The strongest Sakamoto Days characters split between the retired assassins running a convenience store and the killers from the Order still hunting them, and the gap between the two sides is closer than the store’s sleepy day-to-day suggests. Here’s how the cast ranks once Taro Sakamoto actually drops the fat and fights like the legend everyone keeps describing.
Last updated September 18, 2026.
Where Sakamoto Days Stands Right Now
Sakamoto Days has been climbing since its Winter 2025 anime adaptation gave the manga a second wind. The series passed 18 million copies in worldwide circulation as of August 4, 2026 — up 3 million in a single year — as Shueisha released the 28th compiled volume (Anime News Network, August 2026). The manga is now heading into its final arc, which makes this a good moment to settle who actually wins a fight on this cast list.
This ranking covers named JAA and Order characters shown fighting on-page, weighing feats against other members of the cast rather than just screen time or popularity.
#9 — Osaragi
Osaragi is the Order’s newest recruit, plucked from a farm with zero prior assassin-world connections and mentored directly by Shishiba. She’s already a prodigy with her signature buzzsaw weapon, fast and tough enough to hang with veterans twice her experience — she’s just the one name here who hasn’t been tested against the true top tier yet.
#8 — Lu Xiaotang
Lu fights in a style that mixes Tai Chi with Drunken Fist, which makes her genuinely hard to read in a straight fight — she looks airheaded right up until the moment she isn’t. She joined Sakamoto’s store after being rescued, and her combat instincts are sharper and more analytical than her day-to-day personality lets on.
#7 — Heisuke Mashimo
Heisuke holds the all-time sniping record at the JCC, the assassin world’s own combat academy, which tells you everything about how far his rifle skills carry him. He’s emotional and gullible in a fight that isn’t purely about range, but at distance there’s no one on this list who out-shoots him.
#6 — Yoichi Nagumo
Nagumo was Sakamoto’s classmate before he joined the Order, and that shared history is part of what makes him dangerous — he knows how the JAA’s best fighters think. He’s built around multipurpose blade tools and disguise work, which lets him get into position other assassins on this list would get spotted trying to reach.
#5 — Shin Asakura
Known as Shin the Clairvoyant, Shin is a former hitman turned store clerk whose esper mind-reading ability keeps evolving in ways the story hasn’t fully revealed yet. Being able to see an opponent’s next move before they commit to it is a bigger edge than raw strength against almost anyone else here.
#4 — Shishiba
Shishiba was a rogue assassin before Satoru Yotsumura took him in, and he’s now senior enough in the Order to mentor Osaragi himself. He’s openly said to dislike fighting, which makes it worse for his opponents when he’s forced into one — his hammer hits with a monstrous power gap between what he wants to do and what he’s actually capable of.
#3 — Satoru Yotsumura
Yotsumura is a founding member of the Order and the JAA’s former second-in-command before his banishment, plus a professor emeritus at the JCC — he helped build the world every other name on this list is operating in. His bladed three-section staff is sharp enough to cut clean through a person, and decades of experience back up every swing.
#2 — Kei Uzuki (Slur)
Uzuki is the story’s main antagonist, a serial killer working through the JAA’s assassin roster one target at a time. He can show real warmth toward the people under him, but losses push him into dissociative personas — including ones modeled on fighters he’s killed — and each persona brings its own skill set into the fight.
#1 — Taro Sakamoto
Sakamoto gave up a life as the JAA’s most feared hitman to run a convenience store with his family, and most of the manga plays his current shape for laughs. But drop him into a real fight and he can shed the weight entirely, doubling his output and reverting to Prime Sakamoto — the version of him that built the legend everyone else on this list is still reacting to.
Sakamoto Days Power Ranking at a Glance
| Rank | Character | Affiliation | Signature Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taro Sakamoto | JAA (retired) | Prime form doubles his combat output |
| 2 | Kei Uzuki (Slur) | Antagonist | Shifting dissociative personas in a fight |
| 3 | Satoru Yotsumura | Order (founder) | Decades of experience, bladed staff |
| 4 | Shishiba | Order | Overwhelming hammer strikes |
| 5 | Shin Asakura | JAA / store clerk | Evolving esper mind-reading |
| 6 | Yoichi Nagumo | Order | Blade tools and disguise infiltration |
| 7 | Heisuke Mashimo | JAA / store clerk | JCC record-holding sniper |
| 8 | Lu Xiaotang | JAA / store clerk | Tai Chi and Drunken Fist hybrid style |
| 9 | Osaragi | Order (newest) | Prodigy buzzsaw fighter, still unproven |
Why Sakamoto Still Beats the Order’s Best
It would be easy to hand this list to Uzuki purely because he’s the antagonist driving the plot, or to Yotsumura because he’s the most experienced fighter in it. But the manga keeps circling back to the same idea: everyone in the Order, founders included, still measures themselves against the man the JAA lost when Sakamoto walked away. A fighter every other elite killer in the story uses as their benchmark is the actual #1, even in a body built for running a corner store rather than headlining a hit list — that’s the read this ranking is built on.
How This Compares to Other Shonen Rankings
Sakamoto Days keeps its power scaling grounded in trained combat skill rather than awakened superpowers, which puts it closer to a crime thriller than most of its Shonen Jump+ neighbors. If you want the full-blown supernatural version of this format, our strongest Jujutsu Kaisen villains ranking covers a cast built on cursed energy instead of gunplay and blade work, and our strongest anime characters of all time list is the place to see how grounded fighters like Sakamoto stack up against reality-warping ones.
For more on where the series fits in the current manga landscape, our best manga of all time ranking has the wider context, and Wikipedia’s Sakamoto Days overview covers the full publication and adaptation history.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the strongest character in Sakamoto Days?
Taro Sakamoto, once he sheds his weight and returns to his ‘Prime’ form. Every other elite fighter in the story, Order founders included, is still measured against the legend he built before retiring.
Is Shin stronger than Sakamoto?
No. Shin’s evolving esper mind-reading makes him one of the most dangerous fighters at the store, but Sakamoto’s Prime form is still the benchmark the rest of the JAA and the Order fight against.
Who is Slur in Sakamoto Days?
Slur is the alias of Kei Uzuki, the series’ main antagonist — a serial killer targeting assassins to dismantle the JAA, whose dissociative personas each bring a different fighting style into a battle.
How many copies has the Sakamoto Days manga sold?
Over 18 million copies in worldwide circulation as of August 2026, according to Anime News Network’s coverage of Shueisha’s circulation milestone.
