OP: “NEVER SAY GOODBYE feat. Mummy-D“ by ALI

It freaks me out a little how it feels like the third season of Golden Kamuy just ended, but it was almost two years ago now.  That season was my #1 anime of 2020 by a wide margin, partly because 2020 sucked (all the more with pandemic delays), but also because it was just that good.  It’s a measure of how hype-packed this season is that this 4th season is barely being talked about generally despite GK’s significant commercial and critical success, and that even for me it’s been overshadowed a bit by the return of Mob Psycho 100.  But make no mistake, my expectations are high – this is one of two series this season I could easily see snagging the AotY slot for 2022.

The only damper on that expectation, really, is that we have a change in studio (from Geno to Brain’s Base) and director (from Nanba Hitoshi to Sugahara Shizutaka).  It’s not as if Geno is an impossibly high bar, but after the infamous CGI bear fiasco – and as the surprising success of the series pimped the budgets – they did just fine.  Nanba is a loss, a very experienced and capable helmsman who clearly grokked the material in a profound way.  But writer Takagi Noboru is back to provide continuity, and Sugahara is no neophyte himself (he directed the RIN-NE adaptation, which I rather liked).

In the end, that’s a lot of change to happen all at once, and I wasn’t especially impressed with the PV released several weeks ago.  But if this premiere spoke to anything from a production standpoint, it would be “continuity”.  To be honest I don’t think I would have suspected the changes if I hadn’t known about them going in.  The art and animation was very much of a piece with what we’re used to (and I absolutely loved the style of the ED sequence), and the tone – so utterly critical with this weird and wonderfully twisted masterpiece – was remarkably unchanged.

Continuity applies to the storyline, too, as it picks up literally right where Episode 36 left off.  I had to look back to refresh myself on a few names (this is a huge cast) and details, but just generally getting back into the narrative flow was easy peasy.  As I’ve said before, there’s nothing in the world like a Golden Kamuy episode.  This series is unique – the combination of brutality, crudeness, and absurdist comedy is like no other.  If Monty Python’s Flying Circus was an anime, it absolutely would be Golden Kamuy.

As we rejoin our heroes, they’re “Rushin’  Out of Russia”, just about to cross the border back into Japan.  But the trouble starts immediately, as they’re attacked by a sniper in a border town while Sugimoto is off buying miso for Asirpa.  Shiraishi is hit in the leg – an intentional move to try and lure the others out to help him – and it’s generally assumed that this must be Ogata, back for revenge.  But in fact it’s Vasily, the Russian sniper who had the memorable facedown with Ogata towards the beginning of Season 3 (and eventually came out on the losing end).  He’s just looking for Ogata, and assumes the others are still connected with him.

The humor starts immediately here, as Shiraishi’s attempts to lure the sled dogs over as cover are foiled by Enonoka, and instead of crows he gets a flock of cute sparrows.  Sugimoto’s presence has gone unnoticed by Vasily, who he tracks down to the house he’s using as cover (all the while assuming it’s Ogata).  Eventually the two of them wind up lying on the floor sharing cartoons – Vasily is a much better mangaka than Sugimoto – until Tsukishima arrives to translate.  There’s more than a language barrier at work here – Vasily’s face was so damaged by Ogata’s bullet that he seems unable to speak.  But he does steal a horse and follow the gang out of town, clearly believing (probably with good reason) they’re his best lead to Ogata.

Meanwhile, Hijikata and Ushiyama have disappeared, and Nagakura sends two men, the former warden Kadokura (Yasuhara Yoshito) and an Ainu tracker (if we’ve met him before I confess I’ve forgotten) to look for them.  As the two men were searching for another escaped prisoner (a former vet turned serial poisoner) with tattoos, Kadokura assumed they’ve been killed or disabled, and proceeds to tell his comrade all about his job in the prison examining the prisoner’s asshole to see if he was smuggling wolfsbane into his cell.  When informed that doing so would be fatal, he laments that he spent all that time examining the asshole for nothing.  If anything was ever a Golden Kamuy moment, that was it.

A lead comes from a fat kid (Yomiya Hina) on the ice (“Japan’s first figure skater!”), and the hunt is on.  Noda Satoru is unequalled at packing his story with utterly memorable sickos, and the latest to join the party is Sekiya Waichiriou (Kase Yasayuki).  His whole thing is using his poison to “test people’s luck“, on the premise that if they’re on the right path they’ll survive his games of Russian (well, Japanese but almost Russian) roulette.  And indeed it does seem he’s poisoned Ushiyama, and Hijikata too (unless he’s faking it) when he comes to search for him.  It’s only when Kadokura’s notoriously bad luck accidentally becomes good luck that he doesn’t succumb too.

All in all, it could hardly have been a more classic Golden Kamuy episode to start the season.  That would always have been a good thing, but it’s especially the case given the circumstances.  This season has been confirmed to run thirteen episodes, which will certainly be glorious but I don’t believe is long enough to complete the adaptation.  Whether that means a 5th season down the line or possibly going the movie route I guess we’ll find out soon enough, but for now I’m just going enjoy having this wonderful oddity back on our screens.  Golden Kamuy bows to no one.

ED: “Subete ga Soko ni Arimasu You ni. (すべてがそこにありますように。)” by THE SPELLBOUND