The Baby Assassins Trilogy

A Japanese action comedy crime film series written and directed by Yugo Sakamoto, the films follow best friends and roommates, Mahiro Fukagawa and Chisato Sugimoto, a pair of young women struggling to adjust to lives as adults in modern society, all while working as contract killers for the Assassins Guild.

But just so we're clear here...

Our two main characters are a pair of young assassins. They're "babies" as in they're "just starting out," meaning they're relatively new to their chosen career path. They're neither actual babies who are killers for hire, nor are they killers-for-hire who specialize in killing babies. Although, just fyi, either one of those options as the basis for a film would be something that I'd definitely watch. But that aside, these two are just straight-up assassins who kill people for money.

They're also young and kind of lazy.

Writer/director Yugo Sakamoto was born and raised in Kyoto, and his style, marrying slick action with a deadpan slacker humour, was heavily influenced by the flash of such American franchises as Mission: Impossible and the Fast and the Furious, as well as reading Weekly Shonen Jump, and watching anime.

Since he is from Kyoto, this means that, much like myself, Sakamoto has probably visited the Kyoto International Manga Museum, which is a really cool place, and something I'd highly recommend checking out if you're ever in Kyoto, which you definitely should try to do sometime, as it's an amazing city that mixes old and modern Japan in a way that I am loathe to say looks like it jumped straight out of an anime, but god damn, man... it looks like it jumped straight out of an anime.

Anyway, working with renowned action director Kensuke Sonomura–a 20-plus year veteran of video game mo-cap and film fight choreography known for a style of action that mixes real-world fighting styles with a lot of flashy fisticuffs, a style inspired by Jackie Chan and John Woo films, and that films like John Wick owe an obvious debt to–the goal was to do something with Japanese action similar to the films coming out of China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea, and then mix it with the more conversation-heavy understated comedies of Japan, all while including a bit of commentary about youthful listlessness, wage gaps, the burden of poverty, the banality of work, etc...

The result is the Baby Assassins franchise.

Currently spanning three films, as well as a 12 episode show streaming on HBO that I haven't watched yet, the series follows the day-to-day lives of soft-spoken introvert and martial artist, Mahiro Fukugawa, and the loudly exclamatory, very extroverted gun-hand, Chisato Sugimoto. They are roommates, best friends, and recent graduates of the Assassin Guild's high school, now trying to figure out how to make their way in the world, navigate crappy jobs, and generally just be happy and successful, all while killing a few assholes along the way.

It's pretty charming.

Baby Assassins

Two young women, Mahiro and Chisato, work as contract killers while living together as roommates in Tokyo.

Mahiro is tired and shy. Her bleached bangs hang in her eyes. But when she fights, she‘s whirling dervish of fist, foot, and blade. Still, she'd rather flop on the couch in their studio apartment all day, eating snacks, watching videos on her phone, and playing games on her Switch. Chisato, meanwhile, is the opposite. Often loud and high-pitched, she is prone to excited squeals and big smiles. When she fights, she‘s a quick and deadly shot, with no hesitation, and she rarely misses. But the pair get along because, like Mahiro, Chisato would rather flop on the couch in their studio apartment all day, eating snacks, watching videos on her phone, or playing games on her Switch.

Still, despite the fact they'd rather spend their time arguing about favorite foods, eating noodles, or taking naps, they’re premier assassins.

But as they have recently graduated from Assassins’ high school, their handler at the Assassin’s Guild informs them that they must now get regular jobs and start paying their own bills. And not just to hide that they work as killers for hire on the side either, but also because, now that they've graduated, the Guild will no longer be providing full financial support. They still get paid to be Assassins, but they’re not paid much, so they need to get a job.

And thus, the problem.

Especially since they recently broke their washing machine after they washed a pair of pants that had ammunition in the pocket. Because while they may excel at being assassins, in the real world, they're just another pair of barely unemployable Gen Zers. They’re lazy, with impulse control issues, and problems maintaining focus. One has no filter. The other is mostly sullen and unresponsive.

They're not good at working day jobs.

Finally, they manage to get hired at a Japanese Maid Cafe, where they must wear maid outfits and cat ears and act as subservient and cutesy alien anime girls while serving food, but it all goes to hell when they run afoul with the local yakuza.

