#Oskeporo

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 288 “A Pleasant Man”

So from a Watsonain perspective I’ve to praise Wilk as it turned out everything went...

yeah, just as he planned it... though Doylistically speaking let me be amazed by how Noda made this wonderful and intricate plot... but let’s start with order.

The story starts with a very useful timeline concerning the events that involved the gold.

There are little things I appreciate more than timelines so I’m extremely grateful to Noda for it.

We move back to the Russian consulate in 1902.

Irenka, one of the Ainu working with Wilk, correctly guesses the government which rules Hokkaido wouldn’t just give them the land, should they show up with the land deed.

Wilk suggests to ask Enomoto Takeaki for help at which the others correctly imply it would be a little hard for them to meet him.

As if this wasn’t difficult enough, Kimuspu informs them the Japanese government is AFTER THE LAND DEED and would steal it before they were to reach Enomoto, which is why they were forced to hide it there.

But then he suggests a Nispa might be able to help to get in touch with Enomoto.

We go back to 1869 and to a much younger Kimuspu, one that looks more like Cikapasi due to how the signs on his face are now more marked.

He explains they used to go to Goryokaku as they negotiated with Enomoto over buying the land, without even knowing the battle of Hakodate would escalate.

Early at the beginning of the story (chap 30) Hijikata lamented how their battle was hampered by the struggle to get funds...

...which seems to hint whatever agreement Enomoto managed to reach with the Ainu, was reached too late.

Anyway, while the others go take part to the negotiation Kimuspu is left behind to take care to give water to the horses and, as he does so he meets Hijikata… who basically behaves like a Sugimoto with a slightly different face...

Hijikata is curious of Kimuspu’s tattoo, he’ll help Kimuspu, is cheerful and modest, admitting all he’s good with are battles, horses and women. Okay, Sugimoto is popular with women but can’t understand them at all while Hijikata was supposedly better at this but whatever, Hijikata really feels like him to me… though I doubt they plan to have them be related.

Anyway Kimuspu doesn’t let him know why they’re there but clearly likes him and finds him a ‘Sawayakana otoko’ (爽やかな男 “pleasant/refreshing/invigorating/clear man”). Later he finds out he’s Hijikata, an Ezo republic commander.

Enomoto keeps the land deed as a secret. I wonder if, should he had won the war, he too would have tried getting it back.

Anyway the Ainu prepare the gold, though they don’t really trust Enomoto.

They’re being too slow though.

The government forces begin their all-out attack.

We’re at June 20 (lunar calendar May 11), 1869, and Hijikata, instead than being killed as history wants, is just nearly killed near the Ippongi Kanmon but manages to drag himself back despite the wounds...

...and is helped by Kimuspu, despite his comrades being against it. In order to give them a reason to care about Hijikata, Kimuspu reminds them he’s Enomoto’s comrades but it’s clear he’s not helping him just for that.

Kimuspu should have been a nice person, it fits he’s Cikapasi’s grandfather.

Anyway he brings Hijikata in one of the house left empty when its owners evacuated, so as not to let Hijikata be found by soldiers.

When Hijikata awakes, he’s reached by the news the Kaitenmaru was also destroyed by fire (always on June 20) and thinks they should protect the fortress Benten Daiba as Goryokaku  will surely fall due to the bombing of the ships, but Kimuspu tells him the day before, (June 24th) while he was unconscious, the fortress surrendered. This means we’re at the 25th. Goryokaku will surrender the 27th.

At this Hijikata likely understands they’ve no more hope to fight and asks Kimuspu to bring him to mount Hakodate, apparently to a statue of Kannon. Hijikata, dressed up as an Ainu to disguise himself, doesn’t manage to explain why he wanted to go there as the bombing on Goryokaku resumes and then they’re found by soldiers, who recognize Hijikata.

Kimuspu, gets in between them and Hijikata. He explains his action saying he was desperate because he figured the Ainu would lose the land of the republic of Ezo. Although he manages to push the rifle away from Hijikata, the soldier fires anyway and kills one of the Ain that were with Kimuspu.

At this Hijikata tells him to stop or they all would be killed and let the guards take him away. Kimuspu who had been pushed on the ground, stares at the dead Ainu in shock but he’s evidently released later on as it’s only Hijikata who’s carried away, apologizing to them and promising he won’t forget the debt he owns to them.

Kimuspu explains how, out of guilt for letting the soldiers take Hijikata, he couldn’t tell Enomoto how the latter survived. However, when he tries to find information on Hijikata’s fate no one wants to say he was caught or executed and, several years later he begins hearing rumors about Hijikata having been looked in a prison, an ex-warden even confirming this. So Kimuspu is sure Hijikata is alive.

Ratci adds in he also hears rumors about Hijikata being alive and helping to build the convict road.

Anyway they work up in their mind that Hijikata could get their message to Enomoto. How since he’s a prisoner those survival they’re basically hiding? Well, Oskeporo suggests they could pretend to be wardens and break him out. It’s worth to mention by then Hijikata was already in Abashiri so making him escape isn’t as easy as they make it out… but, on the other side, I do wonder if this was all part of Wilk’s plan. I mean, he and the other Ainu were hiding near to where there were those ‘prison lodges’ in which Inudou kept laborers confined… and, when the other Ainu die Wilk rushes there and have himself being arrested, asking to give Inudou the message he killed 7 Ainu and knows the location to the Ainu hidden gold.

I mean, at a first glance it seemed he did it merely to escape from Tsurumi… but maybe his goal was reaching Abashiri and getting into contact with Hijikata in the first place so as to use the whole incident with the Ainut o carry on his plan.

We see him repeating Hijikata’s name with a thoughtful expression after all…

...and then Kimuspu claims he knows a good spot to hide the gold, the good spot being the well. As they place the gold inside the well, one of them guarding the group in the distance, Kimuspu explains the last time they met Enomoto he saw the well being covered with dirt, so the Meiji government might not have noticed it existed. As a result the Ainu hid the gold there and starts planning an uprising among the Ainu.

So yes, they wanted to fight with weapons the Japanese government, not just use the land deed to have the land pacifically.

Wilk also thinks if Hijikata hadn’t forgotten his debt, he should repay the Ainu of the future. Honestly I think he should repay only Kimuspu… as Kimuspu’s Ainu friends back then helped him solely because he was Enomoto’s friend and they were making business with him but whatever, we know how Wilk is, for him the Ainu’s cause is the only one that matter… though from how he speaks he seems to link ‘Ainu of the future’ to Asirpa, whose name means woman of the future. So he basically is saying Hijikata should help his daughter.

The flashback ends here and the visual is pretty good because it moves from Wilk looking down in the well to Asirpa looking up from the well, as if to give the illusion she and Wilk could see each other… but the one looking down in the well this time is Hijikata, who likely means to repay his debt anyway.

And so that’s the story of how Hijikata and Wilk connected the whole horse kanji with a well whose existence only the two of them knew.

I’ll be honest, on one side I’m not overly fond of all this background exposition as it’s just that, exposition with little personal drama (I mean, Kimuspu was clearly grief stricken when the soldiers try to arrest Hijikata and, in effort to stop them, he inadvertently cause one of his friends to get killed… but this isn’t really explored… at most it’s exploited by Wilk) but, on the other side, I’m amazed by how Noda came up with such an intricate plot.

I mean, the meeting between Nopperabou and Hijikata seemed casual, they were merely two prisoners in the same prison… and Wilk trusting Hijikata to take care of Asirpa and carrying on all that plan seemed a risky bet based on circumstances but now it turns out Hijikata was ALWAYS part of the plan and the code was made keeping not only Asirpa but he too into consideration because Wilk clearly assumed Asirpa wouldn’t accomplish anything with the land deed without Hijikata’s support and the hideout of the gold is basically a jab at Hijikata’s moral sense so as to remind him Ainu (well, ONE Ainu) helped him so he should help them as well.

So while a side of me is ‘well, I don’t really care about this little sidestory per se as it’s just exposition and not emotionally engaging…’ the other side is ‘oh my this man actually planned all those plot details so damn carefully I’m amazed! I love him! This is just great writing!’

Oh well, I hope everyone else is enjoying how the story is revealing itself as much as I’m doing because, really, I’m having lot of fun! I love to see such a well thought plot! This is such a masterful work!

Anyway, see you all to the next chapter!

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 267 & 268.  Filling in the gaps and learning how Tsurumi was involved in the gold.

After a few chapters that I was expecting to be more rewarding falling flat, things are starting to pick up.  We first learn about Kiro’s involvement and how his relationship with Wilk became strained.  Before they broke Sofia out of prison, Kiro decided to tell Sofia more details before actually reuniting with her.  It is unclear if this story was relayed to Sofia via the milk ink or if Kiro wrote this with regular ink meaning anyone could have read the information.  What this page does tell us, is that Sofia learned this information prior to meeting Asirpa and Ogata likely knows something about what was written.  Noda wouldn’t just throw him in the background for no reason.

I wonder if this information was already shared between Kiro and Ogata? 

The chapter title page has an image of Wilk, Riratte and Asirpa as a family.  Clearly, a visual parallel with Tsurumi, Olga and Fina indicating that the two men have fates that are intertwined.

When Kiro saw Wilk holding Asirpa, he knew that something was different; he loved her and his family and as a result his priorities would change.  Kiro is not happy with this while Huci smiles next to him.

This is an interesting story since Tsurumi is retelling what Kiro wrote to Sofia, clearly in Russian.  Tsurumi is dominant and in charge of things as he makes Sofia when he mentions the man Kimuspu.  The last remaining person who knew where the gold was hidden.  At the same time, somehow Tsurumi learned of this information.

The panel informs us at certain key members of his elite inner circle knew about this, Kikuta in the back, potentially even working for Central at that point in time, Usami close to Tsurumi and Ogata and Tsukishima in the front with Ogata also more distant from Tsurumi.

This confirms what Ogata told us all the way back after the Barato arc with Hijikata.  That he referred to how Tsurumi knew what happened to the seven Ainu men without indicating if he was there or not.  I loved how Ogata just said that Tsurumi was the intelligence officer who examined the crime scene.  Time and time again Ogata speaks but only gives enough information to catch someone’s attention.

The flashback told my Tsurumi who wasn’t there at the time is in part based on what he knows from Kiro as well which is something to keep in mind.  The men convened at Noboribetsu, clearly in a kotan close to where Ariko is from.

The group of men were meeting to discuss it and Wilk is leading the discussion.  Not surprising at all since he is a natural leader.  His back is to us in the middle panel as they talk.

The rest of the men are revealed.  The first man who speaks is clearly Ariko’s father, Siromakur based on those eyebrows. The cast of the soon to be doomed men are revealed with a wide range of beards and eyebrows.  I’d guess it took a lot of effort to find seven Ainu names and this might be why this plot point is so late, as it is known that Noda avoided names currently in use to be culturally respectful.   I will note that Mesira, Irenka and Ratci all have no light or sparkle in their eyes, making them look like they may have had more bad experiences. Sukuta looks like a nice guy.

Maybe it is just me but Oskeporo gives me major Kirawus vibes?  I want to see your eyebrows Kirawus!  Are you related to Oskeporo?  They are both wearing dark clothing, my brain wants to say Oskeporo has a blue attush with white trim.

It looks sort of similar to Kirawus’s - or maybe he’s also from the Kushiro region? In the next chapter we learn that Oskeporo is from Nemuro.  That is pretty close to Kushiro since Kirawus was working in Nemuro at the fisheries when he met Hijikata.

Anyways back to the main events.  The men realize they need to find the old man, Kimuspu quickly so no one beats them to him, since of course people told other people about it. . .

As they head out Kiro finds Wilk and he’s pissed off.  The text bubble tells us he’s beyond upset and he’s got a clenched fist.  Finally, we are getting some clarity on why things broke down between Kiro and Wilk.

Even though Kiro had integrated himself into the local Hokkaido community, his best friend left him out of things.  Of course, Kiro was always dedicated to their original greater cause as he’s Tatar/Karafuto Ainu and perhaps knows that Sofia is in prison in Karafuto?

Wilk tells the other men to go ahead and so that he can talk to Kiro one on one.  Kiro is hurt and angry being excluded from these plans.  It indicates that knowledge of their meeting was more well known than Wilk likely would have preferred.  Ainu told each other about the gold, the old man, and the leaders meeting to discuss it since Kiro found him easily.  Or did Ogata tip him off?  Was this the beginning of the cat alliance?

Wilk tells him that they should change focus to only protecting Hokkaido based on logistics.  This ignores the places where they grew up and therefore the other ethnic groups.

Tsurumi then asks Asirpa if she understands the difference between a regional ethnic nation that shares land borders with Russia and other countries making them difficult to defend.  Which is the exact same reason Tsurumi wants to make Hokkaido an independent state and why Hijikata also likes it.  From a strategic perspective it does make a lot of sense, but it excludes most of the minority groups they were fighting for all these years.

