Dandadan and Sakamoto Days both arrived as breakout anime adaptations within the same stretch of this season, and both caught figure manufacturers' attention at roughly the same time.
That timing makes them a natural head-to-head for a collector who only has budget and shelf space for one new franchise right now, rather than chasing both lineups at once.
Each show has a genuinely different cast of manufacturers behind it, which changes the actual buying experience more than the surface-level hype numbers suggest.
Here's how the two franchises compare across cast appeal, manufacturer lineup, pricing, and format variety.
Dandadan follows Momo Ayase and Okarun, nicknamed for their mutual dare to prove the other's belief in ghosts or aliens fake, before both get proven wrong in the same arc.
Sakamoto Days follows Taro Sakamoto, a once-legendary assassin now running a convenience store, repeatedly dragged back into the hitman world the show's whole joke insists he left behind.
Dandadan's figure line is split across Good Smile Company and Max Factory for Nendoroid and figma releases, with Banpresto covering the prize-figure side through its Glitter & Glamours and SOFVIMATES lines.
Sakamoto Days spreads across three different companies entirely: Bandai Spirits' S.H.Figuarts for action-figure-style releases, Kotobukiya's Poteraba for palm-sized rubber mascots, and MegaHouse for a dedicated scale-figure centerpiece.
Dandadan's cheapest realistic entry point is a Banpresto prize figure, typically the more affordable, non-articulated tier sold through arcades and retail partners rather than a pre-order model.
Sakamoto Days answers with Kotobukiya's Poteraba mascots, a genuinely lower-commitment, lower-price format built specifically as a budget entry point rather than a smaller version of a full figure line.
Dandadan's premium tier runs through Max Factory's figma line, trading Nendoroid's chibi proportions for proper action-figure articulation and closer-to-screen scale, without yet having a dedicated large-scale statue.
Sakamoto Days already has one: MegaHouse's Nagumo figure, standing about 235mm tall and capturing him mid-stride with debris swirling around him, the franchise's first genuine centerpiece-scale release, though it ships through a limited circle of partner retailers.
Dandadan's first-run Nendoroid and figma pre-orders have already shown a pattern of selling out before a wider restock catches up, typical for a newly popular anime with a limited first figure wave.
Sakamoto Days' MegaHouse Nagumo figure carries its own availability risk from a different angle: it's a limited release sold through a small circle of partner retailers rather than a wide pre-order window, so allocation runs out even without the same social-media-driven sellout pattern.
Dandadan currently spans three formats across two companies for mainline figures plus Banpresto's prize tier, giving a collector Nendoroid, figma, and prize-figure options for largely the same handful of characters.
Sakamoto Days spans three formats across three separate companies, which technically gives it the wider spread, but each format currently covers a different slice of the cast rather than offering multiple takes on the same character the way Dandadan does. An EVORETRO 4-Step Acrylic Display Stand helps tier either franchise's smaller pieces so they don't get visually lost next to a larger centerpiece figure.
Dandadan's current wave covers five characters across its three formats: Momo Ayase, Okarun in both his human and transformed states, Turbo Granny, and the Serpoians.
Sakamoto Days matches that with its own five: Sakamoto himself, Shin Asakura, Nagumo, Shishiba, and Osaragi, though spread more thinly since each character so far gets only one format rather than Dandadan's overlapping Nendoroid-plus-figma coverage of the same cast.
If you want multiple format options for the same character, Dandadan is the better starting point right now, since Good Smile and Max Factory are both actively building out the same cast in parallel.
If you want a genuine centerpiece scale figure sooner rather than later, Sakamoto Days has the edge with the MegaHouse Nagumo piece already shipping, provided you can track down allocation through one of its partner retailers.
Sakamoto Days, through MegaHouse's roughly 235mm Nagumo figure.
Dandadan, through parallel Nendoroid, figma, and prize-figure releases.
Kotobukiya's Poteraba rubber mascot line.
A Banpresto prize figure from the Glitter & Glamours or SOFVIMATES lines.
Both franchises are still early enough in their figure lineups that getting in now doesn't require a flipper's budget on either side, so pick whichever cast actually pulled you into the show.
A Nendoroid box protector is the right first purchase if you start with Dandadan's chibi tier, while a display riser suits Sakamoto Days' smaller Poteraba figures just as well.
!
