do yer top five for golden kamuy?
There are only two characters from Golden Kamuy that I would call my faves, so to make up for the lack of a full top five Iāll do my best to describe why.Ā
1. Ogata Hyakunosuke -Ā āThe word love is as vague and uncertain as the godsā¦āĀ
Ogata gives the impression of a person who has never shown his true face to anybody even once in his life. Even the audience who is usually privvy to a characters inner most thougts has absolutely no idea what is going on in Ogataās head. Ogata is distant in a word, even if heās right next to you you feel like heās far away peering at you through a sniperās scope. Itās this distance from other people, and also his own feelings thatās enabled to survive this long but itās also what makes Ogata so empty and numb in regards to his own life.
As this manga is also about Russian history as well I thought Iād share a quote of one of my favorite Russian Authors, Dostoevsky to summarize my thoughts on Ogata.Ā
āTheyāthey wonāt let meāIāI canāt be good!"Ā
Notes from the Underground
Ogataās an outsider since birth. Heās never been accepted by any one person in his life for who he really was, and he shows it. Ogata hides himself, he strips himself to the barest utensils and defines himself by his utility. Ogata in a way never stopped being that kid who shot geese to try to get his mother to look his way. At the same time he also permanently left that kid behind. Heās never been shown connection, or empathy from other people, so Ogata doesnāt really believe it exists.Ā
Ignoring all the murder (spoken like a true villain stain), Ogataās life is a series of repeated failures to connect with the family around him. His mother could never love him properly, and could only show him indrectly through her cooking. His brother failed to understand him as a person, and rejected him in a way even if he did want a relationship with Ogata. His father had no interest in him to begin with. You can see Ogata at the center watching all of these relationships break down, eventually come to the conclusion that he was the problem. That heās an unwanted child, unable to receive love. Ogataās kind of this thematic reckoning of his fatherās indiscretion and inability to love his son. He destroys ever part of the family thatās unable to accept him. However, thatās just a role he plays, because when heās not that role heās just a kid standing alone in a field trying to shoot a duck out of the sky to be ignored by his mother again.Ā
Ogata has failed at every connection in his life, but you get the feeling that he desires those connections too. But Ogataās been used and exploited by the people around him for too long. It might be because Ogata saw his motherās love for his father, and saw how that love only hurt her in the end that he canāt ever be genuine with his feelings. Itās easier to be relied upon as a gun, then to be wanted as a person.
Thereās a gentle kid somewhere in Ogata, but he canāt come out. The rigorous system that reduces people to guns on a battlefield just wonāt let him. Ogata seems so heartless but Iād argue heās actually more emotional, and a worse liar then he appears to be. He couldnāt even fully lie to one twelve year old girl who was hanging off of his every word at the time, and instead had a breakdown and tried to get her to punish him for killing his father. I think what Ogata wants ultimately is freedom, and the freedom to be himself broken child that he is but as long as heās part of the gold hunt and stays in the military system he wonāt ever be able to attain that which makes his search for the gold all the more self destructive. But as Ogataās never been shown those things before and never been given a real chance, I want Ogata to have the chance to show the gentler sides of himself.Ā
2. Hajime Tsukishima -Ā āThe two of you were saved, werenāt you?ā
Okay after spending so long rambling on why deep down I believe Ogataās a good person, Iām just going to come out and say that Hajime is a bad one. Usually in narratives like Tsukishimaās when a character believes theyāve been manipulated and lied to all along itās like they had no agency and werenāt responsible for their actions because they were manipulated. However, the realization that Tsurumi has been manipulating him all along doesnāt suddenly make Tsuhikishima flip and decide to be a good person.Ā
Hajime acts like a victim of long term manipulation, by which I mean heās been beaten down and mostly has given up on himself by now. Tsukishima used to be a kid who just wanted to return home and marry the girl he loved. However, heās so far from that person now he doesnāt think he can ever go back. And, thereās something very human about the way Hajime just gave up. He felt like he was never going to know the truth from Tsurumi so to save himself the pain he stopped caring.Ā
Hajimeās incredibly numb. Itās really interesting how Tsukishimaās more evil acts arenāt out of genuine cruelty, but rather indifference. Heās given up on trying to better himself, and instead wants to see things through all the way to the end. Tsukishima tends to get characterized as the least bad, or the responsible one of the Ninth Division when heās actively as bad as the rest. Everything about him is an attempt to avoid responsibility, he tries to make it look like heās not a fanatic of Tsurumi, that heās not as violent as the other people around him, but in the end heās just as complicit as the rest.Ā
Whatās interesting in Hajime is how repressed he is. He knows what heās doing is wrong, and heās with the wrong people, but his voice is to suppress himself rather than try to better himself. He acts like a bystander to the atrocities the ninth divisoin casually commits.Ā
Hajimeās been emptied out as a person, and he acts like it. This is what surviving all those consecutive horrors, and losing his loved ones has done to Hajime, itās made him just want to watch Tsurumi break the world. Itās made him someone who can just passively watch without even the smallest of stirrings in his heart. Hajimeās a shell at this point, and yet he keeps going for some reason and thatās very fun to see when heāll eventually self destruct.Ā
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