Sakamoto Days is now the Netflix’s biggest anime hit

There is been roughly two weeks since Sakamoto Days' release on Netflix. Now, it's the biggest anime hit from the streaming platform since Netflix started reporting weekly numbers. What exactly is Sakamoto Days, and what did people think of it?

Sakamoto Days is a manga series written and illustrated by Yuto Sukuzi in 2020. In December 2024, the manga had over 7 million copies in circulation.

Since the anime is still ongoing, here's a list of every episode's release date. A new episode is out every Saturday. Sakamoto Days is also confirmed to have a second season coming to our screens in July.

The story revolves around Taro Sakamoto, a retired legendary hitman who has settled into a mundane life as a family man. He found the love of his life, Aoi, which made him retire sooner. The couple had a little girl called Hana and eventually opened a family-run convenience store of their own in a small suburban town. However, his peaceful life was disrupted when former enemies came seeking revenge. Taro could not let them hurt his precious family, which meant he had to "take care of some business" once again.

This anime brings us a cute but very action-based story with family moments and cool interactions between the "bad guys" and Taro. However, in the beginning, many people were complaining about the animation since it doesn't follow the "traditional" manga adaptations into animes that we are used to.

Under the announcement of the hit numbers of Sakamoto Days, the reactions were mixed. On one side, people called out fans who are always "complaining" and saying the animation does not look good since the story is entertaining, and the animation can be different sometimes. "Not everything needs to be JJK [Jujustu Kaisen] or CSM [Chainsaw Man] type animation", the fan wrote.

The manga readers, however, have been claiming the series actually has the potential and the story to be "Jujustu Kaisen" animation-coded. "People 'crying' are obviously manga fans who had expectations for the animation to be fire cause it is a great manga", another fan wrote. Others are in the middle, saying they expected more from the animation, but the show is not as bad as people talk about it online.

Overall, even with the mixed reaction from the public, the show has been hitting great numbers since its release on Jan. 11. It's now the #2 non-English TV show just behind Squid Game and #4 in the general ranking. In five countries, the anime reached the #1 place, bringing almost nine million views to Netflix.

Mr. AniGuy wrote on his blog how blockbuster anime like Demon Slayer and Jujustu Kaisen brought two things: a lot of hype around animation and an "obsession with high-budget visuals". The problem emerges when other types of animation try to grow in an industry that praises high standards, making other works called "mediocre".

From his perspective, the anime does not have to be all about crazy and flashy visuals. Sometimes, it's the emotional side that brings the best out of a story. Classics like Cowboy Bebop or Neon Genesis Evangelion are very far away from the animation level we see today (since there was not the amount of technology we have today) and are still masterpieces to anime fans. "Smaller studios are working with limited budgets but still produce incredible series", he wrote.

Are you curious about Sakamoto Days? Here is the official trailer.

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