Summary
- Heisuke Mashimo’s sniper skills terrify even Sakamoto, making him a force to be reckoned with.
- Mashimo’s kind heart contrasts with his killer eye, showcasing a unique character arc.
- Mashimo’s legendary sniper status at JCC solidifies him as one of the best shooters in Sakamoto Days.
Sakamoto Days is filled with so many assassins it can be hard to stand out. However, Heisuke Mashimo’s insane sniper skills are enough to frighten even the big man himself!
It feels like there’s no shot that Mashimo couldn’t make. However, behind that killer eye is a kind-hearted person, as far from an assassin as you can imagine. So, just how did naive little Mashimo become strong enough to scare one of Sakamoto Days’ deadliest characters?
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Mashimo: Sakamoto’s Superhuman Sniper
When Mashimo debuts in episode 6 of the Sakamoto Days anime, he seems to be just another lousy sniper trying to earn Sakamoto’s bounty. Just like the foes that can before, Sakamoto and his crew quickly deceive Mashimo into not even realizing who Sakamoto is. As many fans would have guessed from the credits featuring him and the episode being named after him, there’s much more we soon discover.
When Sakamoto and Shin decide to enter a local paintball tournament to win some money, they cross paths with Mashimo again, who ends up on their team. It’s here that they discover Mashimo’s true potential, particularly when he discovers the fat store owner is actually his target. Unlike the other nobody assassins who invariably underestimate Sakamoto’s incredible strength, Mashimo’s skills are so good that he almost pulls off the hit, forcing Sakamoto and Shin to go all out to avoid defeat.
Mashimo’s Dedicated Sharpshooting Training at JCC
Not much has been revealed directly concerning how Mashimo turned into an unstoppable sniper, but we can work out certain aspects based on what we know about the assassination system in Sakamoto Days. In Sakamoto’s world, assassination is a legal profession. Most assassins work under the Japanese Association of Assassins (JAA), who essentially operate as a broker connecting requested services to the person best suited to the job.
To join the JAA, assassins are usually expected to have qualified through an assassination school. Mashimo is said to have graduated from Japan Clear Creation (JCC), the most renowned assassin training academy in Japan. JCC operates like a university, with students specializing in different majors depending on their specialism. Some may major as spies, others in assassination, others in weapons manufacturing or poisons. Mashimo is believed to have earned a sharpshooting major at JCC.
We know early on that Mashimo is a simple-minded guy who got fired from previous jobs for having no skills outside of sniping. However, it’s unlikely he would have passed JCC’s dangerous entrance exams with such specialist interests. Therefore, it must be presumed that he spent an unbelievable amount of time specializing in sharpshooting once he got the opportunity at JCC, where he would have benefitted from expert equipment and training, to the point of losing any other abilities he had. Because of JCC’s system, he would likely have been able to pass as a stellar sharpshooting major only to discover he seemingly didn’t have the rounded skills required to make it in the real assassination business after graduation.
JCC Showcases Mashimo’s Legendary Status
For a school whose alumni include Nagumo, the main antagonist Slur and Sakamoto himself, it takes something special to make a name for yourself. Mashimo achieved exactly that.
JCC runs a shooting competition – how many times you can assemble a gun and shoot a target in a minute. It also keeps a leaderboard of every student’s performance, past and present, which reveals that Mashimo scored 96 points, a record that’s never been beaten. For comparison, Sakamoto scored 89 when he was a student, while Nagumo scored 84.
The only problem was that Mashimo forgot to add his name to his score, so he’s only known among students as the legendary “Dragoon”. Still, this shows that Heisuke Mashimo’s strength is no fluke. Mashimo is arguably one of the best shooters to have ever lived, setting an as-yet unbeaten record at Japan’s premiere assassination academy.
