This Week in Anime

The Rowdy Rogues' Gallery of Golden Kamuy

Jacob

Golden Kamuy sure has become even more of itself since Nick and Steve last checked in with it.

I am absolutely digging it so far, especially now that I understand its hero's psychology a little better. I've always been fascinated by stories about this hyper-masculine existential dread of not being able to choose how you die.

These stories usually star some indomitable adventurer struggling to survive in harsh conditions as his comrades and enemies alike die around him. At first it's like "aw yeah, this guy is too badass to bite it," but if the story goes on long enough, there's an element of existential horror that creeps into it, as the survivor's guilt begins to take hold and the protagonist begins to wonder if their life lacks meaning, that they're only alive because they're too strong, more animal than man, and totally alone.

Anyway, that seems to be this dork's problem:

Right, this existential ennui is basically just an excuse to put Sugimoto and friends in as many absurdly dangerous situations as possible, and I am here for it.

I guess it would be a good idea to run down the major parties in the hunt for the gold now that the plot has solidified a little more.

Look, Shiraishi got his reputation from escaping prisons, not escaping wildlife.

Well, that was the case up until recently, but I think things have changed for everyone after learning that the man who murdered Asirpa's father and stole the gold...was Asirpa's father.

I think for Sugimoto in particular, it's given him a renewed sense of purpose. Much like his enemies in the 7th, the end of the war saw Sugimoto returning to a homeland that wanted to forget him, so fighting to help someone else (Asirpa) find her place in the world helps him feel like it's okay for him to keep living.

I mean, that and Asirpa's rather unsubtle pleading for him to give a damn about his own life because she cares about him. :'(

And while Shiraishi is mostly played for comic relief, I think he feels that impetus in the opposite direction. While Sugimoto relies on this quest to give his continued survival meaning, Shiraishi wants to be useful without getting himself killed, which means the struggle not to sell his new friends out is pretty real for him when he's constantly getting captured by the enemy.

He's doing his best!

I mean JESUS, the opposition these three (now four?) treasure hunters are facing.

And perhaps invest in a haircut.

If you've still got it after a century, flaunt it. Hijikata himself is less interesting to me as a character than as an exposition delivery service, (he sure knows a lot of dead people who knew secrets about the treasure!) but I have a very special place in my heart for his bodyguard, Ushiyama.

I mean, his name is basically Mr. Cow Mountain.

In a show full of walking hard-ons, Ushiyama's is the hardest. Which I guess leads us to the elephant in the room, as of this most recent episode, our first female convict in the hunt for the gold.

WHOOPS, how'd that get in there? I meant this one:

It's One of Those pulp stories, I guess. This is another reason I like Ushiyama; he takes most of the awkward air out of the room during this reveal, because Kano's secret doesn't matter to him at all. A beautiful lady is a beautiful lady from his perspective, murderous trans cannibal or not. So I'm weirdly intrigued to find out how their relationship is going to develop in the future???

It's still a shitty old horror trope though, the story definitely didn't need it.

They're good eyeballs, Sugimoto.

But all of these forces, from Hijikata's men to the various crackpot convicts themselves, are small potatoes compared to the main threat, which is honestly my least favorite part of the story.

I mean, what you see is very much what you get when it comes to the 7th Division:

Their desire to create a dictatorial military enclave that would absolutely eat itself alive in less than a year is just less compelling than even things like Nihei's doomed quest to kill the last wolf in Hokkaido.

But the simplest and nastiest of motives can often motivate the greatest number of violent assholes, so I can't accuse it of being unrealistic I guess, rabble rabble grouse grouse.

Man, why did they waste a whole twenty minutes on that? I assume it's because Tanigaki will become more important in the future, but it's definitely something a smarter adaptation would have abbreviated or intercut with more central cast material.

Yeah, and that's honestly the giant asterisk that keeps me from waxing rhapsodic about Golden Kamuy as much as I want to. I've never felt more like I should be reading the manga instead while watching an anime than I have with Golden Kamuy.

me trying to enjoy this incredibly compelling story despite some of the most embarrassing animated execution since Terra Formars:

It's more convenient for me at this time to watch the anime, but for god's sake, just read the manga, people. I'll catch up with you eventually.

So terrible production values aside, what are you hoping to see from our trio of gold-hunting idiots in the future?

I definitely want to see Asirpa confront her dad, but I'm also hoping someone from Sugimoto's past will show up and confront him about what he's really running from. I think Sugimoto assumes it'll be okay or even "right" for him to die once he finds the gold, and unfortunately there's a lot of dumb macho survivalists around him who feel the same way.

So I'm hoping his past and his present converge in some way to give him new perspective on his future, whether that's meant to be spent with Asirpa or somewhere else.

Well to be fair, it wasn't attached to his best friend.

(It was attached to his second-best friend.)