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goldenkamuyhunting · 2 years

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Quick outline of the changes in Golden Kamuy Vol 28

So I realize that I’ve fallen behind with this series, but as my liking of the story started to lower and my work instead, didn’t, I ended up neglecting it. Anyway, for who’s interested, here is a general outline of the more relevant changes that take place in Vol 28 compared to the magazine. Note that as usual I won’t dig into minor changes or redraws unless they seem to be relevant for the plot or characterization (or I really like them).

So now let’s start.

WARNING: I hadn’t had the chance to check all the dialogues yet. If I’ll find out there are changes in them that are relevant I’ll update this post as soon as I can. @piduai though, translated some of the new pages in which relevant changes took place, so I recommend checking this post. Said so, let’s start.

We spend a moment on the cover, which shows a character who has never appeared on covers in the past, Nikaidou Kouhei.

The pose is dynamic and put in evidence both his prosthetic leg (which is firing a shoot) and his prosthetic hand (which is letting chopsticks fall). Behind him there’s Arisaka with a machine gun and the unnamed guy we saw at the hospital, the implication being that Nikaidou isn’t fighting anyone but he’s still in the hospital.

We then move to the colour page.

which was used for chap 285.

A colour cover that was in the chapters included in this volume and that instead isn’t shown is the one of chap 272.

This volume includes an index page (which uses as image the one of the cover) and a 4 page summary.

This volume counts 9 chapters (normally a volume counts 10 chapters but the previous counted 11) with some changes, additions of extra pages and panels to expand scenes that already were in the magazine version so we can better understand what’s going on and of scenes that are redrawn, either to improve their quality, correct mistakes or add to the plot.

Note I’m not going to add them all but only those which are plot relevant (or that I particularly like). Also no scanlations this time.

Let’s start with chap 272.

Since originally this chapter had a color cover, Noda made for it a black and white cover with the image of the moon Kikuta and Ariko saw when they were trapped in a trench.

Noda then added Kikuta’s face, along with info on where and when the scene is taking place.

He then proceeded to expand Ariko’s tale

The image of the Makiri is also redrawn.

Noda expanded also the following scene which ends up including a flashback to when Ariko discovered the Makiri was in Tsurumi’s hands.

The result of this addition is that it seems that, in the following page, when we see Kikuta pondering, this seems to be because he remembered when Ariko found the Makiri... while in the magazine version we could hope it was because he was worried for Asirpa. As a result I’m not overly fond of the addition of this flashback as it means to add a page and a panel of scenes we’ve already seen.

A scene of Tsukishima and Koito tring to open the door alfter Sofia tossed the bench against it is added.

We also have a new panel of Asirpa, Sofia and Ariko running toward the bottlemobile which, here and there is better drawin. Ariko’s fall is a lot more dinamic and the scene in which he tells Asirpa to run is expanded and better drawn.

We continue with chap 273.

As he did in the previous volume, in this volume too Noda added the right shading to the firemen’s uniforms.

Noda enlarged the panels in the scene in which the soldiers point out how Nikaidou smelled of beer and Koito realizes due to this Tsurumi should have smelled him and Tsukishima while they were hiding under the desk.

The final page is changed so that Koito now doesn’t close the door.

Considering the idea is that, despite everything, Koito will never genuinely plan to cut ties with Tsurumi, the fact that Koito leaves the door open might remark what we will ultimately see in Vol 30, that despite everything Koito was willing to follow him and only wanted him to be sincere with him.

So no, I’ll say the idea Koito would part ways with Tsurumi as most of the fandom hoped was never on the table. Too bad.

To make up for it Noda includes a panel showing Koito under the rain outside the church, watching the door and, through it, Tsurumi.

This implies Koito is, in a way, closed out, not close to Tsurumi as he would like to believe. He doesn’t belong to Tsurumi’s little world, not him nor Tsukishima. For all his devotion, he’s just a henchman to be manipulated and, while it’ll turn out he doesn’t like this, ultimately he’ll still be at Tsurumi’s side because he’ll remain forever a Tsurumi fanboy despite everything.

It’s a pity Koito never grew out of this... but, well, since the story planned to make a leader out of it regardless, I guess it didn’t matter.

Then there’s chap 274.

Noda modified the panel in which Sofia talks with Hijikata so that now we can see her men are with her.

He also redrawn Boutarou and added an image of Hokkaido superimposed with the scenery.

Noda then moved here the scene from chap 279 in which Asirpa checks the skins in attempt to decode Wilk’s message, expanding it a little.

