Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 314 “Grand finale”
Last chapter and WARNING again.
If you only want to hear praises for “Golden Kamuy”, the ban button for either the tag ‘Golden Kamuy Ramblings and Theories’ or myself (I’ll suggest the latter) is the right choice to make my posts disappear from your dashboard.
With a fair warning given, let’s move on.
I guess I should focus on the color cover which shows Sugimoto and Asirpa together. No Shiraishi this time. The cover is in soothing shades of blue (which fits since it’s the last chapter and everything is calm and contrast with the cover of Weekly Young Jump in which there’s just the face of Sugimoto smiling on a red background) on a white background, with Asirpa linked to Sugimoto’s arm. I wonder if Asirpa extending her fist is meant to be an invitation for the reader to bump it. It’s a nice color cover.
So, after chap 313 ended in a cliffhanger with a seriously wounded Sugimoto who was also pinned on the locomotive ended in the bay, we’ve reached the final chapter…
…which is temporally placed 6 MONTHS LATER, in Tokyo and that opens with Asirpa, apparently alone, buying dried persimmons.
The next page a woman informs us a terrifying looking man is standing in front of Umeko’s store and asks her if she should go call Umeko’s husband… so yeah, Umeko ultimately married that widower.
And who can be the terrifying looking man if not Sugimoto? And of course it’s him, complete with a new scar on his cheek and smell of blood and death, only this time Umeko isn’t fooled because she has already gotten her eye surgery and she can see it’s him.
How did Sugimoto survive the cliffhanger of the previous chapter? Evidently it wasn’t important enough to show it because it won’t be explained through all the final chapter. We had our hints Shiraishi might have fished him (and the cap Sugimoto lost when he ended up in the water) up. Of course he had plenty of fatal wounds (a stab in his intestine, a sword through his lugs which needed to be pulled out to unpin him from the locomotive which would have done further damage (not considering the one Sugimoto did to himself when he threw Asirpa), a consistent loss of blood and plenty of water that should have ended in his lugs when he apparently lost consciousness as he fell into the water. But it’s Sugimoto, the immortal, he survived to a bullet in his head! Yeah, but that time he was saved by Ienaga, a master class surgeon with experience.
But whatever, I’ll assume this time they’ll met with Meiji era Tenma Kenzo (Tenma is the genius surgeon with a heart of gold from the manga “Monster”) who packed up Sugimoto for free and didn’t report him to the army/police whatever nor tried to eat him up for immortality.
And it’s possible, really but… it’s deflating. When a chapter ends with a cliffhanger and you worry for a week you want the solution to it to be worth your worry, not to handwave them by completely ignoring how the situation managed to be resolved as if the final chapter has just been cut and we jumped straight to the epilogue.
Someone has suggested me that opening this chapter in this way was meant to lull the readers into the idea Sugimoto died and then surprise the reader with how he survived which… is not a bad idea per se… only the ‘suspense’ lasts for a single page… so it’s not really something you have the time to worry and then feel sad about.
When I saw Asirpa I merely thought Sugimoto was around and her somber expression was because she feared he would remain in Tokyo and they would part ways, I actually expected Sugimoto to be in the next page and join her, I didn’t really have the time to realize that she was wandering alone in those two panels and worry about where’s Sugimoto and when the following page basically let me figure Sugimoto wasn’t with her because he was with Umeko, well, this killed any chance I had to worry about Sugimoto’s survival.
Sure, although this chapter is longer than usual (22 vs the usual 18 plus the color page and a special page with Noda’s last words), it’s still not 60 pages like the first chapter was. So there clearly was no time to put in how Sugimoto survives, nor to keep the suspense of his survival for long so Noda had to do with what he had.
Will this chapter be expanded in the volume version, either by playing longer on how Sugimoto died or by explaining how he was saved?
At this point I’ve no idea.
Vol 30 & 31 (Noda made clear he wants to end the story at Vol 31) need to contain 24 chapters. They could split them evenly so it’s 12 each which is more than usual as usual they contain 10… and through the chapters I noticed plenty of things that would have been better to expand.
