‘Baby Assassins’ series is what happens when Gen Z-ers become hitwomen
The films by Japanese director Yugo Sakamoto follow a pair of young women who have no problem killing, but many problems adulting
From left, Akari Takaishi as Chisato Sugimoto and Saori Izawa as Mahiro Fukagawa.
Still from "Baby Assassins: Nice Days"
Words by Andy Crump
Watch the end credits of Yugo Sakamoto’s Baby Assassins (2021) for a neat optical illusion: actresses Saori Izawa and Akari Takaishi sitting so utterly motionless on a couch that the footage reads like a still image. Izawa plays Mahiro Fukugawa and Takaishi plays Chisato Sugimoto. They’re hired assassins by profession, sluggards by choice, and as skilled as they are at ending life, they’re utterly lacking in life skills. When they’re not on an assignment, they revert to their natural state: mollusks in baggy velour joggers and oversized sweaters, glued to personal devices, as well as to each other, on the sofa.
The contrast between Mahiro and Chisato’s inertia in the credits and their dynamism in the film’s action scenes strikes the comic slacker tone defining the Baby Assassins series from the first film to its 2023 sequel, Baby Assassins: 2 Babies, and now the third, Baby Assassins: Nice Days, currently available on demand in the United States following its theatrical run in 2024 in Japan. After tangling with yakuza in the first film, fellow assassins in the second, and the thuddingly dull upkeep of adulting in both—from running laundry to paying for insurance—the gals attempt a much-deserved holiday in Miyazaki. Kaede (Sosuke Ikematsu), yet another hitman, disrupts their R&R. Though in his defense, the guild Mahiro and Chisato belong to disrupt it first by assigning them a job while they’re in town. Who works while they’re on a vacation? Elite-tier hired guns, that’s who.
Kaede is the shadow version of our plucky heroines, a man so obsessed by his work that not only is it all he has. It’s all that he is. He intends his target, Matsuura (mononymously named actor Kaibashira), to be his last, and his 150th overall. When Mahiro and Chisato intervene, the inconvenience is two-fold. They just want to gambol around on the beach, get haircuts, and grab barbecue for dinner; Kaede wants to secure his reputation as the best hitman in Japan, for no deeper reason other than to validate his obsession with the achievement.
Mahiro and Chisato are hired assassins by profession, sluggards by choice.
Still from "Baby Assassins: Nice Days"
In the context of Baby Assassins: Nice Days, Kaede is frankly terrifying—a broken man whose existence is shaped by his need for self-improvement. In the context of the series as a whole, he’s the only antagonist who exceeds Mahiro and Chisato’s formidable combat prowess. More importantly, he’s the physical embodiment of a mindset and lifestyle that are anathema to their own. As much of the material in the Baby Assassins trilogy comprises action as it does their lackadaisical rebellion against the grind of social norms and expectations, though they’re such inveterate loaves that “rebellion” is likely a stretch. Neither Mahiro nor Chisato mean to make a statement by balking at domestic chores or holding down part-time “real” jobs as cover stories. They just don’t want to do “real” work. They like killing for cash. When they’re not killing for cash, they’d prefer not to do much of anything other than lounge and eat. (They’re dyed-in-the-wool kuishinbo.)
Sakamoto’s chief concerns in each Baby Assassins film are representing his leads’ friendship and staging precise, fluid, endlessly creative action sequences; like Mahiro and Chisato, he embraces his interests and feeds them with gusto. But a series whose main characters belong to Gen Z, the satori generation, and which emphasizes their bond as well as their general outlook, innately represents generational traits and ennui too—even if they’re tertiary to buddy comedy and gun-fu. In short, come for Izawa and Takaishi’s irresistible odd couple chemistry and incomparable fight scenes, but stay for a window into how Japan’s Gen Z engages with the world they’re inheriting as they come of age. That’s how Baby Assassins begins, after all—with Mahiro and Chisato graduating high school, a milestone their businesslike handler, Susano (Tsubasa Tobinaga), commemorates by ordering them to move in together and find honest work (the better to deflect suspicion about their true vocation).
It’s necessary to acknowledge how the two skirt typical satori sedai characteristics. At no point in the series do either of them offer their opinions about gender expression, for instance, despite their generation’s broad acceptance of transgender personalities like Genking, or the budding availability and use of male makeup products. Nor are they frugal, or thoughtful in terms of how they spend their money. (In Baby Assassins: 2 Babies, when neglected bills and gym fees catch up to their wallets, they pinch pennies and pine for their old spending habits at the same time.) These aren’t bugs, though—just features. Mahiro and Chisato, being contract killers, have other thoughts on their minds, particularly regarding social interaction, which Mahiro struggles with.
Baby Assassins: Nice Days is “her” picture, in the sense that Sakamoto gives breathing room for her angst about her antisocial tendencies. Kaede is her foil—someone she so instinctually empathizes with that she can’t bring herself to pull the trigger when they first cross paths. The series suggests that Mahiro could be on the autism spectrum. Wisely, Sakamoto doesn’t elaborate. He allows Izawa to perform the character’s anxieties about her behavioral “stuff,” the qualities that make conformity not only unappealing to her, but plainly challenging. Her friendship with Chisato is a lifeline for her, and a key strand of connective tissue to her status as satori sedai, who largely prioritize close friendships over romantic relationships.
Akari Takaishi as Chisato Sugimoto and Saori Izawa as Mahiro Fukagawa.
Still from "Baby Assassins: Nice Days"
Everyone needs a bestie no matter their generation, but Baby Assassins is invested in Mahiro and Chisato’s camaraderie to an extent tied to their demographic. Their inseparability functions as an expression of satori sedai’s social values, and gives the Baby Assassins series its bedrock. Action cinema remains firmly in its John Wick era, in which filmmakers routinely take aesthetic cues from the unexpected masterpiece that saved Keanu Reeves’ career. Izawa herself worked on John Wick: Chapter 4 as Rina Sawayama’s stunt double. The joy of the Baby Assassins series is baked into execution of its shootouts and martial arts beatdowns. The heart, on the other hand, rests within Izawa and Takaishi, and Mahiro and Chisato, the deadliest 20-something hitwomen in the movies today—if they can peel themselves off the couch, of course.
Published on September 1, 2025
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.