Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. So I’m looking at my calendar and see that I haven’t talked about Golden Kamuy in quite some so, here’s S4. I’ve talked about this series numerous times in the past and each time I do I praise the heck out of it. While I wouldn’t call this the best series I’ve seen, Golden Kamuy does everything right to be a good series. Good characters, interesting story, funny moments, good twists and reveals, and good action. When the biggest knock on the series is a poorly done CGI bear in the first episode you know you’re doing everything right. Following the success of the third season, Golden Kamuy returned in 2022 only to go on hiatus in the middle of its run. What the hell happened? Well one of the main members of the production staff unfortunately died. Apparently this was a big shock to the team that they stopped production all together and returned in 2023 to finish the anime. Let us continue down this windy road and take a look at Golden Kamuy S4.
Opening and Ending Theme
The fourth opening is “Never Say Goodbye” by Ali feat. Mummy-D. Man, this opening gets you hyped. This opening honestly feels like the final chapters of the series, but no, it’s just a standard opening. It sets the tone perfectly for the season as lines are drawn, sides are taken, and the final stretch of the race is approaching. Get hyped everyone.
For the ending we have “Subete ga Soko ni Arimasu You ni” by The Spellbound. In hindsight, this was one of my favorite endings of 2022/23. Much like the opening this song just sets the tone and perfectly matches this season. Next to Hibana, this is my favorite ending for the series.
Episodes 1-4
The season begins with a quick recap of last season’s episode (man looking back a lot of shit went down in that finale, https://youtu.be/rFeVfwDvTyM?si=CrMNTlsenR3FxeSd). We then see the group returning to the Japanese side of the island (seeing as how they’re probably wanted by the Russians) and stopping in Shisuka village to restock on supplies. They then get attacked by a sniper hiding in the buildings. At first, everyone thinks it’s Ogata but nope, it’s that Russian sniper from last season. He’s out for revenge and wants a rematch (Isis: The biggest disgrace a sniper can face is being alive after a duel). Sugimoto manages to sneak up from behind and take him down (scene here: https://youtu.be/Aj1j36Lc22Y?si=fthiFXeg6p-Q-eDO). The rest of the group shows up where they explain that Ogata isn’t with them anymore and they had nothing to do with the emperor’s assassination (at least on paper). He believes them and lets them go (scene here: https://youtu.be/eVSalo8Xj64?si=PdM6bY_DoN2wjxGK) but continues to follow them as he knows Ogata will reunite with them and that’ll be his best chance to get him. After that, we get to focus on Hijikata’s group who are after another one of the tattooed prisoners named Sekiya a former vet turned killer. While he’s not the strongest he is clever and well-versed in poisons. One of his favorite pastimes is testing the luck of people with poisons (wow, he was doing Jigsaw before Jigsaw existed). He managed to poison Hijikata and Ushiyama and bury them alive and now their fates lie in the hands of Kadokura (the corrupted jailer from the prison) and a new character named Kirawus who are searching for them near the lake.
Episode 2 starts with Ushiyama breaking out of his coffin. He’s still out of it and comes across a boy who makes him his servant and names him Pussy Monster (this series is amazing). As for Hijikata, he’s running out of air and Sekiya is willing to trade his location in exchange for the tattooed skins. Kadokura goes to the hand off where it fails just like he wanted it to. Sekiya runs away where the plan will be for Kirawus to follow him back to his hideout to rescue Hijikata. Unfortunately, Ushiyama pops up having regained his senses after falling into the lake. Apparently, the boy realized how dangerous he was and decided to get rid of him (good God kid that’s the sign of a psychopath). Sekiya manages to escape but Kadokura managed to find his hideout and demands the return of Hijikata. Sekiya wants to test his luck and sets up a game. The two will eat pallets to see if it’s poison or not. If Kadokura wins, Sekiya will tell him where Hijikata is. If Sekiya wins, Kadokura will die but he’ll save Hijikata (it’s a win either way for Hijikata). They eat their pallets where as they wait for the effects to set in Sekiya talks about his past. He’s was a Christian and had a child, but one day they were both struck by lightning. Sekiya survived but his daughter died and he didn’t know how to process any of this (survivor’s guilt). Why was he allowed to live while his daughter died? Is “luck” the will of God? If someone as awful as him is allowed to live does that mean, there is no God? The effects of the pallets start to kick in where Kadokura ingested poison meaning he lost. Sekiya goes to dig up Hijikata where Hijikata attacks him and manages to kill him. It turns out that when Hijikata ingested the poison he took another one to counter the first one to make it less deadly. As for Kadokura. Deciding to accept his death, he eats another pallet to die quicker but it turns out the poison in that pallet counters the first poison he took saving his life. Sekiya sees all of this as a miracle meaning God is real and he’s finally been judged.