So chances he can expand everything are running short and, very likely, he’ll have to choose between plenty of things and, at this point, I don’t feel like guessing what he might judge important to expand and what not. I’ll just wait for the volumes.
Anyway, back to the story.
So, who follows me by a long time knows that among my long standing predictions/expectations for the end there was Sugimoto going back to his hometown and meeting Umeko again so yes, I’m satisfied this is happening. The fact that Umeko ALREADY got her eyes fixed and even remarried could have been an interesting point to ponder because it proves Sugimoto didn’t need to go through all that because what he did was of no use to her.
Sugimoto’s motive to take part to that bloody gold hunt was to repay Toraji by taking care of his wife by providing her the means to cure her eyes… and to have a second chance with Umeko.
Only, once the gold hunt is over it turns out Umeko has another husband and doesn’t need his gold because she already got eye surgery.
In short the gold hunt was a bad idea, he could have either come back home sooner and try to get her and support her or just go on with his life as someone else was there taking care of Umeko.
The wounds, the pain he suffered, the kills, were unnecessary, Umeko didn’t need his gold, she needed someone to be there for her and this one wasn’t him.
This would be interesting to ponder over but… nope. We’ll dig on this in a moment so for now let’s leave it as that.
So Sugimoto just hands Umeko the gold because that was what Toraji told him to do, tells Toratarou, Toraji’s son who finally, FINALLY got a name, that his father was a real hero and then leaves. He doesn’t ask Umeko how she is, he doesn’t reconnect with her and she doesn’t reconnect with him either, she doesn’t ask how he has been nor she does try to stop him because why should she? He just came to drop something and then left.
It overall feels very perfunctory on both sides.
Somehow Umeko stopped mattering for Sugi and he stopped mattering for her. They might still call each other ‘Saichi-chan’ and ‘Ume-chan’ but they’re little more than strangers and don’t try to go back to being friends. They just let go of each other without really inquiring.
Sure is, when Umeko got to see all that gold… well, she should have gone to him, if only to thank him in a bit more heartfelt manner. I mean, it’s not everyday someone gives you a bag filled with gold dust and Sugimoto clearly didn’t look like he would manage to appear in Forbes' annual list of the world's billionaires so getting all that gold should have cost him and giving up on it should have cost on him as well. I mean his coat even look worse for wear than usual and he’s been wearing those same clothes for years by now so it’s clear he’s not an eccentric billionaire effortlessly giving out bags of gold to his old friend’s wife.
I think he’ll deserve a more heartfelt thank you and an ‘are you sure?’ and ‘do you have a place to stay tonight? You might tell me about Toraji a little as well…’ but… no.
Umeko’s role in the story ends with her watching the gold. If she considered chasing after him to thank him… well, that’s something up to everyone’s speculation, the story won’t tell.
So… the long awaited meeting between Umeko and Sugimoto doesn’t really feel that meaningful in the end, he just hands her the gold and leaves with no regrets. As for Umeko, I guess we’re meant to assume she has moved on long ago… and I’m glad she did, really… but this way she seems not just someone who moved on but someone who’s way too cold with a guy who was your childhood friend, went to war and came home with a bag of gold for you. Whatever, maybe it’s just lack of space and lack of readers’ interest in Umeko. The anime even cut her out completely so maybe Noda felt it would benefit the story to further erase her. I don’t know.
Sugimoto, all happy, joins back with Asirpa… and Shiraishi, as he’s there too.
Shiraishi points out how sneaky it was from Sugimoto to fill his pockets with gold, taking his share in advance without telling anyone… but this isn’t presented like something bad, no, Shiraishi praises him because thanks to that Sugimoto could concentrate on Asirpa and the land deed back in Hakodate.
“Golden Kamuy” isn’t a manga about teaching you to keep a moral behavior and Sugimoto still helped Asirpa with the land deed even though he got what he wanted… but I guess I’m still hung up on how chap 302 tried to present Sugimoto as noble because he was helping Asirpa even if that meant giving up on the gold (something on which chap 311 played as well) to then reveal he filled his pockets with it already to then say ‘ah but that wasn’t bad because it helped him to focus’.
