#tsukishima should be easy. ogata...possible I think

[omo321]

“Are you crying?” Fina exclaims in alarm. Tsurumi is equally startled when he wipes at his face and his hand comes away wet. Not once had he shed tears, not even when he’d lost them. Pulling a chair up to him, Fina dries his cheeks with soft dabs of her handkerchief. With her hand on his shoulder and her beautiful, bright eyes soft with more love than Tsurumi can bear, she waits for an explanation that he cannot give.

gnawing on "theatre" by Saengak again... it's free serotonin to me

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Something that always intriged me was why Tsugumi 's still a Lieutenant? He fought in the Russo-Japanese war, work as a Spy and appear to be from a prestige family, so why in his age, he is still a Lieutenant? Was he already marginalized by the army before going against Central? I really enjoy your work. Sorry for the bad english, I'm from Brazil!!

Well...

...we don’t really have a detailed official explanation, but we have some hints to how it could have been hard for Tsurumi to rise in ranks.

1) For start rising in ranks wasn’t so easy if you weren’t an upper class. We know Tsurumi’s family used to be wealthy but then fallen into disgrace due to being on the losing side of the Boshin war.

So it’s entirely possible that officers who could have promoted him for his own accomplishments, just pretended not to notice him due to him being from a ‘disgraced’ family, which was entirely a huge issue back then, with people like Koito who come from a still important family being easily promoted while people from lower families having to fight hard to get promoted.

2) Tsurumi is born in 1866, meaning he graduated from the Imperial Army Academy as a Second Lieutenant in 1887.  Short after he should have been sent in Russia to work as a spy as in 1991, when he’s 25, he’s married with a daughter and he meets Wilk, Kiroranke and Sofia. Likely in the time period in which he was working as a spy he wasn’t promoted and he was forced to terminate his mission when he was discovered.

Due to this is possible he wasn’t promoted once he was back.

2) As if this weren’t bad enough there’s the ‘incident’ with Tomoharu in 1894, in which he’ll claim it was his horse who’ll killed the child. Tomoharu’s father is some important guy in the second division. We don’t know his rank but it’s likely high.

The fact the man believes Tsurumi is responsible for his son’s death likely ensured Tsurumi would have no chance to be promoted during or after the Sino-Japanese war, the man also causing Tsurumi to be transferred in Hokkaido.

In fact in 1896, when Tsurumi goes to talk with Tsukishima while the latter is in prison, Tsurumi is still a second lieutenant.

We know that Tsurumi will explain to Tsukishima how he has been transferred to the 7th division and how he’ll go to Tsukisappu where the special service agency is located and from there he’ll move to Russia as an intelligence officer

In 1897 he’s in Vladivostok with Tsukishima (and probably Ogata as Ogata has learnt Russian along with Tsukishima)

...and he’s still a second lieutenant...

...meaning Takagi Tomoharu’s father either still made sure he wouldn’t be promoted or he didn’t have a chance to show he deserved being promoted. Possibly both.

3) But likely this time his permanence in Russia brought back results because he finally managed to be promoted. We know because when he takes part to the resque party for young Koito in 1902 he’s finally a First Lieutenant (sadly we don’t know if he was a first lieuntenant already in 1900 when he first met Koito but it’s entirely possible).

4) Now saving Koito might feel like a good opportunity to further promote him but it’s possible this didn’t happen because not only he was promoted recently (some time needed to go between a promotion and another) but Koito senior is a Navy officer and the Navy and the Army have a poor relation so it’s entirely possible Koito senior couldn’t really influence Army officers... or that he didn’t care.

5) And so we get to the Russo-Japanese war which was possibly another good chance for Tsurumi to be promoted... but not only Yuusaku, who was the flagbearer for the division, dies in action, which might have made Hanazawa not prone to promote people, but Tsurumi gets a serious wound. According to Captain Wada, Tsurumi was lucky enough to manage to keep his rank despite it

(possibly because a brain injury might have affected his mental ability... and let’s not forget how Tsurumi had to take morphine for a certain period, risking to develop an addiction as it’ll happen to Nikaidou)

Actually maybe it’s just Arisaka’s friendship what allowed him to remain in the army despite his wound.

6) As if this wasn’t bad enough things turned sour for the 7th division so likely no one in it got promoted (in fact everyone keeps the same rank they had during the war)...

...though this is entirely Tsusumi’s fault as he’s the one to order Ogata to facilitate Hanazawa’s ‘suicide’, knowing Central will hold them responsible for it.

7) It’s also worth to mention although Tsurumi used to blackmail officers, he likely never tried to seriously advance in rank because it simply wasn’t convenient for him. After Hanazawa’s death the new commander of the 7th division is Yodogawa whom Tsurumi controls.

Captain Wada who tries to oppose to Tsurumi is quickly disposed...

...so now Tsurumi is free to do as he prefers and doesn’t really need to rise in rank as he basically controls all the division through controlling Yodogawa. At the same time he might think by remaining a First Lieutenant he’s less conspicuous and so Central will undervalue him... even if we’ve recently learnt that Central never liked him and fears him enough to put not one but 2 spies in his ranks, Ogata and Kikuta, both with different jobs and instructed to not get in contact with each other so as not to risk to be discovered. To be honest, Central didn’t fear him enough as Tsurumi discovered them both, Kikuta got killed and Ogata managed to escape multiple times only thanks to his ability and good luck but he’s seriously worried the Shinigami might caught up with him.

8) If Tsurumi’s plan suceeds he’ll be Hokkaido’s dictator and the ruler of the place so really, rising in ranks in the Army is very likely something he’s absolutely not interested in.

So well, that’s the end.

In short we don’t have a clear cut explanation about why Tsurumi wasn’t promoted... but I think his story gives us an idea of how hard it would have been for him to rise in ranks and why this basically had happened only once (he moved from second lieutenant to first lieutenant).

I hope this helps. Thank you for your ask!

[jojotier]

On the MO of Love: How all factions in Golden Kamuy stay together

so based on the new chapter, it seems that instead of focusing on the usual “this faction is held by fear, this one by respect, this one by etc etc etc”, Noda may be focusing more on “all factions in this race are held together by love, but what kinds of love hold them together?”, which is both far more nuanced and far more interesting. So for my general analysis:

- Tsurumi’s Faction, the 7th Division, represents infatuation with a single person. This isn’t really much of a stretch- as the backstories of each of the 7th Division men have unfolded, showing just how Tsurumi has earned their attention, each one plays out as if it could be the start of a movie, with Tsurumi positioned as the dashing lead who can sweep the main boy of the day away from danger.

The infatuation is always one-sided, as demonstrated by Tsurumi in the newest chapters- he’s in the habit of saying exactly what someone wants to hear, even if it could conceivably hurt someone who shouldn’t be listening in.

This infatuation base can be seen in how the 7th interacts with each other off duty, as well. Is it any wonder why the hospital scenes seem to almost like a reality show? In a sense, it’s like bringing together all the contestants on the Bachelor together, if all the contestants were madly in love with the Bachelor at first sight and were convinced they should deserve to win most.

(The only possible detractor from this assessment is Tsukishima, who isn’t really the type to be caught up with love- but then again, the love of his life is already dead, so that might explain the tepid relationship with infatuation of any kind)

- Hijikata’s Faction represents familial love in the sense of blood relatives.This one is a little tricky since technically this all counts as a found family- but in terms of found family, this faction has a little more structure than others in that Hijikata and Nagakura are the undisputed heads of the family who the rest better answer to with at least some respect. While the eldest duo are highly respected, there’s still a sense of relaxed leniency whenever they’re in a good mood- like when Nagakura allows the younger folk to tease about the hair.

There is still a sense of respect and, perhaps, fear underlying things, though. After all, Nagakura and Hijikata are ostensibly dangerous people, and all members of their faction have likely seen one or both of them go full out berserk. Even Ushiyama, who seems to have the most lax position in the “family”, answers to them.

The atmosphere around this faction during downtime reminds me a lot of my great-grandmother’s house- loud, slightly chaotic, and with people playing around and maybe tussling with each other (like Kirawus and Kadokura) but with everyone generally respectful and kind to one another.

- Asirpa’s Faction represents familial love in the chaotic sense of found family. This one is honestly the most intuitive and easy to pin down, since for this, there’s no real “head” of the family. There’s a main inner circle around Asirpa in the form of the Golden Trio, with others who join the group orbiting it, but otherwise the dynamic is far more equivocal than others listed thus far. If someone’s skill is needed, that person becomes a miniature “leader” for the moment, explaining to the others how best to survive as they defer to that judgment.

In terms of family, they aren’t nearly so chaotic either, though there’s a great deal more leniency than the previous two groups. This is the faction that feels the most like the kind of family you make with a small group of friends that you love dearly, even though everyone comes from a different situation and a blood family already. 

Even though those of the faction could easily kill each other, no one is afraid of that. The relationship is built entirely on trust.

In this way, Asirpa’s faction represents both the most difficult balance to maintain and the purest love of the series- since all members of her faction come along and can only really stay in the faction if they “work” out with the rest, there’s greater leniency with who stays and who goes. It means that all those who stay are, inevitably, the ones who will end up caring most about and being the most loyal to the other members of the faction. It took time and trials and hardship to build that loyalty, and therefore, it may well be the most enduring.

But wait! There’s more! Two extra factions that are no longer at play in Golden Kamuy proper...

- The Kiroranke-Ogata Alliance represents a fake found family. Coming off the heels of our discussion of Asirpa’s faction, there’s the Kiroranke faction of Karafuto arc. I think this deserves mention because of the sheer magnitude of how much Kiroranke tried to make himself, Ogata, Asirpa and Shiraishi work as a found family, and how that inevitably failed. It didn’t fail because Kiroranke didn’t love Asirpa- I have no doubt that he loved and cared for Asirpa and Shiraishi- but because this faction ended up feeling more like a stand-in, rather than a proper found family.

What was so central about the Asirpa faction is the relationship between Asirpa and Sugimoto. With Sugimoto out of the picture, to attempt to reform a found family without him, particularly just days after his death, would be difficult enough on its own- but what really stood in the way was a mix of Ogata Hyakunosuke, who, for the first time in golden kamuy, attempted to be central in a dynamic of love, and the fact that neither Kiroranke nor Ogata believed Sugimoto was dead. On the second, it led a feeling of unease to the proceedings- because even if they did become a found family, if Sugimoto came back, that would shatter immediately.

On the first, Ogata attempted for most of the arc to be Sugimoto’s substitute, rather than Ogata-in-a-dynamic. This comes back to previous meta- namely, that Ogata believes everyone else is interchangeable with himself, as evidenced by his little “Sugimoto said he wants to eat anko nabe” lie. I would also like to add an adenum to that- that Ogata views love only through the three lenses that his family taught him, which will be the subject of another meta next week.

Halfway through Karafuto, Ogata had a fevered vision of his brother, and through it, decided to apply the lens of “love” he learned from his brother onto the found family. We know how this ended.

- Wilk’s faction- Wilk, Sofia, and Yulbars- represents love of a cause. Now this one is interesting in that, in some ways, there is some overlap in the infatuation techniques that Tsurumi uses. However, I would like to stress that in this case, the infatuation is NOT the same- namely because, while Tsurumi focuses on gaining his men’s love for himself as an individual, Wilk focused on gaining love for a cause.

I don’t doubt that Wilk must have used his own charms and wit to garner the initial infatuation, but, instead of hoarding it, he redirected it. By making sure that Sofia and Kiroranke were just as infatuated with their revolutionary goals, he achieves a longevity that Tsurumi will not have- because after Tsurumi’s death, what happens to his faction? Without himself to be the sole object of infatuation, what more do his men need to care about the cause of imperialism? Sure, they might try to carry on the cause for a bit, but it’s a shortsighted goal- to give compensation to the returning men of the 7th, there are plenty of other ways to go about it.

Even after Wilk’s disappearance and death, later orchestrated by one of his faction, his ideals and the love with the cause lives on. While Asirpa’s faction represents what’s most immediately enduring, this love for a cause is equally as enduring- so enduring, in fact, that even Asirpa’s own found family faction is taking it on.

The only question remains... Is it still love for a cause if the meaning of that cause changes, if the methods of assisting that cause are evolving and revised? Or is it love of a cause to keep it the same as what was envisioned by one’s founder, one’s father?

What is the true meaning of ‘evolving love’?

