Golden Kamuy vol. 6

While the main goal of Sugimoto and co. right now is to get to Asirpa’s father in Abashiri prison, this volume shows that the series is in no hurry to get there as it splits itself into two halves.  The first is about our group of protagonists and how they make their way to Sapporo and wind up staying at a hotel there. I know that doesn’t sound all that interesting, except that the hotel is home to one of the tattooed convicts who also happens to be a serial killer.  Oh, and the ultra-burly Tatsuma Ushiyama also shows up to make things more interesting. Take this highly combustible gathering of characters and put it in a hotel filled with secret passages and trap doors and the end result is some top-notch screwball kineticism and the best action the series has seen so far.  The only things dragging it down are that it does feel like something of a sideshow to the main story, and there’s some arguable transphobia attached to the killer’s motivations.

As for the second half, it takes things in a completely different direction as the series’ oldest badasses, Toshizo Hijikata and Shinpachi Nagakura, find themselves playing out a riff on “Yojimbo.”  If you’re not familiar with the film, it’s about a samurai who plays two warring gangs against each other to help free a town. Toshizo and Shinpachi’s motivations are far less pure as one of the town’s gangs has managed to get their hands on a tattooed convict skin and they’re looking for the fastest way to get their hands on it.  Especially after lone-wolf sniper Hyakunosuke Ogata shows up looking to claim the skin for himself.

The storyline gets by on the appeal of the concept rather than the strength of its execution.  While it’s fun to see Hijikata and Nagakura show that “aging gracefully” can also mean “still kicking ass and taking names after all these years” the story jumps around in a chaotic fashion that’s more distracting than involving.  There’s some solid action in these parts as well, but that chaos does diminish their appeal somewhat. Vol. 6’s back half at least makes a decent case for giving the series’ old-guy antagonists their own shot in the spotlight. Let’s hope for some sharper execution the next time it swings their way.