This exchange between Kiro and Wilk explains so much of why Kiro said Wilk changed.  He sees it as a betrayal and abandonment of the Russian far east and Karafuto.  Wilk calmly states they will encourage immigration of different groups.

This is clearly upsetting to Kiro as his skin is covered with the chaotic screentone.  This is always used when a character is upset and reeling from learning something that they don’t want to hear.  I love the fact that a very similar screentone is used in Ogata’s flashback in 165 talking to Yuusaku.  Ogata appears calm but there is emotion behind his ice cold responses.

Interestingly, the screentone with the curved lines is only used with Ogata specifically, and it doesn’t show up again, but both show an inner turmoil.

Kiro argues that because Wilk’s village immigrated to Hokkaido, that is why they failed in part due to going to a place they were unfamiliar with and different ways to survive.

Wilk replies that he understood by the Karafuto Ainu immigration failed and just says ‘we need to avoid repeating those mistakes’.  Really?  Why do you tell us what they are Wilk?  Does he really have an answer for that or is he just saying this hoping Kiro will calm down?

Kiro is quickly able to point out flaws for some of the ethnic groups and Wilk has a cop out of an answer, it will be up to individuals to make that choice.  Kiro may be upset, but I think he is correct by telling Wilk his priorities have changed with the birth of Asirpa.  These men have known each other for most of their lives and acted in an organization where they had to trust each other deeply.

I do like the switch to see Asirpa’s reaction, she loved her father but she definitely saw Kiro as an uncle figure and did no know about their falling out at all to change her opinion of them when all of this started.

Wilk artfully dodges Kiro’s question by saying he’s being realistic.  I don’t think Wilk wants to confirm what Kiro said in stoic Slav fashion.  If anyone has been following my meta for some time, you’d know I’m a huge fan of Kiro, so I like the next page. Knowing Wilk, he calls him out on it - he found a place to call home, he loves his family and his priorities have shifted to protect his current home.  But Kiro is still holding a torch for Sofia, and wants to break her out of prison and help his own people.  The fact Wilk doesn’t even respond tells us Kiro is right.

Asirpa quietly reflects on this.  It clearly explains so much about what happened and in a way Kiro showed her Wilk’s original plan with the intention to help the partisans.  Tsurumi summarizes the legitimacy of these contrasting goals.  His position in the chair reserved for the priest as well as his contemplative expression makes me think that Tsurumi is confessing to his own feelings that are divided within himself. 

The page ends with Tsukishima watching things blankly, a frown and stress lines under the eyes - how is he feeling in this very moment?

The flashback continues as Kiro loses it mentioning that Sofia is still waiting for them.  This must mean that Kiro has continued to keep tabs on her or maintain some knowledge/limited communication with her.  He charges towards Wilk and the two fight, but Wilk manages to get him in a headlock victorious.

Asirpa then is able to tell Sofia that she knew that Kiro had feelings for her, so of course he’d want to go back for her.  Of course she didn’t learn this until Kiro died but it does make a lot of sense. Sofia listens closely, but it is still unclear how well she understands Asirpa speaking Japanese.

The fight ends with Kiro on the ground and he lost his shoes in the fight somehow.  It is unclear if this is a drawing error by Noda since Kiro is frequently shown bare feet, partly to signal his death in Karafuto, but other times he seems to like having free toes. 

Asirpa’s explanation is that Wilk knew the Kiro loved Sofia and he avoided Kiro.  It a way it would be a dick move to have a family that he loved, while Kiro can’t do anything about the woman he loved who was their comrade in arms. 

Sofia looks so sad here, two men she loved and cared about are dead in this entire mess.  The chapter ends with a beat up Wilk tying Kiro to a tree and we see him now barefoot.  Did Wilk take his shoes off to prevent him from chasing after them?  I don’t know or if Noda accidentally gave Kiro shoes a few pages prior.

But now we finally know the event that lead Kiro to tell Inkarmat that Wilk changed.  And we as the readers know he changed.  Kiro is pissed off at Wilk and this was the rift that separated the men and their goals for the gold.

Kiro realized that he and Wilk now had different goals and it was what ended their friendship.  The next chapter starts with a somber and sad looking Kiro writing the letter.  Which now we can see is an ink letter.  He reflects on how that was the last conversation he had with Wilk, which likely wasn’t how he had wanted it to go.

Wilk tells him this is for Asirpa’s benefit and her happiness.  Apparently, he decided to gift Asirpa with this path based on the fact that he felt Sofia was a good leader/role model.  I mean besides the fact that Sofia gave up her chance to live a normal domestic life.  It is clear Wilk was impressed with Sofia and her character but it still shows that Wilk is putting her in a situation she didn’t ask for.  

Yet, Asirpa isn’t upset by this.  She echoes Wilk’s way of thinking which is just like Koito Sr.  So in a way she has more in common with Koito and his role to do things his father expects from him.  Though Koito’s older brother already died in the service so it isn’t like she has a younger sibling.

Tsurumi seems to suggest that Wilk could have just slid into obscurity and live his life in peace and quiet.  Does this mean that Tsurumi wanted to live in peace and quiet with Fina and Olga?

Asirpa boldly tells him that it isn’t possible as the Ainu would disappear.  As the Ainu are intrinsically linked to the kamuy.  The Ainu must respect the kamuy and in return if they forget them they will disappear. 

In reality this was the assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society, losing their links to the kamuy and their cultural identity.

Tsurumi finally responds that the fate of those wanting to protect the kamuy was not good.  He looks like he’s barely able to control himself as he’s got his deranged look on his face.  So scary that Sofia and Asirpa are shocked.

The flashback then continues from Tsurumi’s point of view.  Though we need to realize he may not be telling the truth.  The fact that Tsurumi was able to track down Ariko Sr. implies that the secret wasn’t super secret!  Good job of keeping things under wraps Wilk and other Ainu dudes.  Tsurumi starts off with flattery to get comfortable with Simorakur.

For example he clearly comments about his son being in the army and making sure he is sent the knife to remember his identity.  Interesting the other men with Tsurumi are Usami and Kikuta.  Tsukishima and Ogata are no where to be seen. 

Tsurumi is told he is too late, the other men went in search of the older man and therefore the gold over a month ago.  Of course Ariko’s dad decided to leave the group because of the disagreements that began to occur as some of the men threatened the families of others including Cikapasi’s grandfather.  Not sure why bringing Cikapasi into this part of the narrative makes sense since he was fine in the story as an orphan who found his family in Karafuto. . . .  I wonder if this was supposed to read that the man was Sukuta and he had a younger brother and grandfather.  With Cikapasi being the younger brother . . .

Tsurumi turns on his charm and calls Simorakur, a polite Mr. Ariko (obviously Ariko-san in the original) and ties the loyalty of his family to the Japanese to be important.  That his family is serving the government in a good way.

The tells Tsurumi that the six men all had pretty big egos, and drastically different viewpoints so they were not a good alliance.  But that one man was able to draw them together and resolve conflicts easily and he was a natural leader.  That man of course, was Wilk.  The flashback allows Tsurumi to learn about this natural leader who is also knowledgeable and even used a fact that Tsurumi told him when talking to the men.

The next page shows Wilk as a mystery to Tsurumi at first.  Of course, he’s got the cross scar on his face marked likely to link him with Christian symbols and he’s offering his hand to the viewer, not unlike how Asirpa first offered her hand to Sugimoto.

Tsurumi is impressed and wants to know more about this man.  Of course the big reveal is when he learns who the Karafuto Ainu man is.  His eyes go white in shock and likely out if his desire to kill him.  We also get an even better view of his torn sleeves.  Likely the kidnapping of Koito happened recently and he did a poor job of repairing his white uniform.

So, Koito was kidnapped in Hakodate, recently but Usami wasn’t involved in it.  Did Usami just join him?  As Koito’s flashback only reveals Kikuta, Tsukishima and Ogata.  Not surprisingly, his calm exterior is shaded with the hatched screentone again, just like Kiro in the last chapter.

Tsurumi then tells Asirpa and Sofia that he shot a single poison arrow at Wilk, his eyes completely white.  He tells Simorakur that Wilk was a partisan fighting against the Russians and had come to Hokkaido for the gold for the partisans.

And he quickly departs and watches as he lead Tsurumi, Kikuta and Usami to the gold.  They hear gunfire and are unable to keep up with everyone else.  In the morning they find one of the men stabbed with a makkiri.  So Tsurumi knows that Wilk didn’t kill any of the men.

If we go back to chapter 70 Ogata tells Hijikata what he knows as Hijikata implies he knows that Kiro is likely a partisan.  Now it is hard to tell if the knife in chapter 268 matches one in 70.  But Ogata makes it clear that all of the knives had notches on them.

Does this mean that Wilk actually did damage everything?  Or did Tsurumi make this up to frame Wilk for the deaths so that Wilk appeared guilty?  Or did Wilk actually do this out of cultural obligation?  I want more information since right now Tsukishima and Ogata aren’t involved. 

Did Ogata find Kiro and untie him from the tree?  Did the cat alliance form while he was out of the range of Tsurumi?

The chapter then ends with Tsurumi telling them that Wilk skinned himself, removing his face and putting it on another dead person’s severed head.

Yay!  This now at least lines up with Asirpa’s statement that they found her Aca’s nose and ears to identify he was one of the dead. 

A long time ago I had reasoned that Wilk disfigured himself by cutting off his nose and ears, but this is a much more gruesome way to fake his death.  Did he know someone like Tsurumi was onto him?  My biologist brain really wonders how he was able to do this with out a sterile environment and way to protect the healing skin and face and protect the muscles and argh it just seems far fetched to me from a biological perspective.  I figured the nose and ear part would make more sense since GK has had ear removal and off page nose removal.

But hey this is GK!  People seem to have great healing abilities!  So might as well extend this to Wilk’s entire face.

What these two chapters have show is that Tsurumi has let his own emotions control his place in the hunt for the gold.

I wonder when Kikuta started working for central and if he told Ariko what really happened to his father.  Or did he always keep this secret from him and instead betray him, which is in part why he felt so guilty when Usami beat the crap out of him before sending him off to be a double agent?

Kikuta does have more of a moral compass that Usami and we now know he has some sort of inspirational role he played with Sugimoto before he joined the military.

I am still underwhelmed by these developments.  I was hoping for something bigger but right now Tsurumi looks like a man who was already angry at the Japanese government for the death of his family in Russia, who then doubles down on it when he learns the man leading the Ainu was Wilk so he goes after him.

At least we know why Kiro was so upset with Wilk and why he felt like Ogata had to kill him so that they could take Asirpa to Karafuto and to meet Sofia.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Do you have an issue with Noda's way of depicting Wilk's moral as gray like the fandom? Espacially with the reveal of the land deed that may ensure a future for Asirpa and the Ainu but wasn't part of his original plan

Hum...

I don't really know what the fandom is thinking in regard to Wilk so I can't really comment on it.

It's also worth to remember that Wilk discovered about the existance of the land deed only a short time before Tsurumi caused an argument between him and the other Ainu rebels that ended up with them killing each other.

Prior to that moment Wilk had no idea the land deed existed and therefore he couldn't include it in his original plan.

It's also worth to ponder if that land deed could be included in Wilk's plan after Wilk learnt of its existance. I mean, at first the land deed is presented as a cool thing.

That land deed exists by 50 years. The Russian warship Kalevala incident whcih signed the end of the tractatives with the Russians is dated 1867.

Hijikata says the deed was signed while he was in the battle of Futamataguchi which took place on the fourth week of May 1869. The Republic of Ezo is disestablished on the 27th of June, 1869 and Enomoto has then the Meiji government accepted the contract.

We know the Ainu gave them half of the gold and retrieved the contract but now we should ask ourselves an important question: why no Ainu used the land deed to claim the land?

When Kimuspu shows it to Wilk we're in 1902, it means that the land deed remained hidden for 33 years despite Kimuspu being still alive and knowing of his existance.

If the problem was the gold, they could have said they spended it all on the land deed and use it. Yet they hid it along with the gold.

Kimuspu says everyone was killed by the Wen Kamuy.

Notice Kimuspu's expression when Wilk and the others see the land deed. It's creepy. We tend to consider the gold as the Wen Kamuy but the land deed was bought with the Wen Kamuy so it can be that it too is a Wen Kamuy.

The land deed is inconvenient for the Meiji government. In order not to honour it, they might have secretly killed Kimuspu's companions and forced him to live in hiding. So Kimuspu didn't try to use it or to have other Ainu use it and that's also why Wilk and the other Ainu didn't grab it and immediately tried to put it to use.

It's possible Ogata himself was sent there to retrieve the land deed as discreetly as possible or make sure no one were to find it, which is why he was fine with killing Wilk.

