It’s pretty fitting that Golden Kamuy wrapped up on Christmas day, because this show was a gift to fans of quality anime in a year when we were mostly Grinched.  Among other things which I’ll get to in due course, this was a series that served as a reminder of why manga adaptations are complicated propositions.  It’s proved quite popular – much more so than I expected certainly – and under normal circumstances a third season would hardly have been out of the question.  But because the anime needed to reach a logical stopping point (and that it did seems inarguable to me), it burned through so much of the manga (and skipped parts that can’t be reinserted) that a sequel is an impossibility for quite a long time.

That’s a real shame for many reasons, two most obviously: it’s a great series, and the anime concluded with nothing close to a real ending.  But while the overall story is in flux, what the anime has been building towards for two seasons was certainly brought to a a definitive climax.  Answers were provided for some questions, and reminders given that when the stakes are as high as they are here, anyone with an agenda is not to be trusted.  And in this story, almost everyone has an agenda.

Things between Inudou and Hijikata ended more or less as you’d expect them to – though the old man had to use some trickery to make that happen.  He’s a bit of a sad case if you ask me – a classic ideologue, carrying his grudges with him into old age and sowing the seeds of his own destruction within them.  Both these man are bitter old fools still fighting the battles of the past – Hijikata is the better in combat, that’s all, so he lives to fight another day while Inudou does not.  And thanks to the secret stash of clues he and Ushiyama find, despite his Abashiri gambit having been foiled it may have been worth his blood and sweat.  And was that Anji Toni still alive we saw there at the end?

As for Nopperabo, there’s not a lot of beating about the bush here – he’s Asirpa’s father, that seems pretty certain.  He claims he wasn’t the one who killed the Ainu – whether that’s to be believed or not, I don’t know.  But to Sugimoto it doesn’t really matter, because Nopperabo is guilty of a greater sin – wanting to use his daughter as a weapon to fight for Ainu independence.  He doesn’t see it that way of course – and neither does Admiral Koito in his fascinating conversation with Sugimoto later in the episode – but to Sugimoto this is unforgivable.

Sugimoto is more Asirpa’s father than Nopperabo was at this point, I firmly believe that.  And her reaction when both are shot (by Ogata, natch) seems to indicate she feels that way too.  This desire of Sugimoto to give Asirpa a better life, to keep her from being drawn into the cycle of violence that’s consumed his life, is the heart of Golden Kamuy if anything is.  Good people being used is a recurring theme of this story, and Sugimoto is one of them.  And he’ll do anything to keep that from happening to Asirpa, but with Nopperabo’s death she’s more in danger of that than anyone else in Japan, probably.

As for Ogata, it seems he and Kiroanke were working together – which seemingly makes Inkarmat a truth-teller.  But to be honest I don’t trust her either, and the way she acted after being accidentally stabbed by Kiroanke was highly suspicious indeed, as if she was staging something.  Kiroanke’s motivation seems to be that he wants Ainu independence too, and thought Nopperabo had gone soft.  But what does Ogata want, exactly?  It seems pretty clear he doesn’t have any real allies, just partners of fleeting convenience.  That these two represent a fourth competing interest here is confirmed – but in truth it may be a fourth and fifth, and Inkarmat may even be a sixth.

It’s a shame that Nopperabo was killed just on the cusp of reuniting with Asirpa (and revealing where the gold was, of course), because for all his sins it’s clear he feels something for her.  And she certainly does for him, even if Sugimoto has assumed his role in her life, and speaking with Nopperabo could have brought Asirpa some closure she desperately needed.  As it is Asirpa and Sugimoto are separated and Sugimoto for all Asirpa knows is dead – though he comes to her in a vision and she believes it to be the truth.

As Kiroanke and Ogata (and Shiraishi) travel north with Asirpa in tow, Sugimoto is recovering from a bullet wound to the brain, thanks to the tender mercies of Golden Kamuy’s own Hannibal Lecter (heck, we got a Scarface homage from Tsurumi, too).  This new partnership between Sugimoto and Tsurumi is obviously a marriage of convenience since both have the same short-term goal, but then most alliances in Golden Kamuy meet that description.  He and Tanigaki go off with both Koitos to search for Asirpa, leaving the wounded Inkarmat behind.  We could still use that scorecard, but the players seem clear enough for now – until their goals change again, and allies become enemies and vice-versa.

Golden Kamuy certainly accomplished an awful lot in 24 episodes.  It told a tremendous amount of story, yes, but while it often felt breathlessly frenetic it never felt rushed – and there is a difference.  While the anime’s pacing may have negatively impacted prospects for another season anytime soon I don’t think it negatively impacted the anime itself.  The reason this breakneck approach worked, in addition to generally brilliant storytelling, is the tremendous depth of importance each character in this cast takes on.  All of them command the series when they’re at the center of it, turning it into their story, and that makes all of them remarkably indelible.

I’m extremely gratified that Golden Kamuy wound up being as popular as it has been.  This is high literature as pulp, a story of tremendous depth and complexity told with juvenile humor and unapologetic goofiness.  It’s a story that need to be told, yes – the Ainu deserver no less, and their depiction here is fascinating and compelling.  But as is usually the case it’s the characters who turn a good and important series into an outstanding one.  Highbrow and lowbrow, education and entertainment, violence and quiet grace – few anime thrive in contradiction the way this series does.  May its (relative) success be a lesson to production committees that there’s still an audience for challenging and mold-breaking anime – as long as they’re really, really good.