Luckily they have their other job skills to fall back on…

Baby Assassins was released in Japan on July 30, 2021. It’s a nice blend of fun fights, bloody violence, comedy, and appealing characters. The digital blood is a little distracting, but the violence is otherwise fast, sudden, and brutal. Plus, as a bonus, there’s no shaky cam, or any fast edits. But that said, while the fighting is impressive, if you're looking for a more of a traditional martial arts action movie, then you might not like how much time the film spends hanging out with the two main characters and all their teenage girl energy, or lack thereof.

But that’s why this movie is great.

Not only are crime films and martial arts film starring two young women rare, especially one that never sexualizes them, making this movie a fun break from the norm, the two leads of Saori Izawa (who plays Mahiro) and Akari Takaishi (who plays Chisato) are truly fantastic, both separately and together. This is even more impressive when you realize that this was one of Akari Takaishi’s first major roles, and it was Saori Izawa first actual acting role, as previously she's only been a stunt woman in films like John Wick 4. But regardless of that lack of experience, they have great chemistry. Their characters and their relationship feel natural and real, not to mention fun, and really funny. Sure, they could be said to be co-dependent, but it’s a co-dependency that never presents itself as toxic. It's more like two young women who are best friends, or maybe two soulmates who have found each other. They're just a ton of fun to watch interact.

And that’s what makes the film great.

Baby Assassins: 2 Babies

Baby Assassins: 2 Babies is still mainly about Chisato and Mahiro’s friendship, as well as their continuing struggle to be regularly employed adults, all while working as killers for hire, despite the fact that they would rather lay around all day, eating desserts and talking about anime and stuff. But when they discover that they need to pay four years of membership fees to a gym that they went to one time and then never again, and have since completely ignored the monthly bills, they have to step up their game, or they’ll lose their membership in the Assassin’s Guild.

Unfortunately, as they hunt for better part-time jobs, word of their pending expulsion gets out, leading to brothers Makoto and Yuri Kamimura, two freelance assassins, to come gunning for their spots. These two, like our heroes Chisato and Mahiro, are an odd couple. Older brother Yuri is hungry for success, and yearns to be a top assassin. Younger brother Makoto is an awkward little weirdo who seems to only ever wear a cat sweater, which he regularly feeds churu cat treats. Yuri is the hand-to-hand fighter, and Makoto is the gun hand. And like the girls, they owe a lot of money that needs to be paid off as well, or they'll face deadly consequences, as they are currently two years behind on their freelance assassin’s insurance.

With their lives and livelihoods both hanging in the balance, the two pairs of young assassins find themselves on a collision course…

Baby Assassins 2 was released in Japan on March 24, 2023. And while this film feels a little more meandering and unfocused than the first film, as well as goofier and more light-hearted, the main draw continues to be the very Bill and Ted meets Tarantino feeling of the film, with Mahiro and Chisato’s sweet and natural-feeling friendship as the centerpiece. And the pair continue to aptly pull off being both believably dangerous assassins, as well as fun-loving lazy teens.

The film also continues to have a lot of fun with Mahiro and Chisato’s day-to-day lives, especially how the mixture of their general laziness and assassin training not only makes them terrible employees, but terrible citizens too.

At one point, they go to pay off their gym bill right before the deadline, but before they can, the bank gets robbed, and the robbers take everyone as hostages. It's only when it becomes apparent that this is not going to wrap up soon enough, meaning that they’ll miss the deadline, do they decide to take action and take out the bad guys. Later, as they’re growing increasingly desperate for money, Chisato decides on a whim to gamble all of their money against some local Shogi street hustlers, but she loses terribly, simply because she has no idea how to play and just assumed that she'd be good at it. At another point, they get jobs as panda and tiger mascots, but after a long hot afternoon of obnoxious kids, their money frustrations boil over and they end up in a big fight while in costume.

It’s all fun stuff.

This film digs into the Assassin's Guild a little more too. Not much, but some. It gives larger roles to both the people who clean up the scenes after an assassination and the girls’ manager too, and they add to the world in a workplace comedy kind of way. The film never gets into exactly what the Assassin’s Guild is, or its history, or anything like that, and I appreciate that. Whenever a movie like this starts to get too specific about the existence of a sprawling and powerful, not to mention, secret criminal organization, and how it operates, you risk highlighting just how silly the whole idea is. Just ask the John Wick franchise.