Of course things might change if Asirpa manages to put together a force that can oppose to the Meiji government. I mean, if Hijikata conqueers Hokkaido, the land deed can be negotiated with him and not with the Meiji government... or Hijikata can use it to give his claims of Hokkaido some legal ground.

in short the land deed couldn't figure in Wilk's previous plans because he had no idea it existed... but he could have ended up figuring in his final scheme as he might have hoped Asirpa, joining forces with Hijikata, would manage to put the land deed to good use.

But land deed put aside, I've no problems with Wilk having a gray morality, this makes him the same as everyone else in the cast, as well as human.

Humans tend to have a grey morality, pure white knights or pure black knights are more a thing of fairy tales.

It's narratively good that Wilk is a character with grey morality, it makes him real.

Of course the downside is that Wilk is no more a perfect idealistic hero.... or a cruel terrorist... but I think most of the fandom knew this already.

Wilk is mostly a man of his time and culture, with a vein of idealism mixed with a machiavellian and utilitaristic approach.

His idea that wolf culture is beautiful because he believes the wolves had killed a wolf because he had no place in their pack as he was sick, and that being a logical creature who cut away any excess kindness and has a functional efficency clearly tell us Wilk is not someone who's defending minorities because he believes everyone has a right to live and be protected.

Wilk's mindsetting is no better than the one of Japan and Russia who would decide minorities have no place in their country and sacrifice them.

He sets on protecting minorities not for some noble feeling but because he BELONGS to a minority and doesn't want to be judged the dischargeable spare.

In fact, when he decides to switch to Hokkaido he easily discharges the minorities on Karafuto even if he knew demanding from them to transfer in Hokkaido might be harmful for them.

In his group of three Wilk is the lest idealistic and the more prone to sacrifice others for his own goal.

Even Tsurumi realized with is the more cold blooded of the group, comparing him to Okubo.

HTo Wilk's credit there's to say Wilk is also willing to sacrifice himself for his goal, we saw it when he took a personal risk to deliver the bomb when attempting the emperor's murder or when he skinned himself to hide.

Wilk is not the sort of man who solely sacrifices others for his goal, he also has no problems sacrificing himself.

But Wilk lacked Kiro's flexibility (Kiro originally was all for prioritizing the Karafuto minorities and, after trying to make a family in Hokkaido he decided to raise all the minorities to equal level) or Sofia's compassion (she has nothing on Hokkaido except the families and the dreams of Wilk and Kiro and to honour them she's willing to fight for Hokkaido as well).

I think a good part of Wilk's mistakes/problems steems exactly from his lack of flexibility from his determination in carrying on his idea, believing his idea is the best.

He's intelligent and probably this caused others to rely on him a lot and helped him to accomplish many things, giving him the feeling he isn't prone to be wrong, but this ended up on coming back to bite him.

He makes an enemy out of Kiroranke, when he could have tried to face him, reason things with him and smooth them over.

He thinks he can keep the Hokkaido Ainu partisans unite and working under him while not being fully honest with them (he doesn't tell them he's a Russian partisan who originally came there to get the Hokkaido Ainu gold for the Russian minorities) only because now he has wholeheartedly embraced their cause, with the result only a couple of words from Tsurumi cause the whole group to explode and people to start killing each other.

He assumes Asirpa will just blindly embrace his goals and methods and become the Ainu leader... and the Ainu will accept her, without realizing Asirpa is her own person and might not be interested in all this (though this was a mistake typical of his time period) and that for Hokkaido Ainu it was really difficult to accept a woman as a leader, never mention one so young.

And so on.

Wilk makes mistakes in good faith, he means well for the people he loves but ends up hurting them, he's human like each of us.

He lives in a world where his rights are stepped over and people often has no other way to be heard than taking up in arms because he doesn't have the options we have nowadays and can't vote for a new president or pacifically protest to have his right acknowledged so most of his choices wouldn't be right for our time period so of course we aren't meant to take his same choices but we should still look at him as a man of his world and time.

A man who wasn't perfect, but a man like us anyway, and that's this what makes Noda a great storyteller, that all his grey characters are ultimately like us, humans.

At least those are my two cents about this.

Thank you for your ask!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 269 “Wilk’s way of doing things”

So we’re finally dealing with a new chapter in which we can say...

...yeah, poor Wilk... as while yes, he was also responsible for his own downfall, what happened to him was surely terrible.

The first page is a quick summary of how the Ainu killed each over conveniently letting Wilk alive and not having him kill a single soul.

For start we can see Wilk is the only one who’s apparently without a rifle (his right hand looks empty at least). We can also see that the group split basically in two, a part is pro-Wilk (or, at least, let’s-not-kill-Wilk) and the other is let’s-murder-him-right-now.

So, Irenka (pro-Wilk) places himself in front of Wilk. He has a rifle but doesn’t seem to aim to shoot anyone, just to defend Wilk and calm things down.

Oskeporo (kill-Wilk) aims at them with his rifle and is knocked out by Mesira (pro-Wilk).

Ratci (kill-Wilk), who’s a friend of Oskeporo, aims his rifle at them.

Irenka gets shoot and, same as Tamai did, as he dies accidentally shoot and seems to hit Oskeporo who, fires as well.

At this point things are a bit hazy.

Siromakur, who seemed to be in the let’s- not-kill-Wilk team before (he was shown at Wilk’s side), is shown bleeding from a hole in his chest. Was he the one hit by Oskeporo. The guy is supported or used as a human shield by Sukuta. We see a knife in the image but that one is actually Siromaku’s if the  draws on the handle has to be believed. It’s clear Siromakur isn’t the one holding it as we can see both his arms so they probably took it from him.

The next image shows us Ratci firing, the knife in his belly.

The very last image shows Oskeporo and Sukuta on the ground, likely dead.

Yeah, there’s plenty of holes in this page who’s just meant to drive home Wilk didn’t kill anyone, the other Ainu just started shooting, some by purpose, some by accident, some in self defence.

Possibly Siromakur didn’t kill anyone either, I’m not sure.

The image is not really clear on what exactly happened because Noda wants to keep it secret some details for a little longer.

Anyway we see Ratci crawling away and, interesting enough, two more bullets being shoot behind him. He also hears something being said but we don’t get what it was.

The only Ainu of the rebels group that weren’t shown dying or being wounded to death was Mesira… but it’s hard to tell if he didn’t go shoot earlier since the images showed us so little.

We flash forward a little to Kikuta questioning a dying Ratci, asking him if Wilk was killed too and if others survived. Ratci dies before answering and the group then collects his body along with the heads of the other 6 Ainu, which were cut from their bodies. The total dead count is 7.

Usami wonders about who chopped their bodies since there should have been 7 Ainu and now their heads are all accounted for.

He tries to pick up Irenka’s head to see the head slip out of the skin which is something I expected. Usami figures out all the heads were skinned and the skins swapped around. He also notices the heads are missing eyes.

All this doesn’t faze Tsurumi in the slightest. He correctly figures one of those skinned head should have belonged to Kimuspu, which would mean that there were 8 Ainu.

We’ve a flashback in which Kimuspu is shown wounded and holding a rifle which means the group had keep him alive and he had taken part to the battle. That’s probably why we weren’t shown the full battle in the intro page, to hid he was involved as well.

Tsurumi, holding the head covered with Wilk’s skin in a Hamlet’s fashion, then easily sums up Wilk’s plan.

The Ainu were 8 and Wilk used Kimuspu (which nobody knew was among them) to fake his own death.

The eyes were then removed because Wilk’s eyes were distinctive.

He then seems to kiss Wilk’s skin… and I’m starting to think this might be where his affinity with Edogai was born.

We’re then shown the cover...

...and it’s an image we should be very familiar with as we saw it in chap 1 and used again when Inkarmat wanted to push fowward her Kiro culprit theory in chap 116.

The Ainu are on the ground and a man, Nopperabou, stand above them. Only this time we can see that the man standing above them is Wilk, not Kiro as Tsurumi told Inkarmat and, of course, despite surviving Wilk isn’t the one who did the killing.

Usami notices that people is coming, they’re the gold panners and the hunters who should have head the shoots during the night and are coming to check what happened.

Tsurumi split his forces, Usami is to go at the health resort facility at Noboribetsu (remember? The one in which Kikuta was) and call reinforcements while Kikuta remains there and secure the area. Tsurumi will instead pursue Wilk.

As Tsurumi leaves Usami notices Kikuta pensitive gaze. Kikuta is worried about Ariko. He wonders who will tell him the truth as he thinks Ariko will be upset to discover they were involved in his father’s death.

Usami says there’s no need to tell him as they merely told Ariko’s father about Wilk’s identity and it was the group of Ainu which tore itself apart.

Kikuta points out how their plan relied on sewing discord in the group...

...which yes, it’s true, although Tsurumi clearly didn’t want them to murder each other BEFORE confessing where the gold was. He was hoping to reach them before they all would die, this was a miscalculation on his part.

But this little scene traces a difference between Usami and Kikuta.

While Usami doesn’t really care about how this will affect others (namely Ariko) and doesn’t feel responsible for the consequences of their actions, Kikuta does.

Usami lives in denial of his own sins, where Kikuta looks straight at them, which matches with how he’s a man who told Sugimoto in hell they’ll be rolling the red carpet for him. Kikuta knows what he’s doing is wrong, Usami doesn’t even stop to think if it is, or if it can have consequences on the others.

The following scene shows Sugimoto and Shiraishi meeting up with Ariko (evidently they managed not to get discover despite their car crash… no idea how since they should have made noise worth checking… unless Nikaidou also has left his guard post?).

We also gets a panel of Kikuta looking down under the rain. No idea what he’s watching but he’s sure sad and, I bet, he’s thinking at Ariko.

The fact that he and Ariko are on the same page yet divided by the panel with Sugimoto and Shiraishi is meaningful.

There’s a tie between this two men… but there’s also something between them.

Meanwhile Tsurumi goes on in his narration.

He’s impressed by Wilk’s resolve to cut away his face. He figured Wilk, given the situation, expected to be labelled as the murderer and was worried of how this would affect Asirpa.

Thanks Tsurumi, after such a gruesome story, Asirpa really needed you to push on her the blame of her father’s actions. I get you want to manipulate her but this can also backfire because it proves Wilk’s actions were done out of love for her.

Anyway Tsurumi is just impressed by how Wilk not only came up with such plan but could also manage to carry it to execution quickly as cutting his own face off isn’t something a person would be able to do.

I agree and I would say it’s not just for the unbearable pain and the psychological trauma but also because it doesn’t seem that easy to do. I would expect a person to end up cutting a muscle or a blood vessel. But whatever, it’s a manga, and I’m not really an expert in skinned faces… and I like to remain as such, so let’s go on.

Tsurumi anyway thinks the plan was perfect if not for a detail, HE was the one chasing Wilk.

This isn’t said for a lack of modesty. Tsurumi just knew Wilk, he recognized his skinned face, he figured out his plan and, when he sees an Ainu with his face bandaged, he immediately recognizes him as Wilk due to the colour of his eyes. Another person, who had never met Wilk, might not have managed to do so.

Add to this that Wilk makes a mistake because he too recognizes Tsurumi (who back then looked a lot more like his younger self as he wasn’t disfigured yet), calling him ‘Hasegawa-san’ and giving away his identity.

Tsurumi doesn’t tell us what happened after.

There’s clearly a timeskip and then we’re shown Wilk escaping on the lake, Tsurumi shooting at him and causing Wilk to end in the water and the boat to sink.

Among the things that sank there was Kimuspu’s face, which Wilk has taken away. Tsurumi runs, trying to reach Wilk but Wilk, after discharging his Ainu clothes, is faster at reaching a prison lodge where convicts were kept illegally.

Wilk asks who’s the boss of the guards, who’s of course nothing else but ‘slave-convict-trader’ Inudou, who was of course abusing of his power to illegally use prisoners in that area as well.

Wilk tell them about the 7 dead Ainu and claims to be the one who know the location where those Ainu hid the gold.

As the 7th division couldn’t get around with the people ruling the prison the result is that the guards carry Wilk to the prison in secret and Wilk becomes Nopperabout.

Asirpa asks Sofia about Kiroranke and Sofia explains once he freed himself Kiro began to search for Kimuspu as well and, while doing so, he heard the commotion and ended up on the crime scene while the 7th division was carrying away the bodies of the Ainu. He saw Wilk’s head being carried away as well and crumbled on his knees, crying and mourning Wilk.

No matter how mad he was at Wilk for his own decision, back then Kiro was still his friend and cared for him. He even wondered if he would be able to understand him by starting his own family in Hokkaido.

However, once he was back from the Russo-Japanese war he hears the rumour that Kimuspu was among the Ainu corpses. An Ainu testified that due to him recognizing the tattoos on Kimuspu’s hands.

Due to this Kiro too starts piecing together things.

He believed the Ainu had let Kimuspu go once they gotten the location of the gold… but now that he knew they were 8 and only 7 bodies were found he believed one of them killed the other 7.