In episode 3 we start off in Noboribetsu. In the past, it was Hokkaido’s largest hot springs area. We see members of the 7th division relaxing in the hot springs where one member named Kikuta tells them the story about seeing a strange man in the mountains. Nobody believes him, but Kikuta wanting to get back in the good graces of Tsurumi goes to investigate where we see the strange man was Toni and his gang (the blind criminals return. They were a highlight for me in the second season). Hijikata sent them to spy on the 7th division, but now that Toni’s been seen their cover will be blown. Toni sets up a trap for Kikuta at night, but Kikuta came prepared (using an old pirate eyepatch trick) and see them in the dark. Toni and his men retreat into the valley of sulfur where Kikuta manages to kill one of them and the other members of the 7th division appear. It turns out they caught on to Toni and came to stake out the hot springs to catch him. It soon comes down to just Toni who hides in a cave only to escape out the other end, but he got wounded in the arm. Ariko, another soldier of the 7th Division takes over the hunt as he’s familiar with these mountains and manages to lead Toni into a trap where he triggers an avalanche (oh that’s brilliant). Toni dies and after four days, Kikuta heads up into the mountains to search for Ariko where he already skinned Toni and has secured the tattoo.
Episode 4 tells us the backstory of Tsurumi and Koito. As a kid, Koito was spoiled until one day he met Tsurumi who beat him in a duel and smacked him becoming the first person to beat as well as hit him (sometimes that’s all a kid needs to stop being spoiled). We find out that Koito had an older brother who died at sea after his ship was hit by a missile and his dad began looking at Koito differently. This caused Koito to develop a complex into believing that his dad didn’t see him as a worthy successor to the family name. Years later, Koito was kidnapped by Russian sailors who want his dad to move some boats which will open the Japanese port up to Russian attacks. Tsurumi gets called in to assist with this situation. Once they trace the call back to an abandoned army base, Koito’s dad and Tsurumi race there (where the anime reminds you that this is a comedy. Scene here: https://youtu.be/j8NQBD9w4t4?si=k1GZfn0NTNiPLqCK). Koito’s dad distracts the sailors while Tsurumi sneaks in from behind and kills them. After this, Koito saw Tsurumi as a god. He stopped going to navy school and switched over to army school all for the chance to work under Tsurumi. As if that wasn’t crazy enough, it was hinted that Tsurumi orchestrated this whole kidnapping as a means to turn Koito into his loyal follower (and what better way to earn someone’s loyalty than by saving their life).
Episodes 5-8
In episode 5 we return to Sugimoto and the others who are in Toyohara. They’ve received orders from Tsurumi to remain in the town until he arrives in two weeks. During this time Sugimoto and Asirpa come across some filmmakers hoping to capture the Ainu culture and film it. Sugimoto convinces (or rather threatens) them to film an Ainu play with Asirpa as the director and her stories often centering around dicks (I’m beginning to think the Ainu were perverts. You think they would like Game of Thrones? The first seven seasons, obviously). The filmmakers also show them some Ainu footage from 10 years ago which features Wilk and Asirpa’s mom. Unfortunately, the film catches fire losing the footage forever (a common occurrence back then sadly). This then leads to a rather serious talk between Sugimoto and Asirpa where she’s starting to see that the only real way to protect her culture is to fight, but Sugimoto reveals to her that Wilk never gave her a choice in the matter as he’s been training her to be the leader of the Ainu and go to war. Sugimoto doesn’t want Asirpa to lose herself in the bloodshed like he did. He wants her to drop out of the gold race before it’s too late and she does something she’ll regret for the rest of her life.