I will say that some of the random digressions that occur between our pair of assassins can feel like a bit of stretch this time, like they’re trying a little too hard to be funny in a Pulp Fiction kind of way—at one point, Chisato goes on about how a Big Mac is nothing but a cheeseburger and hamburger pushed together as if that is some amazing insight, but I mean... what? I don't even know what they're trying to say here. It just feels like random TikTok nonsense—anyway... my point is, that even when this does happen, the action more than makes up for it.

Especially the big climatic fight, which is awesome.

Baby Assassins 3: Nice Days

Chisato and Mahiro, teenage professional assassins, roommates, and best friends, decide to take a vacation to Miyazaki, and end up facing their biggest opponent yet.

Well, to be fair, they’re not actually on vacation. Really, they’re down in Miyazaki from Tokyo for a work gig, as there’s someone there they’ve been tasked to kill, so they’re trying to squeeze in a little fun in the sun along Miyazaki’s beaches while there. Also, it’s Mahiro’s 20th birthday, and Chisato has made them reservations at a Miyazaki steak house, so they’re both very excited to have some Miyazakigyu, which is a celebrated variety of A5 Wagyu beef from the Miyazaki Prefecture, one that is prized worldwide for its tenderness and intricate marbling.

So once they finish up this job... it's steak time! やった!

Unfortunately, when they go to do their job, they run into a guy who is also an assassin, and who is also after their target. But this guy is not only not a part of the Assassins Guild, he kills for bad reasons, because it’s a hobby, unlike our heroes, who kill for good reasons, because it’s their job.

This unknown assassin not only interrupts their job, allowing their target to escape, he also beats them both in a fight, and then gets away too. This is the kind of screw-up that could damage the guild’s reputation. To rectify this, Chisato and Mahiro are teamed up with a pair of older guild assassins, with orders to hunt the unknown assassin down, kill him, and then kill their target (in that order). The two older Guild assassins are Iruka, a no-nonsense Millennial woman who thinks that Gen Zers have no pride, honor, or work ethic, and Riku, a friendly, but obsessed with bodybuilding, man-mountain. The two groups have an uneasy partnership, as their assassin styles generally clash.

Meanwhile, the unknown assassin is a man named Kaede Fuyumura, and he is a bloodthirsty serial killer, the rabid dog of some rich family who have targeted the 100 people they believe are responsible for the canceling of their idiot son, after a viral video was posted online where he was seen ‘picking, eating, and throwing away strawberries.” I assume this is a Japanese cultural thing? Or maybe it's lost in translation? I don’t know. I'm not sure what the crime here was. But in the end, it doesn’t matter, Kaede has killed 99 people, and the girls stopped him just before his 100th kill, his final masterpiece.

Now he wants revenge on them both…

Baby Assassins 3: Nice Days was released in Japan on September 27, 2024. And as a franchise about a pair of teenage killers for hire, it continues to be very relatable. The first film was about life after graduation, the second was all about dealing with the responsibilities of being an adult, and the third is about finding a work/life balance that isn’t interrupted by the demands of a job.

Very relatable.

Plus, y'know... all the killing.

But this time out, while the various fights and the comedy are of course both really great, and I also really liked how everyone on the team becomes friends in the end, which was nice, it’s the character arcs that really stand out here, and push this film into being great. This story is definitely the darkest of the three, and a big part of that is how the girls are generally more emotionally vulnerable and open with each other along the way, and all while Kaede is genuinely scary bad guy. This together means that our heroes seem like they’re in more danger in this film than in any of the previous ones, so as a result, the fights are harder, and much more tense. Best of all, the film does a great job of tying all of this tension and danger into their emotional arcs too.

The climax especially goes really hard.