Hijikata coming to ask about Asirpa, the rumours about Nopperabou and the tattoo code… all lead Kiro to think that Wilk is Nopperabou… and, likely, that Wilk was the killer.

Kiro goes on saying despite having a family in Hokkaido he couldn’t arrive to the same conclusion as Wilk, he still believes that if the gold was used for the Far Eastern Federation this would protect the Hokkaido Ainu too.

Kiro thinks barricading themselves away was a pathetic way of thinking that would never allow them to win against Russia or Japan.

Tsurumi nods in agreement.

I’ll discuss my two cents in a while.

We’ve then a flashback in which Kiro gives the sign and Wilk is shoot and then we see Kiro’s expression.

His eyes… are void of light but not black, grey as he thinks that Wilk was a wolf within the pack who has grown weak and that therefore Kiro followed the “way of the wolves” Wilk admired and did Wilk the kindness of killing him. As he says so we see a flashback of Kiro, Wilk and Sofia drinking together and being happy, Kiro with his arm around Wilk and trying to get him to drink something and Wilk holding Kiro’s wrist.

Although Sofia is included so that they look a single unit, a single ‘body’, it’s clear the picture focuses more on Kiro and Wilk, in how they touch each other, in how their heads are close.

It’s not meant to be romantic, it’s meant to deliver how those two men were close, as close as two best friends could be in the past.

So okay, let’s go back.

I think I lost count of how many times I criticized Wilk’s plan, both the early one the ‘Far Eastern Federation’ and the new one the ‘Free Hokkaido only’ plan not because they’re wrong per se but because they’re horribly planned so this time I’ll spare you of them.

I’ll discuss a bit of the why Kiro, despite making a family in Hokkaido doesn’t just switches like Wilk.

The key is likely that Kiro, differently from Wilk, had no reason to switch.

Let’s go back a little. In the flashbacks located in Russia Wilk was presented like an idealist, his plan a beautiful utopia for which he was willing to bet his own life and the one of his teammates.

He has lost his village, likely his parents were already dead and he was on his own. Sure, he was friend with Kiro and later with Sofia but their attachment for them was, compared to his own goal, his own ideal, minor. He has devoted his life to that goal and that’s it.

And because no one is special in his eyes “All are equal” among the minorities.

That’s also what allows him to keep a cold, practical mind setting, that he doesn’t get deeply attached.

When he moved to Hokkaido he did a mistake.

Well, no, it’s not a real mistake, it’s just something that caused him to shift priorities.

He grew more attached to his wife and child than he was to his goal.

His priorities shifted and so he could sacrifice part of his goal for the benefit of his Hokkaido family, which he prioritized and, in sacrificing his goal, he accepted he could sacrifice all his Russian allies who had fought with him.

He wasn’t anymore ready to do everything he could to give ALL the minorities freedom.

He wanted to give freedom to his daughter’s minority, if the other minorities wanted to benefit of the freedom he planned to gain for the Hokkaido Ainu, they would have to come to compromise, give up their land, their customs. He would be still willing to help them but at his own conditions as they weren’t anymore part of his priorities.

It’s absolutely human… but it’s also a betrayal of the cause, of his ideal who used to held all the minorities as all EQUAL.

Now, “All are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

For Kiro instead the problem is different.

Kiro has built attachment for the Russian side, attachment that lies especially in Sofia but possibly he also had other companions he cared about. He couldn’t be as cold as Wilk, which means he was more emotionally involved in them.

In fact Kiro’s point as they argued was that “HOKKAIDO never had anything to do with them in the first place”, meaning deep down he prioritized the Russian minorities among whom he lived from childhood and fought together than Hokkaido in which he transferred only recently. He views Russia as his homeland, he views his people as the ones who live in Karafuto and in the Russian far east.

In a desperate attempt to understand Wilk he tries to build himself a home in Hokkaido… but it never worked. Contrary to what some part of the fandom thinks, Kiro NEVER sees himself as an Hokkaido Ainu, he sees his children as Hokkaido Ainu, he’s a Tartar with Karafuto blood from his grandmother side.

In short, marrying with an Ainu whom he loves and having children whom he loves helped him to INCLUDE Hokkaido in his priorities, not in demoting Russia from them.

Therefore, where Wilk started from an “All (minorities) are equal” and then moved to an “All (minorities) are equal, but some are more equal than others” Kiro did the opposite.

That’s why having an Hokkaido family doesn’t help him to embrace Wilk’s idea they should have prioritized Hokkaido but, if anything, pushes him to place Hokkaido and Russia on the same place.

He wants Sofia and Asirpa to join forces also because in this way they will become guarantors for both Russia and Hokkaido, they’ll protect the interests of both parties, of the countries he now both loves. And this too is a human view, same as Wilk’s was, even if it sits at the opposite extreme.

On a sidenote I wonder if the experience in which the Hokkaido Ainu slaughtered each other opened Wilk’s eyes and pushed him to realize that he’s an outsider, that he can’t hope he could just unite and lead them. But whatever, that’s just food for thoughts, it can be he escaped in that direction merely because it was the most convenient direction in which to escape for him and the speculations he was running in that way to bring the gold back to his Russian companions done by various cast members were just that, speculations.

Last but not least, Kiro’s reasoning as he killed Wilk.

We know that Kiro isn’t really that good at murdering people.

He can do it just fine in the heat of the battle or when he sees them as enemies (the Russian guards, the Russian soldiers) but not when he’s up close to them. He lacks Wilk’s coldness, which is what pushed him to hesitate when tossing the bomb to the emperor.

After all his weapon of choice, explosive, is a weapon that allows people to keep distance with their victims and it’s perfect for avoiding to get an empathic connection with them. Murdering people up close is a lot harder.

Although Inkarmat got in the way he didn’t mean to kill her and when she got stabbed by accident his first reaction was to try to help her, when Tanigaki let him know he was there to avenge Inkarmat he didn’t feel like finishing him off and he didn’t want Ogata to shoot Sugi.

Wilk though had betrayed them when he made clear he didn’t plan anymore to pursue their partisan group’s goal, circumstances paint him as the Ainu murderer and the fact he’s entrusting the gold to Hijikata, a Wajin, and Asirpa, Asirpa who has no idea about the other minorities, only worsen the picture.

Wilk, the NEW WILK who killed the OLD WILK and betrayed them, had to die.

It’s something Kiro likely knew Wilk had to die even before the Ainu incident, because partisans killed who betrayed them, yet he wasn’t ready to face, in fact, as soon as he believed Wilk died, he broke down and cried.

When it turned out Wilk instead survived, he could have been the one behind the Ainu murder and acted none the wiser by basically entrusting the gold to Hijikata, killing him for betrayal at that point was mandatory.

Yet the mental gimmick Kiro does to manage to condemn Wilk is interesting. Not only he has Ogata do the job but manages to persuade himself he’s doing Wilk a favour. The NEW WILK is a WEAK WILK and, according to Wilk’s ideas about ‘the way of the wolves’, the weak has to be killed.

Basically Kiro persuades himself he’s not hurting Wilk, he’s doing it an act of kindness according Wilk’s own mind setting (Kiro had no idea why Wilk was called as such but the volume version added a scene in which Wilk saw a lone wolf and talked with him and Hasegawa about ‘the way of the wolves’ so Kiro knew about it).

That’s probably why the image shows us a Kiro with no light in his eyes, a Kiro who’s blinding himself to the truth with a lie to cope with the guilt of killing his best friend otherwise he’ll probably break.

And this probably ties in with how, when their group was threatened by the Russian border guards, Kiro exposed himself to save the Orok and then called it ‘Kamuy Renkayne’, “thanks to the Gods”. What Kiro did is similar to what Sekiya was doing.

Before acting Kiro thought at how they murdered the Emperor, which is likely why they are held under fire but was also the moment in which Wilk, with an amazing coldness, grabbed the bomb and took care to correct Kiro’s mistake by placing the bomb in the royal coach. He likely gained Kiro’s loyalty with that act.

And by taking an amazing personal risk Kiro basically tested the will of the Gods to prove himself if he was right or wrong. If the Gods hadn’t spared him then his actions toward Wilk were wrong.

On a sidenote… it’s not a common occurrence for wolves to kill a weak wolf.

Normally they actually protect the weak in their pack by bringing them food and by defending them from larger predators because they’re like a big family, although they won’t hesitate to kill wolves that don’t belong to their pack, weak or not.

Wolves kill or drive out of the pack a silk or a weak or an old wolf only if they’re in conditions of great stress, for example if food is scarce.

Long story short, I’m more tempted to think the wolf Wilk saw as a child was killed not merely because he was weak but because he didn’t belong to the pack of wolves which found him.

Probably that wolf was kicked out by his own pack, trespassed into the area of another pack and was killed.

Anyway the irony is great and tragic.

We saw Wilk killing a member of his group due to ‘the way of the wolves’ mind setting and probably part of this mind setting is what made him cold when Hasegawa daughter and child were killed or when he left behind Sofia or now, that he decided only Hokkaido had to be saved… and yet this mind setting came back to bite him when his friend judged him through the same lens Wilk used to judge others.

His pack came back to him, only to get rid of him because he has grown weak in a perfect application of the contrappasso law.

Still, I’m sad for Asirpa. She didn’t deserve to see it.

But well, with this we likely have finished with the flashback for now… unless they’re going to include how the cat alliance formed, which I doubt as I expect Noda to save it for another time.

So, with the murder of the Ainu out of the way and all the tattooed convicts tracked down all that remains for the plot is to solve the code.

Oh well, we’ll see where this will lead us.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 268 “A single poison arrow”

So we finally shed some light on what happened during the Nopperabou incident and on Tsurumi’s involvement in the whole thing and how...

...how suspicion can lead everything downhill.

Well, actually the meme opening this chapter is based on the aria, “La calunnia è un venticello” (“Calumny is a little breeze”) from the Opera Buffa “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” (“The Barber of Seville”) by Gioacchino Rossini... but I’ve to say calumny and suspect work in very similar way so the whole thing felt fitting.

Before we start this chapter I feel I’ve to place a warning here.

In this part of the story GK talks of how Ainu were feelings in regard to Japanese and in regard to each others. I’m not even going to try to dig into if this respected things in real life or not, I’ll just discuss it as it’s presented in the story because it’s of the story I’m discussing.

That’s not because real life historical discussions are uninteresting, they’re probably way more interesting and relevant to present life than my little ramblings on a manga chapter here.

However, real life discussions on how real life Ainu historically were and which kind of relationship they had among them or with the Wajin back then, should take place in a more appropriate place, that’s not my ramblings for a manga chapter, and be done by people who have a way more accurate knowledge of this part of history than I can ever hope to reach.

Said so I invite everyone to make them in a more fitting place, a place in which what’s discussed isn’t a FICTIONAL STORY who might or might not respect reality, but real HISTORY and real people, who deserve respect and didn’t exist purely for our intellectual entertainment.

Let’s not confuse Noda’s tale with an historical book or my ramblings as something more than comments on a fictional story. It would show a lack of respect to all of the above.

And now, lets start.

We resume with a continuation of Kiro’s letter.

Kiro wrote to Sofia Wilk’s last words to him where that Wilk was praying for Asirpa’s happiness, that, instead than having her be someone who has others fight for her and live in a safe place without feeling any responsibility, he wanted her to become someone who chooses the difficult path of her own will and tries to grasp her own happiness by herself like Sofia.

So, although he probably never fell in love with Sofia, she did an impression on him as well.

Something else that’s noteworthy is that Wilk’s thoughts resemble both Koito Heiji’s, who, aware his son would one day become a commander, wanted him to become a man capable to face hardship on his own and that he had no right to shield his son when he himself lead other men to war (chap 139)

and Boutarou’s, when he told Shiraishi happiness doesn’t fall from heaven but one has to grasp it (chap 258).

At the same time they contrast with Hanazawa’s ideas, as he turned his son into a flagbearer, someone who yes, lead men to war but doesn’t fight himself (although he undoubtedly risks his life even more than them) and not even think for himself (as Yuusaku explained he was doing what he was doing merely because his father told him so),

...and Sugimoto’s, as he believes he should be the one fighting for the people he cares for and they should just sit back and let themselves be protected.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I’ll focus a bit on Wilk’s and Sugimoto’s mindsettings in this regard as I know there’s a great divide in the fandom about who’s right... and the key point is probably that both are right and wrong at the same time.

Let’s start with Wilk.

His intentions toward Asirpa are good on the outward.

He wants her to be happy and her to be in charge of her destiny, responsible and aware of her condition.

This should be every father’s wish for his own children.

But, at the same time Wilk fails her in the sense he projects his own thoughts and ambitions on her, thinking she would automatically embrace them once he were to prepare her to do it. Like he had done with Kiro, telling him his own idea was the best plan and not bothering to discuss things with anyone else, he just expects Asirpa to see the Ainu question the same way as he does, became a partisan and fight a guerrilla warfare against the Japanese as the leader of the Ainu.

