English Dub Review: Golden Kamuy “Kamuy Mosir”

CGI bears are back.

Overview:

Sugimoto and Asirpa are hunted by the army yet again.

Our Take:

The Division pursues the two again and gives them an intensely hard time. It’s clear that the hunt for gold isn’t going to be a quiet one, with the criminals and the army coming after them. Instead of just one member, it’s four, and they have the terrain advantage.

The leader of the Division, Tsurumi, is a character himself. He fought in the Sino-Japanese War as well and suffered an injury that made him lose part of his brain. This makes him increasingly instable, as his first introduction features him biting the fingers off a man who is attempting to reprimand him. Despite this, he clearly has a handle on his men, as the soldiers under him go into battle with unquestioning loyalty. He’s not a fool by any means and is likely to be a threat to Sugimoto and Asirpa from now on.

In battle, Sugimoto and Asirpa both show their strengths. Sugimoto takes the information that Asirpa gave him before about the bear nests and uses that to his advantage. Instead of having to fight off three men, Sugimoto goads the bear into attacking for him. While he didn’t fully understand what Asirpa meant, he was able to improvise and come out victorious. Likewise, Asirpa uses her Ainu heritage to outsmart the soldier. The Japanese don’t expect the Ainu to be able to understand their language, so she feigns ignorance and behaves like someone would expect a girl her age too. She isn’t able to win, with the wolf coming to deliver the last blow, but she is still able to handle things mostly on her own. Both characters are very clever in their own rights.

We also learn more about Ainu culture. Asirpa takes Sugimoto back to her home village so that they can deliver the bear cub, and Sugimoto ends up being introduced to a variety of different things.  He, like most Japanese people of the time, are largely ignorant of Ainu culture, as it is so far removed from their own. Still, Sugimoto decides to take the time to converse and learn about Ainu traditions, which in turn lets us, the audience, learn. This is a rarity, especially in anime– I can only think of one or two examples of Ainu characters in anime, and their past is never really expanded upon. This is more than just a plot point, this is a detailed explanation that also allows us to understand where Asirpa came from and what she believes. It’s a good move, and I’m ready to learn more.