Episode 6 gives us a shocking twist. Back in Noboribetsu Tsurumi has arrived with the skins he currently has. In a move that catches everyone off guard, we see Ariko betray the 7th and Toni is alive. We find out that one of the Ainu Nopperabo killed was Ariko’s father and Hijikata at some point made contact with Ariko and convinced him to side with him in order to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Ariko manages to steal all the skins and escapes into the mountains with Toni while the 7th are after them. However, it’s all a lie. In truth, Ariko has become a double agent working with Tsurumi and handing over the fake tattoos to Hijikata. However, Hijikata realizes that these skins are fake and knows Ariko is a spy. He plans to use all this information to his advantage. In the second half we focus on Sugimoto’s group where Ryu and Chikapasi have decided to stay on the island (one has found their calling in life and the other is in love). Koito finds out about the truth of his kidnapping and is kind of overjoyed that Tsurumi would go through so much to recruit him to his side (his man crush is insane yet admirable). Meanwhile, Yoshitake gets in Sugimoto’s face about the way he’s treating Asirpa and how he’s gone soft on them (I agree, you have gone soft. When was the last time you went berserk on somebody).
In episode 7 Asirpa and Tsurumi finally come face to face and it’s a very intense scene (Tsurumi has come face to face with the child of the man who caused the death of his family. You can tell he’s doing everything in his power not to pick Asirpa up and strangle the girl. He knows that if he loses Asirpa he loses the gold). Tsurumi wants to separate Asirpa from Sugimoto and lock her up against her will but Asirpa refuses to go anywhere with him unless he makes his intentions clear to use the gold for the Ainu. Tsurumi is fighting so hard to keep it together but is slowly losing it (so much that he’s leaking fluids from his head. It’s disgusting). Seeing the writing on the wall, Sugimoto and Asirpa make an escape where the conflict they’ve been having these last few episodes gets resolved and they decide to find the gold themselves. The two plan to escape on the ferry but with the 7th division all around town escape will be difficult. Sugimoto gets shot a few times which makes him go into berserk mode and he gets back up to fight (scene here: https://youtu.be/-J14fyf2S24?si=SroYKsXnQMIgUh18. When will they learn? He’s immortal. (Neo): And you thought he was going soft). With the help of the Russian sniper (who I’m going to call Hood because that’s what they call him), they make it to the ferry with Yoshitake and tell Tanigaki to stay behind for Inkarmat’s sake. They board the ferry but Tsurumi is right behind them in a faster ship. In order to protect the ferry, they abandon the ship and walk on the floating icebergs where they eventually get found by some Ainus. We also see the return of Ogata.
Episode 8 is a fever dream episode (while not as crazy as the one in Samurai Champloo or as subtle as the one in Cowboy Bebop it’s pretty out there. I’ll just say it’s down the middle). The episode focuses on a guy named Heita who Sugimoto and the others befriend as they look for platinum in the river (which at the time was starting to become more valuable than gold. I mean it’s obviously more valuable than gold but at the time we didn’t know that, we thought gold was king). As they search, they see Heita’s relatives as well as a bear who Heita claims is stalking them. Asirpa searches the area and finds no trace of the bear at all and things only get stranger as the group hunts for the bear and finds nothing at all. As the episode goes on it gets revealed that Heita is one of the tattooed prisoners and suffers from multiple personality disorder. When Heita was a kid a bear came and killed his family. He was saved by an Ainu who killed the bear but the event was so traumatizing that it scarred him for life. He soon developed multiple personalities with one of them being the bear who was the strongest of his personalities. The bear would take over his mind and kill people before exploding and splitting itself into multiple personalities that would slowly merge to create the bear again (what in the world was the author smoking when he wrote this? Is this a thing in Japan? Does every manga author have to write one batshit insane chapter to see if their editors will approve it?). When Heita attacks Sugimoto and the others they manage to fend him off and he leads them to a bear trap where he allows himself to get hit by a poison arrow that kills him. Heita was fully aware of his bear persona and wanted to kill himself to stop the madness. He thanks them for their help and finally dies.