I mean, I get the gold was meant to be a surprise so Noda couldn’t have him reveal he took it secretly but Hijikata could have just praised him for being willing TO RISK HIS LIFE for Asirpa, not his share of gold. That’s noble and praiseworthy enough, why focusing on the gold instead?
Whatever, maybe it’s just me.
We move to Asirpa who insists the answer she arrived at is that the ‘golden kamuy’ isn’t needed to protect the Ainu and since she has been chosen as the ruler of all the Ainu she got to decide that.
Ops, no she wasn’t and I never liked how no one, not even Kirawus or Ariko, pointed out Asirpa had no right to decide for all the Ainu what to do with the gold that belonged to them all and not just to her.
I mean, Kirawus joined the gold hunt because his village was suffering as they had not enough food (due to locusts eating their food) so he needed money and he had to work first as a seasonal worker and then for Hijikata instead than pursuing an Ainu lifestyle and other people from his village and from other villages might be in the same situation. One would expect he would point out how gold, distributed equally in all the villages, could help them overcome such problems… or buy medicines or things like that because sadly this world requires you to have money but… nope.
The most we get is that Sugimoto tells her he’s fine with her thinking so but, to him, the ‘golden kamuy’ isn’t necessarily bad but changes purpose according to who is using it so he believes the ‘golden kamuy’ will be good for Umeko and ‘Toraji’s son’. Then points out how it was actually part of the ‘golden kamuy’ what was used to buy the land deed. And yeah, he’s right.
Among other things, Asirpa could have used it to buy more land or benefits or things that were of use to the Ainu or even bribe officials in the government so as to smooth things over and get more benefits for the Ainu. But no, she has decided the Ainu don’t need the ‘golden kamuy’ and so they don’t get it nor they get a say about her decision because at her young age and with her newfound knowledge of minority problems she has been ignoring up until then, she’s the right person to decide FOR ALL THE AINU.
Sure, Asirpa is an Ainu so it’s better if she’s the one who decides for them than, let’s say, Hijikata or Tsurumi or Sugimoto but still, she’s a child who has barely started tackling adult problems and this chapter will prove her view of the gold expressed in chap 311 was completely wrong. She claimed if Sugimoto and Shiraishi were to get a huge sum of gold the killing would continue and they would be unhappy. Sugimoto gets his share of gold and is happy and, spoiler, Shiraishi will get all the rest and, supposedly, will be happy as well. Because they’re the right people to use it apparently and wouldn’t be hit by the curse but the Ainu? Nope, according to Asirpa they aren’t the right people to manage all that gold.
Whatever.
The discussion though is cut short because a flashback start, showing us that one month earlier Asirpa and Co were already in Tokyo to met Enomoto Takeaki. They used Hijikata’s sword, which apparently Shiraishi fished up as well as Sugimoto and Sugimoto’s cap as a way to persuade him to meet them.
If you’re wondering why Asirpa doesn’t have her headband on, it’s explained in chap 87 how Ainu are supposed to remove it when visiting people (yeah, she really didn’t do it often in the story but maybe it depends by how important is the people hosting them?).
Anyway Enomoto is super supportive of their cause and volunteers to help them and recommend them to people who’ll help them so, great.
We move to Sugimoto eating a dried persimmon, apparently for the first time, even though we just learnt they were in Tokyo by a month. But who knows, maybe season of dried persimmons just started and those were the first ones available.
Asirpa, despite having matured so much, seeing him eat them still think they’ll change him radically and asks him if he feels different now.
Sugimoto says nope but he believes it’s fine if he doesn’t change because he gave his all to fulfill his duty so he’s pretty satisfied with himself as he is. Evidently he believes doing his duty by giving Umeko the gold she didn’t need any more, cured his PTSD and his guilt for killing people and doesn’t worry anymore about having VIP seats for hell.
I mean, the whole point of the discussion Sugimoto had with Asirpa in chap 100 was about how Sugimoto had maladaptive coping methods to deal with his guilt for having killed people on the battleground, how he rebuilt himself to survive and how he couldn’t go back to being his old self.
And the whole speech he had with Asirpa in chap 206 reinforced the idea killing people pushes you in a psychological hell.