We move to chap 275.

Noda added 4 more pages that shows Sugimoto sleeping and then digs more into his dream/flashback of the past.

As I remember well enough this part, this flashback isn’t something I feel I needed (except for the part that shows Sugimoto wandering), but I understand others might have forgot and so Noda decided to include it.

Noda also expanded the scene in which Kikuta talks about Kaeko. I still find funny how Noda fundamentally refuses to draw Hanazawa in a position different from his death portrait.

Also he cut the part in which Kikuta said that it’s not rare for girls to search for marriage without involving their parents and placed the remaining dialogue in such a way it covered hald of Kaeko’s face.

He expanded the scene in which Sugimoto dresses up as Yuusaku.

The image of the imperial hotel is redrawn.

So we are at chap 276.

Noda adds a flashback image of Sugimoto, Umeko and Toraji...

...and expanded Kikuta’s scolding.

Then he added a scene showing where Sugimoto was standing and in which Kikuta explains the origins of his habit of loothing things.

He then drastically changes Sugimoto’s interaction with Yuusaku.

The remaining interaction goes as in the manga but now Yuusaku is sweating a lot more.

Noda changed things so that, fter receiving his hat from Tsurumi, Sugimoto doesn’t thank him with an admiring look but in a rushed manner and then escapes.

Then chap 277...

...shich is basically unchanged.

And here comes chap 278…

in which the only change seems to be that now Ogata doesn’t wear his hat when he crosses path with Yuusaku (also Yuusaku is now drawn on the right side).

We have chap 279.

In which Yuusaku’s face is heavily shaded when he opens ‘his’ eyes, the next panel basically showing Asirpa in his position, better implying Sugimoto is seeing Asirpa in Yuusaku.

Noda also added a spread showing the scenery.

As the bit of Asirpa was placed sooner, now it’s absent from this chapter and we just have Hijikata saying to wait as he seems to realize something.

And so we’ve reached chap 280.

Noda changed a little the features of the spy who should have received Kikuta’s message and added more details to the poor guy who collected it instead.

Overall scenery and characters are detailed better in the volume.

There’s even a tiny drawn of Ueji when the text in a box mentions him.

We finish with a tiny image of Kikuta and a young Sugimoto thanking the editor.

And that’s all for this volume.

I remember everyone this was a quick overview and I might have missed something, especially in the dialogues which I didn’t really check.

As usual Noda improved it in a relevant manner so, if you like “Golden Kamuy”, you might prefer buying it to the magazine version.

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goldenkamuyhunting · 2 years

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Replies to assorted asks regarding if the ending is rushed and how this impacted on the ending Ogata got

This is really a bad working time so yes, I’m still behind in answering to all the ask. This group of asks is tied to the pacing of the manga and to how it might have impacted with Ogata. Asks that regards different things will be in different posts.

Again, as they’re many, I also transcribed them in case the image won’t load.

Sorry again for my lateness in replying to everyone.

Anonymous said:

Greetings. I know this is a strange question, but seeing the way the last arc of this manga has developed.... Do you think the author is speeding up the ending to move on to something else? Or does he don't want the manga to end as an infinite series and is putting his foot on the accelerator, even if it means sacrificing the quality of the writing? It's not a justification, but it's something that started to haunt me after Ogata blew his head off in such a dramatic way.

I’ll start not with my opinion but with some official info.

Q1: Do you already know how you’re going to end the story?

Noda: I know how I want to end it, and there’s not that much left. I want the landing to be akin to one of a gymnastics gold medalist, but I refuse to rush through things and make it ugly just to reach the conclusion, out of both pride as a professional mangaka and responsibility towards my readers. [Q&A corner from the DVD bundle of the 15th volume of Golden Kamuy translation courtesy of @piduai]

Of course since this is an old interview (Vol 15 came out on September 19, 2018) things might have changed so it’s not really fair to use it as proof that now that almost 4 years are gone he doesn’t want to rush things, however when he released the fanbook (November 19, 2020) he was still caring about the characters having endings that he hoped it would be satisfying for everyone.

Q: Please leave a message for the readers. Or maybe some advice for the troubled youth. Noda: I want people to say that everyone in Golden Kamuy had a satisfying ending, and I want that for everyone involved more than anything. As for advice for the troubled youth, there’s none. Life is survival of the fittest. The weak ones get eaten. [Interview with Noda Satoru from the Golden Kamuy fanbook translation courtesy of @piduai]

Even in the recently released message about the end of the manga Noda confirmed he would add changes to the volume version and implied that he was working so that everyone would like it.

Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t get the vibe of a person who’s tired and want to rush into a conclusion because he has something else to do, but of a person who’s working hard for his work to be well received.

I might not like the past chapters but I’ve always admired Noda as a mangaka for how hard he works on his manga and I think he’s trying to work hard on it still. The result might not be of my liking but this doesn’t mean it’s because he stopped caring for this manga.

Sure, maybe I’m wrong and naïve but that’s overall how I feel.

I’ll add KamuyCentral’s observation that 314, the number of the final chapter, in Japanese might also be read as ‘Saichi’s death’ (though there’s also a more optimistic option suggested by a Japanese fan).

So what all this mean?

That Noda likely made for “Golden Kamuy” a draft, a script, a plan, something and that his plan was to follow it. This plan might have extended to picking up the final number of chapters beforehand.

So he’s not running?

It really depends on many factors.

Did he really set the story to end at 314?

Let’s assume he did.

So why people get a feeling he’s rushing?

I mean who feels the story is running can point out at the following things:

1) The convicts moved from 24 to 23, although it turned out Kadokura had a tattoo for a total of 24 tattooed beings. It’s possible this was planned beforehand for surprise value but it generates some plot holes in the early premise regarding the convicts (not that Noda cared much about that part as he mostly asked us to suspend our disbelief about it). Regardless, some perceived it as a shortening.

2) Three convicts were introduced one after the other and dealt with at a fast pace when, previously, the story would introduce one convict, deal with him, and move to the next. Again, it could have been done on purpose for a greater showdown in Sapporo (I remember that in robot series they liked to have the robot face 3 enemies at once either around the finale or in some important episode so the 3 convicts being tossed all together might be merely a Japanese trope, nothing more) but it might also have been done to shorten up things.

3) By the way, Jack the Ripper was a historical figure but the way he’s handled is a mess compared to how the manga handled historical figures.

4) Relevant retcon in the volumes clearly hinted to changes of plans in regard to the characters’ characterizations, which made people doubt if the characters’ arc were established before or if they were created as the story went.

5) The way the story was told changed. Before we had many groups which act independently, their actions crossing over and all relevant for the plot. However, although the cast was still divided in many small group, the story slowly started to prefer focusing on 2 groups overall becoming more streamlined and simple to follow, placing into the sidelines the other groups by giving them actions of little to no real relevance to the plot, until everyone converged in one group or the other. Again it can be a choice, but it’s a choice that who preferred the previous structure might not enjoy causing them to think groups are deliberately being neglected.

6) Vasily. While other characters might get neglected, Vasily doesn’t get developed at all to the point some wondered if Noda forgot to draw him here and there, he, basically, has 0 relevant impact on the plot and seems to be there to just get killed. For a mangaka who’s usually awesome at creating and developing characters this feels strange and, if it was a conscious choice, a peculiar one that a good part of the fandom doesn’t particularly appreciate.

7) Ogata. He moves from a character who actively influence the plot to one who’s just in the sideline, his motive felt unsatisfying to a good part of the fandom, a part of his actions feel all of sudden dumb, there’s plenty of things about him that remain unexplained and he took himself out of the plot while the main characters watched, again with basically little to 0 relevant impact to the plot. I’ll go back to him later so for now I’ll stop at this.

8) People had grievances for Vasily, Tanigaki, Sofia, Ushiyama and Hijikata’s deaths for different reasons, not so much because they died but how they died. Vasily died almost offscreen. Tanigaki dies in a blink (if he’s really dead). Sofia’s death was felt by many as unemotional, the reason why she hesitated and was killed by Tsurumi poorly constructed. Ushiyama died by a stroke of bad luck (if the grenade hadn’t, by accident, fallen near Asirpa he wouldn’t have sacrificed himself) and not by Tsukishima’s efforts. Hijikata’s battle is unclear but, again, his death seems to be another case of bad luck with his extremely cool getting up timed in a too convenient manner so that he wouldn’t hurt Koito. This can fall a bit in the ‘in the volume version all those scenes will be expanded but in a chapter of 18 pages it wasn’t possible to do so’ part, and a bit in the conscious effort to keep Koito and Tsukishima safe. Some still wonders if the characters with unclear deaths are actually alive and the unclear death was meant to hide it for surprise value.

9) Asirpa’s black eyes get solved easily and equally easily the characters seem to accept they’ll have to give up on the gold because Asirpa has said so. Sure, it might be this will be developed better later but… sure it’s easy.

