Nishino Kanako finds herself quitting her job at an advertising agency after being mistreated by her former boss. Through a stroke of luck, Kanako is given a new job, but to her dismay, it turned out she just joined an assassin agency… and her first target is her former boss.
Happy Kanako's Killer Life (Shiawase Kanako no Koroshiya Seikatsu) is a Black Comedy Slice of Life manga written and illustrated by Toshiya Wakabayashi of Tsurezure Children fame. The manga began serialization in the online publication twi4 in 2019. It is licensed in English-speaking countries by Seven Seas Entertainment, with the volume released in August 3, 2021.
Happy Kanako's Killer Life provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Many targets are unsympathetic making it easy for Kanako to dispose of them without too much guilt.
- Badass Adorable: Kanako looks like a nice young woman, but she turns out to be a natural at assassinations, to the point where she unwittingly becomes a legend in the underworld.
- Because I'm Good At It: While she initially stumbles into the business of death by accident, Kanako finds assassination a surprising fit for her, and she doesn’t want to lose her job because she’s having a lot of fun and getting recognition for her work.
- Beneath Notice: As a result of a childhood being regularly bullied and a job being regularly harassed, Kanako is good at making herself seem so unimportant that people ignore her. This plays a major role in her success as K: witnesses don't report her because they didn't notice that she was there.
- Better Off with the Bad Guys: "Assassin" isn't normally the first thing one would consider a normal, wholesome job; Kanako, however, thrives in the environment. Fresh off a job with long hours and an abusive boss while having suffered low self-esteem throughout her life, Kanako discovers in assassination something she's naturally good at, and which offers better pay, hours, supportive co-workers, and even a benefits package.
- Black Comedy: As can be expected, many jokes revolve around death. For example, once Kanako settles into her job, she has a hard time turning away from the idea that Murder Is the Best Solution even for mundane, everyday annoyances. A common Bait-and-Switch early on is Kanako fretting after having just killed someone, only for the final panel of that comic to show her living it up and celebrating her success.
- Boyfriend Bluff: Sakurai tags along when Kanako meets Takehara for their date and passes himself off as Kanako’s boyfriend to keep the detective at bay.
- Career Versus Man: In volume four, an assassin from a rival agency falls in love with Kanako over the fact that she's somehow managed to remain a happy person despite being a killer for hire, and asks that she marry him so they can leave the murder business and live a normal life together. When she explains that her happiness isn't despite her work, but rather because of it, and thus she could not be happy if she left her job for a man, he tries to kill her.
- Chronic Self-Deprecation: Kanako is utterly devoid of self-esteem. When she runs into and goes drinking with an old classmate from middle school, she spends the whole time internally lamenting her own sense of comparative uselessness and is surprised that the acquaintance actually isn’t annoyed by her. Her craving for validation is part of why she desperately wants to continue her assassin job.
- Cute and Psycho: Kanako is a genuinely cute young woman with a quirky demeanor, but she notably appears to have a few screws loose. While at first she was bothered by murdering people, she gradually becomes used to it eventually expressing glee at the thought of being the center of a rumor in the underground.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Kanako’s Protagonist Journey to Villain and the ease with which she decides Murder Is the Best Solution are entirely Played for Laughs.
- Dating Catwoman: Detective Kazuo Takehara falls in Love at First Sight when investigating Kanako, who is the legendary assassin K that he’s trying to uncover. That fact doesn’t stop her from accepting when he asks her out on a date.
- The Dog Bites Back: While she was unwilling to, Kanako shoots her former boss and made it look like an accident.
- Evil Pays Better: Kanako's job hunting accidentally brings her to the offices of a group of assassins. She initially panics and wonders how to get out of there... then she hears about the great pay, steady work hours, weekends off, and even the recent addition of a benefits package. To top of all off, she's a natural at the job despite having no formal training before joining up.
- Friendless Background: In chapter 9, Kanako starts her day off by cleaning the toilet so it won’t be dirty when she has friends over, only to remember that she has no friends to invite.
