Shin is ready to throw it all away in Sakamoto Days chapter 192 as the fight against Tenryu pushes him to make an impossible choice. Can Heisuke bring him back to his senses, or is this a final farewell?
To be honest, the JAA Jail arc hasn’t gone down exactly how I thought it would. Back when Shin and Heisuke made it down to the second level in chapter 185, I assumed that we’d get a series of small adventures in the chaotic landscape offered by the setting, but the introduction of Tenryu changed all of that. There was simply no time for inconsequential escapades when such a fearsome enemy was in front of them, especially when he promised to go after Sakamoto and his family.
Still, that’s not to say Tenryu has had a negative influence on the story as a whole. Rather, his chaotic personality introduced a fair bit of tension as Shin and Heisuke first tried their best to conceal their identities from him, then tried to pass Shin off as the JAA fortune teller. That all fell apart when the real fortune teller in the form of Atari entered the scene, however, turning the situation from bad to ugly in a moment.
It’s in the midst of this tense situation in Sakamoto Days chapter 192 that Shin makes a certain choice: to leave the Sakamoto Store and return to being an assassin. This is because it’s long been one of the family rules to not kill, but Shin can’t abide by this when it comes to Tenryu. Even if Aoi believes that killing is wrong as everyone is precious to someone, regardless of who they are, maybe this simply doesn’t matter when dealing with someone completely and irredeemably evil.
Aside from this interesting moral quandary, Sakamoto Days chapter 192 also serves up plenty of high octane action. The scale of destruction on display here is actually pretty impressive as Shin first falls all the way down to the lowest depths of the prison before promptly being launched through a series of pillars by Tenryu. Shin also realizes something very important about his newfound ability to command people through telepathy: he might only be able to do it once per subject.
Just how Shin can be brought back into the fold and away from the dark side remains to be seen, but the sudden and unexpected appearance of Torres at the end will probably have something to do with it. What happened to his training with Sakamoto? Either way, it’s worth noting that Shin has always had something of a complex about his dark past and powerlessness next to Sakamoto, so how this gets resolved will most likely be a big step forward for his character development.
You can read Sakamoto Days chapter 192 for free via VIZ Media’s Shonen Jump.
