Golden Kamuy vol. 30

The Second Battle of Goryokaku got underway in the previous volume as this series reached its climax.  It was a great example of this title’s ability to mix intense action, compelling drama, and wacky humor as the stakes kept getting higher with each new twist.  It wasn’t enough that Tsurumi showed up at the site with a small army, but he also managed to bring in four ships to shell our protagonists from the sea.  Except that Hijikata’s former comrades had hidden a goddamn cannon on a small peninsula that allows his allied forces to get the drop on these ships.  With both sides giving as good as they’ve got, the only way for them to win is to get their hands on Asirpa’s deed to the Ainu land.  The catch being that only one of them wants the girl herself to make it out alive as well.

Being the penultimate volume of the series, vol. 30’s thrills are best experienced firsthand.  So you won’t get any specifics about them from me.  I can tell you to expect dismemberment, maiming, one character experiencing a loss of faith, another hoping to start a new Ainu legend about himself, a shocking reunion, and a whole lot of death.  Yes, several characters bite the dust in this volume in ways of varying dramatic intensity.  There are also a couple implied ones, and I’m also 90% sure that one of them is meant to be a fake-out, and 60% sure that the other is actually gone.

If this all sounds like vol. 30 ends without anything being resolved, you’d be absolutely right.  No effort is made to provide any kind of closure ahead of vol. 31 and everyone who reads this is likely to be as frustrated as I am that I can’t read that volume right now!  Which is to say that this is a VERY GOOD lead-in to the series finale and has me feeling pretty good that mangaka Satoru Noda is going to stick the landing in the end.  Publisher Viz Media also feels the same way – enough so that the final volume is going to cost $2 more than every volume before it.  It’s a dick move, to be sure, but one that I’m going to grin and bear because vol. 31 is likely to be good enough to justify its extra cost.