[chibivesicle]

Hello- thank you for all the meta!! It's really fun reading all of it. How do you feel about Koito's role in the recent chapters? I feel as though in Karafuto his character is being portrayed incorrectly, since he seems to be more incompteinc than he was when he was with Tsurumi, and now in the raws, he's left someone to possibly die behind him in a quest for vengeance... What do you think Noda is planning for him? -E

Hello thanks for the ask!

I was going have a nice and tidy reply for you.  I was going to say that Koito was making mistakes during their pursuit of Ogata and Kiro on the ice flow and that those mistakes were going to give him first hand experience of where he went wrong and how to correct it in the future. 

But then  @goldenkamuyhunting wrote this meta… and it went beyond my thinking.

https://goldenkamuyhunting.tumblr.com/post/182851400883/but-are-our-expectations-on-koito-really

I will say that I was still going to approach my reply as though Koito needed to learn a terrible lesson to become a future leader.  But with this analysis, it really made me realize that he has never been good at leading people before hand.  Full breakdown of how he messes things up b/c he’s too impatient and passionate.

I never thought Noda was portraying Koito incorrectly.  I always felt that Koito was who Noda wanted him to be.  I stand by my previous meta about him that he clearly feels immense pressure to follow in his father’s footsteps and that is really tough and I get that.  I took the most mentor-ish approach to him and thought about how I mentor, but I never thought that maybe he just didn’t have the skill set.

So what do I think now?  I think that Koito is likely a military jock.  He’s an excellent fighter! His swordsmanship is amazing. He’s super handsome!  He’s ferocious!

But he can’t think about the big picture or the long game.  He and Sugimoto butt heads a lot of Karafuto.  This is the only time that Sugimoto calls someone a bully, even though Sugimoto is a huge bully.  Why would Sugimoto do this?  They are both very athletic [jocks], they are amazing fighters, they are very passionate and they care deeply for others (Asirpa/Umeko, Tsukishima) but they can lose themselves to their rage and the heat of the moment.  I think the reason why Sugimoto calls Koito a bully is b/c unlike Sugimoto, Koito is an elite who should be able to advance in the military and will as Sugimoto sees it, likely be able to bully more subordinates.  We still do not know the full backstory on how Sugimoto wounded a commanding officer.  And even though Sugimoto bullies the crap out of Ogata, when Koito bullies Ogata, Sugimoto is upset at Koito.

So by thinking about this … I think that Koito isn’t just played for laughs, but we do need some humor in the series; spoiled rich kids always make an easy target… poor Shiraishi is also played for laughs when he’s pretty competent when need be.  I think what we are seeing from Koito, is either he will have an epiphany and realize that he needs to change to become a good leader.  Or he will realize that he is not cut out to be a leader and if Tsukishima is able to recover alright (no way is future-husband-material-boy going down that easily!) and he will actually follow Tsurumi’s orders and let Tsukishima be in charge as was previously discussed at the end of the stenka arc, when Koito questions his decision to let Gansoku head to Russia.

But we shall see what happens!  Right now, I want Koito to recognize his mistakes and defer to Tsukishima for the rest of their time on this mission.  After they all get out of the hospital etc.

[recentanimenews]

Golden Kamuy is the Best Harem Anime in Years!

We’ve talked in the past about what type of genre Golden Kamuy falls into, how it uses historical information to fill in its realistic setting and presenting authentic food culture and recipes, and even how authentic it is at representing judo. Now that the second season has left us with a whole bunch of unanswered questions and plenty of time to think about them. While we wait for news of season three, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: Golden Kamuy isn’t receiving the love it deserves for being the best harem anime in years! It might be easy to miss when you get too caught up in all this talk about Ainu gold and cooking and people shooting at each other, but if you weren’t paying attention, don’t you worry. We’ll tell you all about how Lt. Tsurumi is the harem protagonist to end all harem protagonists, and his gaggle of adoring followers!

Your first question is probably: “Wow, how did I not see it before?” And we forgive you for not realizing how amazing and handsome Lt. Tsurumi is. From his charming demeanor to his dashing looks (complimented by his headplate!), Lt. Tsurumi is a total package. It’s difficult at first to understand the devotion of the 7th Division if you don’t realize that they’re all in love with the man in charge, and Tsurumi dotes on his followers with equal measures of love and discipline. A harem anime protagonist is usually weak-willed and unwilling to admit their joy at being the center of so many cute boys' and girls' attentions, taking ages to make a decision about which of their suitors to settle down with, if they ever make a choice at all! But Lt. Tsurumi surpasses them all with his decisive and strong-willed ability to make choices, making the 7th Division a welcoming and warm home for everyone willing to follow him and achieve his dream of seeing Hokkaido (and eventually Japan) united under his control as a military force to be reckoned with.

When we first meet Lt. Tsurumi, we only see him from the perspective of Sugimoto, a man who is unfamiliar with who Tsurumi really is. He comes across as a cold and calculating killer, a ruthless person willing to do anything and everything to achieve his goal. As the series goes on, we find that Lt. Tsurumi is indeed ruthless, but much of that comes from his love for his followers and his willingness to do what he can to help give them purpose and success in life. As the war that gave them purpose and united all of them is over, Tsurumi feels it is his duty to ensure that all of his men continue to feel useful, needed, and most of all respected by a government that seems all too willing to ignore them now that they're not immediately needed. Tsurumi’s band of soldiers might seem odd or quirky at first, but that’s simply because Tsurumi has allowed them to blossom and show their amazing, unique personalities aside from just being faceless soldiers in uniform! After the death of General Hanazawa, the 7th Division were treated as outcasts and forgotten by the Japanese government, given no recognition or medals for their service; Tsurumi, seeing the unjust nature of such actions, made sure that the 7th Division would rise to greatness, welcoming any who would serve to his side.

But to be the head of a harem anime, you obviously need a harem of eccentric, archetypical characters who are all fighting each other for the affection and attention of the main character. Golden Kamuy is no slouch in this department, as the soldiers of the 7th really fill out all the roles you’d expect! Each member is unique, and even competitive, in their interest in the man at the center of the action. Not only that, but some characters end up in Lt. Tsurumi’s orbit by coincidence, finding him simply irresistible (as you should), joining in on the fun themselves. First on the list is Tsukishima Hajime, who makes his appearance in season 2. Tsukishima is the “straight man” character of Golden Kamuy’s weirdness, to the point that he fulfills that role both in his harem role and outside of it. Tsukishima is the most “normal” of the 7th Division, simply carrying out the orders given to him by Tsurumi and ensuring that others do as well. Tsukishima might be the oddest of the whole bunch, simply because none of the weirdness going on around him seems to phase him; if Tsurumi wants it, Tsukishima will make sure he gets it, even if it involves skinning people, working with a man who makes clothes out of corpses, or simply just dealing with the rest of the 7th’s weirdos!

At the opposite spectrum of Tsukishima is Nikaidou Kouhei. The Kouhei twins started Golden Kamuy as eccentric soldiers, but following the death of his twin and his betrayal of Tsurumi, Nikaidou has spent much of season 2 obsessed with killing Sugimoto, and becoming less and less in touch with reality. A violent and dangerous man with nothing to lose, he’s the most rambunctious of Tsurumi’s followers, as he barely seems interested in anything but killing Sugimoto at all costs, and acts more like a crazed hunting dog than he does a human being. In some regards, he may not even care much about Tsurumi at all, but Tsurumi seems to be the only person who can (somewhat) control him, and he even brings him gifts, like his fancy new leg! Although Nikaidou’s fate is up in the air at the end of season 2, he’s certainly the “wild one” when it comes to the harem for sure.

Somewhere in the middle of the pack is Koito Otonoshin from Satsuma. Koito is the easily-flustered type, as any time he’s in Tsurumi’s presence, he finds himself unable to stop speaking in Satsuma dialect, and at such a speed that it's hard for anyone except the ever-tolerant Tsukishima to keep up with. Koito also finds himself regularly indisposed at the idea of failing his beloved Tsurumi, fainting in odd and uncomfortable-looking poses at the mere thought of disappointing him. No matter how many times Tsurumi tells Koito that he can’t understand him, the hyperactive man simply speaks faster! Koito is certainly the overly-proper and easily-flustered harem member, the one who can barely exist in the same room as their target of affection, and easily wilting at any direct contact or even attention from them, and the dismay felt at possibly disappointing their beau driving them to extreme measures; after all, not many people would leap onto a propeller plane and swordfight to the death on its frame simply because they didn’t want to disappoint someone!

Koito isn’t the only one that’s hopelessly devoted with Tsurumi, though, because season 2 latecomer Usami really takes the cake for being almost obsessed with pleasing Tsurumi, nearly costing him his life in the process! Although not much is known about Usami (not even his full name!), he nearly dies horrifically in Abashiri prison to simply remark that he’s upset because Tsurumi will be mad at him. Usami even takes his punishment in pride, as Tsurumi initially draws two running man figures onto Usami’s distinctive birthmarks… which, as the Golden Kamuy extra Douga episodes show, became permanent tattoos at Usami’s request! Usami seems the type of harem character who would do anything for their beloved, even sacrificing their own life, and the unusual-looking man certainly makes an impression in his few appearances. Quite a few of the other 7th Division members that meet unfortunate ends or appear singularly seem to share similar zeal for Tsurumi’s attention and approval, but Usami really takes the cake in some regards.

Of course, not every person in a harem has to be seemingly lost in love; in fact, some members might even look for some distance, either because they become disillusioned, or simply because they realize they need to better themselves before they can worry about pursuing love. Ogata Hyakunosuke is certainly the former, revealing himself to be a snake, simply going with whatever will get him the result he desires personally, and abandoning Tsurumi when he’s no longer convenient. Ogata is pretty selfish, so it isn’t surprising that he’d fall out of the harem, but even he found himself once attracted to Tsurumi’s sphere of influence for his help in taking care of Ogata’s “family business,” let’s say! On the other end of the spectrum, Tanigaki Genjirou found himself engaging in a journey of self-discovery away from the 7th, trying to right the wrongs of his past and the ghosts of his Matagi upbringing through his interactions with Huci and the Ainu. Tsurumi welcomes Tanigaki back happily at the end of season 2, unlike Ogata, meaning that Tsurumi seems to be quite willing to accept that sometimes, you just have to let things go before you know what they mean to you!

Not every member of the harem is a 7th Division member... or totally sane. Rounding out the cast, and taking the yandere spot quite easily, is the misunderstood fashionista Edogai Yasaku. Although his fake skins will live on with Tsurumi, the poor taxidermist met his end while trying to bring his beloved Tsurumi his hard work. Edogai devotes himself entirely to Tsurumi, even going so far as to create a replica of him to help ease the pain of being separated! Edogai certainly was an odd character, but it’s easy to see his love for Tsurumi drove him to come out of his own shell and find some purpose in helping Tsurumi on his quest. Of all of the members in his harem, Tsurumi seemed most interested in Edogai’s unique personality and skills, perhaps seeing something of a kindred spirit in him, bonding over their use of tanning techniques; many of the other members of the harem, save perhaps Tsukishima, would certainly have been jealous of the close bonds that Edogai and Tsurumi seemed to share!

    And there you have it: Tsurumi and his harem, proving that not only is Tsurumi a great harem protagonist, but that he has the harem roster depth to go toe-to-toe with most other harem show staples! Although we’ll have to wait to see how the Tsurumi harem will grow or change in the third season (Sugimoto and Tsurumi are now brain damage buddies after all!), suffice to say it’s an easy call about who the greatest harem anime protagonist of 2018 is: Lt. Tsurumi, we love you!

What’s your favorite thing about Lt. Tsurumi? Have a particular Tsurumi harem member you like the most? Let us know in the comments!

----

Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[anglerfishnabe]

I’ve been meaning to get into the series and now that the anime has a bad CGI bear I’m interested in the manga! Who are some of your favorite characters to look out for? How much of it actually IS comedy? What would you tell a new reader about the series before diving in?

I really dont think the bad CGI ruins the whole thing?? - I’ve seen people complaining about pace too but honestly the first volume was already fast paced to begin with. I’d still say that manga should be read but anime’s not a bad option either - I can’t ofc know how much it bothers people when watching but yeah. Time restraints on industry are harsh and they are not paid well either. 

Fair amount of comedy, a lot of it even - I think the earlier volumes are slightly lower on it (Noda even said he tried to make them more serious in an interview lol) but yeah, after that there’s A LOT of comedy but it doesn’t ruin the plot’s presence there or anything though granted the pace is slow (though first volumes are actually fairly fast, Abashiri arc is next HUGE push forward but there’s stuff before that)

BUT oh god i love all of the cast honestly Ogata’s easy to mention but otherwise Asirpa being such good multifaceted character, i cant explain her very well honestly but she’s so well-grounded character, she appears pretty solemn at first but she’s can be goofy, tough but also obviously a girl of …about 16-17s years old? Maybe? possibly younger, as well but im guessing those since they talked about her getting her lips tattooed. I get in tears thinking about her given how much she has gone through. The survivalist of the group, knows her way in the nature, modern ainu as she says it (her name means the future). Became a piece of cog in a big machination without her knowing.  

