I feel like there must be a little voice inside Noda Satoru’s head, one that’s always whispering “No – go bigger!”  And at some point, Noda-sensei lost the ability to refuse the little voice’s orders.  The result is the second cour of Golden Kamuy – though in truth, things were already off the hook by the final episodes of the first.  It’s safe to say that all this is quite a bit different than what my preconceptions of this series were – not that it isn’t some of those things too, but the whole package sure came as a surprise.

Or who knows – maybe when all this started Noda said “Let’s take an Ainu girl, an Ainu impersonator, two guys from the Shinsengumi who were supposed to be dead for 30 years, an escape artist, an indestructible soldier, a human ox, three stuffed dead guys and a traitor and have them served a meal by a transvestite serial killer in a reproduction of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”.  Now – I just have to figure out how they all get there.”  The mind of the writer works in mysterious ways.

I pretty much had the feeling Edogai-kun wasn’t long for this world – that’s the fate of loonies like him in this mythology.  But he left quite an impression, that’s for sure.  Word spreads that someone is cooking up fake skins, and a bevy of dangerous people descend on Edogai’s house (which now contains a Lt. Tsurumi mock-up), where Edogai has just finished the five skins.  Ogata is the first to arrive, and he offs one of the guards, leaving only Sgt. Tsukishima to guard Edogai.  The taxidermist, bonkers as he is, has the sense to realize that he’s screwed if he sticks around and leaves, fleeing through the village in a polar bear pelt, just as Sugimoto and Shiraishi arrive on the scene.

That’s when things start to get wild.

I loved the whole sequence in the mines – starting with Edogai’s flight through town.  It’s straight-up adrenaline fueled action movie material – railcars, explosions, cave-ins…  It’s crazy stuff, but that’s pretty standard for GK at this point.  “Firedamp” (explosive gases, usually methane) is a constant danger in coal mines, so what happened here is not that unusual even if the timing and results are pretty spectacular.  They claim Edogai’s life – he sends Tsukishima off with the skins and a one-word message to Tsurumi and dies under a cave-in, his leg crushed.  Sugimoto and Shiraishi would be goners, too, but for the arrival of Ushiyama-san, who bashes in the barricade the townsfolk have built over the mine entrance to keep the fire from spreading (brutal, but probably realistic) and saves the itinerant pair.

This is one of those vintage Golden Kamuy moments, where the badass, larger-than-life figures are coming together and you know the sparks are going to fly.  Shiraishi is an ally of Chimpo-sensei’s team of course, though Sugimoto doesn’t know that.  It’s true that these people have a common foe in Tsurumi, but their goals long-term certainly seem irreconcilable.  Hijikata serves up some hard cheese before there’s even talk of a meal – “we can help each other for the moment, or we can kill each other right now.”  Sugimoto makes it clear, he’s after the truth about Asirpa’s father – and he’s clearly not shared his suspicions with her.

I love that all this was derailed by the rumbling of Asirpa’s belly.  And that a meal ends up being prepared by Ienaga, who poisoned countless people in the murder hotel.  And of course, that it ends up a da Vinci painting – it takes real balls to pull something like that off, but Noda obviously has those to spare.  With the fakes – and the key as to how to use them – now in Lt. Tsurumi’s hands, things are only to get more chaotic and crazier from here (if that’s even possible).  I’d say to buckle up, but I don’t think a HANS device and airbags would be enough for the ride we’re about to be taken on.