Sakamoto Days vol. 1
The first volume of "Sakamoto Days" follows Taro Sakamoto, a legendary ex-hitman, who quit his job in order to get married and have kids. After quitting his job, he gained a lot of weight and open a store. At the beginning of this volume, Shin, a hitman who can read minds, tries to kill him, because he went against the rules by abandoning his position, but quickly he realises that he's a good person. Together they defeated the organization that sent him to assassinate Sakamoto, without killing anyone, since Sakamoto has decided to never kill again. After that, Shin starts working at Sakamoto's store. Together they stop some armed robbers who hijacked the bus Sakamoto's wife was in, they saved the life of a policeman who got kidnapped by drug dealers while trying to catch them and they save the life of a young woman who was targeted by an organized crime group, because of her family's wealth. After they save her, she starts working with them and they all find out that there's a reward of one billion yen for whoever kills Sakamoto.
This was a very fun manga. This volume primarily works as an introduction to the story and the main characters and it does that perfectly. Every character, even the villains that appear for only one chapter, is very well written and interesting. So far my favorite character is Shin. I love his personality and his mind-reading ability is very interesting and makes for great jokes. Another great character is the protagonist, Sakamoto. He's very laconic, but he loves his family a lot and cares about the people around him. I especially love his relationship with his wife and his daughter. It's really sweet and beautiful. Furthermore, I enjoyed how comedic this manga is. After all, it's an action comedy and while this isn't one of my favorite genres, it's very enjoyable. There's a lot of action and it's always exciting and captivating, mostly because of how creative and funny each fight is. Something else I liked in this manga is its pacing. The story moves in a very fast pace and while this could be problematic in a different story, here is works perfectly.
The artwork by Yuto Suzuki is alright. It's not very detailed like the artwork of other manga artists, like Junji Ito or Tatsuki Fujimoto, but it fits well with the story. At times it's a bit more sketchy than I usually prefer, but that's fine. It surely isn't the most well drawn manga I've read, but it's not bad either. The character designs are really great and the action scenes do look great.
Overall, this was a great start to the series and I'd love to read more. Even though the basic idea of a retired Hitman getting targeted by his old organization isn't very original, the comedic twist this manga offers is great and makes the whole story worth reading.
9/10