Golden Kamuy Episode 13 Review: Edogai kun

Golden Kamuy is back for a second season, and I’m super excited.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 江渡貝くん

Plot

So where is everybody? Lieutenant Tsurumi shows up first. He’s looking for a professional taxidermist to create fake skin copies of the tattooed prisoners and create some havoc against him opponents. He finds yet another creepy AF character who seems like the protagonist of HItchcock’s Psycho, as he lives with his dead mother – who he has taxidermized – and a bunch of other dead people he dug up from the graveyard and stuffed. He also seems to have a collection of fashion items made from human skin, which Tsurumi finds amazing. I guess it’s… art?

In the meantime, in Hijikata’s place, Ushiyama and his new girlfriend are catching up, mentioning that Nopperabo and Asirpa’s uncle are probably Russian partizans. Tanigaki is still with the Ainu, and meets Inkaramat, who, surprise, is also a traitor, and convinces him to take her with him in a search for Asirpa and Sugimoto. She also mentions that one of the men that are with her are very dangerous – and I highly doubt she means Shiraishi, as he’s too stupid to be dangerous even though he’s a traitor – so she’s probably talking about Asirpa’s uncle, ex-partizan.

Asirpa and co are having some sort of delicious Ainu lunch, nothing new here.

Not a lot is happening in this episode, as it’s more of a recap, reminding us where everyone is.

Episode Highlights

Tsurumi loves cats: Y’all cat haters may think that’s just a sign that cats are forces of evil – NO. Cats are great. They’re so great that even someone as crazy and horrible as Tsurumi can appreciate how cute they are. VERY.

Yuubari fashion week: I thought I’d seen enough ridiculous perversion in this show but, no. After the guy who was seeking the most painful of deaths, we get to see a taxidermist fashion designer guy putting up a show. Sigh.

More food!: Just like we left it – the show engages in a good deal of food trivia and some pretty good food porn. Can’t complain.

Themes & Trivia

Huki plant: Huki is called fuki in English. Petasites japonicus, also known as butterbur, exists in China, Japan, Korea and Sakhalin. Its shoot can be chopped and stir-fried with miso to make Fuki-miso which is eaten as a relish thinly spread over hot rice at meals. It can also be picked fresh and fried as tempura. In Korea, it is steamed or boiled and then pressed to remove water.

Nara: The capital city of Nara Prefecture located in the Kansai region of Japan. Nara was the capital of Japan, and the Emperor lived there before moving the capital to Kyoto. In the modern age, as the seat of the prefectural government, Nara has developed into a local center of commerce and government. Also see Yoshimoto Nara, a contemporary painter. Completely unrelated, I believe.

Fresh corpses: If you’ve been reading all my reviews here in MANGA.TOKYO, you probably know that, well, I’ve worked with corpses in the past as part of my art curriculum. What is being discussed between Tsurumi and the crazy taxidermist is true – the ‘fresher’ the dead are, the better is the artistic rendition of their bodies made. I specifically recall my anatomy tutor mentioning that there are specific places in the Netherlands where artists can work with the recently deceased. As for the majority of art students, we always get the medical students’ leftovers. Not pretty. Also, did you know, great artists like Leonardo da Vinci used to dig up the dead to study anatomy and improve their craft? True story.

Republic of Ezo: The Republic of Ezo was a short-lived state established in 1869 by a part of the former Tokugawa military in what is now known as Hokkaido. Ezo is notable for being the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan.

Lenin: A Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism.

Nice comeback

Very happy to have this show back. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

What did you think of the first Golden Kamuy episode of the 2nd season? Let us know in the comment section! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Fall 2018 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!