Episodes 9-13
We begin episode 9 with them dropping a major bomb on us, Inkarmat is pregnant with Tanigaki’s child (what! When did you two do the deed? Congratulations and all but when did this happen? Oh yeah, the drug moment in season 2). With the news of his child, Tanigaki is now forced to bring back Asirpa or lose them both. Returning back to Sugimoto and the others, Yoshitake believes that the gold might be buried in the lakes of Hokkaido. Apparently, Heita and another prisoner named Botaro the pirate were investigating the lakes believing that Wilk hid it there. Sugimoto says that if they go to the lakes they might find Botaro. After this, we focus on Hijitaka’s group who are investigating a string of murders in Sapporo. Someone has been going around killing prostitutes (a Japanese version of Jack the Ripper. I’m not kidding, they make the reference later on) and they believe it’s a prisoner as this was his MO. Tsurumi hears about the murders and sends Kikuta and another soldier named Usami to investigate. Usami is another one of Tsurumi’s loyal soldiers. In fact, he’s probably the most dangerous of the bunch we’ve seen so far. Why? Because he was the one who showed Tsurumi that the way to win the loyalty of his soldiers is with love. As a kid Usami loved Tsurumi. So much so that when his best friend was stealing his time with Tsurumi he killed him right outside the very dojo they went to. So the reason Tsurumi uses this fake love on his soldiers is to get them to be loyal to him and do whatever he asks (because a person will do anything and everything for the one they love).
Episode 10 is a thrilling episode. It starts with them confirming that Inkarmat is in fact pregnant and is due any day now. Tanigaki is able to find her thanks to a postcard she sent him (wow, postcards were awesome back then). With the help of Ienaga they’re able to escape and he even sacrifices his life in the process (saved by an insane cannibal. How ironic). Unfortunately for the two lovebirds, Hajime is hot on their trail and follows them all the way back to Asirpa’s village where he’s prepared to kill them but Koito stops him. Koito developed an offscreen friendship with Inkarmat and doesn’t believe Tsurumi would sacrifice the lives of innocent citizens just to reach his own ambition (. . .honestly at this point I can’t get a beat on the guy. I don’t know whether he’s the most brilliant military man I’ve seen in anime or an insane sociopath out for revenge). Koito manages to convince Hajime to let them go and Inkarmat gives birth to a healthy baby boy. After a week, Tanigaki and Inkarmat head south to escape the gold hunt with Koito and Hajime pretending they never saw them.
In the first half of episode 11 nothing much really happens. We see members of the 7th and Hijikata’s team make it to Sapporo to begin the manhunt for the prisoner. Things pick up in the second half as Sugimoto’s group ride a steamboat only to have it commandeered by Botaro (who in all honesty has a fun personality). While Sugimoto fights Botaro, the other pirates get shot at by a crazed mailman (who is having the time of his life) who unknowingly keeps missing them and the pirates instead get shot by Hood. In order to save his life, Asirpa kicks him off the boat and Yoshitake gets Sugimoto to stop fighting and talk to Botaro to get information out of him. Botaro reveals that the tattoos might be worthless now, so he gave up on trying to skin everyone and just started looking for the gold in the various lakes because he’s a good swimmer. He offers to team up with them to find the gold, but Sugimoto says no and Botaro takes his leave. We also get to learn about Sugimoto’s past. We find out that he loss his dad to tuberculosis as well as the rest of his family. Not wanting him to suffer the same fate, Sugimoto’s dad told him to leave and live his life, but Sugimoto couldn’t bare to let his dad suffer alone and chose to stay by his side until the end saying he’ll become immortal and not catch the disease (so this is his sad origin story. Quite touching).