Then there’s Tsurumi who’s like probably one of my all time villain faves, not just gk-wise, he has really strong presence with that eccentric, morbid …way he just is. Intelligence officer who’s very good in validating others to get them to follow him - manipulative, brutal… Occasionally leaks brain juices but his brain injury isn’t really the reason he’s like this (or at least it’s not the sole reason). Not exactly at the peak of his sanity but rational enough to know exactly what he’s doing.

Those are just two but if I start going about all of them this’ll never end but there’s Shiraishi, Koito, Tsukishima, Nikaidou, Kadokura, Inkarmat…. yeah i wont list them my faves actually change up a lot lol.

Uhh I would warn of gore, especially on the manga, it’s not…overpowering presence there imo like it doesn’t feel overdone to me anyway but it is there. You’ll see entrails, guts, loads of animals dying (not for fun or shock value though) and their innards, people’s innards… You’ll see a dude uhhhh getting cozy with a bear to put it in a nice way but uh zoophiliac basically,  granted it’s a criminal but… it’s there, somehow, and it’s worth of warning. Nudity - there’s dick shadows out there even (absolutely no fanservice of Asirpa though so thats one thing you dont need to worry about), I can’t exaggerate this, though more on latter half of the series laughs. A big portion of side charas (and some on maincast) are brutal criminals. I…m tired I might be missing something here?? 

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 267 “Severed”

So we have a new chapter that deals with a painful topic...

...which is nothing else but Wilk’s betrayal of Kiro and of their cause.

We resume the story with… well a flashback showing Kiro writing a letter to Sofia while they were in Karafuto.

We see a glimpse of Ogata behind him, teasing us readers who’re wondering WHERE IN THE WORLD HE IS CURRENTLY AND WHAT THE HELL HE’S DOING as it’s from chap 261 we’ve no info on him and this silence is worrisome.

I love how Noda divided the page in three panels, the top one showing Kiro, while the lower one showing Sofia (Svetlana behind her mirroring how Ogata was behind Kiro) with Akou prison parting them, mirroring how it was the prison who was keeping them parted back then.

Above the images we’ve the content of the letter Kiro is writing.

He’s basically telling her that it might be too early to talk about what happened between him and Wilk in those years with Asirpa, which is why he’s writing it to her.

So, once in Hokkaido he and Wilk parted ways, searching for info about the gold. Their plan was to mix witht he local Ainu and integrate among them so as to get info more easily.

Poor Inkarmat likely got involved with Wilk during this period.

In the end, to better do this, Wilk married and had a daughter.

The following page shows the cover of the chapter, that carefully mirror the cover of chap 256. In chap 256 we had Tsurumi/Hasegawa with his family, while in this chapter we’ve Wilk with his family, each of them in the same exact position as they were in the Hasegawa picture.

In a way it’s kind of painful to place one image next to the other.

Two men, two fathers with their beloved daughters and wives.

Tsurumi lost his family and blamed Wilk for it, Wilk, who made his own family, who had a daughter like Tsurumi, who was among the Hokkaido Ainu trying to discover where they hid their gold, like a spy in short, like Tsurumi.

There’s a huge parallel between these two men and, in a way, I think for Tsurumi the real enemy has never been Hijikata or Sugimoto or Ogata.

He’s still fighting Wilk’s ghost, Wilk who still lives in his own daughter where Tsurumi’s daughter is long dead.

It’s a tragedy, in a way.

But there’s another parallel between them.

They both married to better integrate with the local... but the marriage that was meant to be merely a toll, ultimately caused them to love the daughter who was born out of it and their wife.

They thought to use it to further their goals and, instead, were changed by it. They, who prized themselves so much for their control over the situation and their emotions, lost control.

Anyway let’s go on.

Wilk’s expression as he holds Asirpa impresses Kiro, it was an expression of gentleness he never saw before on Wilk’s face.

This page too is cleverly constructed.

On the top panel we’ve Kiro, with a not pleased expression. As he blamed Wilk’s change to Asirpa’s birth, it’s easy to speculate that seeing such expression on Wilk’s face worried him, it made him think Wilk might not remain loyal to their cause.

On the lower panel there’s Tsurumi.

He also doesn’t look pleased, but likely for different reasons from Kiro. He knows what Wilk might have felt holding his daughter, he know he might have felt the same he had felt when he had held Olga... but the thing probably burned him. The man whom he viewed as the cause of his loss had the chance to hold his own daughter, a daughter Tsurumi can’t hold anymore.

In the middle, parting Kiro from Tsurumi there are three panels, one is the one of the church, that divides the flashback from the present time, and the two below it shows, one the inside of the church with Tsurumi, Sofia and Asirpa, Tsurumi though completely a dark shadow and the other Asirpa’s face as she heard her father, holding her, made an expression Kiro had never seen on his face.

Asirpa seems happy of hearing this, of hearing his father looked at her with a gentle expression he never had before, her eyes shining and her checks slightly redded.

In a way she’s in the middle of those two men, for Kiro she’s the cause of Wilk’s change, for Tsurumi she represents Wilk’s gain at the expenses of his own loss, as well as the embodiment on Wilk’s will.

The story continues.

The flashback moves forward of some more years.

We’re told that a strange rumor starts being spread, the rumour of the discovery of an old Ainu man who was supposed to have died of smallpox (remember? There was a smallpox epidemic in which Cikapasi’s whole family died), and who was instead living alone in the mountains.

Tsurumi suggests the guy could have been Kimuspu, one of the Ainu who were involved in the attempt to buy weapons from Russia with the gold 50 years before and who, therefore, knows where the gold is.

Tsurumi explains that they too got the same info (though he doesn’t tell them HOW they got it), the image showing him, Kikuta, Usami, Tsukishima and Ogata (hinting how they were all involved in Tsurumi’s Ainu plan) and that they were in the 1902.

Now… a little break here.

The summer of 1902 is the summer in which Tsurumi staged Koito’s kidnapping.

If Asirpa’s dream is reliable Wilk told her his name when it was snowing. Asirpa said that after telling her his name her father went away, implying this was the last time she saw him.

We’ll see Wilk later on in the flashback and his beard is shorter than in Asirpa’s memory.

This might mean that between the discovery of Kimuspu’s body and Wilk’s death time went by. The Ainu aren’t dressed so heavily it suggests we are in winter, but neither so lightly it suggests we’re in summer (Kiro has his undershirt, which he didn’t wear in summer). This means this either happened in spring or in autumn.

We’ll see if the next chapter will tell us more and why when this happened might be relevant��� for now let’s just say this seems to hint that Wilk’s death happened in the last months of that year and not in the first.

This, of course, if Asirpa’s dream/memory is reliable.

Anyway, let’s go on.

Kiro continues his narration, telling how this discovery changed the situation radically.

We move then to Noboribetsu where Wilk is having a reunion with 6 more Ainu

Yeah, Noboribetsu is the place where there was the hot spring in which Toni Anji was investigating and Kikuta and Ariko recovering. It’s also the place near which there was Ariko’s village, and it might even be they’re having their reunion in Ariko’s house.

This might also explain what Toni Anji was doing there, that place could have been the place in which Hijikata suspected the gold was hidden, hence he sent Toni to check it. The gold could very well be hidden in the same old mine in which Toni escaped or in a similar one as Ariko said there were others and he went to explore them when he was younger.

It’s entirely possible Hijikata had Boutarou’s same idea but Hijikata found sooner about Noboribetsu and went there to investigate. Maybe he talked to Ariko’s mom and, from her, discovered about Ariko being the son of one of the men involved.

If that’s the case, I’m pleased.

I’ve always wondered WHY Toni Anji was in Noboribetsu as it seemed weird he was there just to investigate on Tsurumi’s men.

But let’s go back to the story and to the conversation Wilk has with the others.

Wilk asks to Siromakur, who’s clearly Ariko’s father if his skin tone, eyes and eyebrows are meant to be taken as a reference, if he couldn’t ask Kimuspu the location of the gold.

So Ariko’s dad is the one who met met Kimuspu.

Now, remember how I said Tsurumi didn’t say how he got info about Kimuspu?

In hindsight this makes me wonder if Tsurumi has a man among the Ainu because if a rumour about this Ainu man being found spread, it should have spread among Ainu, not Wajin. They should have known him, known he was involved with the gold and known he was assumed to have died of smallpox.

Those aren’t info they would have shared with the Wajins.

Whatever, let’s go on.

Siromakur says the man didn’t want to talk with him so another Ainu, Mesira, suggests they should track him down and 'convince’ him to talk.

This worries me because it implies they might end up being forceful with him.

Sure, partisans in all the countries, despite claiming to stand with the local population, hardly had qualms in forcing the population to cooperate should they decide they didn’t want to align with the partisans’ wishes... and partisans are fighting a war, a war with different means but always a war and wars are dirty things but... but it always rubbed me the wrong way because while soldiers go at war merely because they obey orders, partisans claim they chose to go at war for ideals that include protecting people...

...and then sacrifice the people they wanted to protect.

It kind of reminds me of a dark joke popular in my country about this kind of people.

“Against violence, bullying, suffering we must all be united... and if someone doesn’t agree, we'll kill him.”

...because yeah, when they said they’re against violence they were talking of violence perpetrated by OTHER PEOPLE, they’re completely in favour of violence perpetrated by them...

Sukuta wonders if someone else, apart the 7 of them, knows about Kimuspu. As Irenka, another Ainu who so far hadn’t spoken, looks at Siromakur, the latter admits he talked about it with several people but didn't tell them where Kimuspu was.

Great move, Ariko’s dad, now we know who might have spread the rumour until it reached Tsurumi’s (and Kiro’s) ears. -_-

Do you want the news to be reported on newspapers too?

Just to make sure everyone knows....

Ratci, who seems to be the older among them and therefore the only one who has a chance to be the older brother of the old Ainu Boutarou met since the guy was supposedly one of those who died in the incident, comments Kimuspu was living deep in the mountains without anyone knowing, so he couldn't be found easily.

Oskeporo, who somehow reminds me of Kirawus, although his eyebrows looks more like Cikapasi’s, comments they too could have problems tracking Kimuspu.

Siromakur tells them he knows where he sets his arrow traps so they can wait him there. At this they decide to go find Kimuspu before others will track him down.

It’s clear they’re searching the old guy because they’re interested in the gold.

However, as they’re about to leave, Kiro shows up and demands explanations from Wilk. He’s clearly angry if his expression, his tone of voice and his clenched fists can be taken as a hint, and wants to know why Wilk hadn’t called him.

Did Ariko’s dad tattled out the discovery of Kimuspu to Kiro as well?

Great move, Ariko’s dad, really. -_-

What about informing Russia about it as well now?

They might want to know too...

Wilk tell the other Ainu to go ahead. As he does so, in his same panel we can see Ariko’s father and Mesira, who was the guy who wanted them to ‘convince’ Kimuspu to talk. They seem to accept it.

In another panel we see Sukuta and Osikepor. Sukuta seems just worried, Osikepor is clearly not pleased, a frown on his face but all he says is a line of dots.

Once they’re alone Kiro again, loudly demands some explanation and Wilk informs him he has decided they need to change plans, that his Far East Federation would be too wide to protect from Russia if they were to count on minorities alone, but if they were to make only Hokkaido, which is encircled by the sea, independent, they could manage it.

Now, please, let me facepalm.

Yeah, an island is a bit easier to protect than the huge land Wilk originally planned to involve, part of which was attached to Russia, but not that much it makes it an inexpugnable fortress.

The Far East Federation was a pure utopia but this is really no that much better.

They would then need to find another Russian captain willing to sell them weapons and warships, get some Ainu who know how to handle them all, chase away the 7th division who, by then is residing in Hokkaido along with all those military settlers who has stopped serving the army, beat the Ominato fleet and then whatever fleet Japan would send against them.

In case Japan were to give up on re-conquering Hokkaido they would have then hope that Russia wouldn’t try to do it or wouldn’t join forces with Japan in exchange for some compensations. Or that China wouldn’t lend a hand in place of Russia in exchange for compensations.

In short, yeah, you’ve less land to defend and it’s a little harder to get there but not by much considering how Kiro’s group could even cross the La Pérouse Strait on a small boat and Asirpa did it by walking on drift ice.

