English Dub Review: Sakamoto Days “Mutual Fans”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Sakamoto discovers Akira’s ties to an old friend.  While Shin and Toramaru vie over their favorite assassin, X’s secret plans throw the exam into chaos.

Our Take:
The final phase of the JCC exam continues to heat up, and I’m not just referring to Akira’s surprising reveal, in which she’s the niece of Rion Akao, one of Sakamoto’s classmates.  While it does briefly showcase why Akira decided to join the JCC, it’s not the primary focus of this week’s episode.  It instead transitions into a Shin-focused episode in the show’s attempt to focus on Shin’s personal strive to protect Sakamoto and his family.  So far, the season’s second half has been doing an impressive job of developing Shin as someone inspired by Sakamoto to fight for the right reasons instead of mindlessly killing people.  More importantly, it highlights Shin’s determination to fight his own battles by relying on himself instead of following in Sakamoto’s footsteps.
“Mutual Fans” is no exception, as Shin’s skills are tested once again through his two battles.  His first is against Toramaru, whose obsession with Sakamoto fuels her eagerness to become his only “number one fan”.  Given Shin’s personal experience with Sakamoto, he becomes an easy target for Toramaru’s jealousy, until she realizes why both of them admire Sakamoto.  Both Shin and Toramaru initially look up to Sakamoto due to his assassin history, but eventually grew to admire his generosity towards others without having to kill people.  This easily harkens back to when Shin first met Sakamoto, an experience that made Shin change his ways to help others through his clairvoyance and skills.
The other battle comes from one of the “special” applicants who are participating, and boy, do I mean “special”.  It’s revealed that this unique contestant, Shinaya, is a destructive cyborg controlled by Gaku through a VR headset.  Although this showdown is interrupted by another cliffhanger, it does showcase how formidable and even deadly this robotic applicant is, thanks to Gaku’s gaming skills.  Of course, this does result in Shin getting an extra hand from not only Mafuyu but also Toramaru.  Though not as effective as previous Shin-focused episodes, “Mutual Fans” retains the show’s solid efforts in putting the spotlight on its supporting characters in yet another thrilling continuation of the “JCC Exam” arc.