Golden Kamuy vol. 22

In case anyone was wondering if I could actually review a volume of this series without waiting for a week’s worth of them to build up first, the answer is yes.  Yes I can.

With that out of the way, vol. 22 picks up immediately after the events of vol. 21 as now that Asirpa and Sugimoto have declared their intention to split from Tsurumi, they still have to get out of Odomari.  Their efforts in that regard are as thrilling as you’d expect based on mangaka Satoru Noda’s previous action scenes, and this is just one sustained burst of adrenaline that doesn’t really let up until Sugimoto jams a gun into a polar bear’s…  Well, let’s just say it’s an act as on-brand as you could ask for from this series.  By that point, you’re ready for the series to ease up on the throttle and maybe change gears towards something that doesn’t involve a major action setpiece.

Noda is only happy to oblige, though I’m not sure if the results will be to everyone’s liking.  As Asirpa, Sugimoto, and their companions make it further into Hokkaido, they come across a gold prospector and his family.  This in itself isn’t too odd, except for the fact that we’ve already seen someone like him being eaten by a bear.  While that same bear went on to eat another person, and then EXPLODE!  Then the bear starts coming for the main cast, except that they can’t find any trace of it when they come to look for it.  Meanwhile, the bear looks to have acquired a taste for the prospector’s family, and nobody notices this.

It’s not that “Golden Kamuy” hasn’t been strange before — remember the arc that involved the tattooed convict who couldn’t stop having sex with animals (and if you had forgotten about that part up until now, you’re welcome) — it’s just that said strangeness has been rooted in actual character behavior.  Noda tries messing with the reader’s perception of reality here, and I’d say the results are successful.  This is in the sense that I thought his storytelling skills had finally jumped the shark until I realized what was actually going on.  So if the mangaka does intend to try more experimental storytelling as the series approaches its end, I can only hope that subsequent attempts are just as entertaining as the one he delivers here.