Asirpa at the time was a child around 6/7, she might have been wiser than her age, more mature, but still a child who hadn’t a fully formed personality, ideals and wishes for her future.

And Wilk, sure his own ideas are the best, projects them on her, thinking she too will choose them and will pursue them in the exact same way he would.

Giving Asirpa the instruments to be able to pursue them should she decide to do so is a great thing, assuming she would SURELY decide to do so and would do so in the manner Wilk would pursue them, is a completely different matter, unfair to her as she doesn’t exist as an extension of Wilk and might have completely different wishes, ideas or ways to fulfil them... and this is twice as wrong as she pushes that burden on her when she’s still way too young to decide and risks ending up being manipulated or worse by men who’re way older than her and much more expert at this game.

Long story short, Wilk talks of Asirpa choosing... but he actually forces Asirpa into the situation and, while she could have still turned it down, well, this wasn’t really an option Wilk expected her to take as he believed Asirpa’s happiness would only come by fighting for the Ainu independence as a guerrilla as he and Sofia did.

Sure, part of the problem is that Wilk is the sort of person who, yes is highly intelligent but this gave him the belief he knows better than everyone else, so of course his choice to fight as a guerrilla is the best choice and the only one who can lead to happiness, but we also have to consider how, assuming a son was merely an extension of yourself, meant to carry on your job, ideals, wills and so on was a deeply rooted belief at the time, as well as the idea children were nothing else but ‘short adults’.

This means even if Wilk hadn’t been so overconfident in his own ideas and beliefs he would have still assumed Asirpa would have chosen his path merely because she’s his daughter, so part of Wilk’s mistakes are undoubtedly due to him living in a time period in which people believed in a completely wrong sets of ideas so yes, for him is difficult to realize he’s actually wronging Asirpa, but we, as readers, should know better.

Giving Asirpa the instrument to pursue whatever choice she were to make is cool, pushing her in a situation to force her taking a certain choice assuming she wants to take it when she’s in a age in which she’s not ready for such things, is not right.

On the other side there’s Sugimoto, a generation younger than Wilk’s, who just wants to protect her (and also Umeko and all the people he happens to love). This seems so very nice and it’s fitting for the modern way in which we expect one should deal with children, protecting them, sheltering them and creating a better world for them, not just passing on them all the responsibility, but the key point here is that, at the same time, same as Wilk, Sugimoto believes to know better than the ones he protects, when the story proves over and over than he doesn’t. This lead Sugimoto, same as Wilk, to push over and over his decisions on the people he wants to protect... so ironically, although on the surface he seems to be doing the opposite as Wilk, he’s actually doing the same, deciding a course for the people he loves instead of letting them choose for themselves, the real difference is that the course he decides is opposite to the one Wilk decided for Asirpa.

Sugimoto wants Asirpa to live someplace safe without a care in the world as others fight for her.

The mistakes here are:

- Ainu’s lifestyle is at risk and he doesn’t know nearly the next thing to Ainu situation to be able to decide for Asirpa’s well being, nor is he willing to fight for the Ainu’s sake in her place... and he clearly doesn’t wish a fight between Ainu and Wajin because the latter wouldn’t be beneficial for him either. Long story short he’s deciding things from a very uninformed point... a point that’s also very biased as he’s a Wajin who don’t really see much value in Ainu culture and didn’t know or experienced many of their hardship.

- he wish to take decisions for Asirpa without even considering Asirpa’s will. While Wilk automatically assumed Asirpa’s happiness would be to turn into a partisan and fight for her culture because this was what it was for him, Sugimoto assumes Asirpa’s happiness can’t be fighting for her own people because he loathed it. Asirpa is no more an extension of Sugimoto than she is of her father. She’s her own being, deciding if she wants to spend her life fighting for her people or not is up to her. Sure, she’s undoubtedly too young to do it NOW so Sugimoto, as her friend, should do his best to help her to realize she shouldn’t make this choice now, that she’s not ready for it, not that ‘this choice is not to be performed’ (yeah, the resemblance with a quote from “The Betrothed” by Alessandro Manzoni is deliberate).

So this leaves Asirpa with two figures who think they know best and try to push her in opposite directions... without realizing they’re basically imposing on her their views. I’m curious to see where this will lead Asirpa.

The story depicts both Wilk and Sugimoto as opposite in this and too extreme in their opposition (either lead the Ainu in battle or sit there and do nothing pretending nothing is going on), so I wonder if the idea Noda is trying to pass is that Asirpa will chose something that’s in the middle. We’ll see.

Back to the story another important bit in all this is that Kiro said  those were the last words Wilk told him. This tells us Kiro didn’t get the chance to confront with Wilk again, which seems to imply he either wasn’t involved at all in the Ainu massacre or didn’t manage to talk with Wilk during it.

We move to Asirpa who seems a bit saddened...

...but then proceed to defend her father’s mindsetting, saying this was the sort of person he was, that if he was making others fight he would feel the need to put his daughter at the forefront of the battle.

Asirpa might not realize it, but she’s basically saying she too was a pawn in her father’s game. In her words Wilk was making everyone fight, and he placed her in a certain position in order to make her too fight like the others.

It would be different if she had said Wilk knew her and knew she would want to fight so he shared his dream with her... it would imply not manipulation but regard for her own wishes... but put in the way she put it, it’s still Wilk deciding for her.

I’m not sure she realizes or, if she were to realize, she would care.

The idea children are an extension of parents works both ways, with children BELIEVING they had to fulfill their parents expectations so, for her, it might be natural to expect she had to obey to her father’s will.

Tsurumi, who’s another father, agrees that if Wilk has simply wanted to protect his family, he could have simply had them live quietly, hidden away somewhere far from battle...

...which in a way is what he tried to do with Fina and Olga and that spectacularly backfired when Fina decided she had a mind of her own and came back despite Tsurumi telling her not to.

I wonder if the idea is Tsurumi’s mindsetting about handling his family was meant to be similar to Sugimoto, not only he wanted to decide for them because he knew what was best, but wanted to just keep them out of it. It’s noteworthy the thing backfired also because Fina came back for the wrong reason, she assumed the problem were Wilk and Co once she was the wanted posters, she had no idea Tsurumi was a spy targeted by the secret police. It’s possible if she had known the situation she would have made different choices. Tsurumi kept her in the dark and decided for her... she refused to play by his rules but, as she lacked all the information, she took the wrong decision and she and her baby died.

As Tsurumi suggests Wilk would have had the option to let his family live quietly Asirpa counters that in this way they would forget... basically the whole Ainu way, including the language and the Kamuy and this would eventually lead the Ainu to disappear, which not necessarily imply they would die but, as Kiro told her in the past, that their culture would be simply erased and they would be assimilated.

Asirpa clearly doesn’t want this, at this point she clearly wants to stand up for her father’s cause, for the Ainu cause.

And it’s at this point Tsurumi attacks.

Gone is the conciliating man mourning for his wife and child as with an open mouthed grin which well show his teeth he yells he’ll tell them about the miserable end that awaited Wilk and the other Ainu who were fighting so bravely to protect the Kamuy, scaring Asirpa and Sofia both.

Tsurumi says after Wilk split with Kiroranke he and the others went to search for the gold. At the same time they tracked down the source of the information about the old Ainu man, Kimuspu, the guy who survived smallpox and was among the others who tried to buy weapons from the Russians.

And guess who was the one who had the bright idea to inform everyone and their moms of Kimuspu being alive and kicking?

Yeah, Siromakur, Ariko’s dad. -_-

I’m start to think he was the personification of the blabbermouth for the Ainu. Is there a reason why he felt the need to tell everyone about Kimuspu being alive? Because really, I don’t think it was a smart choice.

Tsurumi confirms the guy was the one who first spotted Kimuspu and who had originally joined Wilk and the others in their search for the gold.

Tsurumi went to visit him with Usami and Kikuta. The uniform he’s wearing is the one who had during Koito’s kidnapping, but it’s missing its sleeves. I would say this means this meeting is taking place AFTER Koito’s kidnapping and Tsurumi didn’t have the time or the money to replace the uniform (if my memory doesn’t serve me wrong officers were meant to pay for their own equipment).

There’s no sight of Tsukishima or Ogata.

It can be they’re busy with something else, or that Tsurumi doesn’t want to involve the more morally sensible parties in this part of his plan.

Why I call them more ‘morally sensible’?

Because we know Tsurumi felt the need to test and strengthen Tsukishima’s loyalty during the Russo-Japanese war, and because Ogata showed weakness toward Koito, feeding him with Anpan which nearly gave away the fact they weren’t Russian and even patted his back in sympathy. So it’s entirely possible the both of them back then weren’t jaded enough yet to be considered reliable by Tsurumi, should things turn ugly.

Siromakur is carving a knife for his own son. Tsurumi acts appreciative of the carving, with his usual technique of playing polite and respectful to get other people to trust him and talk to him.

Siromakur explains how the knife’s design is passed down in his family and how he’s going to send it to his son in the army so that he doesn’t forget about being an Ainu.

Siromakur will reveal himself as a man who’s balanced between wanting to keep the Ainu alive yet also wanting his people to coexist with the Wajin peacefully. While this is not a bad position per se, I fear his problem is most he’s not really working to find a way for them both to coexist but well, we’ll discuss this more later on.

Anyway Siromakur knows why Tsurumi and co are there, he tells them they’re too late if they planned to go after Kimuspu as Wilk and Co should have found the gold already... since they caught up with Kimuspu OVER A MONTH AGO.

Tsurumi then asks him why he’s not with the other Ainu and Siromakur explains he couldn’t go along with Wilk’s group’s way to do things.

He explains Kimuspu didn’t want to talk about the gold, saying it should remain buried right where it is because it’s cursed...

...which was what Makanakkuru said as well. Coincidence?

Maybe.

Still this causes Asirpa to ponder. I wonder if she remembers his uncle also thinking so. It’s worth to remember Huci said in their village there was a man knowing about the buried gold. Sugimoto and Shiraishi assumed that man was among the ones who died in the Nopperabou incident but this might not be the case.

That is, unless Noda retconned some details.

I mean, previously Makanakkuru talked about ‘their ancestors’ (先祖 ‘Senzo’) collecting the gold but Tsurumi, in chap 266, said the gold was gathered only 50 years ago.

Either someone is lying, or the gold was collected long before, then 50 years ago the Ainu tried to use it again or Noda retconned the story. We’ll see.

Anyway Siromakur goes on saying the more short-tempered men refused to accept this answer and started making threats, promising they would harm the man’s brother (the guy who talked with Boutarou) and the man’s grandson who’s no one else but Cikapasi...

and I’m not surprised. This is the ugly side of many partisans, they fight to protect their people but, if their people don’t cooperate with them, they turn against them as well.

Kiro, who felt bad for harming Inkarmat to the point he didn’t finish off Tanigaki when he came to avenge her, was a pretty uncommon one and the same goes for Siromakur, who claims he just couldn’t forgive that and so he left.

Tsurumi asks him if he heard the gold’s location but Siromakur, without looking at him, denies it, claiming he left before they find out and... I’m a bit impressed by how they let him leave. I wonder which excuse he used or if he was really that important they couldn’t force him to cooperate.

Anyway Tsurumi proceeds to try to paint himself as a friend who believes his words and only means the best for Siromakur.

He praises Siromakur saying he knows him and his son showed utmost dedication in helping Wajin recovering the bodies lost in the Hakkoda mountains and that he’s sure Siromakur is proud of how Ariko joined the 7th division and how Siromakur was wise in leaving whose who plotted to divide Ainu and Wajin.

Tsurumi’s words are clearly nice and amicable but they can be viewed also as a subtle reminder of how Ariko, being in the 7th, is under Tsurumi’s control and how Siromakur could easily be accused to have plotted against the Wajin.

Siromakur still tries to mediate.

He says he understands how whose Ainu feel.

According to him, in his region, Ainu relations with the Wajin were MOSTLY positive (meaning not perfect but good enough they, according to him, don’t have to complain) but in other regions Ainu have a deep hatred on the Wajin.

It’s interesting how he tries to be subtle and do not openly push the blame on the Wajin, not explaining why this deep hatred exist.

Siromakur says he cooperated hoping there was a way to use the gold without spilling blood... but then goes and say those 6 are stubborn and difficult men with a not deep relationship, united only by their shared extreme ideology toward the Japanese.

It’s overall... a pretty negative portrait and I don’t know how faithful that one is as the other 6 have no way to make their voice be heard but, assuming it’s faithful, it remarks the biggest failing of Wilk’s plan (by the way, interesting enough Wilk’s face among them is the only one shaded).

But I’ll discuss it in a while.

Siromakur however says there was one man, among them, who was capable to unite them with an incredible deft touch. He then proceeds to show how the group come to argue over one of the tradition which belonged to the Ainu from the Saru area. The argument is... ugly, because it seems to be chosen to point out how among Ainu from the same area there still were heavy discriminations as the Ainu from Saru are looked down because they eat a particular type of earth. It’s the sort of talk many readers would expect from a Wajin who would look down on Ainu, not from an Ainu to another.

