SAKAMOTO DAYS

Sakamoto Days is the TMS Entertainment anime of Yuto Suzuki's Weekly Shonen Jump manga, an action comedy about the most feared hitman in Japan swapping contract work for a quiet life behind a shop counter. Taro Sakamoto married the convenience-store clerk he fell for, promised her he would never kill again, and put on a startling amount of weight running a suburban store with their young daughter. A billion-yen bounty ends the peace, and his former subordinate Shin Asakura, a mind-reading ex-assassin, ends up working the till.

That no-kill promise sets it apart from other hitman stories. Sakamoto cannot take the easy finish, so each fight becomes a puzzle solved with whatever is to hand, and the people he spares keep returning as rivals, allies or customers. Suzuki has named John Wick and the 1978 Hong Kong comedy Enter the Fat Dragon as influences, and both show when a heavyset man moves like a stunt performer. Among the Sakamoto Days characters, the fan favourite is Yoichi Nagumo, a grinning disguise specialist from the assassins' elite Order and Sakamoto's old classmate.

The adaptation started badly. The first cour, episodes 1-11 from January to March 2025, drew heavy criticism for stiff, limited animation, frequent still frames and an overly bright palette (director Masaki Watanabe later admitted fans wanted more mature colours), all of which undersold the manga's choreographed fights. The second cour, episodes 12-22 from July, is far more fluid and moves into the JCC transfer exam, which is why our best anime of 2025 ranking calls it the year's biggest recovery.

As of October 2026, Netflix has confirmed Season 2 for January 2027, with Daisuke Nakajima directing and Watanabe moving up to supervising director. It continues Sakamoto and Shin's infiltration of the assassins' academy, puts Order members in danger in Kyoto and tells the backstory of a young Sakamoto and Nagumo. The manga is still running and far ahead of the anime, and Japan also got a live-action film starring Ren Meguro in April 2026. As for where to watch, every episode streams on Netflix worldwide with an English dub.

It suits anyone who enjoyed the family-man-with-a-lethal-past joke in Spy x Family but wanted the action to hurt more. Our Sakamoto Days explainer sorts out the Order, the real source of the bounty and what Season 2 adapts.