English Dub Review: Golden Kamuy “Cinematograph”

Overview

Sugimoto and Asirpa accidentally meet a rich filmmaker who is shooting in the Ainu culture in the Karafuto region. Asirpa uses this as a chance to shoot some popular Ainu folk tales that have been passed down orally through generations…

Our Take

Finally, the main group is the focus of this episode and has some great comedy and proper character development. Given that this is the early 20th Century, Silent films at the time were the closest humanity had achieved in filmmaking. Through all the laughs surrounding Director Asirpa making her unusual Ainu films involving penis jokes, we got some reminders that everything we’ve been leading towards is almost here.

The plan is, once they meet up with Lt. Tsurumi in a few weeks and combine their tattoo map skins with Asirpa’s potential knowledge, they’ll probably either find the gold or a major clue. But seeing Asirpa play the stereotypical director trying to get everyone to act out these weird stories gave me a good laugh even if she was very passionate about them. She also sees the possibility of how her culture can be preserved for future generations through filmmaking. However, a twist ending reveals to Asirpa something her father said to Sugimoto seconds before Ogata took him out at Season 2’s finale…

Overall, a passable episode. While arguably nothing major happened aside from a bunch of wacky penis jokes and an early attempt at documentary filmmaking. At the very least, we now get a point of contention between Sugimoto and Asirpa, as the latter wants to become the leader of the Ainu, which just so happens to be a predetermined fate that both her father and Kiroranke want, but Sugimoto is against that idea as it means that she’ll only encounter more danger in the future. Not only that, but she’s never met Lieutenant Tsurumi yet, and knowing Sugimoto, he’d want Asirpa away from a manipulative sadistic tool like Tsurumi, and it’s easy to side with Sugimoto in this scenario. Now one choice remains… Will Asirpa choose to become what Wilk and Kiroranke molded her to be? or will she forge her own path?