In truth, although in a more peaceful way, Golden Kamuy has already depicted Ainu from various regions of Hokkaido as very different. We readers call them all Ainu and expect they’re all the same and feel the same, but the story actually portrayed them as if each region was its own country, with its own tradition and culture, similar to the other yet not the same.

Those men are now fighting for a common cause... but each of them carries with himself the baggage of their own region, a mix of beliefs and traditions and cultures that differ from the ones of the others, not as drastically as they do with the Wajin, but enough that, among them, they can spot differences that, to them, are jarring.

Anyway, as they start to toss insult and fight against each other, Wilk speaks up, explaining WHY the Ainu from the Saru area eat earth, and why the Ainu from Asahikawa and Nemuro don’t.

The biggest part of the Ainu seems to be impressed by Wilk’s words (except whose who started the argument) and Wilk, face completely shaded to the point it’s just a black spot and only his scar is visible, claims discrimination is born from ignorance (confirming that yes, the argument was spawned by discrimination) and that he thinks Ainu should understand each other and come together as one.

On a sidenote I’m not sure why Wilk’s face here is depicted as completely black, as if he was some sort of scary person. Overall I get the feeling from Siromakur’s words he somehow came to dislike Wilk, as if he were afraid of him.

I mean, Siromakur joined those extremists but he aimed actually at using the gold in a peaceful way that wouldn’t harm the Japanese. Maybe he was counting on them arguing, because, as long as they argue, nothing could be done by them against the Japanese.

“Divide et impera” is always true.

As long as the Ainu are divided, is easy to control them. Wilk instead unites them, which could make possible for them carry on a plan in which they would rebel against the Wajin. So for Siromakur, whose region is in good relation with the Wajin, a war wouldn’t be beneficial in the immediate times, so he fears it, he wants to keep the status quo.

According to him he joined them to do damage control, to stop them to use the gold against the Japanese... and then Wilk spoiled everything by making them more than willing to join forces against them.

Back to Wilk’s word about discrimination and how you should fight it with knowledge, this makes me think is this what Wilk was talking about with Sugimoto when he said in the magazine version that Asirpa has been training him (chap 136)...

‘Sisam yo… Ano ko ni zuibun to shikoma reta yōda na…’

シサㇺよ… あの子に随分と仕込まれたようだな…

“Sisam… it seems as if that girl has been training you, hasn’t she?’

Which however in the volume version was changed into

‘Sisam yo… ano ko ni zuibun to zuibun to kiniira re teru yōda na…’

シサㇺよ… あの子に随分と随分と気に入られてるようだな…

“Sisam… I can tell you care about her...”

So maybe originally Noda wanted Wilk to have Asirpa educate people, Wajin included, so as to overcome discrimination toward the Ainu, but then he just switched to Wilk wanting to unite the Japanese Ainu against the Japanese and the fact a Wajin could care about his daughter impressed him.

We’ll probably never know.

Anyway Siromakur goes on saying each of them ultimately acknowledged and trusted Wilk, as there had never been anyone who could bring together and lead the Ainu from all the different regions... again remarking how strongly divided the Ainu from the various regions were.

So let’s have another break here.

Wilk’s group, the one made by him, Kiro and Sofia, was, on the surface, a close one. They knew each other by years and trusted each other blindly.

We don’t really know about the other partisans, but we saw how Sofia’s men were fiercely loyal to her... and it’s possible the Partisans were the same at least toward Wilk and Kiro who basically spent their youth among them and murdered the emperor for them.

However now Wilk has moved to work with the Hokkaido Ainu.

Among them he’s an illustrious nobody who came from Karafuto, therefore not one of them. He managed to impress them enough to gain their trust but I genuinely doubt it’s a blind one.

As for the Hokkaido Ainu they aren’t really united, actually they are all basically strangers to each other and to him. He has to bridge among those men to create unity among them.

Overcoming discrimination isn’t something that can be done overnight.

Knowledge about the other can help only as long as you’re willing to open up and accept the other as an equal. If you remain trapped in your cocoon of ideas about the other being different because inferior, you won’t progress much even if you study the other.

Wilk’s idea he could easily unite those men, who, despite being against a common treat they loathe, can hardly stand each other and then have them accept also to host on their land minorities from Russia, who would have been likely subjected to even more discrimination, both for being different and for being migrant, was extremely unrealistic.

His idea Asirpa, a young girl in a culture that greatly discriminate women, could do it just because she was partly Hokkaido Ainu and partly Karafuto Ainu, is equally unrealistic.

We saw Ainu villages always ruled by an elder male, I’m not sure Ainu would be willing to take orders by a young girl.

So Wilk’s idea that his charisma or Asirpa’s could just solve everything is tenuous at best and, in fact Tsurumi will immediately shows us how it was easy to crash everything.

In fact we’ll see first how Tsurumi is impressed by the impressive feat this mysterious Ainu accomplished, uniting Ainu of different regions... or better just 6 Ainu from different regions, and asks from where Wilk was but Siromakur claims, against without looking him, he doesn’t know, tossing in the names of Bihoro and Sapporo as possible places from which Wilk could come. He says though he’s an Ainu from Karafuto, called by everyone Wilk and who has blue eyes and a scar on his face.

This produces quite a strong reaction in Tsurumi, his irises whitening, a sign used to point out Usami’s madness and the other characters’ murdering impulses.

Tsurumi, grinning, has realized this Ainu is the one he met in Vladivostok, who has become involved in his life again.

At this point, with eyes completely white, with no sign of pupils or irises as if he were looking not at what is in front of himself but in the far past, he announces Asirpa how ‘he shot a single poison arrow, aimed at Wilk’.

Tsurumi is using figurative speech as he shoot no arrow, he just planted the seed of mistrust and then ‘sat and watched everything as it crumbled down on Wilk’.

Okay, he didn’t sat, but you get the drill.

All Tsurumi had to do before leaving Siromakur is to reveal what Wilk has hidden to his companions, that Wilk was a guerrilla fighting against Russia, searching for funds for the revolutionary activities in Russia... and that’s why he came in Hokkaido in search of the Ainu gold.

Tsurumi asks Siromakur if Wilk came clear with them about this, knowing OF COURSE Wilk didn’t.

Wilk wouldn’t trust the others that much and coming clear would put him in an unfavourable position as gaining the others’ trust would be even more difficult.

However the fact he didn’t come clear becomes even more suspicious. Siromakur at this point doesn’t know anymore which is Wilk’s goal, if to hand the gold to the Russian partisans or to use it for the Hokkaido Ainu and likely fears he and the others had been manipulated by Wilk... and in a way they had. Only now they’re also being manipulated by Tsurumi.

It’s the same trick Tsurumi used with Kiro, telling Inkarmat Kiro was a partisan involved in the Nopperabou incident and let her report that information to the group to create distrust.

In Kiro’s case things worked a little better then they’ll do with Wilk, but that’s because Kiro has many things playing in his favour.

In Wilk’s case...

But let’s go on and see for ourselves.

Tsurumi waited with the others outside Siromakur’s house and, as expected, saw him rush out in panic. Tsurumi is sure Siromakur lied when he told him he didn’t hear the location of the gold and that now he’s headed there, to reveal to the other Ainu Wilk’s identity.

Tsurumi’s plan was to tail him but it’s late and Siromakur is impressive at moving in that area so he easily leaves them behind without even trying to do so.

Tsurumi’s men then hear gunfire...

...and then, at dawn, they find one of the Ainu men at death’s door. He’s Ratci, the Ainu from Asahikawa (or Nemuru but I tend to think he’s the one from Asahikawa) with an Ainu knife deep in belly. This sort of wounds cause a slow, painful dead, which is why he’s about to die but managed to last for so long.

Still the guy, differently from the other, is still whole and alive.

Tsurumi asks him if it was Wilk who killed him but the other claims Wilk didn’t do anything and it was just everyone who started killing each other. The knife in his belly is Siromakur’s by the way, we can recognize it by the design showed in this chapter and in chap 207.

There’s to wonder on those words because it seems pretty weird that the other said ‘Wilk didn’t do anything’. We would expect Wilk to be accused, to try to defend himself and the argument to degenerate, while here it seems as if the other started to try to kill each other for a reason unrelated to him.

To a shocked Asirpa Tsurumi says that those who wanted to defend Wilk and those who didn’t started fighting each other and killed each other.

As said before they were cooperating thanks to their trust in Wilk but that one was extremely frail. Tsurumi brags on how his ‘poison arrow’ caused it to crumble.

Still, in this reconstruction there’s no mention of Wilk’s role, it’s as if he just stood there and watched the other fighting. And then there were those three shoots. Did the Ainu go there with rifles? Did they shoot each other?

Was it as Ratci said or they realized they’ve been tricked by a smarter enemy and, before dying, Ratci spread misinformation so as to trick Tsurumi as well? Hard to say.

Anyway Tsurumi sums up that whoever revealed his identity to Siromakur would come after him following his lead. His plan to lose tracks was smart, impressive and terrible at the same time. Wilk... cut off his own face, put it on someone else’s severed head and faked his own death.

I... don’t want to think to how painful it was to do all that and if a man could really pull it out on his own or would have needed help to do it.

I mean, most of what happened in this chapter fits with my expectations of what happened in the incident.

I assumed one person couldn’t kill 6 Ainu and cause Wilk to escape, so the idea the Ainu killed each other fits with my belief.

I assumed Tsurumi couldn’t have killed them all because it wouldn’t fit his purposes and, in fact, the whole plan escaped from Tsurumi’s control as he only revealed those things to Siromakur in hope he would lead him to the others, not aiming to get the others killed.

Wilk claiming he didn’t kill the Ainu might fit in the sense he didn’t start the killing nor betrayed them. It feels weird he wasn’t involved at all in the fight, but maybe Wilk wasn’t present (if Asirpa’s dream/memory is to be trusted, his father was with her prior to the incident, so it might be he was coming back to Otaru when things took a turn for wrong and he reached the place when the fight had already started) when it started and only come there to see the result so he technically didn’t kill anyone.

It’s possible though he disembowelled them to disguise himself among the corpses.

I mean, one cut head with his face looks odd among many perfectly preserved corpses but if all the corpses are torn apart a cut head feels ‘perfectly normal’.

All the Ainu things presented cuts as per Ainu tradition. Unless someone else got there after the fight, it seems after the fight Wilk had to work a lot to both tear people apart, cut his face away and also mark the Ainu objects before he could leave the place.

This was... well, pretty risky for him as his chasers could be on him sooner than they did.

On a side note, unless Siromakur warned Kiro as well, this might mean Kiro had no idea what happened that way and also came to believe Wilk killed all those Ainu.

Going on with the speculations, Tanigaki wasn’t present but Ogata implied Tanigaki knew all the objects on the crime scene were retrieved by Tsurumi and Asirpa told Sugimoto the incident took place in Tomakomai... but Ariko’s father’s house in Noboribetsu, which is around  50 km from Tomakomai (it can be slightly more or less depending on which way you take) and, according to google, this means a 10 hours walk following the coast line.

I should praise Tsurumi, Kikuta and Usami for managing to do all that in the middle of the night, taking the way that goes through the mountains without even getting lost.

At this point we know Wilk escaped and reached the Shikotsu lake before being captured.

I always wondered if Ogata knew something about all that but, so far, what we had been told doesn’t help us to guess.

He wasn’t with Tsurumi for sure, was he the one who shoot? But if that’s the case why he was around?

The fact Kiro wanted him to kill Wilk dated to that time? Hard to say and it’s entirely possible the shoots were just due to the Ainu shooting each other.

Anyway that’s the end of this chapter.

We’ll see if the next will reveal us more.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hello, thank you so much for the summary, it was really useful. Tho I still have a doubt. For the entire manga we have been told the seven dead ainu were the ones that hid the gold, but just recently we are told that they only knew about an ainu who knows where the gold is hidden. This raised a lot of questions to me: Weren't the seven ainu the ones that hid the gold? Why does this one old ainu know where it's hidden? How did Wilk know where the gold was if he didn't hide it? Thanks again.

You’re welcome.

At this point though, I would recommend waiting for when you’ll manage to read the story, because of course the story explains in details what I only skimmed briefly so yes, in my summary there’s plenty of holes that I didn’t fill to make it as brief as possible.

Anyway, for a super short explanation...

We knew from almost the start though, that Nopperabou had spread misinformation over the gold, so what he said wasn’t trustworthy.

From the story Huci said the gold was hidden only god know when.

Chap 267 tells us that Tsurumi found out some of the Ainu, 50 years before the series started, tried to use the gold collected to buy weapons. The idea was dropped for technical problems and the gold remained or was hidden again.

