. With the info given, he and Shin head to Japan Clear Creation, the top assassination academy in the country.

What should be a normal flight to the school winds up being anything but. A test is placed on the passengers, with them needing to find JCC administrators with specially-marked bullets. Weapons rain from above, and the chaos that Sakamoto Days is known for begins. Although Taro and Shin make new friends in the form of Akira and Mafuyu, there’s no time to talk amongst themselves and get to know one another. They have a mission to complete, and getting out of this violent situation is making it a pain to do so!

It’s the fight on the airplane where Yuto Suzuki shows his skills both as an artist and a film connoisseur. Movies like Shoot ‘Em Up and Funny Games (which actually gets a shoutout in this volume!) play a big role in how this chaotic fight has been brought to these pages. There’s hardcore violence involving guns and swords, but you’ve also got someone who has their throat cut by a spatula! As this manga has constantly demonstrated, anything can become a deadly weapon, even a pen!

While Akira easily warms up to Taro, Mafuyu doesn’t do the same with Shin. Their battle is a little quick, with Mafuyu revealing a strange little tick. It’s one that could hinder his hopes of being assassin, especially with how he handles a tiny smudge of blood on his face. As for Akira, her strongest skills don’t involve knives or throwing stars; a needle & thread is all that’s needed to demonstrate her power!

But that was all just a taste of what’s to come, as Volume Eight dives deeper into the JCC’s test. The addition of three more students leads to the next round: a game of tail tag. Knowing full well that we’re dealing with assassins and assassins-to-be, this is anything but an ordinary children’s game. And with Taro and Shin being on different teams, their mission to infiltrate the JCC has become a lot more difficult.

The introduction of Sakamoto super fan Toramaru looks silly at first, only to change the reader’s perspective in less than a couple of pages. She’s brutal, psychotic, and has half the fan-girl crazy as a Swiftie. Although it’s a training exercise, Toramaru gets super serious via lopping off the legs of her opponents. But she has a meltdown when she comes face-to-face with Shin, whose Sakamoto knowledge extends further than hers. Needless to say, she doesn’t like that one bit.

But it gets worst when Shin and Mafuyu have their hands full with Shinaya, who has his own secret weapon: not actually being on the island! Using VR tech, Shinaya uses a human dummy to control his fights and avoid actually getting hurt in the process. Well, he can’t get hurt by his opponents, but he can accidentally overreach his barriers and fly face first into a nearby wall. It results in a great mixture of high-flying action with some unexpected comedy.

Taro and Akira also have a tricky pair of assassins-to-be to deal with. As they try to escape from a trap, Akira witnesses the sort of superhuman abilities the former top assassin has. That’s when a little nugget of info leaves the lips of Akira, one that links her to Sakamoto’s past. It’s a realization that leads him to wonder what Akira’s true potential on the field of battle is. Fortunately, he needed to just wait a moment to see her in action, with her true power being quite scary!

Taro and Shin have their hands full during this test, and it looks to be far from over. But with some new allies in their corner, their quest to get intel at the JCC might not be as tough. However, this is Sakamoto Days we’re talking about, so one can bet that these bloodthirsty challenges will be coming full force until they reach their goal. If the mission can continue to deliver as much excitement as these two recent volumes, then Sakamoto Days will easily whoop the ass of any of its Shonen Jump rivals!

VOL. 7 RATING:
VOL. 8 RATING:

Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.

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