This film is all-around very entertaining and well done, and really highlights how invested we are in these characters, their friendship, and their happiness, at this point. And bonus, because it’s such a strong and well-told story, despite a couple of references to events in the previous films, I don’t think you actually need to see the other films in order to enjoy this one. You should see them, because they’re good, and the character growth that takes place over the course of the previous two films informs the characters here, but still… you don’t have to. So, where the first film in this franchise was great, even if the filmmaking did feel like it was finding its feet, and the second film, while generally feeling more self-assured, did struggle with its focus a little, this third film is clearly of a much higher quality, and generally feels much more confident, both in front and behind the camera. It’s just a well-written, straight forward story, with clear stakes that evolve along with the tight action, all while featuring some great character moments, and still being a fun time.

In short, this is hands down the best film of the bunch.

In summation...

Overall, one thing that I really liked about this series a lot, is the complete lack of 11th hour false moralizing. There’s no moment in these films where, after a bunch of mayhem and murder, these two pause, and shift gears into a super-serious bull shit where they briefly lament their lives and choices like: ”gosh, maybe we should doing this, y’know? Because killing is bad,” only to easily table those concerns and re-embrace their roles, usually due to the start of the story’s climax. Instead, the characters just do their job, enjoy some cake, and live to kill another day.

I love that.

Because there's really nothing more annoying then when a movie and TV show tries to have their cake and eat it too, right? There's nothing quite as tedious, after eagerly slumming it with some cool murderer characters, and letting them revel in being bad, all while they're also being the charming and funny heroes of the story, then for the creators to then turn around, stomp on the brakes, all so that they can reassure themselves and... I don't know, the other members of their mom's church or something, that they're “good people, actually,” and they don't enjoy or condone any of this "murder" stuff, because it's bad, and these characters shouldn't do this bad stuff, even though it's all they do, and in fact, is the entire premise of the show, and they do this by having the characters pay brief lip service to the “immorality” of fictional killing, to have the characters experience a brief moment of angonizing guilt. "Brief" being the key word. And all because why? They fear the tut-tutting of a bunch of dull and uninteresting morons who aren't even their audience in the first place? Pathetic performative nonsense. Be true to your art or go sell insurance, you fucking coward.

So, yeah, I really liked how this franchise doesn’t waste time on any of that shit.

Then there’s the lingering question of whether Chisato and Mahiro are best friends... or a couple.

In each film, there's usually some kinf of domestic rift that occurs between them. It's usually just roommates stuff, or growing up stuff, or just generally how they get on each other’s nerves at times, mostly because they spend every moment together, just some personal issue that they then overcome all while dodging the bullets and the fists, and to me at least, this is clearly a stand-in for typical couple issues. Very clearly. But at the same time, none of the films even towards a potential romantic tension between them. Not once. It's not that it's so hard to accept the fact that the two main characters are just friends, it just that, at the same time, this franchise is undeniably queer-coded. Undeniably.

And yet, it never winks. Not once.

There's no longing looks shared between them, or secretly by one towards the other. There's no lingering hand touches. There's no flushes of shame and/or lust. Nothing. Not from the way it is filmed, or in the choices that the actresses make in their portrayals of the characters. Nothing. The pair clearly loves each other, but it is definitely a platonic love, and the film never plays it any other way than that. These are just two young women who are super best friends forever, and are basically one person because of that.

But still...

That doesn't mean that I don't suspect that they're also meant to be a couple. I mean... it's an unavoidable assumption. Even their appearance suggests it. And who knows, maybe Japan frowns on portrayals of that kind of thing way more than even the stupid asshole Christian Prudes in America do, I don't know. Maybe this is all they can do. Because while yes, their relationship is only ever portrayed as platonic love, there’s also a noticeable evolution over the course of the franchise to the way they touch and interact, and how much they lean on each other, and how much they consider one another, and how much they check in on one another, and how often they tenderly wipe the blood from each other’s faces, or even in the way they willingly sacrifice themselves to save the other. It's interesting how openly the series portrays their love for one another, but never once even hints that their love might be romantic, not even a little bit, and all while embracing gestures that could be interpreted as saying otherwise.

So, are they a couple? No. Yes. Probably. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter. Besides, y’know how it is… they’re "roommates." Roommates who live in a studio apartment and seem to only have one futon...

Anyway, either way, in the end, I love these films and I love these two characters. So I will continue to turn up to watch them work crappy jobs and then kill people for money. Because it's a blast. And yeah, I’m definitely going to watch the show now too.