General anime audiences typically flip to shonen titles to get a style of recent storytelling developments that operate as an enchanting microcosm of society. While anime and manga that target contract killers is nothing new for shonen, there’s been a push towards extra subversive murderer tales that characteristic unconventional killers who’re caught in some “fish out of water” situation. This was an anomaly again when Katekyō Hitman Reborn! and Assassination Classroom got here alongside within the 2010s, each of which used supernatural and sci-fi eventualities to rejuvenate the contract killer hero trope. Now the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump are full of sequence that lean into such an ethos: Kill Blue, Mission: Yozakura Family, Shinobi Undercover, and SAKAMOTO DAYS.
Shonen’s current fascination with altruistic and empowered assassins speaks to a world the place audiences wish to consider that they’ve the ability to rage in opposition to the machine and dismantle the established order by way of atypical benefits. This is totally different from shonen sequence, the place there are superheroes with supernatural powers. After all, it is a wish-fulfillment fantasy that continues to be rooted in actuality, even when SAKAMOTO DAYS indulges in absurdism.
This emphasis on management can also be a pure response to the “Dark Trio” of grim, oppressive dystopian shonen titles—Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku—the place victory feels not possible. These previous titles push loss of life and ache to uncomfortable extremes that get misplaced within the trauma and grief of all of it. SAKAMOTO DAYS and the brand new wave of shonen content material create a much-needed launch valve that pushes again from the oppressive distress that used to dominate the demographic.
SAKAMOTO DAYS and its murderer shonen friends characteristic copious physique counts, however this new crop of tales by no means sensationalizes their murders. Taro Sakamoto even staunchly respects a “no kill” code as a loving gesture to his spouse. To this level, these shonen sequence are extra eager about celebrating the tender bonds and candy feelings that come from household, whether or not organic or solid collectively. SAKAMOTO DAYS, Spy x Family, Shinobi Undercover, and extra all emphasize the ability of household and the way a loving group is extra useful than any weapon. This optimistic disposition helps these sequence keep cheerful fairly than diverging into extra grownup seinen tendencies that get misplaced in the dead of night. This empathy is essential to the equation and why SAKAMOTO DAYS works in addition to it does. It demystifies hitmen into peculiar protectors, which helps the anime additional set up its voice and push the subgenre to sudden locations.
SAKAMOTO DAYS is main the pack in relation to the thrilling era of murderer shonen sequence. This subgenre’s dominance in shonen anime and manga has been helpful to SAKAMOTO DAYS’ success, however these tales don’t exist in a vacuum. They’ve additionally turn into the norm in American blockbusters. This helps SAKAMOTO DAYS join on an excellent stronger stage since fiction from around the globe echoes its style, characters, and elegance of storytelling.
SAKAMOTO DAYS feeds into this vitality and helps the subgenre evolve. It’s an encouraging suggestions loop that displays a common pattern towards tentpole murderer tales. Netflix’s The Killer and Hit Man have been each two of 2023 & ’24’s prime titles, respectively, and it’s not arduous to image any of Team Sakamoto taking over these heightened hitmen archetypes. SAKAMOTO DAYS continues to succeed—extra so than a few of its anime friends—as a result of it capitalizes on this pattern. It tells the tales that audiences from internationally wish to see, however contextualizes them into a unusual action-comedy anime.
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