The men involved in hiding either die or disappeared, Kimuspu, the old Ainu man in question, was also assumed to be dead.

Wilk and the other 6 Ainu with him find Kimuspu and learn from him where the gold is, take it and hid it in another place so as to become the only ones who know where the gold is (in fact it turns out Kimuspu’s brother also knew of the old hideout but when he send his sons there after the Nopperabou incident he finds it empty).

That’s why they become the only ones who know where the gold is hidden now, because they placed it in another hideout prior to the Nopperabou incident.

Then, due to Tsurumi spreading discord among them (as he managed to figure out who one of them was and got in contact with him), they and Kimuspu killed each other and only Wilk remained so he became the only one who knows where the gold is now hidden.

I hope it can help for now, if you’re still curious here are the detailed ramblings for chap 267, 268, 269. I recommend reading them as you might find the answers to your questions in them.

I hope it helps.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 271 “A mottled gold coin”

So we’ve a new chapter who might be the start for vol 28 (or the final chapter for vol 27)... and what a big start/ending it makes.

I think we always knew the title referred to the gold and that Ainu viewed it as an evil god but Tsurumi in this chapter fully managed to bring it to new levels of horror.

But let’s start.

Ariko twitch as he’s caught by Nikaidou who, yes, was still there inspecting the area but somehow missed Sugimoto on the bottle-mobile when the latter crashed and flew out of it.

Really, I don’t know for who of the two I should groan, if for Nikaidou, who missed something like that, or for Ariko, who’s sneaky and controlled like an angry elephant in a crystal shop.

In fact Nikaidou points his rifle right in Ariko’s face. Evidently he didn’t get the memo that Ariko is a traitor, which is good for Ariko or he’ll be dead. No, scratch this, since Ariko tells him he was with Hijikata, evidently they let everyone and their mom know Arikow as spying Hijikata for Tsurumi. Whatever. It’s not like Tsurumi trusted Ariko to be a decent spy. Anyway Ariko manages to regain control of himself but Nikaidou doesn’t trust him close to the church and even manages to make an intelligent question, ‘how did Ariko hear of the church’.

Ariko, who evidently took from Kikuta spy lessons in this period, quickly blames Kikuta for tattling out the hideout and hit straight Nikaidou’s Achilles’ heel by saying he saw Sugimoto.

Nikaidou, still obsessed with killing Sugimoto, run away before Ariko had the time to say something.

Meanwhile back to the church we go and to Tsurumi.

Tsurumi points out something many tend to forget and that, for a long time, I’ve been wondering if GK would bring up because it was kind of historically important.

So far GK has presented Japan as the ‘bad guy’, the one which was going all imperialist toward the Ainu and, due to WW2 this fits with how us, westerns, remember Japan, but in Meiji era Japan’s main worry was not to end up swallowed by the western imperialistic countries which forced it to end its isolationist policy.

The way Japan reinvented itself, discharging customs and traditions and forcefully adopting western ones, while at the same time trying not to lose its identity, doing its best to present itself as EQUAL to the other countries it’s an extremely interesting part of Japan history (I wholeheartedly recommend digging into it) and I’ve been wondering for a long time if Noda would bring it up, because it’s strongly tied to a change in the Japanese politics for dealing with the Ainu.

Japan’s fear to end up as a conquered country was what pushed Japan to worsen their politics of assimilation toward the Ainu. Japan feared the fact that the Ainu rightfully viewed themselves as not-Wajin would be read as a weakness, a way for others to try to take possession of Hokkaido, and that the fact western cultures judged Ainu culture primitive, would reflect negatively on Japan as well.

Japan believed he had to present itself to others as an united country populated by a single race, a country that was as modern and advanced as the others, so as to get their respect but also so as not to be looked as a possible ground of conquest.

And Noda is finally addressing this through Tsurumi, a Wajin, who represents that fear Japan was feeling back then, the fear not just Ainu could end up disappearing, but Wajin too.

‘Yowai mono wa kuwareru.’

弱いものは食われる

“A weak being gets eaten.”

Japan was doing its best not to look weak so as not to get eaten.

On a sidenote I wonder if it’s Japan itself that inspired a character trait of Sugimoto, the fact he acts confident when he’s actually scared, so as not to look weak and end up getting eaten… but whatever, maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Still this concept was introduced early on in GK and it was recurring in many forms.

Sugimoto, chasing Gotou, began hinting at the concept with his

‘Yara reru mae ni yaru shika.’

やられる前にやるしか

“It’s kill or be killed.” ( or, more literally, “I have to do it before him.”)

Then we have Asirpa reminding him he could end up becoming prey to the bear.

‘Yowai yatsu wa kuwareru.’

弱い奴は食われる

“The weak get eaten.”

Which Sugimoto will quote back when he’ll attempt to kill Ogata in chap 5, in a way combining it with his ‘I have to do it before him’ mindsetting.

‘Ore ga sensō de mananda shinanai hōhō wa hitotsu sa. Korosa renai kotoda. Asirpa-san ore wa satsujin-kyō janai…de mo korosa reru kurainara chūcho sezu korosu. Yowai yatsu wa kuwa reru. Doko no sekai mo sore wa onajidarou?’

俺が戦争で学んだ死なない方法はひとつさ。殺されないことだ。アシㇼパさん俺は殺人狂じゃない…でも殺されるくらいなら躊躇せず殺す。弱い奴は食われる。どこの世界もそれは同じだろう？

Lit: “During the war there’s one lesson I learned in order not to die. You can’t let anybody kill you. Asirpa-san, I’m not a murderer… but if my life is on the line, then I won’t hesitate to kill whoever I need to. The weak gets eaten. It’s always the same no matter where you are, isn’t it?”

And, since we’re at it we can also mention Wilk saying something similar to Asirpa as she were a child.

‘Machigatta nasake ya yasashi-sa wa yowa-sa ni mo naru nda. Yowai mono wa makete kuwareru.’

間違った情けや優しさは弱さにもなるんだ。弱いものは負けて食われる

“Misplaced compassion and kindness can even potentially become a weaknesses. The weak one will lose and be eaten.”

It’s an important concept in understanding all those men, because their aggressiveness is fundamentally rooted into fear, the fear if they’re no predator they’re prey.

But there’s also something else relevant here. Asirpa knew of the ‘weak gets eaten’ mindset, of how true it is, but she’s shocked when it’s turned around. So far she had been lead to believe the strong were the Russians, the Wajin, she never had to deal with their mindset in this regard, with their fear.

It’s something else I really wanted to see and I was starting to lose hope in, Asirpa not just learning about minorities, but also about the other side, the Wajins, the Russians.

Her world, as presented by Kiroranke, was clean cut, from one side there were the minorities, weak and whose survival was threatened, and from the others there were the Russians and the Wajins, strong and dangerous.

She was never told their side, why they did what they did, they were just the random ‘bad guys’ in the history of the minorities… and don’t get me wrong, they still are, they’re okay with sacrificing minorities for their own interests… but, same as the GK characters, they aren’t being bad for the evolz, they had reasons, reasons that pushed them to do despicable things under the belief this would insure their survival or their betterment.

As usual it’s not an excuse, just the reason, but it’s important to understand the reason that moves people, that moves countries.

Wilk said that ‘Discrimination is born from ignorance’, which is true and not as easy to fight as he painted it to be, but, at the same time, he only wanted discrimination to disappear among Ainu so they could join forces against those they saw as enemies.

Asirpa though for more than a year had been spending more time with the Wajin than with the Ainu. She doesn’t view them as enemies and, anyway, even if she were to decide to do so, she would have to know them and their motivations if she wants to fight them effectively.

We see how in the story the best masterminds are the ones who know how their enemies tick and can use it to their advantage.

Wilk’s idea she could learn about Wajin just by going to a Wajin school was kind of ludicrous. Understanding how a different race work, both in terms of customs but also in terms of politics and war is complicate and long, 4 years of elementary school wouldn’t get you nowhere near close to understand it.

So now Tsurumi is giving her an accelerate course in the worst way possible so I hate she’s receiving this huge infoload now… but, if she really want to do something, all those are info she needed to receive. I only wish she could have received in a gentler, less manipulating way. Instead Tsurumi is just trying to confuse, pressure and traumatize her.

This chapter in a way also tells us how Wilk was purely an idealistic person despite his idea he was pursuing the most practical solution, because he actually understood nothing of the big picture and he probably couldn’t. Though most of his life he was a partisan, hiding from the Russians who were hunting him. He had no time nor knew the right people to learn how the people in power took their decisions, to learn which were the politics that moved the countries he wanted to fight.

But let’s go with order.

Tsurumi, differently from Wilk, believes it was possible to form a federation on the continent despite the risk sharing a border with Russia would pose. He doesn’t explain the basis for this, I can only speculate that the partisan forces on the continent were more united and better organized than the ones in Hokkaido so they would just fare better against their enemies if they were provided the right means.

However he believes that if Russia were to put pressure on them, in order to hold on, they would give up on Hokkaido… and it makes sense because, if we assume the basis for this is that the people on the continent were more united, they clearly don’t share that sense of unity with Hokkaido. As Kiroranke said, ‘Hokkaido never had anything to do with them in the first place’. Hokkaido was meant to be an addition because Hokkaido could provide the gold needed for the weapons and other things but it clearly never ‘belonged’. So they would have no qualms to let it go to ease the pressure.

Then Tsurumi discusses the Republic of Ezo Wilk and Hijikata came to wish. He points out how, although Hijikata claimed the Republic of Ezo would serve to Japan’s best interests, to strengthen it they would need to invite immigrants from other countries which could end up allowing Japan enemies to  make their way into the government.

It’s something Wilk didn’t care about but that Hijikata should have cared since Hijikata had at heart Japan’s interests.

Tsurumi believes Hokkaido has to be ruled by those who identify with Japan so as to protect Japan’s interests… and, I think he’s implying, Hokkaido as well. Foreigners would come bringing in their own interests that could be harmful to the Hokkaido residents, ultimately creating their downfall.

I think Noda will probably explain this bit better in a volume version but overall the gist of Tsurumi’s talk is that if you try to unite people with too different interests the thing will crash down on itself.

The far east federation wouldn’t care about Hokkaido, not viewed as belonging to them, while foreigners coming in Hokkaido would carry on their interests that could be harmful for Hokkaido natives.

Note that, when Tsurumi speaks, he identifies Ainu and Wajin as ‘Nihonjin’ (日本人 “Japanese people”).

It’s all politically complicate but it’s interesting how those men think.

For Wilk all the Ainu tribes should unite and become a single tribe.

For Tsurumi all the resident of Japan, a Japan which includes the island of Hokkaido, should band together.

Tsurumi brings in the Meiji mentality that wanted to assimilate the Ainu and refused to acknowledge them as different… but, at the same time it’s the Meiji mentality that imposed the Meiji culture, a mix of Japanese and western culture, as dominant. And the ones Tsurumi wants to include in the country he wants to make are the Ainu who will accept it, the ones who wants to be part of Japan.

So really, many pretty words but he could care less about Ainu culture and Ainu identity, all Tsurumi cares for is Japan, or so he says.

If Ainu wants to be in his country they’ve to just accept the culture the Wajin has been made to accept… which really, makes him similar to how Wilk claimed he would accept immigrants in Hokkaido… but wasn’t going to grant they could continue protecting their culture.

Wilk was ‘better’ in the sense that, by allowing people to chose if to immigrate in Hokkaido or not, while he didn’t care of their troubles if they were to chose ‘no’, he would allow them a choice.

Tsurumi doesn’t want immigrants, he wants to impose to the resident Ainu to become ‘Japanese’ because those are the only Ainu he can accept and the only Ainu who can be useful to him, Ainu who would fight for his cause.

He then goes and show to a confused Asirpa (can you see how there’s a swirling in her eyes?) one of the golden coins Wilk had.

It turns out that yes, Wilk and his not so happy companions melted part of the gold to make coins in an attempt to make their own currency, so they could use to spread their idea of a single country.

Only, since they didn’t really get anything about gold and coins, they mixed together gold dust gathered from different regions, and each of them had a different gold content so they didn’t mix properly and, as a result, the coins came up with a mottled color.

Tsurumi, eyes completely black, delights in the irony of how the coins, that were meant to represent their unity, actually ended up representing how they were unable to mix together, then waves it off saying revolutionaries easily split.

Tsurumi then apparently tosses a bone to our poor Asirpa, claiming the mess might not have been all Wilk’s fault if things went wrong, which cause her to react, the swirligh in her eyes disappearing, although it’s replaced by emptiness, as the poor girl likely can’t ‘see’ where Tsurumi is planning to go with his sentence.

Tsurumi points out how Ainu don’t make treasures with gold, for them it was useless, actually worse than useless because searching for it pollutes the rivers.

Tsurumi then points out how, according to the Ainu, Kamuy resides in all things, therefore the gold too should have a Kamuy, an evil one that would bring misfortune to the Ainu people.

