If orthodoxy is your thing, Golden Kamuy probably isn’t your thing.  This series just goes where it wants and does what it wants, when it wants.  All the more so in the anime, where manga chapters are frequently adapted out 0f order.  This is done mainly to give the adaptation a more cohesive narrative flow, and it worked brilliantly in Season 3.  It also has the impact, however, of making scene changes a bit random at times.  And this season has been an example of that to an extent.  I don’t mind it – that randomness is a big part of the series’ charm.

This time the wheel spins to Noboribetsu, the famous (even then) onsen area that’s now a national park.  It’s a festival of larger-than-life Noda bros, both old and new.  In the days of the Russo-Japanese War the wounded were often sent to Noboribetsu to recuperate, and two of Tsurumi’s stalwarts are there – the abuse-freak Usami and Nikaidou.  Joining them are two new entrants – Warrant Officer Kikuta Mokutarou (Horiuchi Kenyuu) and Ainu private Ariko Rikimatsu (Mizunaka Masaaki).  Seriously, Noda’s well just never seems to run dry with these guys.

There’s the usual GK freakshow here – guys doing strange and unseemly things with onsen water and such – but another turn in the plot, too.  A figure from way back in S2 turns up – Anji Toni, the blind thief from Abashiri who uses echolocation to “see”.  He’s now working for the Hijikata group, apparently, and he and his allies (posing as masseurs at the hot spring) plan to bump off Tsurumi’s men after Toni lets himself be spotted (by Ariko) at a remote spring higher up the mountain.  Kikuta is obviously a very sharp cookie, and senses opportunity here – something is off with the man with the strangely-patterned clothing Akito saw running through the darkness at night, making the sound of geta but leaving the tracks of straw snow boots.

The politics are pretty complicated here.  Kikuta acts as if he’s fallen out of Tsurumi’s good graces for some reason.  And Nikaidou and Usami, while theoretically his allies, have designs on stealing this prize for themselves.  The key to the whole incident, it seems to me, is everyone underestimating Kikuta (and Ariko).  The two of them go off to hunt for the stranger in the dark, and Kikuta uses what’s purported to be an old pirate’s trick – using an eyepatch to give himself instant night vision (Mythbusters tested it, it really works).  Anji is shocked that his enemy can see in the dark just as well as he can, and another memorable Golden Kamuy showdown ensues on the mountainside.

Noda manages to slip some more cool local knowledge by making hyojun – ice stalactites – a crucial plot point.  After leading the others into an abandoned mine Anji uses them to track the movement of his opponents, managing to wound Usami in the leg.  Kikuta and Ariko are too cagy to be caught that way, though, and eventually Ariko tells Kikuta that he has an idea to take out the enemy, having grown up on this mountain.  He lets Anji track him by making intentional branch-breaking noises, and lures him to an avalanche-prone spot, where he sets one off using his rifle.  “I lose”, indeed  – and it’s Kikuta who’s the one claiming the prize.

We’re seeing a trend emerge more and more as hunt for the gold gets more and more ragged and bestial.  The mainlanders really shouldn’t be messing with the locals, because the Ainu are serious badasses.  They’re smart, fearless, and tough as nails.  And they know the land – what will kill you if you let it, and what to use to kill you if they need to.  I think Tsurumi and Hijikata realize this on some level  – but perhaps not to the extent that Sugimoto does, having experienced the ways of the Ainu so intimately for so long.  The others may grudgingly respect the Ainu and see them as useful tools in this race, but Sugimoto is the one that sees them as the gold’s rightful owners.  I can’t help but think that will prove crucial in the end.

Yes, we did get a bit of Team Sugimoto at last here.   And while it gives us a tease of what’s to come – a barchonak (“foolish rich kid” in Russian, though who we’re not told yet) story – mostly it’s an excuse for more bizarre Noda antics.  “Granny dumplings” (I have heard about these, and I confess I want to puke just at the thought oft it), which have the effect of making Sugimoto and Shiraishi instantly blotto.  And leads to an image I absolutely didn’t need to see, thank you very much…