Netflix’s Hit Anime Comes to Life in Near-Perfect Trailer for Live-Action Movie



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Only a few days remain until Sakamoto Days makes an epic comeback, not as a new anime season for Netflix, but as a live-action feature film. Starring in this feature is Japanese idol, Ren Meguro, as he’s transformed to play the Legendary Hitman, Taro Sakamoto. The live-action adaptation was first announced in 2025, and its distributor, TOHO, made more moves to ensure people are excited for this new project.

Sakamoto Days is based on an ongoing Japanese manga of the same name by Yuto Suzuki, which follows Taro Sakamoto, a retired hitman who marries his wife, Aoi. Now working alongside his new family at their convenience store, he returns to the world of hitmen after a ¥1 billion bounty was put on Sakamoto’s head. It’s up to him and his allies to find out who’s behind it, while also following the Sakamoto family rule of no killing or risk divorce.

With only two weeks until its theatrical debut, a brand-new trailer was released, showcasing the main characters in their live-action counterparts. Alongside Meguro, also starring in this Japanese film include Japanese actress Aya Ueto as Aoi Sakamoto, Miyu Yoshimoto as Hana Sakamoto, Fumiya Takahashi as Shin Asakura, Mayuu Yokota as Lu Shaotang, Junki Tozuka (Oshi No Ko) as Heisuke Mashimo, Takumi Kitamura (Japanese remake of The Good Wife) as Nagumo, Akihisa Shiono (Mob Psycho 100 Live-action) as Kashima, Keisuke Watanabe (Kamen Rider) as Natsuki Seba, Meru Nukumi (My Hero Academia: You’re Next) as Osaragi, and Yusei Yagi as Shihsiba. Directing the project is Yuichi Fukuda, who previously worked on the live-action Gintama adaptation, and as of writing, the U.S. release has yet to be confirmed.































































Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

Is ‘Sakamoto Days’ Worth Watching?

In 2025, Netflix released its anime adaptation of Sakamoto Days, starring Matthew Mercer as Taro Sakamoto, and also features Dallas Liu (Avatar The Last Airbender Live-action), Rosalie Chiang (Turning Red), Rosie Okumura, Grace Lu (Ne Zha 2), Xolo Mariduena (Cobra Kai), Aleks Le (Solo Leveling), Keith Silverstein (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir), Xanthe Huynh (Pokémon Horizons: The Series), and Vinnie Hacker. The anime adaptation has one season with 22 episodes, and since its release, it has a high audience score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Collider’s Erick Massoto reviewed Netflix’s Sakamoto Days anime in 2025, giving it a score of 8/10. According to him, he praised the adaptation for being engaging and action-packed, to the point that it can showcase how dangerous Sakamoto is. He also claims that it’s just as good as Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, and Chainsaw Man. However, he criticized the fatphobic jokes, claiming that they “don’t add anything to the story.”

The live-action movie of Sakamoto Days opens in Japanese theaters on April 29, 2026. The Western release date for the movie has not yet been announced. In the meantime, you can stream the anime adaptation on Netflix. Follow Collider for more updates.


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Release Date

2025 – 2025-00-00

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Matthew Mercer

    Taro Sakamoto

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Erielle Sudario
Almontather Rassoul

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