©Suzuki Yuto/Shueisha/Sakamoto Days Production Committee
If I have any major complaints about the current arc trajectory, it is that Lu and Heisuke feel a little bit lame from it, so it’s nice to see them in this episode, even if it’s just to shorten the belief afterwards. Sadly, this look won’t last long as it’s made up of them and AOI wonder how Sakamoto feeds himself, then we see him grilling some wild snakes for protein. A little good, but that just makes me wish these two were actually here. While I like Sakamoto and Shin, they work better when they have other characters from each other. New members like Akira or Whiny Edgelord Kid do a good job of filling the gaps, but the dynamic here isn’t that strong.
That being said, Shin does object to Toramaru, and the rest of the fight ends up being more interesting than I hoped. On the one hand, this is a noteworthy improvement over last week’s action scenes, as the animations are smoother here, and it’s fun to watch Shin try to get past Toramaru’s giant axe (especially when you see that giant axe is also a giant gun, which is also a great weapon design). The real fun of this battle is the difference in their ideology, i.e. they are fans of sakamoto. We find that Tomaru was rescued by Sacamto in an incident in his childhood. She has since become a full-blown fan, and her dedication to her idol has prompted her to figure out how to be friends or learn to put on makeup and things like that, all hopefully impress him one day. To some extent, it’s almost heart-warming, so it turns out that the version of sakamoto she admires is a ruthless killing machine and doesn’t rely on anyone. Shin, on the other hand, understands that Sakamoto is already more kind than before and does her best to correct what kind of person she is actually.
The more boring version of the battle will make Toramaru snap up because she can’t believe that her beloved Sakamoto has changed, but thankfully, the show is at least smarter than that. What In fact Letting her close is the biggest blow to any pious Stan: someone knows the idea of their idol better than they do. Since she isn’t about to share her position as a Sakamoto #1 fan, it puts Shin on her hot list, which helps keep the tone of this battle, like it’s cool. Finally, Shin prevails, and his decision to save her from drowning allows Toramaru to see him in him enough Sakamoto to share in her fanatics and hopes to build a new Sakamoto fan club with him.
It’s a very interesting way to solve all of these problems, which makes it even more shocking when the two of them are immediately interrupted by the comedy attacked by another examinee. More precisely, they were attacked by a censor who was actually remotely controlled by Gaku, such as video game characters, as Slur hoped to start testing some of these new JAA recruits. The level of comedy in the first half of the episode is some weird tone whipping, especially when Gaku’s Meat Puppet starts slaughtering the JAA inspectors on the left and right side of the instrument, but the action here is so high that it’s hard to get angry. Unfortunately, many of them don’t look as smooth as the first part of the show, but in terms of pure violence it makes up for it and it’s nice to watch the exam all freely. With only a few episodes left in the season, it seems likely that we won’t see the rest of the arc ending and may end up on a cliff. Given the upcoming action and upgrades there are more action and upgrades, it’s a bit disappointing, but at least it looks like the show is planning to get out as much as possible before getting ready to press the pause button.
grade:
Sacmato Day Currently flowing
Netflix On Saturday.