Things get bizarre in episode 12 (in other words, it’s a funny episode). We start off with Sugimoto fighting against Botaro after he went through their baggage and figured out they were looking for him. Botaro tries to drown Sugimoto with Yoshitake attempting to save him, but Sugimoto says F that (he’d rather drown than kiss Yoshitake). Sugimoto manages to save himself thanks to a school of fish and even saves Botaro from getting every bone in his body broken by the wheel of the boat. After catching Botaro, Sugimoto says they’re going to continue collecting the skins and working with Botaro because his intuition is telling him that this is the right move. Botaro agrees to work with them and thinks Sugimoto and Asirpa might have a thing for each other (God, I hope not. They work better as friends and partners). In the second half, we return to Sapporo where Kikuta and Usami are trying to find the murderer. Usami manages to find a clue by jerking off (yeah, you read my words, he finds a clue by jerking off. I couldn’t make this up even if I wanted to). It turns out the murderer revisited the sight of the murder and jerked off. Usami found the murderer’s sperm and believes they’ll appear tonight. Sure enough, they find the murderer. . jacking it (what am I watching?) and he has a sperm battle with Usami (how did the author get away with this scene?). The murderer unfortunately escapes after shooting another load on Kikuta’s face and we find out he killed two prostitutes. The next morning while investigating the bodies, Kikuta spots Ariko in disguise, where we see he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. Nobody trusts him and has no idea what to do. Kikuta says to join up with him. He reveals that he’s an agent of the government who was sent to kill Tsurami after he found the gold.
In the final episode not much really happens. It’s the final episode and there’s no loose ends to tie up this season as the previous ones. The good news is they announce that the series has been greenlit for one more season which will cover the final parts of the manga. Many were shocked by this because outside of Japan this series isn’t really all that popular, but you have to remember, Japan really doesn’t care all that much about the audience outside of Japan. Don’t get me wrong, if a series does achieve global popularity then they’re more than happy to milk it for all it’s worth. However, their number one priority has always been to satisfy their Japanese audience. Their home audience. The place they know the most and where they can make the most bucks. It’s no different than an American show being more focused on what the American audience thinks rather than their international audience.
Final Thoughts
This season of Golden Kamuy sees the band back together and drawing a line in the sand on who they can trust, which side they’re on, and how they plan to accomplish their goal. The members of the 7th division are the stars this season as we learn so much about them and their dedication to Tsurumi. Seeing how he manipulated everyone to be his loyal soldier is great and makes you wonder if he sees his men as fellow soldiers who didn’t get what they deserved or just his pawns to achieve his ultimate goal. You can make an argument for which one is right and that’s what makes him such a great antagonist to this series. I was happy to see Tanigaki reunite with Inkarmat and her give a successful birth to his baby. Them dropping out of the hunt was the right choice as their story is completed and there isn’t much you can do with them from here.
The animation is still good and I do like Hood joining their ranks. Despite not talking, they do a good job of getting some comedic moments out of him. I’m looking forward to his rematch with Ogata in the next season. Near the end I do like how Sugimoto confirms that his goal is still to help the wife of his best friend and not use the gold for his own personal gain like everyone else. Asirpa also seems like she’s found her goal as well in all this and plans on using the gold to benefit her people her way. A way that doesn’t involve violence and sending people to their death.
Final Score
The final score for Golden Kamuy is a 7/10. A lot of moving parts and character focus this season which I like and I think if you liked the previous you’ll like this season as well. With the final season set to come out, I’m both excited and sad to see it end. But I’m also happy it was able to tell its story from beginning to end and not stop like other animes out there. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.