We’ve no info on how the Tsugaru strait was crossed back then but it’s half than the La Pérouse Strait, so Hokkaido can be attacked easily by two points and with a little more work as it would require a longer boat trip, from other points as Hokkaido’s coast is approximately 4,183 kilometres which is quite a bit to guard.

Islands had been conqueered through all the centuries, it’s not like the thing is unprecendented so really, Hokkaido might be slightly more difficult to attack but it’s not such a stronghold Wilk can hope to defend it with his meagre forces.

Of course things would be slightly different if Wilk were to plan to join hands with Tsurumi who, in that same year, managed to have Koito Heiji indebted to him and who has professional soldiers under him.

If Wilk’s state and Tsurumi’s state were to overlap this would provide them more tactical advantages. This, assuming Tsurumi wouldn’t, once he got control of the gold, kick the Ainu out of the deal.

But we don’t know if Wilk and Tsurumi know each other is in Hokkaido and, at this point, I’m not sure these two chessmasters would shake hands in an allegiance.

Anyway Kiro’s furious at the new plan.

We jump back into the present where Tsurumi explains to Asirpa the benefits of Wilk’s plan… or better how his plan diverged from the one of Sofia and Kiro’s which is something that would end up promoting discord between Wilk and his own allies.

(It’s also worth to remember that Sofia in truth wasn’t a partisan, she was a revolutionary who cared about the Russian population. Hokkaido Ainu are considered Japanese so it’s unlikely she would be interested in them. Wilk’s plan basically meant he will let her to her own devices... great way to handle your allies Wilk.)

Tsurumi claims he understands Wilk’s plan, and of course he does as he plans to do the same but Tsurumi is much better organized, with better men, connections, inside knowledge, trusted allies and back up plans to support his country so Tsurumi’s chances of success are WAY HIGHER than Wilk, despite his plan remaining very hard to pursue successfully.

Meanwhile we go back to the flashback.

Predictably Kiro sees Wilk’s idea as a betrayal. Wilk came up with such plan without discussing it with him or Sofia and it’s a plan that is not beneficial to the other minorities, the minorities to whom Kiro belongs or has grown to care about who live in Karafuto or in Russia, just to the Hokkaido Ainu.

Wilk says according to him they should migrate in Hokkaido and he would be willing to welcome them there, which again, is naïve.

For start he’s not the ruler of Hokkaido. The migrants might end up being seen by the Hokkaido population as no better than the Wajin, never mentioning he’s just asking to all those people to leave their lands and move there.

It’s similar to Hijikata’s plan but Hijikata at least didn’t have to really care for the migrants he wanted to welcome, nor for their living style. For him they were just an usable commodity. Wilk should care about them instead and yet he’s not.

Still, I love how cleverly this page is constructed.

We’ve three panels.

The two above show Kiro and Wilk and their contrasting positions.

The visual pins them as contrasting in every possible way, Kiro is angry, Wilk is calm, Kiro is seen frontally, Wilk from behind. With their images Noda is setting up the premise for the fight between them that will follow.

The line that divides the two panels might as well be the fracture between them.

On the bottom we see Kiro’s reaction to Wilk’s world. Wilk’s words only upset Kiro further.

It’s meaningful how we see only the top of his head, his hands holding it, everything shaded by a swirling shade, hinting at the many thoughts that should infest Kiro’s mind in that moment.

It gives me the feeling Kiro feels his world too is wirling and he’s desperately trying to keep it together, to make sense of it and can’t.

Wilk is the person he loved, trusted and admired the most and now Wilk comes out with... this? How is that even possible?

Kiro reminds Wilk of how his birth village disappeared and his people died due to them being forced to leave the land.

Wilk is unaffected by this, he’s sure since they know why the first time things went wrong, they wouldn’t make mistakes this time.

Sure, failed immigration attempts plague us in moder times as well but Wilk would have managed to magically solve them all, Wilk could do everything better, Wilk knows.

WILK CAN YOU PLEASE COME BACK DOWN ON PLANET EARTH FOR A CHANGE? YOU AREN’T THE GOD OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD, YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO SOLVE IT! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO MANAGE YOUR LITTLE REBELLION OR HOLD CLOSE YOUR ALLIES OR PERSUADE THEM YOU’RE RIGHT! EITHER YOU’VE A SECRET BACK UP PLAN OR HOW YOU’LL SAY TO KIRO YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH IS BEYOND DUMB AND NAIVE! PLEASE, STOP!

Ahem... okay, back with the story.

Kiro then points out how the Uilta wouldn’t be able to continue their lifestyle as Hokkaido is too warm to keep reindeers so they can’t protect their culture in Hokkaido.

Wilk waves the problem off, saying they would accept only who wants to move there.

In short if the Uilta don’t want to move because this would mean to change their lifestyle… well, their problem.

So yes, it’s a betrayal of their cause, their cause that was about protecting all those minorities and their lifestiles.

Wilk belonged to a group, a group who wanted to take care of all those minorities. He can’t just arbitrarily decide that some of them don’t matter and it’s their problem.

It would be different if he had said ‘let’s fix the Hokkaido Ainu, let’s start from here and then spread, we can’t help the Uilta RIGHT NOW, but once we’ve consolidate our forces we will, we’re postponing, not giving up.’

Instead he’s giving up.

He should have talked with the others, he should have proposed Hokkaido as a starting point, not as the solution. Let’s free Hokkaido, strengthen our defences there and then move to free the rest... as Tsurumi is planning to do.

For Tsurumi is first Hokkaido then Vladivostok.

For Wilk it could have been first Hokkaido then Karafuto, then the rest. A step at time.

It was still an utopia but it wouldn’t be betrayal of his teammates and they could have accepted it. It would have made sense.

Instead Wilk didn’t discuss things, he just decided them behind his companions’ back without talking with them because he’s Wilk and knows what’s better to do.

Really, I see a lot of parallels with Sugimoto because I’m sure Wilk too is persuaded he meant well... but he’s actually deciding things arbitrarily for others, looking more at his own advantage than at theirs.

Kiro accuses him of not caring about the Russian minorities because Wilk’s goal is now merely to protect his daughter’s future as she’s an Hokkaido Ainu.

Wilk insists his method is just the most realistic.

This part is again well constructed as it again represent the split between them.

Below the image of Wilk saying that only who wants to immigrate should do it we’ve on one side a panel with Kiro, accusing Wilk of selfishly caring only about Asirpa.

On the other we’ve two panels, one of Asirpa and one of Wilk, Asirpa’s panel taking most of the space.

Although Wilk insists he’s taking the most realistic path, it’s clear Asirpa weightens a lot on his decision... and in the future Asirpa is there to listen how she ultimately caused the division between those two friends just by... existing.

At this point though, the discussion takes a really ugly turn.

Kiro, who back then likely wasn’t married yet, remarks that it’s Hokkaido who actually has nothing to do with them, and that Wilk is caring about it merely because he now has a lovely family there.

The page is split in two. On one panel there’s Kiro and Wilk, this time together, on the other there’s Asirpa who’s ‘listening’ to the discussion they’re having, who’s called to hear of their actions and judge them.

And we make a break because we’ve a problem here and I wonder if Asirpa has caught up with it as well.

I stand by Kiro when he says Wilk’s plan is a betrayal of the other minorities and of his companions and therefore a pretty dirty move.

But they were planning to buy their freedom by using the Hokkaido Ainu gold. Now, unless they planned to steal from them, the Hokkaido Ainu should have mattered as well, they have something to do with them, they’re a minority too who deserves to be protected and of whom they wanted to use the resources and the support.

Hokkaido has everything to do with them if they want to involve it in their war and not just profit from it... which probably was exactly what they, deep down, meant to do since both Kiro and Wilk didn’t come to Hokkaido with the most honest intentions but disguised themselves among its people to try and find info about the gold.

So the discussion reveals that below those men’s oh so pure ideals, there’s something else, something else that’s not pure and selfless at all.

Self interest.

And Trurumi translates this in words for Asirpa.

Right from the start both Kiro and Wilk had two goals.

One was the noble one they presented to the world, protect the minorities.

The other was the more human one, protect whose they loved.

More often than not, expecially when interacting with a story, people tend to think other people/characters are moved solely by ONE SINGLE GOAL.

That’s not really true, people is usually moved by multiple goals.

both goals existed in both Kiro and Wilk but they presented to the world only one, the noble one, and kept the other hidden in their heart.

That’s because the world could understand and support the noble goal but would scoff at the other goal... yet the other goal is probably much more important to them than the other one.

In fact things are breaking among them EXACTLY due to that other goal being denied.

Their priority is that other goal, the noble goal exists... but comes second best and will never come first.

Tsurumi’s words reflect his own situation as well.

He too has a noble goal, to conqueer Hokkaido for the men of the 7th... a goal that to him is real and that he wants to reach... but he also has a much more private goal, which is tied to the loss of his family.

The existance of this goal doesn’t deny the existance of the previous goal. They both exists, it’s just he presents only one because only one would be considered acceptable and give him support... and also because the other is personal, private.

Something that holds in his heart but doesn’t dare to voice.

Tsukishima, outside of the room, hear all this and is impressed (we can see that on his face there aren’t anymore signs of anger) as he likely understood this can be applied to Tsurumi as well.

Tsukishima has naively believed Tsurumi has to have only one single goal, either he was fighting for the men of the 7th or he was fighting due to his own family but that’s not the case.

Tsurumi can as well fight both for creating a military state in Hokkaido for the men of the 7th but also for the people he loved and while the people he loved would be his main motive this wouldn’t make his second reason untrue.

Kiro, in an agry and distraught face reminds Wilk of how Sofia is still waiting for them in Russia, before attacking Wilk, who fight him back.

While back then it was all about what moved Wilk, now this page is all about what moves Kiro. He loved Sofia, not just the minorities.

He can’t bear the idea to sacrifice her, he’ll fight for her.

For her he’ll fight Wilk whom he admired and loved so much.

Asirpa understands all this.

While his father wanted to protect the minorities but, ultimately, prioritized her, Kiro too loved and wanted to protect the minorities, he was angry on their behalf but, more than everything, he loved and wanted to protect Sofia, Sofia, who was the last word he said before dying.

She explains Kiro’s feelings to Sofia and it’s so terribly sad to think back at how Kiro killed Wilk for her, because Wilk would just dump her and yet Sofia was still so in love with him when she met Kiro again she slapped him because he killed Wilk.

The pain Kiro should have felt in that moment... he just took the slap and didn’t counter, didn’t say anything. He killed Wilk FOR HER, it hurts him to kill Wilk and yet he couldn’t tell any of this...

... and, at the same time, he didn’t regret any of this. For her he would kill Wilk all over again.

Meanwhile, in the flashback we can see that the winner of the fight is Wilk... which was predictable enough, not because we knew Wilk was the better fighter (we didn’t) but because Kiro attacked him in blind rage, while Wilk managed to stay calm and, apparently, catch him in a strangle hold, suffucating him and causing him to lose consciousness.

That’s why Wilk walks away all bruised while Kiro, despite ending up on the ground, seems in better conditions.

Asirpa suggests her father might not have said the truth to Kiro because he knew Kiro loved Sofia.

It makes sense but it’s not a great justification because it’s the admission Wilk knew he was betraing them.

Kiro was allied with Wilk for a reason, Wilk knew that reason and so he tried to do things behind Kiro’s back because he wasn’t going to respect the deal he had with Kiro and Sofia, knowing Kiro wouldn’t agree to it.

Now... okay, as I said before it’s possible that Wilk is actually in an alliance with Tsurumi as well, or that he suspects Tsurumi has spies in his group so he’s serving Kiro a fake story but let’s assume he’s being sincere.

Wilk might claim and claim this is more rational, and maybe he even believes he’s doing all this because it’s more rational and not for his daughter, maybe he’s in denial about his own true reason so really, he thinks he’s choosing the best option... but the fact he knew Kiro wouldn’t accept it, hints at how deep down Wilk should have known it was betrayal.

Yet, it’s still possible Wilk wasn’t consciously aware of it, that he was lying even to himself.

We’ve seen this kind of betrayals through the story, with the character doing the deed not realizing he was betraying the other party but thinking he was picking up the best option for everyone.

