Golden Kamuy vol. 24

You know, if this volume represents the last we see of Tanigaki in this series… I’m cool with that.

Meanwhile, Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi are on the trail of another tattooed convict, Botaro the Pirate.  When they get word that a man with strange tattoos is working as a candy seller in a nearby town, they figure that could be him only to find something stranger and more sinister instead.  It isn’t until they get on a steamboat to Sapporo that they encounter the charmingly long-haired pirate and his crew.  That’s because Botaro is also looking for the gold, but he needs to pull another job before he can put his plans into effect.  It’s his bad luck that he decided to pull a job on the boat that Sugimoto and his friends were taking… along with a trigger-happy Clint Eastwood-looking mailman who’s not about to let ANYONE take the mail he’s carrying!

If that was all this volume had to offer, it’d still be a pretty solid offering of “Golden Kamuy” as it’s a well balanced slice of action, comedy, and story.  Once the story shifts to Sapporo, however, things take a turn for the strange.  Not just because mangaka Satoru Noda decides to invoke some of the Jack the Ripper mythos, but because he figured that the best way to distinguish it was through… a certain reproductive fluid.  To say more would be to spoil the wonderful… surprises that Usami’s crime scene investigation technique has to offer.  I’d worry that people might be grossed out by what the mangaka is doing here, but if you’ve made it this far into the series then you’re likely not going to bat an eye after the initial reveal.  All of this does have a purpose, as the volume ends with all of the major players in the story converging once again on a single location.  It’s bad news for the residents of Sapporo, but certainly good news for readers of this series.