The 100

Lore & Background

In the world of Sakamoto Days, assassination is not a crime so much as a regulated, if ruthless, industry. The 100 formalizes this by ranking practitioners according to skill, notoriety, and the sheer weight of contracts they have fulfilled. Membership is not granted by a committee in a boardroom; it is earned through blood, reputation, and the quiet acknowledgment of peers who have seen a member work at close range. Dropping off the list means becoming invisible to the industry's power structure, and climbing onto it means becoming a target for those who want to seize your slot.

Sakamoto's tenure as #1 was so dominant that his name became synonymous with the top of the list. When he vanished—trading his weapon for a deli-sandwich slicer and his kill-count for a loyalty-card punch system—the 100 entered a period of instability. Rival members tested each other, new names pushed upward, and the question of who would claim the empty throne became the single most dangerous conversation in the underworld. The list, once a stable hierarchy, became a pressure cooker.

What makes the 100 more than a simple leaderboard is its cultural weight. Members speak of their numbers the way athletes speak of world records. Contracts are negotiated with rank in mind. Betrayal between members is considered the gravest offense. And the entire underground economy—information brokers, weapons suppliers, safe-house networks—prices its services partly on which number you carry. To be in the 100 is to be infrastructure.

In Their Own Story

Rain hammered the awning of Sakamoto's convenience store in long silver sheets. Behind the register, he wiped down the glass counter with a rag, the fluorescent lights humming their flat, tuneless note. The phone on the shelf beside the lottery tickets rang once, twice, then stopped. He let it ring a third time before picking it up, his voice flat and bored, the way a man answers when he's already decided not to care. On the other end, a voice he recognized from a different life—polite, measured, the cadence of someone who had spent years speaking in whispers to avoid eavesdroppers. They did not say hello. They did not need to. A number was spoken. A name was spoken. And Sakamoto set the phone down, picked up his rag, and went back to wiping the glass, as if the weight of a hundred lives had just been mentioned over the price of onigiri.

Reader's Guide

The 100 functions as the definitive ranking of the world's most accomplished assassins. Its stated purpose is to maintain a transparent hierarchy so that contracts, territory, and reputation can be negotiated within a shared framework rather than descending into unregulated chaos. In practice, it operates more like a living organism than a bureaucratic body: members rise and fall based on performance, and the list reshuffles as alliances shift and old debts are settled in blood.

Leadership is not centralized in a single chairperson. The #1 slot carries de facto authority, but there is no evidence of a formal council or executive committee. Power is distributed among the top ranks, and decisions that affect the broader list are made through a combination of seniority, mutual respect, and the simple threat of violence. Membership is limited to one hundred individuals, and the criteria for inclusion—skill, notoriety, completed contracts—are understood but never codified in a public document.

Resources flow through the list. Weapons suppliers, information brokers, and safe-house operators extend credit and access based on rank. A #5 assassin gets a different reception than a #80. This economic layer means the 100 is not just a prestige list; it is a functional infrastructure that keeps the assassin economy running.

Sakamoto's relationship to the 100 is the story's central tension. As the former #1 who abandoned his rank to run a convenience store, he represents the ultimate rejection of the list's logic. His absence destabilizes the hierarchy, invites challenges for his old slot, and forces other members to question whether the ranking still means anything when the man who defined it is slicing sashimi behind a register. Every conflict in the series escalates from this single act of walking away.

Did You Know?

• Sakamoto's decision to retire and open a convenience store is what triggers much of the series' central conflict, as his absence from the top of the list destabilizes the entire hierarchy.
• The ranking is not merely symbolic; it directly affects the economic and social standing of members within the assassin underworld, influencing access to resources and allies.
• The 100 operates in a world where assassination is treated as a profession with its own internal code, making it more akin to a regulated guild than a criminal syndicate.
• Sakamoto's former dominance as #1 was so absolute that his name and the top of the list became practically interchangeable in the minds of other members.