Golden Kamuy
> I started reading Golden Kamuy on an impulse, and I was really impressed! It's incredibly interesting and I love the characters and artwork.
my gk tag
i love how quickly Sugimoto’s view of Asirpa turns from ‘situational ally’ to ‘best fucking friends forever’
in the beginning he’s like, “goodness, this Thing from your culture. i never knew about it. incredible. we’re not that Different after all.”
and then he goes really quick into “HEY I KNOW ENOUGH OF THE WORDS YOU JUST SAID. FUCK YOU, QUIT TELLIN PEOPLE I EAT SHIT” and simultaneously “if anything happened to asirpa i would kill everyone in hokkaido and then myself”
thinking about Vasily golden kamuy again bc his entire situation was so funny. got shot in the mouth by ogata so he deserted the russian army as soon as he was better to find Ogata and take his revenge. eventually found the group but it was after Ogata had betrayed them. couldn't understand or read japanese and couldn't speak bc of his mouth injury and tsukishima was the only one who spoke russian and he was almost never with the group. he communicated his goal through drawing charades and learns they dont like ogata either, so he just follows the group around like a stray animal and had no fucking idea what they were really doing. he didn't know about the gold. he watched them skin a man and was like, alright. loses his final shootout with ogata but doesn't die so he just retired and became a famous painter who painted wildcats for the rest of his days.
they didn't even know his name they just called him Hood Guy
I think everyone knows that the scene in which everyone is seated to a table eating depicted in Vol 9 chap 81 is inspired by Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Asirpa is at Jesus’ place and Kiroranke is meaningfully at Judas’ place.
I thought it was interesting to check at which places the others are to see if their position also might foretell future events in the same way as Kiro’s foretold that he’ll betray Asirpa.
- Sugimoto gets Peter’s place, which makes sense as Peter was the leader of the Apostles and has a very special position in the Church… though it’s interesting how it was also Peter the one who denied knowing Jesus thrice. Peter is also one of the first disciples Jesus called to himself… and well, Sugimoto is the first to side with Asirpa.
- Shiraishi is John. John is one of the four Evangelists, the author of the Gospel of John and five other books of the New Testament — the three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation. John was supposedly called to follow Jesus along with Peter. In truth Shiraishi joins after Sugimoto but well, he joins early enough and, like Peter, followed Jesus around more often than the other disciples. He’s considered the one Jesus favoured and alone among the Apostles he remained near Jesus at the foot of the cross on Calvary which might be a reference to how Shiraishi follows Asirpa to Russia.
- Ushiyama is James the Greater. The Greater is a title to differentiate him from the other James but it’s sort of fun how Ushiyama gets the place of someone nicknamed the Greater. Anyway he’s supposedly John’s brother… which is fun because both he and Shiraishi were Abashiri escape convicts. James also followed Jesus along with John and Peter. In GK, Ushiyama is actually following Hijikata, but we see that once he meets Asirpa the two bond easily enough and pretty early on in the story. On a sidenote both James and John were supposed to have a fiery temper. Also James is traditionally believed to be the first of the twelve apostles martyred for his faith.
- Ienaga is Philip. Considering Ienaga is linked to food and here she cooked for everyone, it's relevant that Jesus was asked by Philip on how to feed the 5,000 people. During the Last Supper, when Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, he provides Jesus the opportunity to teach his disciples about the unity of the Father and the Son.
- Ogata is Matthew: another of the four Evangelists. Matthew was a tax collector and therefore literate in Aramaic and Greek (a hint that Ogata has knowledge the others don’t about Tsurumi and Kiro?). Due to this Matthew would be despised by the Jews for what was seen as collaborating with the Roman occupation force (which makes sense as Ogata is not trusted by Sugimoto for his tied with the 7th division which he then betrayed). After his call, Matthew invited Jesus home for a feast. On seeing this, the Scribes and the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. This prompted Jesus to answer, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (might be a hint that Asirpa will manage to get Ogata on her side?). It’s sort of fun that at the moment Asirpa is with Ogata and Shiraishi who’re the two who represents two Evangelists. Oh also Matthew is often represented together with a winged man who inspire or lead his hand while he’s writing the Gospel (maybe it’s just me but this reminds me of Yuusaku).
- Nagakura is Jude Thaddeus. Jude Thaddeus is often shown in icons with a flame around his head (now, I don’t know if it’s a matter of translations but Nagakura said that ‘once the fire starts burning inside him only blood will put it out’…). He suffered martyrdom together with the apostle Simon the Zealot, with whom he is usually connected (and considering Hijikata is in Simon’s place this makes an awful lot of sense). There isn't a lot of info on him but a lot of legends (which might match with how Nagakura is a legendary figure in a sense).
- Hijikata is the aforementioned Simon the Zealot. I’ve already talked about his connection with Jude Thaddeus (Nagakura). He is one of the most obscure among the apostles of Jesus (which might match with how we likely have still a lot to discover about Hijikata). There are however suspicions he could have been related to Jesus (which would be sort of interesting because Hijikata said Asirpa reminded him of his grandaughter… even if that one was likely a lie…). Another worth to mention fact is that there’s no certain about how he died as a version says he died with Jude Thaddeus but others have him die earlier and in different places (which sort of matches how Hijikata was supposed to be dead but instead he’s still alive and kicking).
The ending of GK wasn't the worst, though it did sort of take a cop-out route with the gold. I did cry a lot when Urashiyama died and I didn't mind how Sugimoto and Asirpa ended up.
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