And then we had in chap 310 Ogata who, once his maladaptive coping methods break, couldn’t face his own feelings of guilt and killed himself so as to remark how terrible all this can get.
It was pretty heavy issues that the golden hunt wasn’t meant to solve as Sugimoto murdered plenty of people during it and this should have made him even worse and it was making him even worse as he was getting much more prone than he started at killing people to the point he wanted Ogata to come back solely to kill him and attempted to murder Boutarou when the latter surrendered and could have revealed info about Asirpa’s survival, which was what Sugimoto himself predicted would happen in chap 123, he would risk stopping being able to make distinctions between good guys and bad guys and just kill and relish on it without justice on his side and to make matter worse, once he got the gold for which he shed so much blood and was hurt so badly and risked dying so many times, it turned out Umeko didn’t need it.
It was all for nothing.
But no, Sugimoto is satisfied with how he fulfilled his duty so it’s all solved.
I’m… glad for him but this feels more like a magical hand wave of his problems than as a resolution.
Asirpa looks at him with an expression that’s a bit troubled so Shiraishi goes straight to the core of the problem and asks Sugimoto if he’s going to remain in Tokyo.
Asirpa immediately worries because we know she has a HUGE crush on Sugimoto and doesn’t want to part from him and even considered not solving the code so he would remain with her and she would be his human shield so he would be dependent on her.
Sugimoto goes and mention how the fried shrimp he hate at the imperial hotel was tasty and this sadden Asirpa as she doesn’t know that thing is WELL ABOVE Sugimoto’s financial possibilities. Sugimoto informs her of the matter and says all the food he ate with her was equally tasty… he doesn’t say how it was also cheap since Asirpa provided it for free. but since he directly compares it not with the dried persimmons which he could afford but with the expensive fried shrimp of the imperial hotel this feels implied, which cheapens the fact he says he finally has found a place in which he can be happy.
I mean, I’m pretty sure this is meant to be funny or cute or something but it makes it sound it as if he found a place in which he could be happy just because he has found a place in which he can eat good food for free. He could have said it better if he had said the company made the food taste great, but whatever, maybe we’re meant to assume he’s being shy or something.
Asirpa is touched and blushes and shed tears because this means her love interest will remain with her and Sugimoto confirms this by telling her ‘let’s go back home, Asirpa’ clearly implying they’re going to cohabit in Hokkaido.
Asirpa is overjoyed but then they realize they lost sight of Shiraishi.
Asirpa, who always had a poor opinion of him, thinks he’s pooping in the streets of Tokyo but, in truth, Shiraishi has left without telling them because he doesn’t like tearful goodbyes and, clearly, doesn’t feel part of their own little family… which, as I had remarked many times, has never fully included him.
We move to a summary of what happened to the minor characters.
Kantarou managed to fulfill his dream to become a ranch owner even without the gold.
Nagakura went back to his life and to dream of Hijikata, whose body was never found like in real life history.
Tanigaki went back to Ani and had 15 children with Inkarmat and that’s how Tanigaki’s arc ended.
I mean, it was supposed to be a big deal for him to go back to Ani, since he couldn’t do it for most of the time, he just couldn’t confront with his father and brother and admit he was wrong when he left and tell them the truth about his sister’s death but no, he got a wife and just did it and whatever problem he previously had before about being too ashamed to go back home was hand waved. Maybe if he had married sooner he would have managed to avoid the whole thing.
Kadokura, Kirawus and Mansur went to America 10 years later and starred in a western that became a cult classic. Kadokura never got a backstory or his full name revealed in the story but whatever. Kirawus had no problems leaving the Ainu into Asirpa’s care while Mansur, who was basically a non-character as all we knew about him was he had great aim when using a cannon and was Sofia’s man, decided his days as a revolutionary/partisan were over.
I… don’t know how to feel about all this. I’m glad they’re all alive but… somehow it feels random?
We also learn that Vasily Pavlichenko became a famous Russian artist who refused to part with a painting of a dead lynx near train tracks until he died.
