“Haven’t you heard? I’m Sakamoto.”
You’d almost wish it started out like this, there’s that perpetual gnawing going on in the obscured depths of your conscience that bugs you for some normality, some profound simplicity in going about an anime you might never have even heard of. This auxiliary introduction to this mysterious, clean-looking man, unfortunately, doesn’t exist.
Why, of course, would there be such a need?
One does not introduce Sakamoto.
One does not simply require the induction of any mainstream preface to unveil such a magnificent being.
It is without question, almost as splendidly visceral as how the gleam in his eyes decimates the wobbly heart of every female and non-asshole male in his vicinity, for everyone to instantly fathom that this man right here, Sakamoto, superabounds over what it takes to be the chef d'oeuvre of all characters, a resounding existence amongst those who don’t exist, in an even more resounding, deafness-impelling, heaven-shattering pièce de résistance that goes by the splendid title: Sakamoto desu-ga?
It’s quite simple, especially for a thoughtful Solomon who would scrutinize and deeply consider the 2nd last, 6th and 6th last letter of every title of every anime before concluding on a score, to assign Sakamoto desu-ga an objective semblance of pure perfection. While the masses do revere icons and symbols of divinity, others of heuristic agnosticism, few can appreciate the enrapturing coalescence of the two. Such is the misappropriation of the essence and cachet withheld by some for Sakamoto desu-ga. Allow me to hereby inscribe the holy scripture of seraphic diagnosis with respect to Sakamoto, and why any of this information should be not be reprised.
i) Story - Simple, yet revolutionary
Consign GTO’s Onizuka Eikichi and his biker-educational-reformation to oblivion. It’s a simple explanation in real life, really: Panty and Male equals to, well, Jail. Forget One Punch Man’s Saitama just like how everyone he’s saved belittles his bald existence. You’d be fighting incredulous monsters every second and be damned to well, a bald existence.
This story’s premise doesn’t stink with excessive quixotical nihilism, or a spectrally-antithetical cosmic flamboyance, nor is it ostentatious in budget-cramped explosions or drenched in senseless sexual innuendo.
Instead, this story presents that of one we have all experienced, through sweat and tears, through journeying a school life so mundane and arduous, through all those lonely and embarrassing moments, and to this day we still ponder what had ruined it all. That’s right, the omission of a Sakamoto in our lives. Someone, who epitomizes vigor, strength and intellect, that inspires and unbounds the coolness deep within our own individuality. With the absence of such a character, our stories were tasteless, and this story, just like ours had been, would be so too, with a convolution of archetypical dense leads as dense as lead, busty brainless “supports”, conventional franchise-driven, product-advertising, cash-grabbing studios dragging sideways an unrealistic rendition of what COULD have happened in our youths, hence pandering to the lowest, albeit commonly sought-after pubescent demographic. Lay everything bare with your eyes, and you’ll see how all this dirt and grime have long since insidiously buried the savior to all this banality, the deity and student of class 1-2, Sakamoto, and how HE truly deserves to lead us back to a path of greatness that anime has long since been led astray.
This story, is how it all begins.
ii) Characters - Sheer, harmonic opulence
Why have characters when there are no characters at all? With the respectable, sensible judgment upheld by numerous veteran critics, the characters of animes in vogue are plethorically referred to as “cardboard cutouts”, “lifeless”, “fictitious”, “not-Sakamoto”. There are no supporting characters in Sakamoto desu-ga, simply because Sakamoto himself supports everyone else. He never imposes; he does not instruct; he only exemplifies the genuity of coolness, and he blows both the animated plebeians and you away with way more than whatever renewed apocalyptic jutsus in Naruto Shippuden are ever canonically capable of achieving. Sakamoto need not amateurish fillers, what for? He is filled to the brim with untainted swag, and instead of receiving fillers he fills everything around him with nothing but the truth. Critics lament and exhort producers and animators to fix their messed-up characters. Well then, Sakamoto’s very much heard enough, so he fixes his own goddamn characters, he gives the very meaning to life as it should be, it’s the raison d'être of his existence. What else, then, are the characters in Sakamoto desu-ga but an ethereal assemblage of life itself, with all its beauty and flaws intact?
