English Dub Review: Golden Kamuy “Hunter’s Soul”

Wolf hunt.

Overview:

Someone is out gunning for Retar.

Our Take:

Most importantly, this episode features very heavily in dealing with the past and the consequences of such.

Sugimoto claims to be immortal, but he isn’t unstoppable. He still suffers flashbacks from the war, and as capable as he is as an agent of violence, he isn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of being only a killer. He cares a lot for Asirpa, and does have a sense of humor, but that doesn’t stop him from being as ruthless as possible on the battlefield. Upon seeing the deer charge at him, he sees that it’s fighting despite its inevitable death and sees himself within that deer.

He has a purpose now in finding the tattoos, but that doesn’t change his self-image. To him, the deer is still fighting even as it has no energy to stand. It keeps going because it has to, not because it has any vitality. Those same fears are ones he entertains to himself often, as he asks Asirpa when they both get drunk with Shiraishi, he knows he’s going to die one of these days. When he finally does, he hopes that at least Asirpa will remember him for being a person, not just the legend of the ‘Immortal Sugimoto’.

Tanigaki of the Seventh Division and Nihei, one of the prisoners have joined forces in their hunt for Retar. Just as Sugimoto is haunted by his past as a soldier, so is Tanigaki. Tanigaki used to belong to the Matagi clan, a clan of hunters in Hokkaido, but it seems that he can no longer return. Either the clan moved on, or he was kicked out of the clan for some reason. Regardless, he has lost his home and therefore a place to be, and joined the army to fill that void. The violence he experienced on the battlefield is different than the violence of the hunt, and so Tanigaki admits that he lost part of himself in the war. While he was part of the Seventh Division, he believed in duty, but he also has a duty to himself. He decides to throw that into the ring in the wolf hunt, and discards his past self by tossing his cap into the fire.

Both sides are sympathetic, but in the end, it’s Tanigaki and Nihei that are gunning for Retar. In that sense, we know which side we have to cheer on.

Score
8.0/10