So yeah, another character who was really underdeveloped survived and met a great ending as, although he deserted to kill Ogata and couldn’t do it, he ultimately wasn’t killed and managed to fulfill his dream of becoming an artist. The lynx near the train tracks seem to imply he found Ogata’s body, confirming, in case someone assumed Ogata could survive after blasting his brain off, that Ogata was really dead. That or Vasily finished him off for good.
Again, this leaves me pretty cold. As Vasily wasn’t developed he moved from a character I saw potential in and was really curious about to a character I had 0 investment on because it was more a mob character than anything else and the whole painting of a dead lynx didn’t really impress me much.
@sandflow suggested he might just be a stand in for the readers. A part of them obsessed on wanting Ogata dead, a part of them obsessed drawing fanart of him, a part of them just obsessed on him. Considering how he’s not developed it can be. I’ll leave up to others to speculate if this was a good or a poor representation of the fans.
Either way for me this poor guy ended up on being a non-character so I’ve hard time caring for him and his ending, whatever he was meant to represent.
Meanwhile in Hakodate bay Tsukishima is desperately searching for Tsurumi’s body because he went into this believing Tsurumi would make good use of the land deed and the gold and doesn’t know what to do of his life without him.
People talk about Tsukishima’s redemption but, truth is, Tsukishima hasn’t changed in the slightest. He doesn’t regret murdering his father over nothing nor he regret what he did under Tsurumi, just that it didn’t work and that if Tsurumi is dead he won’t be able to continue working (=murdering) for Tsurumi’s goal. The only thing that’s different in Tsukishima is that now he also has a codependent relationship with Koito along with the codependent relationship he had with Tsurumi.
As for Koito… he didn’t redeem himself either. Even when he realized Tsurumi was using them he continued following him, claiming he would have issues with him solely if Tsurumi’s plan were to fail. He let the soldiers be slaughtered in Goryokaku and on the train, and worried solely about saving Tsukishima at the price of risking to sacrifice Tsurumi and his plan (Tsurumi had the land deed).
Neither Koito nor Tsukishima truly confronted with Tsurumi or denied him and his methods.
Ultimately all they got was salvation and absolution, as they survived and, afterward, thrived, not redemption. I was super invested in their arcs but this resolution… doesn’t quite feel as earned.
Anyway Koito remarks that it is their duty as soldiers to defend their nation even without the Ainu land deed and the gold even if Tsurumi isn’t there and… ah, yeah, Tsurumi in chap 270 painted their rebellion as a noble act for the protection of Japan, I forgot.
We moved from chap 31 which had him wanting to create a military government in which his soldier won’t waste their lives as a pencil-pushing officers sitting meaningless at their desk but stand tall as his elite guard and offer salvation to their relatives and to the people of Hokkaido in form of jobs in his weapon factory (and opium fields) to chap 270 in which he claimed his goal is for JAPAN to flourish by protecting it from Russia’s southward advancement… by taking personal possession of Hokkaido, developing it and then conquering the whole Manchuria (inner and outer) so that Vladivostok too would become Japanese.
Tsurumi’s oh so noble goal to conquer other nations for Japan’s benefit was stopped before he could start on the conquering part so Tsukishima and Koito has to CONTINUE DEFENDING THE NATION.
Hopefully this won’t mean they believe Japan has to go in full imperialistic mode and… and who am I kidding WW2 is not that far from this point in history.
Koito goes on claiming they will be tried as rebels by the government so they have the important duty to defend all those poor men who stuck with Tsurumi… not for the elite guard job, no that was retconned, they did it for the noble protection of Japan. Tsukishima wonders if they have a chance at winning, to which Koito remarks in order to do so, it’s essential he has someone exceptional as Tsukishima acting like his right-hand man.
Should they be punished? Hell, yeah, they were rebels, they acted independently from Central, wasted lives, bombed a prisons murdering inmates and guards, killed officers who weren’t agreeing with Tsurumi (Hanazawa, Wada) or blackmailed them (Yodogawa), or manipulated them into helping him (Koito senior), took personal possession of military weapons, cannoned Goryokaku and the land near Hakodate, used military fund to secretly buy weapons from Mister Thomas and planned to take possession of Hokkaido and start a war of invasion to take possession of Manchuria, just to give you a short overview of their best actions.