10) As the cars are disconnected and only 3 chapters are missing people feel there will be no time to answer all the questions they had and Tsukishima and Koito’s arc will be cut abruptly… which we can’t tell yet for sure but sure the fear is around the net.

11) The story progressing in an overall ‘easy mode’ that uses luck/bad luck and deus ex machina to solve problems quickly instead than having the characters tackle and solve them.

12) Other reasons I completely forgot and for this I apologize to the people who shared them with me.

Sure is… quite a lot and I understand everyone’s concern.

Part of all this might be due to choices, choices which might not have been as appreciated by everyone as Noda hoped or by the page constraints of the magazine and will be fixed in the volumes.

Part of this can be due to miscalculating how many chapters he would need to finish it.

I mean, if you tie yourself to a certain number of chapters, you must plan them in an EXTREMELY CAREFUL manner because you might end up expanding too much a part (maybe to explain better something) and so, to remain in the scheduled number, you might be forced to cut something which Noda maybe thinks to add again in the volume version.

It’s hard to say.

Still this has going on by too long to assume something had abruptly ended and Noda decided to cut the manga short. We might say the Sapporo arc began with chap 224… which was released on December 19 2019. If we go back further to post Karafuto escape… well, we can genuinely say, for something ‘rushed’ Noda still spent years on “Golden Kamuy” instead than have Asirpa being forced to tell the code to Tsurumi in Karafuto and then escaping and meeting up with Hijikata with them realizing how to spot the fake one as well that they’ve enough skins to figure out the place is Goryokaku even if they don’t get Heita, Boutarou and Ostrog’s skins… or just claim Hijikata found and killed them off screen so as to get their skins too into the mix.

So… I don’t know.

Maybe Noda deliberately offered us a ‘summary’ version in the magazine so as to persuade us to buy the more detailed volume version. Maybe he believed a faster pace and a change in storytelling would be more liked. Maybe additions to the story forced him to also do some cuts. It’s really hard to tell.

An endgame is difficult, maybe the most difficult part of the story because readers will demand it to fulfill all the expectations the story has built in them, the longer and more complex the story the more the expectations.

It can be even Noda is aware of this and is using the magazine as a ‘test trial’. We’ll be able to fully judge his story only after the last volume release in July 19, 2022.

For now we can only postpone our judgment to that date.

@howtodestroyacharacter said:

Golden Kamuy will end with chapter 314. Could my doubt that some artistic choices were due to a hasty closure of the series be sadly true? It is possible that for such an editorial choice a story was sacrificed that was so beautiful by "killing" and eliminating some characters in a hasty way and taking them out of their character. I think I have only the fanfictions of good writers left to hope for a more "realistic" ending than what Noda is presenting to us.

Anonymous said:

Well, i actually liked those last chapters, but now with the news that we'll have only 3 chapters until the end i can oficially say that most of the questions that i still have about some characters will not be answered lol. I hope that Noda made at least 1 of those chapters a litte bit bigger than the others so it can fit more resolution for the end, but i really doubt that it will happen so... Anyway, damn, i'm really going to miss Golden Kamuy :(

Well, all that Noda has to ABSOLUTELY include is:

- how the story will deal with Tsurumi

- how the locomotive will be stopped

- what we can call a final chapter, which might tie up some loose ends by telling us which will be the fate of the surviving characters or share additional info and points to ponder or… leave the ending open because this too is a possibility.

Noda is not Toriyama or Arakawa, so the fight between Tsurumi and Sugimoto (and possibly Asirpa) is likely not going to take a lot of chapters even if Tsurumi is the final boss.

To give you a better idea, Kiroranke was killed in 2 chapters and a half, after all, Nikaidou in 1, Sofia… in few panels.

I dare to hope that the story won’t handle Tsurumi’s fate in ‘easy mode’ but that whatever fate will befall to the characters will be the result of their actions, not of good/bad luck (that is unless Kadokura shows up, as Kadokura ultimate weapon is his amazing good luck and we all know about it so, if he were to show up, is reasonable to assume Tsurumi would slip under a banana peel, fall off the train and against a pole on which he would stab himself and die while Kadokura laments his ‘misfortune’ that stopped him from taking part to the battle).

Still, it can be Noda will need only 1 more chapter to deal with Tsurumi… or that he’ll make the fight longer enough we’ll get some of it in each chapter (alongside with Asirpa’s attempts to stop the train).

Therefore yeah, for what Noda really need to do, 3 chapters are enough.