- Gaining the Will to Kill: Played for Laughs. Kanako is hesitant in her first couple of assassinations, but quickly changes her mind when her targets prove themselves to be Asshole Victims who deserve to die. It’s not long before she adopts the mindset that Murder Is the Best Solution for minor inconveniences.
- Hurricane of Puns: A common source of humor is Kanako internally expressing her concern or hesitation with a situation through animal-themed puns (e.g. "Nope nope nope antelope!" or "For real for real for eel?") accompanied with an image of the animal in question.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Kanako's skills with firearms are a result of playing video games.
- Inexperienced Killer: The manga stars an ex-Office Lady who accidentally becomes an assassin despite never really wanting to kill her targets (it happens more or less by coincidence when she thinks of what Asshole Victims they are, as with her old boss or a pair of douchebags). While she doesn't consciously want to kill them (at first), the benefits of her new job are so much better than her old one that she stays.
- Instant Expert: Sakurai notes that Kanako is a quick learner when he gives her initial instructions on using guns and drugs, and in general she takes to the assassin business quite easily. According to her, this isn’t any natural talent on her part, but fear of disappointing people if she doesn’t perform as effectively as possible.
- It Gets Easier: She was nervous when she made her first kill. Some chapters later, and she starts to think that Murder Is the Best Solution.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: After her first kills, Kanako quickly grows accustomed to killing and makes a habit of considering it as a first response when dealing with annoying people in daily life. She needs to be reminded that she’s not allowed to murder people the agency hasn’t been contracted to eliminate, but even that doesn’t stop her from dealing with problematic people permanently on a whim.
- Parental Substitute: The boss of the assassin agency Kanako works for is the sole parental figure that Sakurai had growing up.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Played for Laughs. Kanako starts as an ordinary woman down on her luck and stumbles into the assassination agency by complete accident. Then she realizes that the job gives her more personal fulfillment than she’s ever had before and has developed a reputation that she takes pride in, leading to her staying Because I'm Good At It and the guilt on her conscience shrivels down to near nonexistence.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Kanako seems like a well-adjusted (if nervous) adult most of the time. She’s also an assassin with rapidly diminishing guilt about her murderous actions, does a Happy Dance when she learns that her kills have made her famous, and geeks out over kids’ tokusatsu shows like Super Sentai.
- Pull The Trigger Provocation: The titular Kanako accidentally becomes a top-class hitwoman thanks to the fact that every person she kills reveals themselves as an Asshole Victim and makes her pull the trigger without any conscious effort on her part.
- Pun-Based Title: The localized English title. In addition to "a person who kills," "killer" can also mean "extremely great" in American colloquial English. Kanako happens to be a killer who is satisfied with her current life.
- Red Baron: Because of her accomplishments, Kanako ends up being known in the underworld as an enigmatic assassin named "K". This actually becomes a problem, as assassins who aren’t discreet enough will attract unwanted attention, and it gets Detective Takehara on her trail.
- Secret Identity: Kanako is already hiding her profession as an assassin from people like her mother and Kiyomi, but even amongst the criminal underworld she’s become a legend and won’t let fellow criminals know that she’s the mysterious K they’re talking about.
- Signed Up for the Dental: Kanako agrees to perform her first hit after learning that the assassination agency offers considerably better pay, hours and benefits than her previous job. It's only later that she realizes that she's good at and enjoys her work.
- These Hands Have Killed: Subverted. The morning after her first kill, Kanako vomits into the toilet whiling thinking about how she can't get the scene out of her head. As such, it looks like she's having a Stress Vomit, but she's actually just hungover from drinking excessively the night before.
- Unexpectedly Dark Episode: While it was apparent how much Kanako suffered from self-loathing, chapter 39 also reveals that, in her adolescence, she was contemplating killing herself.
- Villain Protagonist: Even if her victims are assholes, it doesn't change that she is an assassin, that she would kill them even if they were innocent.
- Wham Episode: The ironically-titled Omake chapters are longer than the usual chapters and contain critical plot developments that shake up the status quo, like introducing Kanako’s only normal friend outside work or her first encounter with the detective.
- Would Hit a Girl: Sakurai doesn’t pull any punches when he starts training Kanako in combat.