Their actions weren’t even moved by an attempt to criticize Central’s way to use soldiers as cannon fodder since that’s exactly what they had used the men attacking Goryokaku for or how they carried a war of aggression in the Russo Japanese war since they also want to carry a war of aggression. Their complain to Central is not on what he does, it’s that it’s not good enough at what it does so he couldn’t get reparation from Russia.
Japan should have just stripped them of their ranks and, in Koito’s case, of their titles and sent some of them to jail so that order would be reestablished. This would have served as an example to the Kwantung Army who would have maybe thought twice before going against Central, carrying out the assassination of the Manchurian Wardlord Zhang Zuolin, the Mukden incident and the subsequent invasion of Manchuria.
But since we know that those facts have to happen and that the insubordination of the Kwantung Army was rewarded rather than punished, it comes as no surprise that this won’t happen.
Actually Koito, like the classic elite rich boy he is, won’t even lose his rank and will rise to become the final commander of the 7th division. Not like Tsurumi who had his promotion stunted because, allegedly, his horse kicked a kid that got too close to it, killing him.
Tsukishima, Tsurumi’s right hand and Wada’s murderer (among other things) will continue serving Koito as his devoted (and codependent) right-hand man.
There’s no mention of the soldiers’ fate but, I bet, they faced no repercussion either even though when Japan rewarded the Kwantung Army it was because the latter took possession of Manchukuo. It’s not like the 7th accomplished anything beyond wasting men and resources. They didn’t even manage to retrieve the land deed.
We’ve no info about survivors among Sofia’s men besides Mansur. Evidently the 7th slaughtered them all. Because they’re good, patriotic boys and it was all Sofia’s men’s fault.
Back to Asirpa we go and to how she decided SHE will keep their culture from vanishing by passing it down to the new Ainu and, in order to do so she’ll go back to Karafuto and meet other minority ethnic groups beyond Karafuto. Because she won’t have her hands full with just saving Ainu culture and because travelling back then didn’t take months.
But okay, I appreciate her efforts and her dedication to her goal, I just wish she wasn’t just ‘I’ll do it’ but tried to work with other Ainu on this. Instead we’re told she’s the one who spent her whole life continuing to negotiate with the government. Ariko didn’t come back to help her in this as he’s not even mentioned in the epilogue and we know Kirawus went in America.
Overall, in a way, the Ainu as a whole are one of the big absents from a story about their gold and their cultural salvation. Everything is entrusted to Asirpa, there’s no mention of other Ainu helping her or deciding on their lives along her. Kirawus, as far as we know, is the only Ainu who had a small role in the fight at Goryokaku. To ensure the Ainu could use that land deed we saw plenty of Wajin and Russians die, but Ainu hardly had a role in all that.
Sure, this is a story about Wajin for Wajin and it wouldn’t have looked good if the 7th has slaughtered not Russians but Ainu but still it’s kind of sad.
Anyway supposedly part of the land covered in the land deed (not even all!) was converted in national or quasi-national parks so this allowed the Kamuy to survive so it’s all well what ends well… so it’s kind of sad to think that same land was converted in national or quasi-national parks even in our world without the land deed. I mean, I get Noda might have tried to return the story to the real trails of history but when you know the truth, it means having the land deed basically changed nothing for the Ainu. With it or without it, they got EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT. And this is sad.
The story moves to three years later.
Asirpa has grown up and is still with Sugimoto as she wanted. There’s no mention of Sugimoto having gotten a wife for himself or Asirpa liking someone else that’s not Sugimoto. They has captured squirrels and they’re going to bring them to Huci, so they supposedly live together with her and Sakamoto and O-gin’s kid who never got a name (same as Osoma’s mother).
Huci’s prediction she would never see Asirpa again didn’t come to pass but who cares, no one probably remembers it, even Asirpa has stopped worrying about it post Abashiri.
Osoma informs them that a letter came for them and it turns out it’s from Shiraishi. The letter is completely blank but inside the envelope there’s a gold coin depicting king Shiraishi Yoshitake I. We’re told Shiraishi basically stole all the gold and used it to fulfill what was Boutarou’s dream. From the Burmese writing on the coin we can assume Shiraishi is now the king of an island in Burma.
