After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, the first few episodes of Sakamoto Days have landed on Netflix. The oddball story of a former hitman who fell in love and retired with his wife and daughter has been one of the big manga success stories in recent years, but fans have been a little surprised by some of the action so far in the series. That isn’t because the Sakamoto Days anime is bad – it is because it isn’t the genre you were expecting it to be.

The easiest comparison to Western media that people tend to make with Sakamoto Days is the John Wick movies, but that is a bit unfair. While I’ve loved John Wick’s rampages across increasingly deadly landscapes, it was a very different beast to Sakamoto Days. What the first two episodes of Sakamoto Days highlight is that it isn’t trying to be the next big action anime. Instead, it is quite comfortable in its place as a great comedy series with some action moments scattered around.

And there are some great comedic moments in these first two episodes. Seeing Taro Sakamoto, a deadly but retired hitman, casually deflect an incoming bullet with a pair of chopsticks or send gumballs flying at terminal velocity gives a wonderfully silly spin to the John Wick “I’m an unstoppable killing machine” formula. Yes, Sakamoto is that but he’s also throwing in the best bits of Jackie Chan’s improvisational action at the same time. It isn’t trying to take itself too seriously and that is to its credit.

This is pretty consistent with how the manga plays out, particularly in the early volumes. Sakamoto Days relies heavily on the formula that it establishes for both its comedic and action beats, punctuating them with genuinely sweet moments as Sakamoto raises his daughter and dotes on his loving (and exceptionally patient) wife.

In fact, the interactions between Taro and Aoi are often the highlight of the series for me. While most ex-hitman stories involve trying to keep their past a secret from their loved ones, Aoi is quite aware of her husband’s history. The tension between her insistence that he never kills again and Taro’s natural instinct to murder anything that poses even a mild inconvenience is one of the cleverest things Sakamoto Days does. Leaning into this kind of trope is going to make the anime better as it goes on.

Of course, it is possible to make an anime that balances comedy and action – Dan Da Dan is a great example from last year that did that and it is exactly what has made Spy x Family one of the biggest hits in recent years. But that isn’t really the goal with Sakamoto Days. The best match for Sakamoto Days’ tone I can think of is early Dragon Ball, which was definitely a gag manga that gradually became more action-focused. The manga follows a similar trajectory, though the focus, from my experience, is always more firmly on the comedy than the fighting. Even the coolest action scenes in the manga follow some pretty silly leaps in logic.

Sometimes, a show can be a victim of its own hype. Sakamoto Days came into this season with high expectations from the manga, and the easy comparisons to the John Wick series – which are fair comparisons, after all – have set it up as this action juggernaut that is going to blow fans away from the start. Instead, it is clear that the studio isn’t trying to break the budget on early fights and is instead happy to focus on the comedic moments that are going to make Sakamoto Days stand out in the long run.

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