Golden Kamuy Final Season

Episode 61

Okay, NOW we're talkin'!!! While the previous episode of Golden Kamuy struggled to depict the scope of a multi-pronged attack on a military fort, the twelfth episode of the anime's fifth season trades scale for intensity and expertly jumps between characters we've come to love (or love to hate) as the battle unfolds. While the result still has some rough animation and regularly uses still frames with action lines as a shortcut, this episode is so much more evocative than the prior and expertly sets up the finale.

Beginning with a monologue from Ogata, whose false eye remains a terrific visual representation of his emotional detachment, the episode begins with Lt. Tsurumi's men penetrating one of Fort Goryokaku's gates, and battles breaking out within the military base. While Hijikata notes that his side can win if enemies drip in slowly enough as to be picked off one by one, but gremlin-man and perpetual wild card Nikaidou prove that chaos is the only guarantee on a battlefield by raining down grenades after singularly sneaking into an elevated position. Put on the back foot, Hijikata and his team are forced to retreat while leaving singular individuals to defend choke points, which is how the blind marksman Anji Toni meets his end.

I would be shocked if anyone said that Toni was their favorite character in Golden Kamuy. While his death scene was far more affecting in the manga, where a reader could take in this moment at their own pace, this scene was still damn affecting in the anime. Having the noise and violence suddenly fade away so that Toni can finally enjoy a moment of peace after complaining about excessive noise for much of the series was a great sendoff for this long-running supporting character. I honestly can't believe he stuck around for so long in a story where it feels like anyone can die at any time, and this successful close to his story makes me confident in the Golden Kamuy anime's ability to stick the rest of these landings.

It does again moments later with Nikaidou dying spectacularly in his final attempt to kill Sugimoto and avenge his brother's death! While the morphine addict has long been more of a source of comic relief or a tool for Tsurumi to use to his own ends than a multifaceted character, his getting even a false emotional resolution and thinking his own bisected face is his brother's is a better sendoff than most shows give even their main characters! Between moments like this and longstanding tensions like Koito's growing disillusionment with Tsurumi's grandeur finally coming to a head, I worry it might be a while before a series comes along that's this good at elevated and interesting character writing.

Bumping this episode from good to great, though, is just how much of an absolute FREAK Tsurumi is for much of it. Rotating between being overtly aroused by the violence unfolding around him and pursuing Asirpa with an almost Terminator-like focus and efficiency, we get our clearest look yet at just how warped and undignified he's become in pursuit of his grand revenge. While too exaggerated to feel like a real person, Tsurumi instead feels like a cautionary tale about what a seemingly justified obsession can do to a person, and it's nothing short of haunting to see on screen.

Golden Kamuy has long earned praise for depicting the fullness of the human experience within its story, and this episode is a non-stop deep dive into the best, worst, and weirdest parts of the human condition. I love it and hope the finale is just as spectacular.

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The immortal Lucas DeRuyter (no one's been able to kill him yet, at least!) is an entertainment writer with a focus on anime, video games, and other forms of niche media. A sampling of his past work is available on his portfolio and you can keep up with him on a weekly or daily basis by checking out ANN's This Week in Anime and his Bluesky account, respectively.

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Golden Kamuy Final Season is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.