Sakamoto Days Season 1 Recap: Catch Up Before Season 2
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The best hitman alive retired, got married, gained a lot of weight and opened a convenience store. People keep trying to kill him anyway. Here’s everything that happened in Season 1.
Part 1
Episodes 1–3
The man behind the counter
Taro Sakamoto, a retired legend, runs a corner store. A mind-reading hitman sent to kill him ends up working the register instead.
Taro Sakamoto used to be the most feared hitman in Japan. He fell in love, quit, and now runs a small store with his wife Aoi and their daughter Hana. He’s soft-spoken and heavyset, and you’d never guess.
Shin Asakura, a younger hitman who can read minds, is sent to drag him back into the business. Sakamoto beats him without breaking a sweat, doesn’t kill him, and gives him a job at the store.
Next comes Lu Xiaotang, the last survivor of a wiped-out mafia family. Sakamoto helps her out of a fight and she ends up working the counter too. Then the assassins’ association, the JAA, puts a bounty on Sakamoto’s head.
Nagumo, an old colleague with a permanent grin, drops by to warn him. A family day at an amusement park turns into a hit, and Shin takes down a gunman on a roller coaster with Sakamoto coaching him from inside his own head.
Episodes 4–6
Boiled, and the name X
A top hitman named Boiled traps them in a haunted house, Sakamoto gets serious, and Nagumo mentions a killer called X.
The bounty came from the JAA, and the people collecting it are serious. Boiled and Obiguro corner the group in a haunted house attraction. When Sakamoto stops holding back, he sheds the weight and turns back into the slim, terrifying version of himself, at least for a while. He beats Boiled.
Nagumo explains he’s with the Order, the JAA’s elite unit, and they’re investigating a killer known only as X.
Then a lighter one. Heisuke, a sweet amateur sniper with a pet bird, joins a paintball match to get close to Sakamoto. His ambush fails, Sakamoto compliments his aim, and Heisuke becomes part of the crew.
Episodes 7–9
The lab
Lu gets kidnapped by mistake, the crew storms a research lab full of assassins, and Shin's past comes up.
Scientists kidnap Lu, thinking she’s Shin. Sakamoto and Shin follow them to the Okutabi research lab, which assassins have already taken over.
Inside, the group splits up. We learn where Shin came from and how he got his mind-reading. Order members Shishiba and Osaragi are chasing the man behind the attack, Slur. Sakamoto beats Kashima as the lab starts to self-destruct, and Shin gets the trapped scientists out.
Slur uses Shin to pass Sakamoto a message, so this is clearly personal.
Episodes 10–11
Bathhouse and casino
A failed hit at a bathhouse, then a card game against Lu's brother that ends with him joining up.
An amateur hitman working at a bathhouse tries for the bounty, fails, and quits on the spot.
Then Lu Wutang shows up and challenges the group to a casino showdown. It ends tied and comes down to a game of Old Maid. His own guards turn on him, and he ends up on Sakamoto’s side. He also brings bad news: Slur has broken four serial killers out of prison.
Part 2
Episodes 12–16
Slur's killers
The four escaped killers go after everyone, the Order hunts them down, and Slur hits the JAA itself. He turns out to be someone Sakamoto knew.
The escaped killers start hunting. One of them, Saw, goes after Shin and Lu, and Shin pushes his mind-reading further than he ever has. The Order splits up to track down the rest.
Shin and Lu beat Saw with some help. Osaragi takes care of Dump. Nagumo shows off his talent for disguise by impersonating Aoi to beat Minimalist. Sakamoto rescues Heisuke from Apart and finishes him at a tower, and Apart lets slip that Slur’s real target is the JAA.
Slur’s attack on the JAA’s Kanto branch kills a lot of people. When Sakamoto finally faces him, Slur turns out to be Uzuki, an old classmate of his. To learn what Slur is after, the group decides to get inside the JCC, the school that trains assassins.
Episodes 17–22
The JCC exam
Sakamoto and Shin take the JCC transfer exam, make some odd friends, and Sakamoto ends up inside the school disguised as a teacher.
The transfer exam starts on a chartered plane, and you need a bullet to pass. Sakamoto steals one and offers it to Akira, a quiet applicant. Shin fights Mafuyu Seba. Then a wild applicant named Kanaguri wrecks the plane, and Akira sews a parachute out of whatever’s around so they all survive.
Stage three is a game of tail-tag. Akira nearly kills someone, and Sakamoto finds out her full name is Akira Akao, a surname he recognizes.
Shin teams up with Mafuyu and Toramaru against Shinaya, a cyborg remote-controlled by someone named Gaku. Kaji, another applicant, finally gets past his fear, and Sakamoto finishes the cyborg off.
The exam ends early. Mafuyu and Toramaru are kidnapped, and the season closes with Sakamoto walking into the JCC disguised as a teacher while Shin gets ready to break into the school’s records.
Before Season 2
The crew is inside the JCC, Mafuyu and Toramaru are missing, and Slur is still out there with a plan aimed at the assassins’ association. Season 2 starts in January 2027 and picks up from there.