Follow us on Twitter | Instagram
Okay, look, maybe it’s too late to whine about how ‘fake’ the fat Sakamoto looks in the Sakamoto Days live-action trailer, since it’s been a while that the makers dropped the first look. But I didn’t see it on time and do think that Ren Meguro looks freaking amazing as protagonist Sakamoto in his younger days. However, Ren Meguro in a fat-suit, with oodles of make-up, just looks sooo cosmetic, inauthentic and bad.
The whole damn point of ‘Sakamoto Days’ is that it’s about an overweight protagonist navigating his life as a family man, while his past as Japan’s deadliest assassin starts to catch up – a hit is placed on him and several dangerous folks want him dead. So ideally, the makers should have cast a plus size actor and then made him look thinner via CGI. Given that the MAIN CHARACTER of Sakamoto Days is an out-of-shape Sakamoto, and his leaner, hotter version only appears in flashes.
Besides, Ren Meguro is unrecognizable in the fat-suit, like a fake bloated CGI character, that the creators could’ve simply cast someone else as fat Sakamoto. I mean, c’mon, take a look at this close-up shot below from the ‘Sakamoto Days’ trailer. And if the goal was to make him look as unreal as the anime version… why even make a live-action?! Every time this awkward piece of CGI and make-up appears on screen, I thought “such a shame, because the rest of the cast look so fantastic!’.
Famous pop-culture examples would be ‘The Crown’, where different actors play Princess Diana through the years. Or there is Jordan from Gen V, a super-human character who can switch between a male & female form, and actors London Thor and Derek Li take turns playing Jordan, whereas someone with no budget for an extra cast member could’ve easily got one person to play both character, using make-up to make them shape-shift.
It’s bad enough that lots of fans didn’t like the anime version of Sakamoto Days (I enjoyed it though!), and this live-action teaser just proves some things should just be left in their cartoon form. Maybe I am overreacting, maybe the CGI isn’t as shoddy as the trailer makes it out to be. Plus size Asian actors need more representation and roles like this to shine on the screen. Or well, at least they should’ve invested more in the graphic or the prosthetics.
Honestly, I am very torn about whether I should watch this version of Sakamoto Days. On one hand, Ren Meguro looks fabulous as Sakomoto from his assassin days, and the rest of the cast give the right amount of manga energy in the trailer, on the other: the fake-chubby Sakamoto is killing the vibe.
Read Next: Mary Shelley Vs del Toro’s Frankenstein – 12 Differences (Audio Version Below)
I think it will be amazing and only a fool would disagree
Hoping it turns out amazing!