What does it take to balance action, hilarious comedy, moments of darkness, and seriousness in a single anime? At Anime Expo 2025, Anime Trending sat down with SAKAMOTO DAYS’ director Masaki Watanabe and animation producer Genki Ito to discuss their vision for adapting the story. Whether it’s the creativity behind the production or the music, both the director and animation producer have a productive collaborative process to bring Sakamoto’s world to life for fans old and new.
This interview was conducted through an interpreter and has been edited for clarity. Questions submitted by Audrey Im, Gerrymelyn Casupang, and Melyvn Tan.
Anime Trending: What was the impression that you strived to deliver with this adaptation?
Masaki Watanabe: I was conscious of establishing an environment crew-wise because the original source material has comedy, seriousness, and also action. There’s variation in the story, so I wanted to make sure that I have that environment that would be able to suit that.
Both of you have worked on several shonen anime in the past. How did your previous experiences help you prepare for SAKAMOTO DAYS? Were there any new creative approaches you attempted for this production?
Masaki Watanabe: Up until now, compared to what I’ve been working on, this project obviously has more cuts or shots, and they switch very quickly. For the action sequences, there are a lot of them too. In the show, there’s this frequency where you have new characters introduced one after the other. The consumption of animation calories is very, very high in the show, so I had to steel myself to work on these.
SAKAMOTO DAYS is a comedy, but it also has its very dark moments. How did you go about capturing these contrasting tones through the animation?
Masaki Watanabe: Because this show has the aspect of comedy [that are “lighter” elements] and battles, fights, or the more serious aspects that are “darker” elements, we have to mix both in the show and ensure the elements coexist. By having these elements, it gives more depth to the show itself.
One of our favorite aspects of the anime is the soundtrack, and how creatively the music incorporates elements of the characters’ lives. What conversations did you have when talking about your vision for the soundtrack?
Masaki Watanabe: For Yuki Hayashi, right? I provided a list of song selections and then had our music director, Jin Akitagawa, make the requests. For example, we have the main theme song and music piece for each character, and that is the base. When we were working on the emotions, we had different music for when it was sad, happy, and entertaining. Then we have speedy action, so that’s when there’s a sneaking mission or infiltration type of music. So that’s the type of order we made. We also made these variations within the situations.
Talking about how we basically use the music, we didn’t divide or make it into little pieces. We wanted to use the melody so that it lasted longer. By doing that, people would have this impression of the music that we are using in the show.
Can you describe how you typically collaborate and bounce ideas off each other?
Genki Ito: Basically, I rely on the director to design the show, but as a producer, I do sometimes make these orders and requests that I want to add a certain flavor to what we are working on. Then, the director would incorporate my small requests. Sometimes, in the conversations we have, I ask if we could make this character a bit cooler or add this to it. We basically consult with each other and that’s the type of discussion we have.
Masaki Watanabe: The producer gives a lot of emphasis and is really watching the characters. That’s the way we work, and we continue to work in such a manner.
Special thanks to both Genki Ito and Masaki Watanabe for taking their time to answer our questions and to Netflix for the opportunity to interview them. The 2nd cour of SAKAMOTO DAYS will premiere on Netflix on July 14, 2025.