Sugimoto sold Asirpa to Tsurumi, demanding money solely for himself and not caring about Shiraishi’s fate. By doing so HE BELIEVED he was protecting Asirpa (he wasn’t) and that Shiraishi should have just spontaneously given up to his own share of gold. Sugimoto could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Asirpa decided to join forces with Hijikata because she believed it would be a better option for them. By doing so SHE BELIEVED she was chosing the better option for everyone as an alliance would give them more chances of success and Hijikata has a better future in mind, but in truth she basically demanded from Boutarou to give up on his goal as Hijikata’s goal and Boutarou’s are mutually exclusive. Asirpa could have realized this (though I tend to give her a pass because she’s young but really, Boutarou pointed out he wanted to fulfill his goal too many times to miss it, and even if she still were due to her young age, Sugimoto and Shiraishi should have realized and give her a head up), but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Tsukishima, for most of the story, is not fighting Tsurumi’s orders but just agreeing with Tsurumi’s methods of deception of the other characters, because HE BELIEVED they will lead everyone to be saved. Practically he’s lying to Koito and denying Tanigaki the chance to opt out, attempting to force everyone in the 7th to betray Central. Tsukishima could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Long story short those people didn’t see their behaviour as betrayal but as pursuing the better option for themselves and the others, expecting the others to just agree with them.

Wilk’s behaviour, the fact he insists he’s picking up the better option as if he’s trying to persuade himself more than Kiro, reminds me of them, of people who were stubbornly thinking they were doing the right thing, they were picking the best option, when they actually were walking all over their friends, neglecting them and their goals in favour of a goal they prioritized.

But, back to the story, as soon as Asirpa tells Sofia that Kiro’s problem was that he loved Sofia so he couldn’t just leave her behind, Sofia lowers her head, her eyes wet.

She loved Wilk... but, in her own way she loved Kiro also, whom she saw as a little brother. It should pain her greatly to know in the end she was the reason that pushed Kiro to kill Wilk, that caused the split between them... even if this isn’t all true. As said, the goal to protect the minorities still existed in Kiro... but Sofia was the drop that broke the camel's back.

Also I get Asirpa meant well, she wants to deliver Kiro’s feelings and, at the same time, defend her father’s actions but that wasn’t probably the best moment to deliver Kiro’s feelings since Sofia was already shaken by how she was facing Tsurumi/Hasegawa... as for defending Wilk’s actions... honestly she only end up as painting him as calculative.

Because Wilk knew Kiro wouldn’t have agreed with his plan, he worked behind his back. I’m not sure Asirpa realizes though, she likely is buying the narrative in which Wilk’s choice was mainly for the greater good as well as her, while the order of the things was completely reverse and the plan was so dumb I can’t believe Wilk came up with it.

Anyway as a battered Wilk walks away we can see a Kiro tied to a tree coming to his sense with a murderous expression on his face.

Kiro sees even the fact Wilk has left him alive as a betrayal, not as of regret that he has actually betrayed his friend and can’t just bear to kill him.

Kiro tells himself the Wilk of the past would have killed Kiro, since Kiro was an obstacle to his purpose. Yet Wilk has left him alive which, to Kiro, proves Wilk has changed and isn’t anymore the Wilk he loved.

This makes me wonder if Kiro actually would have preferred to be killed, if this could have made him swallow the bitter pill Wilk betrayed them, if, in his furious mind, this would have been a proof that Wilk really believed they couldn’t do any better than conquer Hokkaido and then relocate everyone there.

Kiro has said he blindly trusted the old Wilk.

In a way the fact that Wilk, whom he loved and admired so blindly, betrayed their cause and tried to work behind his back should have hurt him terribly. That betrayal is the fall of a hero and, in a sense, Kiro tries to compensate by ‘denying that new Wilk’.

The ‘new’ Wilk is no more the Wilk he loved, therefore he’s no more Wilk, his friend. It makes sense he decided to kill that Wilk, who has turned into a stranger to him, no, worse, into an enemy, an enemy of their cause and an enemy who would sacrifice the people Kiro loved for his own goals.

So, clearly Wilk had to die because he betrayed their cause... but, since we’re talking of people doing things for more than one motive, I wonder if it’s also possible Kiro wanted him destroyed because Wilk wasn’t Wilk anymore, as if the new Wilk killed the old Wilk he loved.

This kind of remind me “The Return of the Jedy”

Luke Skywalker: Ben! Why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.

Obi-Wan: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" the Sith Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.

Luke Skywalker: A certain point of view?

Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.

Luke Skywalker: There is still good in him.

Obi-Wan: He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.

Luke Skywalker: I can't do it, Ben.

Obi-Wan: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again.

Luke Skywalker: I can't kill my own father.

Obi-Wan: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.

Kiro is Obi-Wan, who believes Wilk ceased to be ‘the Wilk he loved��� and became ‘that Wilk’ and when that happened, the good man who was Wilk was destroyed so, like Obi-Wan, he thinks ‘that Wilk’ has to be killed (by Luke/Ogata).

Contrary to him, Sofia is more like Luke Skywalker. She didn’t agree with Kiro’s idea they had to kill Wilk and slapped Kiro for what he did.

In all this though, it’s interesting Wilk left Kiro alive.

I’ve mentioned that other situations, similar to this one, happened in the story but this is the first in which the two parties confront each other BEFORE the deed his done. It would be interesting to know if his conversation with Kiro affected him, it made him realize his best option wasn’t so good and so right after all.

Wilk was still in time to change his mind, to go back on being the Wilk Kiro loved... or at least fix his plan so that it would include Kiro’s goals as well hence he might not have wanted to ruin everything by killing Kiro.

Wilk was still in time to try and patch things between them so maybe, albeith he had to leave right then, he left Kiro alive because he wanted to make up, to fix things between them, because he realized he wronged Kiro and didn’t want that.

But well, this is something we’ll discover in the next chapter.

On a sidenote is interesting how Kiro ties the fact that Wilk has changed to Wilk being irrational. The old Wilk was rational, the old Wilk would sacrifice companions because it was rationally the best choice and Kiro believed him.

This new Wilk leave him alive, which is not the best choice, therefore he’s being irrational, he’s being motivated by emotions, therefore even his choice to care only about Hokkaido is motivated merely by emotions, is not rational and shouldn’t be trusted.

It’s surely a convolute mental gimmik but it’s interesting because it’s totally a reasoning a person can do, especially when burning with blind rage... but well, Kiro is being emotional himself and, probably, not even realizing it.

Noda made great characters with them... but their situation is so sad it hurts and even mroe so because we know is hopeless.

Kiro will kill Wilk and will never get to understand his side and neither of them will ever manage to make peace with the other. Such a long friendship ended up in ashes and all for something that should be supposedly positive, the fact they loved someone.

It’s sad.

It’s sad that their friendship ended, it’s sad they didn’t manage to respect each otehr feelings and come up with a solution that would make them both satisfied.

It’s so very sad...

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Thank you for your analysis of Ch 274. You keep calling your theory crazy, but the more I think about it, the more plausible it sounds. We know that Ogata was “liberated” after he left the hospital. Could it be he found out the truth about Yuusaku? To my recollection, we have never been shown his complete face so that would make sense. If true, the big question would be whether or not Hanazawa was a part of the lie. Did he “replace” his son with a fake rather than accept Ogata his other son? Or is this all Tsurami’s doing? Also, I know that the theory of how Ogata survived his fall was that Kiro helped him. But I have wondered if maybe its Kikuta? Since they appear to be working together, perhaps it was Kikuta that he was meeting. I find it plausible that Kikuta infiltrated Tsurami’s group while Ogata infiltrated Hijikata’s and Kiro’s. Maybe that was the plan all along. Sorry for the ramble....🥴 Thank you for all your hard work with your analysis and theories. Always love reading them 🌟

I’m glad you like my analysis of chap 274!

Well, it’s a crazy theory.

There’s little I can use to support it, just small hints and the general theme of fakes being better than originals, yet easy to destroy/damage.

I’ve been wondering a lot about Yuusaku with other friends at Discord, we’ve been trying to understand him but his image is always filtered by Ogata’s vision, by his confused feelings for his brother, who somehow seems so perfect yet hollow.

Ogata believes Yuusaku’s nobility comes from coming out of a family who loved him, but it seems hard to imagine Hanazawa, who spoke in such a way to Ogata, encouraging Yuusaku to connect with his brother, Hanazawa who sacrificed so many soldiers without a blink wish for his son to live in such a way he wouldn’t make soldiers feel guilty as if he cared about their psychological state.

Of course we know little about Hanazawa as well so maybe he was a better person than he looked like but Noda had no problems showing us his face, which usually means whose were Hanazawa’s true colours.

Yuusaku’s face instead was always shadowed, to hint that either we didn’t know him or Ogata couldn’t face him.

So well, when Sugimoto jumps in and Kikuta tells him he has to ‘forget everything about Hanazawa Yuusaku’, as if what had happened was something bad... well, it makes me wonder how’s possible that something bad is tied to Good Boy Yuusaku.

We’ll have to wait and see though.

As I said I might be completely off track.

We know that Ogata was “liberated” after he left the hospital. Could it be he found out the truth about Yuusaku?

That’s the text in question according to @piduai‘s translation

Q18: What made Ogata grow out his hair after hospitalization, thus becoming the one and only sexy Superior Private he’s known as?

Noda: He felt liberated.

After the scene in chap 243 that shows how Ogata escaped from the hospital my interpretation is just that Ogata’s hair grew while he was in the hospital (in fact as he talks with Tsurumi we can see his hair is longer under the bandages) and since Usami revealed Tsurumi knew of his betrayal and he escaped, he didn’t have to cut them anymore to play the role of good soldier. His feeling ‘liberated’ means just he wasn’t anymore forced to obey to Tsurumi, to play the part of the good soldier (good soldiers were supposed to keep their hair cut short, as Tsukishima, the Nikaidou brother, Tanigaki prior to his desertion, Noma, Okada, Tamai, Sugimoto when he was in the army, Toraji, Komiya, Mishima, Maeyama and even Yuusaku himself).

Ogata is no more in the army, he doesn’t have to obey orders anymore, he’s free to do what he prefers, so I think in this sense he felt liberated and as a proof of his rebellion, let his hair long instead than cutting them short again.

To my recollection, we have never been shown his complete face so that would make sense. If true, the big question would be whether or not Hanazawa was a part of the lie. Did he “replace” his son with a fake rather than accept Ogata his other son?

I’m not the best person to ask about Hanazawa as I really don’t like him, but on a general note, I think the chances of Hanazawa’s involvement are possible only in few circumstances and actually extremely low.

I mean, if Yuusaku died prior to the war, I can’t see Hanazawa hiding his son’s death and replacing him with a fake. Losing a son happened, it was nothing to be ashamed of, hiding his death and replacing him with a fake, if discovered, would have pushed on him such a huge amount of dishonour it wasn’t worth it, especially considering he could easily replace it with Ogata with no dishonour whatsoever or adopting someone he could deem worthy openly.

Japan had absolutely no problem whatsoever with adoptions, even when those adoptions involved adults... but had a lot of problems with deception.

Now, let’s say, Yuusaku escaped instead than taking part to the war.

This is dishonourable for the whole Hanazawa family, even if Hanazawa can disown and strike him out of the family. Still, placing a fake in his position and giving him the role of the flagbearer so that it will be quickly killed off with honour and he could bury it claiming his son died with honour seems a bit over the top... and such a deception would have probably brought dihonour to Hanazawa’s ancestors and such. In short, no, unless there’s a reason I can’t think of, I don’t think Hanazawa would have done it.

Besides, Tsurumi would have surely discovered it quickly and would have used it to blackmail Hanazawa. He was keeping his eyes on Koito senior from prior the war started, surely he was doing the same with Hanazawa.

In this case there would have NEVER been a plan to kill Yuusaku, keeping him alive would have been much more valuable right from the start.

Or is this all Tsurami’s doing?

I would say, if Yuusaku is a fake, it’s Tsurumi doing. That or it’s a third party doing, like the real Yuusaku died and the new Yuusaku was a Central spy... but it feels a bit hard to assume this because they placed him in a too risky position. I mean which use a spy has if it gets killed easily?

Also, I know that the theory of how Ogata survived his fall was that Kiro helped him. But I have wondered if maybe its Kikuta? Since they appear to be working together, perhaps it was Kikuta that he was meeting. I find it plausible that Kikuta infiltrated Tsurami’s group while Ogata infiltrated Hijikata’s and Kiro’s. Maybe that was the plan all along.

We actually don’t know how Ogata survived that fall and the more the thing remains unexplained the more I wonder if it’s just that Ogata, like his name implies, is as ‘immortal’ as Sugimoto and so he simply survived such fall same as Sugimoto would have done (it’s something I discuss more in deep in my reply to this post if you’re curious).