For closing up each loose thread… no, 3 chapters aren’t enough but, at this point, I don’t think he means to do so. He has told the story he wanted to say for all the rest he probably feels ‘But that is another story, to be told another time.’ (quote from “The Neverending story” which deliberately left subplots hanging very often to drive home the point that it is, as the title says, a ‘Neverending Story’).

Anonymous said:

I agree that Ogata should have died in Vol 19 instead of what happened to him in the end. But I had a thought hit me, that it's possible that Ogata was kept alive for so long not only for plot reasons but also because he's a popular character. Perhaps because he was so popular that Noda decided to wait to kill him off later (unfortunately in the most contrived way). What do you think?

Again, I don’t really know if Ogata was really meant to die in Vol 19 and was kept alive till now merely due to popular demand or if the plan was ALWAYS what we saw, that he has to commit suicide in Vol 31.

While satisfy his readership is an author’s duty, it is generally not a good idea to do so blindly, keeping alive a character because readers said so without any plans for him.

Of course if the editor gets involved into said matter and impose the author certain things, the author can either comply or drop the series but… honestly, keeping Ogata alive at the time in which the chapters that will go in Vol 19 were released wasn’t such a huge deal that I think an editor would impose Noda to do so.

“Golden Kamuy” was going strong at the time, sure, part of the readership might have gotten disappointed and this might have seen a decrease in the selling… but it wouldn’t have been probably something so dramatic it would have caused the manga to be forced to end prematurely and, since they would have 12 volumes to recover, it might have even be a better way to deal with the problem (a manga that ends in a dissatisfying manner ends up not being recommended which causes sales to drop permanently as no new chapters will be released that can help readers to change their mind).

So I don’t think Noda went to his editor and said ‘hey, I think to kill Ogata in the next chapter’ and the guy answered him ‘NO WAY! DIDN’T YOU SEE HOW READERS LOVE HIM? HE’S TOO POPULAR! YOU MUST KEEP HIM ALIVE AT LEAST UNTIL THE LAST VOLUME OR ELSE!’

If Ogata was meant to be killed in Vol 19 and then he wasn’t, I want to think it’s because Noda had decided to do something different with him… and then his plan got aborted somehow and he went back on the original track.

We had seen with too many volume releases that differ from the manga version that Noda changes his plans, often for the better, so this might have been just this.

Again I might be wrong. I’m not Noda I’m not really with him as he takes his decisions.

Anyway the reason why I think it would have been better to kill Ogata in Vol 19 is the same due to which I think it would have been better not to have Vasily return. They’re kept in the story for basically doing nothing but going back to Vol 17 (Vasily) & Vol 19 (Ogata).

Vasily is shoot in Vol 17, doesn’t die, comes back in Vol 21 but none of his following actions impact the plot in a way that required Vasily to be there or we would have a drastically different story because some fundamental plot point couldn’t be reached without him.

I mean, if you remove Boutarou the gold coin can’t be recovered but if you remove Vasily you can just tweak a little with the story and it goes on the same way.

Ogata is almost the same. He only makes a really relevant contribution, which is to trigger Koito’s distrust of Tsurumi so that Koito and Tsukishima don’t follow Tsurumi and will probably survive to the train ride of hell (unless their wounds were so severe they’ll die off screen or Nagakura won’t kill them off).

Replacing him in that scene would have been a bit tricky because things in Koito’s kidnapping should have gone differently so that it would have been Tsukishima who would have to inadvertently tip him… or Usami (whom we have discovered likes to run his mouth and reveal things that aren’t probably meant to be revealed) would end up saying something to him out of his jealousy, same as he had done with Ogata.

So yeah, I guess Noda could have put Usami in the kidnapping trio instead than Ogata and Usami might have ended up telling him something… but, well with Ogata the scene worked better.

Then what of Ogata? He recover his sniping ability so he can kill Vasily off and then kills himself.

Sure, okay, he killed Usami but there was no specific need to kill Usami in such way in that precise moment. Usami’s role wasn’t that big that, if he had lived until the Goryokaku siege episode and it was Ushiyama that snapped his neck off the story would have taken a totally different course.

Ogata could just have had his epiphany and die in Vol 19 and we wouldn’t have noticed any big difference. Chap 311 showed Asirpa overcoming what had happened just fine. Actually if Ogata had died in Vol 19 his death would have served the plot better.