And hey, I’m delighted for Shiraishi, he’s one of my absolutely fave but… but that was the Ainu gold. Okay, Asirpa, a kid, said they didn’t need it but again, Asirpa wasn’t the exclusive owner and she was a kid at the time. What if growing up she were to realize that wasn’t such a bright idea?
But the story doesn’t criticize at all the fact Shiraishi didn’t consider this and just accepted Asirpa gave up on the ownership of the gold, no, we’re meant to assume Asirpa did the right choice giving up on all the gold so that Shiraishi could use it for himself, same as Sugimoto used the one he took for Umeko. Because the ‘golden kamuy’ is bad only depending on who is using it and what is his purpose.
So for the Ainu to want to use it is bad.
When they wanted to buy weapons the ship sunk. When they buy the land deed, the people they bought it from lost the war so they apparently couldn’t claim their prize nor tried to do so later and one of them did. When Wilk’s group also considered using it to form their own nation they slaughtered each other. Because for them to use it to try to free their land was bad and, as far as Asirpa is involved, it would never be good to them so better not to use it.
But for Shiraishi to use it to buy his own kingdom or for Sugimoto to use it to repay his debt to Toraji and make Umeko rich… well, that’s all right.
I really, really love Shiraishi, I’m very happy he got his kingdom and his place and his family and I’m glad Sugimoto could repay his debt and I’m happy Asirpa lived doing what she believed in (sort of, she also believed killing was wrong but then changed her mind but then never managed to kill someone because the only one person she tried to kill killed himself off) and I get this is a story about Wajin for Wajin (at the end of the book Noda says this is Sugimoto’s story, cutting Asirpa from the equation) but still…
Whatever.
So that’s the end and the other great absent from this story is Central, which had been looming into the distance as some sort of ‘big bad’ but never quite joined the actions and of which we only got some glimpses (Okuda, the fact both Kikuta and Ogata worked for it and that it should supposedly have come in Hokkaido after Kikuta’s death or that it should have supposedly punished the 7th but, probably didn’t and anyway Koito and Tsukishima faced no repercussions).
Not that I really cared about having Central in the story but… it still felt a waste to just have it loom in the distance but NEVER do anything. But whatever.
In the end this chapter, more than a final chapter, feels like an epilogue, giving us information about what happened after the end of the story.
It tried to end the story on a happy/hopeful mood while bringing it back into real history, with the surviving characters all getting what they wanted, hand waving whatever plagued them through the story and things going back to how they were in real history but that’s mostly all that there is to it.
There are no deep points to ponder or strong emotional bits, it relies on how we’ll be emotional on our own because it’s time to say goodbye to the characters, which is always sad and emotional per se.
That is unless you consider the part in which Asirpa learn Sugimoto now believed the place in which he can be happy, his home is with Asirpa. But since this strongly and suspiciously smells like a SugiRipa ending (although it’s vague enough you can tell yourself it’s not) and I think everyone knows I feared and LOATHED the idea the story could end up with a SugiRipa ending, the whole bit just didn’t work for me… but maybe it’s just me and I’ve probably annoyed you enough with my grievance about “Golden Kamuy”.
Thank you to everyone who remained with me till now and enjoyed my ramblings and theories, put up with my complains and contributed in making my experience in the fandom good.
Thank you also to all the people I didn’t indirectly interact with but that still contributed to the fandom and to my enjoyment of the story by making translations, scanlations, subs, sharing material and so on.
It was a long travel with plenty of great parts and I’m sad I couldn’t enjoy it all at its fullest till the end but I hope you had and that your experience was greater than mine.
Said all this, I’ll still be around for a while, probably make a post about my GK experience as a whole and then still be around to see how the volumes and the anime series will turn out but likely won’t be as active as I were in the past. I’ve some unfinished meta also but I don’t know if I’ll ever go about finishing them so I’m not promising anything.
So yeah, if you’re bugged by me, I remember banning this blog is the right solution as it’ll keep on existing for still a while longer.
Anyway, still thank you to you all for the great experience.
