Anime Hajime Review: Sakamoto Desu Ga?

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Sakamoto Desu Ga. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

Think of the coolest person you have ever known. Now raise their coolness level up by a factor of a thousand. Even with that, this person of yours is only a fraction as cool as Sakamoto (voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa).

Sakamoto is the guy everyone wishes they could be. He does everything with effortless grace and dignity. He is so perfect, he makes perfection jealous.

For someone of this caliber, daily life is nothing short of fantastical.

No matter how daunting the challenge. No matter how stacked the odds are. No matter how implausible the situation may be, Sakamoto makes it all look easy. Without a sweat or a moment’s hesitation, Sakamoto can solve any problem.

And not only will he solve the problem, he’ll do it in a very Sakamoto way. So, to us onlookers, we may not be able to comprehend what's going on in his head. We may question. We may doubt. But the results speak for themselves.

How is it possible for the impossible not to exist? Well, haven’t you heard? He’s Sakamoto.

Series Positives

Oh wow.

Sakamoto

This has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen. This series couldn’t go five minutes without doing something stupid. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more out there, it did. Sakamoto Desu Ga was silly. It was moronic. It was one hundred percent ridiculous.

It was all that, plus fantastic. This show was great and a lot of fun.

The levels of absurdity this series went to made it all kinds of entertaining. Though the end result was always the same, how we got there was as random as random can be. Each episode was a thrill. There was no way of knowing what would happen next.

We’re not only talking scene to scene. Often this was shot to shot. No lead in, nothing. There was only, “Oh, we’re doing this now.” Or my favorite, “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

For instance, there were these grade schoolers doing what you’d expect grade schooler to be doing. Kicking rocks, following the leader, you know, your typical kids’ stuff. Then Sakamoto showed up and started doing the same. Except, as you’d imagine, better than perfect.

The boys, therefore, became envious. They vowed to do exactly whatever Sakamoto was doing. The music began playing. It was a nice upbeat montage. Slowly the boys were gaining more and more confidence. Sakamoto took the time to teach them important life lessons. It was a magical moment.

And although I was enjoying it, my head was also exploding. All they were doing was walking down the God damn street. Why was this so awesome?

That was one of many, by the way. Let’s not forget the time Sakamoto sword fought a bee. Ran a marathon like a cheetah. Made a realistic UFO display out of balloons. I could keep going, but we’d be here all day.

Plus, here was a surprise. Can we take a moment to talk about how this show actually had continuity? Believe it or not, this isn’t the type of series you can watch in any order. No matter how small the detail, if it happened it was canon. I can’t believe I said that. Sakamoto Desu Ga had freakin’ canon.

What even was this show?

One last thing and you may have already noticed it. Amongst the craziness, which I didn’t even scratch the surface of, there was one constant. A single lynchpin. Had this failed, this entire thing would’ve bombed. Hard.

To leave so much resting on a single element isn’t something to take lightly. It’s a huge risk. One where the odds of it paying off aren’t fantastic. Yet if it does pay off, you’re left with something quite memorable.

Not only did Sakamoto Desu Ga’s risk pay off, it paid off big.

Sakamoto

Up front, when introduced, I though Sakamoto was the biggest tool. I had figured him as the epitome of smugness. I wasn’t keen on following this guy around. Let alone him being the main character. This was only in the beginning. For when I thought this, I had yet to realize the methods to his madness.

I know the exact event which opened my eyes too.

Early on, Sakamoto chose to help a classmate. Okay, that was nice of him. Except, it wasn’t so much him helping. It was more like him fueling the problem. This roundabout set up was pretty funny, so I went along with it.

As things continued, this classmate proved to be the biggest cry baby. Well, that was pleasant. I stopped caring about his problems and was all for Sakamoto’s sabotage. Or at least, his seeming sabotage. For, in reality, this was one of the many examples of why Sakamoto is a great character.