In chap 206 Sugimoto, in an attempt from dissuading Asirpa from killing, points out that the Ainu belief that people who kill end up in hell might refer to how the intense guilt stop them from returning to their old self. Although Asirpa knows Sugimoto has been changed from his experiences, she doesn’t know the previous Sugimoto and Sugimoto is still an overall sociable and happy guy for most of the time so Sugimoto’s words might not feel that terrible to her. If however she had seen a man kill himself in front of her out of it she would have had a better idea of what ‘who kills end in (psychological) hell’ means.

Asirpa is a bit of a peculiar character in “Golden Kamuy” as her arc is not plot driven but character driven (her arc is basically a ‘coming of age’ arc with her moving from her innocent self to someone aware of her people’s problem and willing to kill to protect what she loves) so this would have worked well.

But that’s just me. I’m not Noda, I don’t have access to his draft, I can’t see what it said and how many changes it suffered. It can even be that, although he was meant to kill him in Vol 19, Noda too loved Ogata and wanted to keep him until the end.

Not everyone is Conan Doyle and want to toss his characters off a cliff, after all.

And the fact I don’t like how Noda handled it, doesn’t mean everyone feels the same and Noda wrote that ending for him with ill intentions toward him.

I don’t really know, maybe we’ll never know why Noda chose such ending and if Ogata was meant to die in Vol 19 or not. Maybe it’ll be revealed in a Q&A or in an interview. Maybe it’ll remain a secret forever. We’ll see.

@xyamaneko said:

What do you think about the page where huci is singing the lullaby and the part with:

“I’m sure the gods are watching you so that you’ll grow up to be a fine man.”

Is shown while Ogata is sleeping? I mean it clearly meant something and I always thought this was to show that he would have some sort of redemption but in my opinion it was never shown?? Now he is dead while everybody hated him.

Any opinions on that?

The reason why Ogata is a controversial character is because his arc has conflicting points.

Some readers watch his arc, see points that are typical of the redemption arc and think ‘it has to be a redemption arc’.

Some readers watch his arc, see points that are typical of the story of the minor bad guy that get killed by the hero for his crimes and think ‘it has to be a justice arc’.

It’s not that one side is making up things, Ogata’s arc is rich of conflicting elements so that both sides, when deciding to write meta about their views, often have to work a lot to give a sense to all they see without slipping in the easy ‘let’s dismiss what doesn’t fit with my theory’.

Ultimately, what we got was neither the ‘redemption arc’ nor the ‘justice arc’ but just a ‘self destruct arc’ that, according to many, didn’t really answer fully to all the things observed about him.

The split in the fandom, with people still trying to fit this arc in their previous views, and the countless takes that are being created by fans as we speak to explain why we got to a ‘self destruction arc’ despite people thinking we would either get a redemption or a justice arc, can be a hint that something didn’t work the way it should have because the ‘solution’ we had to the mystery that Ogata was didn’t cause the fandom to come to an agreement but only split it further.

Maybe Noda originally was uncertain between the ‘redemption arc’ and the ‘justice arc’, hence elements of both were included in the story, then decided a ‘self destruct arc’ was a ‘fair’ compromise between the two sides.

Maybe things will be better cleared up in the volume version.

Or maybe we’re missing elements because we don’t belong to his target audience.

I don’t know.

The elements and tropes we, as readers, are bound to pick up are tied to our culture and our experiences. We aren’t his target audience therefore our readings can be as different as WE are different.

Surely, ultimately, the words “I’m sure the gods are watching you so that you’ll grow up to be a fine man” ended up not being foreshadowing, quite the opposite.

It can be that Noda wanted to create a conflict, to show that, differently from Sakamoto’s son, Ogata, who was a child who wasn’t born by parents who loved each other, wasn’t ‘watched by the gods and so he didn’t have the chance to grow up as a fine man’. After all the previous bit talked about how the kid’s parents were working hard to fed him, so more than a song about gods watching over you, is a song about your parents caring about you, which is something Ogata didn’t have. Ops, no, wait, chap 310 said maybe they did love each other for a short time… not that Ogata could benefit of it. But I’m digressing.

There’s probably some cultural aspect in that blessed thing and gods watching, but I’m not that knowledgeable of Japanese customs at the moment.

I could spend hours watching that double spread as it’s one of my favorite and make a deeper analysis of it but I get that’s not what you’re really asking.

I don’t really know what to say on that regard.

Although a part of the fandom loves the chapter in which Ogata dies, the other is disappointed, to put it mildly, each person for their own reasons. If it can be of some comfort, you’re not alone in being disappointed in how Ogata’s arc ended.

Sorry I can’t really help any more than this.

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