Golden Kamuy

Golden Kamuy is an adventure series based on a manga by Satoru Noda. It ran in Weekly Young Jump from 2014 to 2022, and it won two of Japan's biggest comic prizes: the Manga Taisho award in 2016 and the grand prize of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2018. Geno Studio made the first anime season, directed by Hitoshi Nanba. It ran for 12 episodes starting in April 2018, and more seasons followed. The word "kamuy" comes from the Ainu language and means a spirit or god.

The story takes place around the early 1900s in Hokkaido, the large, cold island in the far north of Japan. Japan has just fought a war with Russia. Many soldiers have come home tired, poor and hurt. Hokkaido at this time is a wild place of snowy forests, bears, wolves, gold miners and outlaws. It is also the homeland of the Ainu, the native people of northern Japan, who have their own language, beliefs and way of life.

The hero is Saichi Sugimoto, a former soldier. In the war, he was so hard to kill that others called him "Sugimoto the Immortal." Now he is panning for gold because he needs money to keep a promise to a friend who died. One day he hears a strange tale from a drunk old man. Years ago, someone stole a huge amount of gold from the Ainu and hid it. The thief was caught and sent to prison. Before he could be moved, he tattooed parts of a secret map onto the bodies of other prisoners. Then those prisoners escaped. To find the gold, you would need to find every one of them and read the marks on their skin.

Sugimoto soon learns the story is true. When he is attacked by a bear in the snow, he is saved by Asirpa, a young Ainu girl who is an expert hunter. Her father was one of the men connected to the gold. The two decide to work together. Sugimoto wants money; Asirpa wants to learn the truth about her father. Along the way they meet Yoshitake Shiraishi, a funny, clumsy escape artist who is also one of the tattooed prisoners.

They are not the only ones looking. First Lieutenant Tsurumi, a frightening officer from the army's 7th Division, wants the gold for his own plans. So does Toshizo Hijikata, a famous old swordsman from Japanese history, who is somehow still alive and still fighting. Every group will kill to win.

The show mixes a lot of different moods. There are bloody fights, tense hunts and survival in the cold. But there is also a lot of odd, silly comedy. One big part of the story is food. Asirpa teaches Sugimoto how to hunt, cook and eat in the Ainu way, and these scenes are both fun and educational. The creators worked with an expert in the Ainu language, Hiroshi Nakagawa, so the culture is shown with care and respect.

Golden Kamuy is a great pick for anyone who likes history, action, treasure hunts and strange, memorable characters.