The problem with Kikuta being there to save Ogata is, first of all, that Kikuta was recovering at Noboribetsu at the time, so quite distant, along with Ariko.

I’m pretty sure Tsurumi was keeping an eye on his so if he had moved Tsurumi would have noticed.

Then we’ve all the sort of technical problems involved in the rescuing.

For start if Ogata and Kikuta were working together they both would have been lead there by the smoke of the fire Asirpa and Sugimoto had when Asirpa was drawing the tattoo of their prisoner, not just Ogata, and would have cooperated in dealing with Sugimoto.

I mean, Ogata faces Sugimoto alone and is almost killed by him, hadn’t it been for Asirpa. Kikuta is good with his guns, I would have expected him to shoot Sugi to save Ogata if the two were partners.

Even if Kikuta hadn’t noticed the fire, it wouldn’t make sense for him to be too distand from Ogata and when Ogata and Sugimoto started shooting he would have rushed there.

Plus, in order for Kikuta to notice Ogata has fallen and rescue him he should have been close... but Sugimoto and Asirpa stood over the cliff looking down. They would have noticed him.

Also when Ogata escapes he doesn’t think he has to reach his partner, just that he has to escape because he’s no match for Sugimoto.

If it was weird for Kiro to rescue Ogata and then leave him there to freeze to death while the 7th search for him, it’s even weirder for Kikuta, who either would have to alert the 7th he was there or just abandon him there to his fate and hope someone were to find him before it’s too late.

So, although how Ogata survived his fall is still a mystery beyond his ‘immortality’... or if you prefer his many lives as a cat I don’t think Kikuta could be involved. Said so as there’s no a canon answer I might very well wrong so take my answer with a grain of salt.

Thank you for enjoying my analysis and theories and for your ask!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

I've been re-reading GK and in chapter 177 when Kiroranke is telling his story about Hasegawa, Ogata is giving him the side-eye in one panel. You reckon he knew Hasegawa's true identity? Probably unlikely, considering even Tsukishima didn't, but maybe...?

Also completely unrelated, but it weirds me out how friendly and reasonable(?) Ushiyama is portrayed as lol

Well...

we’ve no canon answer so forgive me if I’ll speculate a bit.

The only ways for Ogata to know that Tsurumi was Hasegawa are:

1) if he actually was present when Tsurumi was masquerading as Hasegawa and then recognized him when he met Tsurumi same as Wilk did

2) if Tsurumi told him

3) if a third party informed on this told him

4) if he managed to figure it out piecing together all he knew about Tsurumi and the info Kiro gave to him.

Now let’s consider the possibilities one of those things is true.

1) Ogata is born around 1882. The whole thing with Hasegawa happened in 1991 so I find extremely unlikely at around 9 he was in Russia at the time to see Tsurumi playing the Hasegawa role. Apparently he learnt Russian much later along with Tsukishima so he wasn’t living in Russia back then and we saw he spent most of his youth in Japan in Ibaraki. So NO, I don’t think he could have met Hasegawa and then realize he and Tsurumi were the same person.

2) Honestly I find very unlikely that Tsurumi might have told him, as Tsurumi didn’t tell Tsukishima and Tsukishima seems to be the person Tsurumi trusts the most. I don’t really see why Tsurumi would tell Ogata when he wouldn’t tell Tsukishima so NO, I don’t think Ogata might have learnt it from Tsurumi.

3) The idea of a third party telling Ogata about Tsurumi playing the role of Hasegawa in the past begs the question of WHO this third party would be. Now Central could have this info but, even if we were to embrace Tsukishima’s speculation that Ogata is working with Central... why should Central, in the form of one of its representatives (Kikuta, Wada, someone else), tell Ogata this? Where’s the relevance with whatever they might want Ogata for (spying Tsurumi, helping Tsurumi find the gold, staging a coup in Tsurumi’s army, whatever you want to speculate since we’ve no idea if Ogata is working with Central or not). I also want to point out that normally information about spies aren’t revealed easily. Very likely Tsurumi’s work in Russia was shared with extremely few people so, again, NO, I don’t think Ogata might have learnt it from another party.

4) I’m guilty of piecing together all the info we were given and figuring out Tsurumi was Hasegawa before the big reveal so, in my eyes, it seems easy for Ogata to piece together facts and figure it but I could be biased. According to Noda’s Q&A Ogata learnt Russian along with Tsukishima so, although he was very young and not in the army yet, in 1897 he was evidently with Tsukishima and Tsurumi in Vladivostok. He doesn’t seem present in that discussion but although it’s difficult as Tsukishima isn’t talktive, he might still have ended up relying bits of that conversation... or Ogata somehow figured out through other means about Hasegawa and the connection with Tsurumi’s mother’s mained name. At the very least I’ll say Ogata was, at least, aware Tsurumi worked as a spy in Russia. Hasegawa being a Japanese spy might have rang a bell to him and might have explained how Tsurumi was aware of certain things. However I still think that, while for me it’s easy to connect the dots because I know how things work in a tale, for Ogata might have not been equally simple to assume the spy Kiro met was Tsurumi in disguise. Long story short YES, it’s possible Ogata figured out Tsurumi was Hasegawa... but this likely depends on the question ‘would this be plot relevant?’ and we can’t really answer this question because, since we don’t know Noda’s plans, we can’t really tell.

Anyway, to sum it up, yes, it’s possible Ogata knew/figured out.

I’m biased due to me guessing so I can’t really tell how difficult it would be for Ogata connecting the dots... but I still think it was possible for him to do so.

We’ll see.

As for Ushiyama... well, Ushiyama wasn’t someone meant to be a criminal. He ended up in jail due to how, when he defended himself against 11 people, he ended up killing his master.

So it’s not like we’re talking of a callous criminal but of a man who ended in jail for excess of self defence.

There��s to say though that early on in the story Ushiyama seemed more of a darker figure, so this might have let you with a darker impression.

Ushiyama was king of retconned pretty early on into a better person so this is why he might feel friendly and reasonable... kind of like how Nihei was.

Anyway these are my two cents on it.

Thank you for your ask!

[scyllua]

As chap.204 would be more of an interlude chapter (a breather after the events of Thursday the 13th and a very intense fanart-sharing moment between amateur artists), the Japanese fandom's reaction to it hasn't been noteworthy. (Bad joke: but it's been a boost nonetheless in comparison to last week! If only because the manga was in hiatus last week and therefore, there was no chapter to speak of! I thought of mentioning this because I noticed my blog at my personal domain had many more visitors last Thursday, I'm assuming, because fans were searching online for the weekly GK chapter and most likely, wondering why they couldn't find it.)

That doesn't mean there aren't highlights in this chapter, though. I'd say chap.204 feels oddly subdued in tone and pacing -in spite of a Wild Wolverine Attack! in the latter half-, but that'd be mostly because the previous three have been rather action-packed. I wrote chap.201-203 would serve as the introduction to the arc to unfold in this volume (which would encompass chap.201-210), and while we've been given more than enough hints about what to expect in the near future (the still ongoing plot with the Partisans and the reappearance of a certain one-eyed sniper), this chapter seems to introduce more subplots while still pointing in the same direction. My usual warnings about mistakes and mistranslations applying as usual, onto CHAP.204! EMPHATICALLY APPALLING!! JUST AS SUGIMOTO AND ASIRPA SHOW US IN THE PANEL AT THE TOP OF THIS POST!!!

In short, Tsukishima gets a telegraph message from Tsurumi informing him that the business he had in Noboribetsu has been taken care of and he'll be heading to Karafuto then. As Tsurumi will rendezvous with them in Oodomari (the same port town in southern Karafuto they arrived in back in vol.14) in two weeks time, he tells the group to stay in Toyohara until then. Koito comments they're to stay in Toyohara because it's a large town with better lodgings, and since there's nothing else for them to do until then, they should just take things easy. While in the town outskirts, Cikapasi and Tanigaki meet a couple of Ainu men who question the boy about where he comes from and who that big guy standing over there is. Cikapasi explains they come from beyond the southern sea, and introduces Tanigaki as his uncle. The Matagi then comments about the extra marginally important information Cikapasi gave the Ainu men about how much endowed he is, and tells the boy how useful and supportive he's been through their journey in Karafuto. As both ponder about Inkarmat in Hokkaido, Enonoko approaches them and asks Cikapasi if he's going back already. In the nearby forest and as Asirpa and Sugimoto get ready to hunt a kuzuri (a wolverine), Tsukishima tells Vasily (who's still following them) to go back to Russia. The wolverine hunt is interrupted by a couple of photographers who seem to have an interest in Asirpa, but just in cue, the little and irascible animal attacks one of the men. After they take care of the wolverines -in a moment vaguely reminiscing of vol.7 and the adventure in the cabin in the woods, there were two of them- and Asirpa cooks them (the very reason she wanted to catch one), the photographers explain the device they're carrying is a cinematograph, and that they're interested in documenting about the Ainu culture.

The chapter's title is 残したいもの (nokoshitaimono), a term I'm having some trouble with. Since the term 残す means "to leave behind", "to save" or "to reserve", and given the group's current activities, I'm understanding the title in the sense of "things we're doing to cherish later" (it literally translates to "things I want to save/leave behind"). Remember how in manga and anime the characters will sometimes state they want to try doing things as to have good memories of them? Asirpa says so in this chapter as she spots wolverine's tracks and decides to catch one... to eat it, of course (and cherish its taste for ages to come, that's it). They're in Karafuto, so they won't be going back to Hokkaido without having a bite of everything that is to munch on in that island! Some random fan comment here: While I understand the social and cultural importance of food in Japan (similar to the culinary traditions we have in my country), I can't but frown a little at just how this girl is in her way to try every possible edible animal that pops up in the story. At the very least, I think I can feel sorry even for the little demonic wolverines they eat in this chapter.

...but starting from the beginning! Plotwise, an important highlight of this chapter would be the piece of information regarding Tsurumi; specifically, that he's making his way to rendezvous with the group in Karafuto. Since he sends word to Tsukishima that the business in Noboritsu has been taken care of, I think that'd be our confirmation that all events in the manga occur in a chronological order; that's it, in the order and within the same timeline as we're shown in the story. I'm mentioning this because I was wondering whether Kikuta's showdown with Toni Anji's group in Noboribetsu (chap.190-195, to be compiled in vol.20) was taking place at the same time as Sugimoto's entourage lost sight of their sniper in northern Karafuto: this indeed seems to be the case. Back then, I also pondered how author Noda would then "speed up" things, for the manga had taken 7 volumes to depict Sugimoto and Kiroranke's groups' journey through Karafuto: either he used an ellipsis, or fast-paced the narration as not to spend other 70 chapters to show us how they went back to Hokkaido. In my previous chapter summary entry as well, I wrote I thought the current arc could wrap up while in Karafuto before all plotlines seemed to be aligning in that direction: Sugimoto's group is still in that island, Vasily is following them (providing us with a good excuse expedited reason for Ogata to make a comeback and have another duel with the Russian sniper), Sofia is making her way back to Hokkaido (via Karafuto? We don't know yet, but that could be a possibility - and a viable reason for her to cross paths with the protagonist cast)... and now Tsurumi is traveling to the northern island as well. I must say I hadn't thought of this scenario (as I'd assumed Noda would favor Hokkaido as the setting for most if not all future and pivotal events), but it'd certainly pace up the plot forward quite considerably.

Some fan pondering here: So, what do you think Tsurumi's arrival in Karafuto will be like? Because of the way the original text is phrased and of just how Japanese grammar is, it isn't that explicitly stated that Tsurumi will be personally going to rendezvous with the group, but that can be implied from the sentence. ...Now, let us remember he hasn't made an appearance in the flesh -and outside a flashback- since chap.171 (vol.18); there's no need for him to show up in a grand and remarkable way with an equally large entourage at the time (but it's Tsurumi: one can never know for sure with this man), though I'm looking forward to seeing him flanked by some of his trusted and skilled men a the very least. Random pondering #2: Since everything turned out just well in Noboritsu -for everyone involved... save Toni Anji's group, that's it-, I'm assuming Usami didn't get that scolding in the end. Good for him. Random hopeful thought: It'd be pretty nice if we could get some more of Kikuta and Ariko then.

A small caption for the chapter reads, "it's golden time!" The term is given in English (and it's an actual expression used in education in this language), but the connotation it has in Japanese, if I'm not wrong, would refer to time spent in leisure or pleasant activities that are meant to be enjoyed and cherished: the accompanying kanji precisely read, 自由時間 (jiyuu jikan, lit. "free time"). And, of course, the term would also serve as a pun for the manga's title for including the word "golden" on it. Well, that's just what our protagonist group will do for the time being.

