Golden Kamuy vol. 18

Hey everyone!  Remember that thing we did around eight months ago?  Well, we’re doing it again because I still need to learn how to manage my backlog better!

Early on in this volume, we learn a few important things:  That Sugimoto doesn’t want Asirpa to wind up becoming a murderer.  That the Ainu practice live burials of criminals.  That former chief guard Kadokura once had to inspect a man’s ass everyday (for no reason as it turns out).  And that Kadokura was also born under a bad star.  Only one of these things doesn’t factor into the storyline that dominates this volume’s first half as Kadokura and hanger-on Kiraushi have to match wits with a luck-obsessed tattooed convict who is holding Hijikata and Ushiyama captive.  This is very much a diversion from the next prison-break storyline that was being set up in the previous volume, but it’s definitely not a bad one.  Kadokura’s efforts to outwit the convict are ridiculous without ever fully departing reality and the story remains tense as a result.  Well, tense as any storyline that has a subplot about a kid making friends with a zombie can be.

All of this makes the storyline that follows seem a little wanting.  Things move back to the crew planning the prison break in a roundabout way as Kiroranke decides that now is that time to tell Asirpa about the time that he, her father Wilk, and Russian revolutionary Olga learned Japanese from a native speaker in Russia.  At first it has the feeling of unnecessary backstory as it’s not initially clear why we needed to learn this about the characters involved and why piling more tragedy onto them was necessary.  Then we learn who that Japanese man really is and it’s a genuine shock as it turns out that this guy was really a decent father and husband… before he became an absolute monster.

It’s a great “Everything is Connected” moment and would’ve been a fine point to end the volume on.  Except mangaka Satoru Noda decides to kick off the prison break at the end instead.  It doesn’t quite have the same thrill as the Abashiri breakout, but it does have a [REDACTED]  that’s waiting for everyone outside to ratchet up the tension nonetheless.