Though he would help others in crisis, Sakamoto would never be the one to solve the problem. He would instead guide people so that they may find the right answer themselves. In an instant, all my reservation towards him were gone. In an amazing way, Sakamoto demonstrated to me what he demonstrated to every single person in this show. Without any hint of sarcasm, Sakamoto was the embodiment of cool.

Here was a legitimate caring character. One who wasn’t selfish. Nor who had an ego. Sakamoto never belittled anyone. He never thought of himself as superior. He saw the good in those around him. Yet no one could take advantage of him either. Sakamoto always had the upper hand.

You’d think having a character who would always win would get boring. This could’ve been true if not for important two factors.

One, Sakamoto was unpredictable. There’s a difference between being on top and getting there. It’s fair to say anything was possible for him. Never rule out even the most outlandish of possibilities.

And two, I sometimes couldn’t tell if the things he did were planned. There were plenty of times when they were. And sure, there were some cases of adlibbing. But then there were moments which felt like the result of extremely good fortune. Sakamoto was either hyper aware of everything or denser than a rock. There was no middle ground

So, while he would always prove victorious, there was enough of “What the heck” to keep things fresh.

Sakamoto was this show’s shining start. And he shone brightly.

Series Negatives

Ninety percent of this series was Sakamoto. That’s good because that means at least ninety percent of this show was great.

Whenever Sakamoto did anything, it felt right. Nothing he did was too much. Based on what I’ve said up to this point, I don’t blame you if you find that hard to believe. In a weird way, because Sakamoto’s character was over the top, he never came off as if he had to be.

Does that make any sense at all?

You’ll notice it as soon as other characters try to take the outlandishness up a notch. The one that comes to mind the most is Sakamoto’s home room teacher. The series would try to make a joke work with this character. Where with Sakamoto, the same types of jokes would come off as more natural.

This wasn’t a huge issue since it didn’t happen all that much.

There was something, though, that the show didn’t do bad. But it could’ve done it better.

Reoccurring Side Characters

All the side characters in this series are forgettable. With the exception of two.

One was Shigemi Kubota (voiced by Kujira). She was the mother of a character who I’m about to mention in a less positive light. She also had a massive, not to mention an obsessive crush on Sakamoto.

The other was Shou Hayabusa (voiced by Koji Yusa). Here was a character who was way underdeveloped. The reason I add him as an exception is because I want to know more about him. The series hinted that there was more than it showed.

Other than these two, everyone else I don’t remember. Then again, I’m not surprised since they had to compete with Sakamoto. Yet that’s still a problem. Sakamoto dealt with so many characters that were uninteresting. That or they were never given the chance to be interesting.

The biggest culprit of this was Yoshinobu Kubota (voiced by Akira Ishida). This was the son of the far superior character, Shigemi Kubota. Why was this the person who was always paired with Sakamoto? Remember that classmate I mentioned who was a big cry baby that I didn’t like. Yeah, guess who that was.

There’s no nice way to say this. He was the fat dweeb. There was nothing else to his personality. Or perhaps there was. As I said, he was always paired with Sakamoto. Why would I give this kid any moment of my time when I had the best as an alternative?

Therein lies the biggest issue with Sakamoto Desu Ga. Its main lead was so good, there was no point in having other characters to follow. This series could’ve introduced a whole new cast for Sakamoto to interact with for each episode. And nothing would've changed. Other than I would no longer feel like I needed to care about these other characters.

Final Thoughts

For almost a year, I had a friend who had been trying to get me to watch this one. I was never against doing so, but it kept getting pushed back. Because I did that I would always hear, “Have you watched Sakamoto Desu Ga?” “You should watch Sakamoto Desu Ga.” “When are you going to watch Sakamoto Desu Ga?”

Well, I have now. And okay, they were right. It was pretty good.

This was silly. This could get dumb. But it did so in all the right ways. Thanks in large part to a character that was all around great. Sakamoto Desu Ga would be nothing without Sakamoto.

If you want to watch a show that has no problem doing whatever the hell it wants, Sakamoto Desu Ga is the show for you.

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