...starting with Tanigaki and Cikapasi, who meet a couple of Ainu men. When the men question the boy about where he comes from and who the big guy over there is (my phrasing, by the way: they simply ask about "that man"), Cikapasi tells them they come from beyond the southern sea, and refers to Tanigaki as his ojisan. Note that this term in Japanese means "uncle", but it's also a colloquial way to refer to any older man, akin to saying "an old man" or "a mister". I'm going with Cikapasi as literally introducing Tanigaki as his uncle, though, because the word he uses in Ainu is achapo: my knowledge of Ainu being so obviously zero, I do remember acha meaning "father" in this language. Hence, I think the boy is genuinely referring to Tanigaki as an uncle: probably not in the strictest sense, but as a person close to him and with a family-like tie. Explanations over, Cikapasi then adds Tanigaki has... big balls, er, yes. I'm going to take his word for that, as the only adult male character who's gotten clear and full frontal shots in this manga so far has been Shiraishi: we wouldn't know for sure about the rest. He says 金玉, a colloquial term literally translating to "golden ball" and meaning "testicles". Speaking of another Jump-serialized manga and being the irreverent author he is, Sorachi Hideaki titled his best-known story 銀魂 (Gintama, lit. "Silver Soul") as a play-on-words with precisely this term, kintama; given the franchise became so popular as to encompass the manga, several anime series, live-action movies, and a ton of merchandise that was referenced to even in the story canon, it's probable nobody will raise an eyebrow at Gintama's title now, but at the beginning of its serialization some did have a thing or two to say in Japan. Guess Sorachi got away with it in the end... and his detractors had no idea as to what the manga would give them through its publication.

Tanigaki and Cikapasi then have a moment to reflect on their journey in Karafuto. As the boy's (and our loyal Shiba dog, ie. Ryuu) presence has been both useful and supportive through their adventure, Tanigaki is glad they didn't send them back as soon as they were found out as stowaways; Cikapasi thinks back of his family in Hokkaido and in quite the high spirits, wonders about Inkarmat (or more specifically, would think of her, as he refers to Tanigaki, Inkarmat and himself as a family). In equally a good mood, Tanigaki says he's sure Inkarmat recovered and is doing well, and that they should go back to see her. However, a sad moment arises when Enonoka, upon overhearing them, asks Cikapasi if he's really going back now.

Cut to Asirpa calling out to Sugimoto to take a look at something she's just found. But fear not, it's not some more excrement (because even Sugimoto assumed so), but wolverine's tracks. Asirpa hasn't seen one yet, so she asks Sugimoto about the tracks (as he told her he'd meet one of the little diabolical things before); upon the immortal's confirmation that they belong to a wolverine and the animal is worse than a wild bear in some aspects, she decides to hunt it. Well, they're in Karafuto already, so why not catching one and eat it? Another random comment here: we Peruvians have an expression stating that "someone got all the stickers in their album" in reference to completing a trade card album, still a popular activity in our country among adults and children alike. As an expression, it broadly means that someone has done everything in a list, or have completed a collection; in a very negative example, the last person I remember using it was a journalist talking about how a government official was found to have committed a long list of crimes related to corruption. That's to say, the corrupt official had all the stickers in his album, from perjury and malpractice to bribery and running away from the country when he was issued an arrest warrant. Okay, for my Golden Kamuy example, I won't obviously talk about politics here, only how Asirpa has a figurative edible flora-and-fauna album ("Everything You Can Hunt Down Or Find... And Have A Taste Of!") she must have 3/4 full at the very least by now, counting her gourmet experiences in both Hokkaido and Karafuto.

(As it's customary and part of the narration in Golden Kamuy, there's a passage detailing Ainu traditions in this chapter, but... Sorry, I'm skipping all the cultural references as not to incur in any translation inaccuracies.) As Tsukishima is presumably scouting and watching the surroundings (and I'm going to fan-assume here Koito is off somewhere trying to find more reindeers... or any equally cute small wild animals), he finds Vasily doing, well, pretty much the same, it seems. Tsukishima curtly tells him to go back to Russia... and I'm afraid I do have several fan comments to make.

First off, let's take another look at the panel of Vasily turning to face Tsukishima. The small sign by his head (at the left side of the panel) is meant to show he's surprised or just caught on something -in this case, it'd be Tsukishima looking at him-... but taken out of context, and as RavenTears pointed out, it makes him look as though he's shining. Dazzling Russian snipers, indeed. On a personal note, Vasily looks to me as though he somehow aged 10 years or so in the interlude from the previous chapter to this, as he has a slightly more mature appearance now (but not as old-looking as he was in vol.17). Until the next chapter is out and we can hopefully get more panel shots of (and some more interaction with) him, I'm just going to fan-assume the excited moment of fanarts-sharing with Sugimoto in chap.203 had some sort of age-regression effect on both him (physically speaking) and the immortal (mentally emotionally speaking in his case, something not that surprising at all given the hard life Sugimoto has led until now).

Also... is nobody really keeping track of the Russian that's following the group? Since people in this manga have never seen too keen on holding grudges for the most part (as I could argue that Tanigaki, for example, invoked retribution against Kiroranke instead of exacting revenge), I can understand the group isn't worried about a sniper who already targeted them twice and is currently tailing them. Said sniper also merits a mention for tailing them under the same circumstances, ie. apparently not concerning himself with the possibility of a member of the group deciding to be proactive and taking him down as not to risk being targeted by the same marksman for a third time. But Tsukishima's startlement at finding Vasily by his side makes me think they might not be that watchful as one could expect or wish. That said, if a silent Russian sniper can stand by their side without being too much conspicuous or alerting them, I won't be much surprised if the group ends up being ambushed by a Japanese one-eyed sniper making a comeback in the near future. I'll be actually looking forward to it. I mean the sniper's comeback, of course; not the characters being ambushed and targeted and shot down all over again.

And lastly... Tsukishima's line written horizontally in his speech bubble instead of vertically would indicate he's speaking in Russian, which would be relevant in a metalevel (because it makes perfect sense that he's speaking in this language to Vasily). Japanese is traditionally written top-to-bottom and right-to-left, but it can also be written in a horizontal orientation and left-to-right. Until World War II, if I'm not wrong, Japanese was written horizontally for small portions of text (such as in signs or newspapers headers), but from right-to-left. One example in GK would be the Yamamoto Barbershop in the Barato arc (vol.6) which, by the way, it's based on an actual building with the same name preserved for historical reasons:

The sign reads 山本理髪店 (Yamamoto Rihatsuten), but you'll notice the kanji are oriented right-to-left instead: 店髪理本山. Nowadays, horizontally-written Japanese follows the left-to-right orientation, and it's mainly used for aesthetically or design-related reasons (such as in printed matter or ads), but also for practicality (eg. movie subtitles placed at the bottom of the screen or, as a standard, in traffic signs and similar). In manga, however, horizontally written Japanese is usually used to indicate the lines are spoken in another language, such as with Tsukishima's in the above panel. In the Golden Kamuy manga, dialog spoken in Russian is usually given a Japanese translation in the same speech bubble, but written in a horizontal orientation because of space issues. (Ainu is written using the katakana syllabary with a top-to-bottom orientation, just as in Japanese). In several instances, though, no Russian text is written, and only the Japanese "translation" is given, such as Tsukishima and Svetlana's exchange in chap.185: we know they're speaking in Russian, though, because the lines are still oriented horizontally, and that's the importance of this detail.

I can only speculate, but I'm assuming those dialogs aren't always translated into Russian probably because of problems related to time issues or the availability of the consultant/translator at the time of the publication of the chapter. In some other instances, I suppose the text is so short (...such as Tsukishima "go back to Russia" line), it's not deemed necessary to translate them for the sake of the manga's sense of realism: after all, we can watch an English-spoken movie based on feudal Japan and won't be bothered by the fact that they aren't speaking in the intended language. Also, one might argue that they could always use an automated translation for such small lines... but I personally prefer those lines to be left as is, in Japanese and using visual or narrative devices (as the orientation of the text) to indicate readers the text is meant to be in another language: details such as those don't detract from the plot or the feeling of the manga and, most importantly, they might also prevent the manga from making very glaring translation mistakes. Trust me, I've seen enough terribly rendered lines in Spanish in American comics to insist authors and editors better get an actual translator, or not dare use Google Translate at all. Speaking of comics and Russian! A comic I remember where a similar visual device was used is one of Marvel's Winter Soldier series (the original run by author Brubaker, if I remember correctly). The one difference was that many lines in this comic had an asterisk at the end which led to a footnote stating that... they were being spoken in Russian. At the opposite end of the example, I also remember a Vampirella comic that featured some lines written in such a mangled Spanish, it took a couple of rereadings (even for a native speaker such as myself) to make sense of them. And in not-so-awful but still rather bad example, there was the Witchblade comic in which I vaguely remember at least a character having a name in Japanese... written in incorrect Japanese, most likely because the author seemed to have just looked up the terms in a dictionary to put them together without checking even for grammar.

Getting back to the chapter: a couple of men make an appearance and one of them asks for Asirpa to repeat what she was doing from the beginning. Just as they identify themselves as photographers, or more specifically, cinematographers, the wolverine attacks.

Sugimoto gets it off the man it attacks, but as another wolverine appears, Asirpa takes it down with an arrow as he shoots the first one, though he doesn't instantly kill it. It's again Asirpa the one who must finish it with another of her arrows, all of this as the man carrying a curious-looking device keeps revolving a crank on it (or you'd better say, an old-fashioned device... only that in the Meiji era it wasn't old, naturally, but rather pretty innovative).

Fast-forwarding a bit, we now have the leading-and-now-reunited protagonists eating the poor devils -I mean the wolverines, of course- while asking the men about their business in the vicinity.

They explain the device they're carrying is called a cinematograph (the model would suggest it's the one created and patented by the Lumière brothers in the last decade of the 19th century, as there were other similar devices patented before theirs); after detailing how it works, they add they're interested in documenting about the Ainu culture. End of the chapter!

My first fan-comment here about this passage would have to do with my taking back some of my fan-comments here, specifically those making fun of Sugimoto's poor aiming. I was obviously exaggerating when stating he never hits anything, as we've seen how he's shot several animals when hunting through the manga, and chap.204 would be another example. Still, my comments had to do with him primarily using his rifle to strike or stab instead of actually shooting it whenever it came to attack a human target, so to speak; given he's a melee hand-to-hand fighter, this comes as no surprise (and snipers all around the globe in the Meiji era dread nightmares with the looming figure of the Immortal Slayer Of Any Unfortunately Soul That Dares Attack Him In Vain And So Obviously Fails, Otherwise He Wouldn't Be Immortal, be it on a Thursday the 13th or any other day of the year, actually). But it just turns out Sugimoto does shoot his rifle, and does accurately hits his target one summary entry after I wrote I wouldn't stop making fun of him until he managed to do so, meaning... I've been proved wrong by the immortal in quite the expedited way. ...since I still believe his aiming is awful when it comes to human targets, I'll keep making fun of him, just... not that much. As a counterargument to Sugi's aiming and intended use of his rifle in this chapter, please let us remember that, in his first encounter with Ogata, he almost indirectly kills the wildcat when knocking him unconscious after hitting him in the head with the butt of the rifle; in their latest encounter, Sugimoto almost kills him (oh, again) when he nearly hits him when trying to shoot down the horse he was riding instead. Well, yes, come to think of it, it might also be that I'm very biased against Sugimoto's use of his rifle because of the levels of violence he's shown towards a certain wildcat.

My last general fan comments about the chapter have to do with the introduction of the cinematographers. Their appearance made me think of Hijikata looking for journalists all the way back to vol.13, if I remember correctly (really, it might be time to go back and properly reread the whole manga by now), because he was looking forward to using the media for propaganda purposes in his goal of declaring a second Republic of Ezo. Well, while the cinematographers don't seem to have any propagandist intentions, their interest in filming about the Ainu culture is making me think of them as the equivalent of early National Geographic writers (the first issue of the famous magazine dates back to 1888, after all): the manga's very National Hokkaido Graphic documentary filmmakers, in any case. At this point in the plot I couldn't say for sure if they're going to have a more relevant role to play, but since they've filmed Asirpa and Sugimoto killing the wolverines already, it does seem to me they could stick with the group a little longer to register some of their activities, sort of a Golden Kamuy documentary within the Golden Kamuy manga. Such material would have cultural and historical importance in the plot since, for starters, Sugimoto's group is a good example of multiethnic cooperation and coexistence, featuring Japanese, Ainu, Hayato, Matagi and even a Russian traveling and working together at the time just fine.

