REVIEW: ‘Sakamoto Days’ Episode 9 — “All Aboard”

Sakamoto Days Episode 9 takes things up a notch from the previous episode by showcasing how goofy anime can be. While mostly filled with fights, the episode succeeds at entertaining viewers with absolutely hilarious and outrageous antics that overshadow some of the more disturbing elements.

Sakamoto Days Episode 9 continues with Sakamoto (Tomokazu Sugita/Matthew Mercer) and Kashima going all out in their fight. Meanwhile, Shin (Nobunaga Shimazaki/Dallas Liu) is saved by Heisuke, who tries to fight off Seba, but he constantly evades him with his invisibility ability. However, Heisuke is able to get the upper hand through some ingenuity after Seba exposes that his powers come from his clothes. Using this knowledge to get the upper hand with assistance from Shin at the last moment is another excellent display of the clever combat structure the anime consistently features.

Fights like these are infinitely more entertaining than the usual shonen power bouts between two overpowered characters. The clever actions during combat, like taking advantage of weaknesses and logical loopholes in abilities or the environment, make fights unpredictable and, as a result, more engaging to follow. And while Sakamoto Days’ examples of such fights are unfortunately usually too short and not as intricate or well thought out as other anime like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, they still succeed in being interesting regardless.

In comparison, Sakamoto and Kashima’s fight is the complete opposite. While Heisuke and Seba’s fight is more clever and structured, their fight is chaotic, goofy, and borderline ridiculous. Sakamoto overwhelms his opponents with a barrage of strong attacks, throwing him from one platform to the next as the fight moves across several carts of a moving train. What makes the fight hard to take seriously isn’t just that Sakamoto uses miscellaneous objects from his pockets to fight or that he can skate on train tracks. It’s because he becomes skinny while all the chaos ensues.

Sakamoto Days Episode 9 delivers hilarious action. 

Kashima’s flabbergasted and enraged demeanor to Sakamoto’s odd actions and strength is understandable. This frustration leads to him throwing elderly bystanders and objects at Sakamoto, which is the icing on top of the ridiculous cake. This fight is engaging entirely differently from the first fight of the episode. While not as interesting, it is a lot more entertaining. The crazy and destructive hijinks between the two are also portrayed well with TMS Entertainment’s fluid animation.

The fight between Sakamoto and Kashima reveals that Slur, the serial killer targeting hitmen, is Kashima’s boss and mentor. He is quite fond of Sakamoto and is now fully aware of his group after briefly meeting Shin. Despite not being on screen for long, his threatening aura and the bodies surrounding him is the anime declaring how much of a threat he is. However, until now, the anime has only featured brief glimpses of him and never him in action, making any excitement about seeing a fight featuring him wane significantly.

Sakamoto Days Episode 9 ends on a positive and wholesome note, as the scientists are saved and everyone gets back home safely. Shin and Lu (Ayane Sakura/Rosalie Chiang) also notably make up, and it’s easy to forget that she has been useless for almost half of the anime. While Sakamoto and Shin were out saving and fighting, Lu was being saved and provided nothing to the team. Recent events in the anime make it seem like her existence in the series so far is completely negligible, which is disappointing.

All in all, Sakamoto Days Episode 9 is a highly entertaining episode that succeeds in presenting several off-the-wall hilarious moments. While not featuring much narrative development, it excellently sets up more exciting events to come.

Sakamoto Days Episode 9 is streaming now on Netflix, with new episodes every Saturday.

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