Golden Kamuy (A Memorandum-style Review)

Written in January 2024

The original work is a popular manga that needs no introduction.
I had been thinking about reading it someday, so I became a casual fan to coincide with the release of the live-action film.
I have only read up to volume 5 of the original work, but it was a production that was more than satisfying enough for a casual fan.

Saichi Sugimoto (Kento Yamazaki) once belonged to the First Division of the Imperial Japanese Army and participated in the operation to capture Hill 203.
Because he would return to duty immediately even after suffering severe injuries there, he was called "Immortal Sugimoto," as he would never die no matter what wounds he received.
After being discharged from the military, Sugimoto was looking for gold dust in Hokkaido, aiming to strike it rich.
There, he heard a story from Takechiyo Goto (Makita Sports), whom he had met, about a man who had stolen gold dust that the Ainu had collected to resist the Japanese.
The man is imprisoned in Abashiri Prison, but since only he knows the location of the stolen gold dust, he had the secret code tattooed on the backs of 24 death row inmates imprisoned with him in order to contact his accomplices on the outside.
Since government officials were also targeting the gold dust hidden by the man, the 24 death row inmates were to be transported elsewhere.
However, the 24 inmates killed all the colonial soldiers in charge of the transport and escaped into the forest.
Sugimoto did not take it seriously as a tall tale, but suddenly Goto said, "I've talked too much," and tried to kill Sugimoto.
Sugimoto countered Goto and chased him after he fled the scene, but Goto was killed by a brown bear along the way.
And on the back of Goto's corpse, a secret code tattoo was carved.

Sugimoto tries to hide Goto's corpse in another location, but he is about to be attacked by a different brown bear than the one that killed Goto, and is saved by the Ainu girl Asirpa.
Asirpa tells Sugimoto that since the brown bear that stole the food she had hidden will never forgive the one who stole it, he has no choice but to fight the brown bear that attacked Goto.
With Asirpa's cooperation, Sugimoto defeats the attacking brown bear and comes to trust Asirpa.
And when he tells her the story of the man who stole the Ainu's gold dust, Asirpa says that her father was among the Ainu who were killed at that time.

From here, the story becomes an adventure for Sugimoto and Asirpa.
Among the 24 death row inmates were members of the former Shinsengumi, led by Toshizo Hijikata (Hiroshi Tachi), who was once called the Demon Vice-Commander.
Also, not only the 24 death row inmates, but Lieutenant Tsurumi (Hiroshi Tamaki), an intelligence officer of the 7th Division, which was once said to be the strongest in the Imperial Japanese Army, had also obtained information about the gold dust and was searching for the tattoos of the key death row inmates.
Hijikata and Tsurumi were each planning to overthrow the government using the gold dust as capital.

The story unfolds in a very exciting way, and it is understandable why the original work is popular.
Although it is an adventure story, it provides detailed explanations of the history of Japan during the Meiji period, centered on the development of Hokkaido, as well as the life, history, and hunting methods of the Ainu.
The reasons why each character seeks the gold dust are clear, and since the actions of all characters are consistent, it is easy to imagine the characters' next moves, and conversely, one is drawn into the unexpectedness of the developments when those expectations are betrayed.

Furthermore, the CG is wonderful.
Shirogumi seems to have participated as well, and the movements of the wild bears and wolves are at a level that one would not think is CG.
On the other hand, the scene where they are dragged on a horse-drawn sled over the snow seems to have been filmed in reality, not CG.
Therefore, the impact on the screen is immense.

Out of the 31 volumes of the original work, the movie covers up to the beginning of volume 3, which is about 1/10 of the whole, but I intend to make time to read all the volumes.
Since the content of each episode is dense, I intend to read it little by little, savoring it, rather than reading it all at once.

13. Golden Kamuy

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