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EP. REVIEW: Golden Kamuy

HolyR wrote:

I mean I think they do kill it for sustenance. They just raise it for a while so that there's more meat/fur on it when they do kill it. And yes, the ceremony stuff is kinda an "excuse" to feel good about killing the animal -- Asirpa touched on that in the ep. But they gotta survive so they gotta do it, and eventually it integrates itself into the their culture.

Would it make sense to raise a bear for sustenance? They almost exclusively eat stuff human can eat just fine so it just seems like you'd be wasting a lot of food for little return.

AholePony wrote:

Starting off with a war flashback and jumping into a native people's plight and..... Well I can't unsee our main character in this series as anime Kevin Costner. The parallels with the opening to Dances With Wolves (including a wolf cameo) are strong with this one.

Sugimoto isn't John Dunbar - not even close. (And I say that as someone who would probably put Dances With Wolves on my all-time Top 5 list.) And I don't in the slightest mean that deprecatingly. He's his own character, and the series is better for it.

Would it make sense to raise a bear for sustenance? They almost exclusively eat stuff human can eat just fine so it just seems like you'd be wasting a lot of food for little return.

Am I the only one not bothered by the CG? I know I'm biased because I like the manga, but it honestly doesn't bother me. I am loving the show and even think the comedy comes across better animated than in the manga.


Sugimoto may be his own character, but this story is undoubtedly inspired by Hollywood Westerns. From Sugimoto panning for gold to a girl seeking justice for her father's murder ([url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Grit_(2010_film)]True Grit[/url]). There are a lot of Western tropes in this show, is what I'm saying.

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A lot of Golden Kamuy's charm comes from its gruesome scenes and those scenes will be entirely lost here.

Really? You're saying that after the scene where the skin of the guy's face has been ripped off by the bear and just hanging there and the other guy is draped from the tree branches with his entrails dangling down?

^And showing that violence is necessary to fully "enjoy" the story? Personally, i still find the contrast between the serious and comedic bits fairly jarring, i don't think that would impprove if they showed even more graphic violence...

There is something that I do quite get, the bear is CG, yet the baby bear and wolf are hand-drawn. Is this because of the size of the bear or because of the fur?

Traditional communities like Asirpa's aren't tolerant of major deviations from the norm (they wouldn't maintain their traditions if they were), and Asirpa is not only a major deviation by their standards but also prides herself on being one. Hence she probably isn't considered marriage-worthy within her community, especially by older folk.

Combine that with everyone seeming to have a certain impression when Asirpa came back into the village with a man (false as it may have been) and it's not hard at all to understand the grandmother's train of thought. "Hey, this guy at least tolerates her, so he's a prospect."

^And showing that violence is necessary to fully "enjoy" the story? Personally, i still find the contrast between the serious and comedic bits fairly jarring, i don't think that would impprove if they showed even more graphic violence...

If you can't handle the comedy now, what will happen later when it goes completely off the rails and almost crosses over to parody?

Choices like Asirpa's grandma insisting that Sugimoto marry her granddaughter feel somewhat off, given how much Ainu assimilation was driven by Ainu women being forced to marry Japanese men. Asirpa's line about being a "new kind of Ainu woman" also rings hollow when we know the "modern era" she describes will result in the complete destruction of her culture. This could be the author's intent, of course, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable in the moment.