iii) Production - A team of legends
Animation: Studio Deen
The beginning of Sakamoto heralds what will be known as the timely Olympian peroration of Deen-animation jokes. “Deenimation” budget might have once been a joke. However, this very production itself, is factually no joke. Sakamoto visualized in motion picture spells an unequivocal merchandisable disaster for financially acclaimed studios such as Madhouse and ufotable; Sakamoto’s rendition is simply too gorgeous, invoking too paradisiac an animation quality requirement for even the likes of so-called Unlimited Budget Works to sustain. Before Unlimited Sakamoto Works, everything else’s reduced to a marginal and pathetic joke.
Director: Shinji Takamasu
Superseding School Rumble, Gintama and Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, comes a man of wit almost as cool as Sakamoto himself. One can only admire his wisecracking craft as much as Sakamoto desu-ga is to be admired for its gag-propitiated comicality. Accordingly, I place utmost value on discerning the first, third last, seventh, fifth last and fourth letter of the names of every director before contrasting it to the former analysis of the very title of that anime. Naturally, you can barely even perceive how powerful this matchup is; what else, would Sakamoto be deserving of if not the best?
Voice Acting: Hikaru Midorikawa as Sakamoto
Heck, you might have watched Gintama, some Great Teacher Onizuka, maybe Code Geass, perhaps Angel Beats, or Fate/Zero, with an off-chance of Mononoke, and this guy’s been in all of them and more. You’ve probably never even heard of him, he’s never been in the spotlight, but now that “supporting role” entirety is gonna change. As Sakamoto himself, he holds nothing less than the God’s Tongue and the voice of heaven, auralizing an indescribably lustrous overtone that defines perfection. What more can you ask for? Beethoven? That's on appallingly divergent levels. Sakamoto’s voice entails the ascension of every composed and uncomposed orchestral symphonic masterpiece to date. Right here, it’s Sakamoto Flows In You. Beethoven, on the other hand, has long since been decomposing.
Opening/Ending Songs by Customi Z and Suneohair:
22 times. That’s the total number of different stances that Sakamoto has stylishly taken in the opening sequence, COOLEST. It’s almost as if the song was made just for Sakamoto. Can you believe that? Simply amazing.
Unabridged and sporting a melancholic transience, Suneohair’s exemplar of an ending song is contemporary to that of an angel’s hymn. With luster and class, Sakamoto is splashed with an aural paint of sublimity in an everlasting interlude between his work days of delivering more COOL to the mortal realm and heightening levels of SPECIAL in the progression of civilization. In the lateness of day, even the sun begins to shy away from overexposure to Sakamoto’s dignified existence. It is thanks to this hymn in great taste, that we can observe Sakamoto in his natural habitat, partaking in elegant recreation alongside a beauteous sunset.
iv) Ultimatum
Should you watch Sakamoto desu-ga?
I am afraid I would have to say no.
It is beyond tangible excruciation for me at this point of writing to even delineate the consequences of watching the first episode of Sakamoto desu-ga, which include:
1) Sentience
2) Admiration
3) Killer moves
4) Another reason to watch Sakamoto
5) Macrocosmic indulgence
6) Obstruction of negativity
7) Titular charisma
8) Over-the-top greatness
Very much 8 tragic mortal weaknesses, withal the 8 tenacious symptoms of perfection.
Should you be slightly confused or bewildered at this point, I greatly sympathize with the below philosophical postulation:
“Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created here on Earth?”
-Robert Rodriguez
Sakamoto however, parades the mortal realm with no fear of himself.
Undoubtedly, you should fear and stray away from such an absurdly brilliant creation. You should fear perfection, when perfection perfectly clones itself and stares at it like it’s nothing.
Unless, you, are different?
Might you have actually embraced the abstraction altogether, pieced en masse the very construct of valuation and grasped perfection since the start, from the very first moment?
No, how could this be??
Who.. are you?
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~
Haven't you heard? I'm Sakamoto