...plotwise and theoretically at the very least, the cinematographers have two weeks to follow the lead of a certain Russian sniper and stick to our multiethnic and multicultural group. We know already anything and everything is bound to happen in very short periods of time in this manga (Koito's rescue mission in chap.199-200 began with horses refusing to gallop down a steep path, continue with a drift race in the streets of Hakodate, featured a couple of gentlemen losing some clothing due to an unfortunate transit accident, and included a homage to Freddy Mercury near the conclusion, if you'd remember), so I'm sort of suspecting the days until Tsurumi's intended rendezvous with the group might be... full of eventualities. From more cultural moments to possible ambushes by snipers with hidden agendas -or probably, no agendas at all- and face-offs with Partisans, I wouldn't discard even the idea of the cinematographers filming the first Meiji-era Japanese cam movie, if anything of the aforementioned actually takes place and they happen to still be around to record it.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Theories, speculations and what else for the future

Tossing in a bunch of theories, specilation and what else for future developments.

POSSIBLE CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS FOR THE SUGIMOTO GROUP

This is made without considering the unpredictable (ice breaking again so as to force them to part or end in the water, Russians circling them, wild animals/convicts attacking them, an alien attack and what else):

We’ve left them with Ogata unconscious and Sugimoto telling Asirpa they should chase Kiroranke. From here we can have:

- Sugimoto’s group leaves Ogata as he is, while he’s unconscious and can’t move and even if he were to wake up he’ll probably could do little and where the ice can break under him and cause him to fall in the water or an animal can attack him.

- They try to drag him along in the Kiro hunt, even though it would be pretty unpractical for them, not mentioning unsafe. Someone has to physically carry Ogata as, even if they were to wake him up, I’m not sure he can move on his own and Asirpa can’t be the one carrying him for obvious reasons which leaves only Shiraishi and Sugimoto. Sugimoto is better suited for this but if he were to do so he would have problems hunting Kiro, so the task would fall on Shiraishi who’s not that physically strong.

- They’ll give up on hunting Kiro and try to move Ogata to a place where they could take care of him as some serious medical aid would do him good.

- They’ll split, someone remains with Ogata to take care of him, and someone goes to Kiro hunt. If that’s the case Asirpa will likely remain behind as she’ll know how to take care of him while Sugimoto will go hunt for Kiro. No idea what Shiraishi will do.

Personally I think the best choice would be for the group to give up on the Kiro hunt (not that they know but Kiro had been stabbed and he’s not going anywhere anyway) but Sugimoto seemed to wish for it pretty badly so I’m not sure he’ll consider giving up and therefore I think the most likely solution is they’ll split.

On a sidenote chap 188 created an interesting reference with the gospel of Matthew which mentioned eye loss, and then will move to the parable of the lost sheep, the brother who sin and forgiving seventy-seven times.

However if we switch to the gospel of John we’ve the part in which Jesus was arrested, with his following interrogations and Peter’s three denials… but well, so far Golden Kamuy hadn’t referenced John’s gospel…

(in the last supper Matthew was Ogata, John was Shiraishi, Peter was Sugimoto and, of course, Jesus was Asirpa)

POSSIBLE CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS FOR TANIGAKI AND KIRO

Kiroranke is likely dying as his wound is pretty serious and it’s unlikely he’ll get appropriate medical aid. It’s however the sort of wound that kills you slowly. This means he could try to go back to Sofia before dying.

On a personal note though I hope he’ll talk to Tanigaki first, to tell him that the whole thing with Inkarmat was an incident and that, despite everything, he’s satisfied because he managed to bring Asirpa to Sofia. In short Kiro is dying for his cause, very much as Kenkichi died… though I’d like for him to also have some last words for the family he’s leaving behind. But well, since he think his cause will be beneficial to them as well, maybe he won’t feel the need for it.

On another note, but that’s mostly because I like the mystery, I want for Kiro to deny any involvement in the Ainu murder. I want him to claim he was sure Wilk did it and that’s why he felt obliged to kill him.

Mind you, Kiro could have done it, the Ainu could have been killed by explosive, hence their disemboweled bodies and Wilk burned out face. However as I said I like mysteries so for me it would be more interesting if Kiro acted under the wrong belief Wilk did it and there was actually a third party involved.

Lastly… I’ve no idea if Tanigaki can get up after Kiro smashed that ice block on his head. He seems conscious enough but still on the ground. He should have at least a concussion. I’m not sure he can go walk around.

We’ll see… but, although I love Tanigaki, I still think it would make sense if he were to face some misfortune for killing a ‘tiger’ at least until he were to regret giving in to his wish for revenge.

POSSIBLE CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS FOR KOITO, TSUKISHIMA AND SVETLANA

Maybe it’s just me but I fear Tsukishima is going to blow up at Koito. The meeting with Svetlana has shown to have upset him as it likely awoke painful memories from his past.

Tsukishima might be in a state in which he isn’t willing to put up with Koito any longer even though, truth to be told, this time isn’t like Koito did something terribly wrong.

However there’s Svetlana to consider and how Tsukishima wanted to carry her to the dog sled. Will he pass the task to Koito or will he do it himself?

And Svetlana herself with her obsession to see Saint Petersburg… instead than let’s say Vladivostok which is a lot closer and who’s wearing a male coat and used to hand with Sofia. Is she up on something? Is she in Sofia’s group of ‘friends’ and actually she’s only playing a role here? I’ll admit I’ll be more intrigued if she were and there would be more about her, because otherwise she’ll be a little flat. But again this might be just me.

POSSIBLE CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS FOR SOFIA

I just can’t think at Sofia disappearing from the plot so early. I would speculate that if Sugimoto’s group parts ways she might think Asirpa and Ogata and take them away. Of course there would be a problem with her talking with Asirpa as her Japanese is poor and Asirpa’s Russian is inexistent.

On another side we know that Sofia can speak French and Koito very likely can as well so if Sofia could get her hands on his she can use him as interpreter.

However for Sofia to get Ogata, Asirpa and Koito I think she needs to have some accomplices as I doubt Ogata is in the shape to walk on his own and Koito won’t come along obediently.

Kiroranke said Sofia has dozens of underlings in Ankou prison. Now that the weather has improved they could regroup though and help her.

We’ll see.

In a way it would be fitting if Sugimoto were to lose Asirpa again because too taken by the idea of hunting for Kiro.

POSSIBLE CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS FOR OGATA

No, I don’t think he’ll die and, unless we’re going to have a time jump forward, he’s probably not up to much. Tanigaki spent a lot of time in bed before recovering so, while I’m pretty sure he might go back sniping in the future, this will be IN THE FUTURE.

The story had given hints that, if he doesn’t get abandoned on the ice, he might develop in a more positive manner, so I’m hopeful for him.

I know everyone is having fun drawing him with a black eyepatch but I’d like it if, instead, he were to use Asirpa’s Matanpushi (the embroidered headband Asirpa wears). I guess I can blame this to how Asirpa’s grandmom bandaged Tanigaki’s head with her own Matanpushi.

Also, in term of personal preferences, I’d like for him instead than have another flashback through dreams to just talk about his past. I know flashback through dreams can be viewed as more reliable (not that they are as not necessarily one dreams the truth) but I think it would be better for him to talk about things than just… dream them.

And it’ll be nice if Asirpa were to set him straight on something important: it doesn’t matter how good your reasons are for doing something, if your feelings are against it, you’ll still feel guilty. Actually it doesn’t have to be Asirpa who set him straight on this but as Sugimoto is also having problems with this I can’t expect this from him... and I’m not sure Shiraishi would be up to the task. Sofia would be fine but also we know Sofia tried to suppress her heart so she’s probably not up to the task as well.

On an weird sidenote Sugimoto bandaged both his eyes, even though only one got removed so Ogata can’t see. To make up for it both Asirpa and Sugimoto should reek of Shiraishi’s piss and Ogata has a great nose. I wonder if this can play in future developments.

POSSIBLE REASONS FOR WHY OGATA GOT INVOLVED IN THE GOLD HUNT

- He wants all the gold for himself for money related reasons (as in: he longs for a life of luxury or just for a really huge collection of rifles, etc…)

- He wants all the gold for ambition related reasons (as in: to buy himself an easy career in the Japanese army or to win acceptance for the remaining relatives he might have in his father’s family or to get himself legally acknowledged as his father’s heir, etc…)

- He wants only part of the gold for himself to satisfy a personal need (as in: he has to pay a family debt, he wants to move in a better place where he could start a new life, etc…)

- He wants only part of the gold for gold for someone else (as in: he wants to give it to his grandma or to someone else he’d like to help, etc…)

- He doesn’t want the gold, he just doesn’t want another to have it (as in: he has a grudge on Tsurumi and doesn’t want him to get it, etc…)

- He doesn’t want the gold, he’s in merely for the chase (as in: hunting it gave him a purpose as he had no idea what to do with his life, etc…)

- He doesn’t want the gold, he wants something that’s buried with the gold

Personally, as the gold is an insane amount and Ogata is scarce in resources, I don’t think he might really want it all. In fact taking it all away and converting it all in money would require resources Ogata doesn’t have. It’s a work that could be done by someone who has manpower and connections, not him.

True, he could hand it out to the Japanese government in exchange of favours (title, ranking, etc…) but it would require him to trust the government to pay him back. As Ogata isn’t really prone to trust others I see this as unlikely.

While Ogata wasn’t completely sincere when talking with Asirpa he remarked he would have done everything for the gold which seems to fit with his behavior as he really risks a lot to get it.

At the same time though, alter the last developments in which he was completely okay with dying, searching for the gold seemed to be all Ogata had that kept him going.

The moment he gave up on it, it’s the moment he’s okay with Asirpa killing him. So whatever he planned to do with the gold wasn’t something he just wanted but something that was meant to give his life either a purpose or a closure (if getting the gold was actually the last thing he planned to do).

Hard to guess what it was, maybe it was really just to pay his family debt as he hinted he’d like to go back home to eat anglerfish nabe but his mother by now is long dead and so it’s not like she can make it for him. So, among so many characters who’d like to go back home but are afraid to do it, Ogata might be the only one who’d like to go back home but CAN’T as his home doesn’t exist any longer.

We’ll see.

IF THE AINU WEREN’T KILLED BY KIRO OR WILK THEN WHO DID THE DEED?

Assuming I’ll get my wish and there’s a third person/party involved in the murder of the Ainu, who could that person/party be?

The Ainu were many and were dismembered. Either they were attacked by many or a single person could get this result with some explosive. However unless the dismembering happened because Wilk tried to hide how he survived the murder attempt, if it was the explosive that caused it, then it would be an overkill. We saw Kiro didn’t need to use that much to murder the Russian guards.

Hence it’s someone not expert with explosives.

We know Tsurumi was after the gold, but since he didn’t get it and couldn’t get it by murdering the people who knew where it was, I would discharge him as possible culprit and think the culprit is someone who actually doesn’t want for the gold to be found.

This would point to an Ainu and would explain why all their objects had a small cut.

 The Ainu we know who voiced his disliking about using the gold was Asirpa’s uncle, who viewed the gold as cursed

It could make sense it was him as the old person who knew of the gold in Asirpa’s village was probably her grandfather and he would have likely been more prone to pass the info to his son than to his son-in-law... though of course we can’t tell for sure and there might be rivalries at play as well.

Of course it could have been someone else who did it, someone we hadn’t seen yet (the other remaining Ainu we know is Kirawus who 10 years ago met up with Nihei and therefore could have been in the Otaru’s area but somehow I doubt he’s involved).

Still, since explosive was used, both Wilk and Kiro could have thought the other to be responsible. Wilk could have remained injured, hence his disfigurement, and might have tried escaping and report ‘Kiroranke’s’ betrayal.

Kiro might heve believed instead Wilk was escaping because he was the one who betrayed.

Tsurumi might not know of a third Ainu person’s involvement, or if he does he might not know who that person is, but might have used the incident to put the others against Kiroranke by claiming the fingerprints were Kiro’s. In this way Inkarmat would continue to support Tsurumi against Kiro, giving him information about the whole group.

We’ll see. For now this is just because I like complicate plots. As said before Kiro might have very well been the one who murdered all the Ainu

EXTRA

Last but not least I would like for Wada's death to reveal it had a bigger purpose than show Tsurumi was capable of killing superior officers. I'd love it if Tamai and Co's rebellion was counting on him for support and if we were to get more info about them but that's probably just me.