As Tsurumi speak we can see Asirpa. In her eyes we can again see darkness swirling and no light as the panels declaring the gold to be evil encircles her.

She’s confused and shocked and likely overwhelmed.

Tsurumi has given her an easy out, after traumatizing her telling her it was all her father’s fault and that she will have to make amends for him, now he’s trying o shift the blame on the gold, on the kamuy possessing the gold, which should be plain evil.

Who touches the gold meets a horrible death, so he should have a kamuy more hideous and brutal than any other yet that looks beautiful and dazzling and shines with golden light… a GOLDEN KAMUY.

Yeah, Tsurumi said the title of this story and, even if it was easy to guess why GK is called as such (and the story in the past hinted it more than once), Tsurumi’s speech makes the whole thing even more obvious.

Everyone is dazzled by the prospect of gold… but this gold hunt has left behind itself a bloody trail.

Outside Ariko is moving closer to the church (really Ariko, what are you wasting time with? Run there!), while Sugimoto and Shiraishi stay on guard.

Meanwhile Tsurumi lists the trail of victims the gold made, the 7 Ainu who killed each other, Kiro who killed Wilk (and ended up being killed later), the men at Abashiri prison (that would be worth mentioning were SOLELY Tsurumi’s victims as they were just being in the prison and not searching for the gold) and the already killed tattooed convicts.

Tsurumi goes on saying Hijikata’s men in the future will also kill each other along with Shiraishi and Sugimoto. Everyone she loves is going to be killed.

This too shocks Asirpa, but in a different way. Her eyes go white, the pupils tiny dots. The idea Sugimoto too could die as well likely shoot through her swirling emotions, hitting her in a completely different way as this is something she can understand and that she absolutely doesn’t want to happen.

This page is good.

Although the dead convicts were mentioned previously this page starts with a panel showing the dead Boutarou, a convict with whom Asirpa had made friend with, then Hijikata, then, in a larger panel, Shiraishi.

Below them, in a panel that goes from a side of the page to the other, Sugimoto, the one who’s most important for Asirpa and, below all this, Asirpa herself, in a panel that’s almost crushed by the ones above her, the sentence ‘everyone you love is going to be killed’ above her, reinforcing the idea Asirpa is being crushed by all this.

The next page though, is even better.

At the top we’ve Tsurumi continuing his speech, comparing Asirpa’s future loss with his own loss of Olga and Fina… one panel showing their bones, the other showing the bullet that killed them, in a beautiful imagine that speak of death and loss.

At the bottom we’ve two panels, one of Tsurumi telling Asirpa to abandon the gold, confident she already knows how to solve the code, the other of Sofia, telling her not to do it.

In the middle of the page there’s Asirpa, eyes close, frowning and sweating as her face is shadowed.

She’s clearly crushed by those deaths and possible deaths and torn by the two possibilities Tsurumi and Sofia present. Should she abandon the gold? Should she not?

Should she blame the gold so as not to blame her father? Should she blame the gold and abandon it so as not to become responsible of other deaths? Or should she continue walking through that bloody road for the Ainu’s sake?

It’s a terrible decision and her closed eyes represent partly how all this is something she doesn’t want to see but also how she might be trying to get some inner focus. It’s too much and Tsurumi hadn’t finished yet.

Since Sofia had dared to get in between Tsurumi grabs Wilk’s skinned face, force her to wear it and use it to suffocate her.

Asirpa opens her eyes again at, at the sight of Tsurumi using her father’s face in order of suffocating Sofia, the swirling in her eyes return, the pressure on her increase and so the confusion. That face symbolizes her father’s death but also the deaths her father caused and Sofia might become another victim of all this.

Tsurumi, as the master manipulator he is, tells her he knew threats wouldn’t work on her but, if she’s still in doubt, she should ‘allow him’ to give her an excuse.

In short he’s telling her the OBVIOUS choice should be for her to do what he says, but if she needs a noble reason to justify her actions she can tell herself she’s giving the gold to him and not pursuing her father’s goal or returning the gold to the Ainu in order to save Sofia’s life.

As Ariko has, maybe, finally arrived at the door of the church, Tsurumi, with a big smile on his face and his forehead leaking brain fluids, urges Asirpa to tell him while Sofia struggles to breath through Wilk’s skin.

Asirpa at this point is in great distress.

Her whole eyes are empty of pupils and her whole figure is covered by a fragmented, slightly swirling shade as she sweats and pants. And then she breaks as she begins to talk.

She confesses there’s something she thinks might be the answer but she’s not sure.

Tsurumi, delighted, with what I bet is a gentle tone, encourages her to go on, asking her which is the basis for her thinking it might be the answer… while continuing to suffocate Sofia.

The smile, the normality with which Tsurumi is handling the discussion while, at the same time, using all his strength to suffocate someone in front of a traumatized child is maybe even more disturbing than him previously wearing Wilk’s face.

This is a man who’s perfectly comfortable with the horrible things he’s doing.

Asirpa goes on, head lowered as if to remark her defeat and eyes still pupilless as she can’t see a way out, she admits she thinks the key is her father’s Ainu name, whom she was the only one to know.

Tsurumi asks her to tell him in the same time as Ariko FINALLY opens the door so that he can hear Asirpa saying ‘Horkew Oskoni’.

This makes me think it’s unlikely Ariko will save Asirpa, his role will be likely to report that info to someone else, be that someone else Hijikata or Sugimoto or Kikuta that’s up to speculation.

The chapter ends here and I really hope Tsurumi won’t kill Sofia in the next, as she’s no more of use to him.

So… it’s an overall good chapter, though I think it could benefit from some expansion.

For start it brings on the table the point of view of Japan, not of random Wajin like Sugimoto or Shiraishi but of Japan as a country that, ironically, was also in a situation similar to the Ainu, afraid to be weak and end up being eaten.

It also offers a realistic portray of the options on the table… but at the same time a clearly biased one.

Tsurumi is sponsoring the choice that would benefit him, a Wajin, not the Ainu like Asirpa, at least not them if they don’t want just to assimilate and give up to their culture.

Tsurumi has claimed some Ainu CHOSE to be a part of Japan, which is true, but what’s also true is they don’t want to deny their roots and that part of their choice was forced by circumstances. Wajins control Hokkaido, either they fight the Wajin away or accept to be dominated, cooperate with them and submit to Wajin decisions which are often attempting to erase them as a different race and culture (we could write pages on how Wajins made laws that were aimed at forcing Ainu to drop their lifestyle so as to become more ‘Wajin’ or more ‘Japanese’ if you prefer).

In short the choice to cooperate wasn’t exactly spontaneous, but motivated by the decision to make the best they could from their situation of forced cohabitation with the Wajin’s rule.

Because they didn’t want a conflict, because they wanted to believe they could still benefit from each other, they tried to get along. Still we see Ariko’s father didn’t want Ariko to forget their roots and, so far, we still have to meet an Ainu who just wants to embrace the Wajin way and leave behind the Ainu one.

So, honestly, Tsurumi isn’t speaking in the Ainu’s interest, he’s speaking in his own interest and making it look like he’s speaking for Ainu as well.

On another note… is Noda going to retcon the whole ‘let’s give a kick at central and turn Hokkaido into a military dictatorship’? This was what we were told Tsurumi wanted to do, not to unite Japan… unless his Hokkaido military dictatorship PLANS TO CONQUEER JAPAN.

Hijikata clearly wanted his republic of Ezo to be a buffer state, but I can’t see Tsurumi wanting this for his military dictatorship. So what then? Is it just another lie for the sake of getting Asirpa’s cooperation? Because really, if he were aiming to turn the gold to Japan, Central wouldn’t be there, longing to kick him out of the way. But whatever, we’ll see.

On another note someone recently reminded me of when we were dealing with the Karafuto arc and Ogata was trying to get Asirpa to tell him the code and how the fandom believed that one was the worse kind of manipulation someone could do and how Tsurumi would never act like that... and well, he didn’t.

Don’t take me wrong, what Ogata did to Asirpa was clearly VERY WRONG, but he was clearly an amateur compared to a master of manipulation like Tsurumi who managed Asirpa to completely break and reveal what she knew through guilt tripping, manipulation, misdirection, overload of information, and threat coped with the trauma of seeing Tsurumi first wear her father’s skinned face to call her and then using it to suffocate Sofia.

Asirpa will be lucky if she won’t need years of therapy after all this.

Ogata is nowhere near to Tsurumi’s league, so far no one in GK is.

This is probably the worse it could have been done without physically harming her or one of her Ainu relatives.

My poor child.

I always knew if she were to end up in Tsurumi’s hands it would be terrible but I didn’t dare to imagine it would be so long and traumatizing. I’m so sorry for her…

Continuing with the important things in this chapter there’s the remarking that the gold is just an evil Kamuy. This is also a concept we heard really early on by Makanakkuru, Asirpa’s uncle, and a side of me really wish Asirpa had listened to him and kept away from this. But well, since Wilk had pushed on her the code, I guess there was no hope for her to stay out of the gold hunt.

On a sidenote Tsurumi now has a giant size advantage as he knows the code and has plenty of skins. He also knows of the area in which Kimuspu was wandering so I wonder if he can locate the gold.

He’s undoubtedly leading the race and, unless something happens it will be hard for the others to reach him.

I reiterate my wish that NOBODY will get the gold because yeah, I also think nothing good will come from it. Lets it just be forgotten.

We’ll see though.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 267 “Severed”

So we have a new chapter that deals with a painful topic...

...which is nothing else but Wilk’s betrayal of Kiro and of their cause.

We resume the story with… well a flashback showing Kiro writing a letter to Sofia while they were in Karafuto.

We see a glimpse of Ogata behind him, teasing us readers who’re wondering WHERE IN THE WORLD HE IS CURRENTLY AND WHAT THE HELL HE’S DOING as it’s from chap 261 we’ve no info on him and this silence is worrisome.

I love how Noda divided the page in three panels, the top one showing Kiro, while the lower one showing Sofia (Svetlana behind her mirroring how Ogata was behind Kiro) with Akou prison parting them, mirroring how it was the prison who was keeping them parted back then.

Above the images we’ve the content of the letter Kiro is writing.

He’s basically telling her that it might be too early to talk about what happened between him and Wilk in those years with Asirpa, which is why he’s writing it to her.

So, once in Hokkaido he and Wilk parted ways, searching for info about the gold. Their plan was to mix witht he local Ainu and integrate among them so as to get info more easily.

Poor Inkarmat likely got involved with Wilk during this period.

In the end, to better do this, Wilk married and had a daughter.

The following page shows the cover of the chapter, that carefully mirror the cover of chap 256. In chap 256 we had Tsurumi/Hasegawa with his family, while in this chapter we’ve Wilk with his family, each of them in the same exact position as they were in the Hasegawa picture.

In a way it’s kind of painful to place one image next to the other.

Two men, two fathers with their beloved daughters and wives.

Tsurumi lost his family and blamed Wilk for it, Wilk, who made his own family, who had a daughter like Tsurumi, who was among the Hokkaido Ainu trying to discover where they hid their gold, like a spy in short, like Tsurumi.

There’s a huge parallel between these two men and, in a way, I think for Tsurumi the real enemy has never been Hijikata or Sugimoto or Ogata.

He’s still fighting Wilk’s ghost, Wilk who still lives in his own daughter where Tsurumi’s daughter is long dead.

It’s a tragedy, in a way.

But there’s another parallel between them.

They both married to better integrate with the local... but the marriage that was meant to be merely a toll, ultimately caused them to love the daughter who was born out of it and their wife.

They thought to use it to further their goals and, instead, were changed by it. They, who prized themselves so much for their control over the situation and their emotions, lost control.

Anyway let’s go on.

Wilk’s expression as he holds Asirpa impresses Kiro, it was an expression of gentleness he never saw before on Wilk’s face.

This page too is cleverly constructed.

On the top panel we’ve Kiro, with a not pleased expression. As he blamed Wilk’s change to Asirpa’s birth, it’s easy to speculate that seeing such expression on Wilk’s face worried him, it made him think Wilk might not remain loyal to their cause.

On the lower panel there’s Tsurumi.

He also doesn’t look pleased, but likely for different reasons from Kiro. He knows what Wilk might have felt holding his daughter, he know he might have felt the same he had felt when he had held Olga... but the thing probably burned him. The man whom he viewed as the cause of his loss had the chance to hold his own daughter, a daughter Tsurumi can’t hold anymore.

In the middle, parting Kiro from Tsurumi there are three panels, one is the one of the church, that divides the flashback from the present time, and the two below it shows, one the inside of the church with Tsurumi, Sofia and Asirpa, Tsurumi though completely a dark shadow and the other Asirpa’s face as she heard her father, holding her, made an expression Kiro had never seen on his face.

Asirpa seems happy of hearing this, of hearing his father looked at her with a gentle expression he never had before, her eyes shining and her checks slightly redded.

In a way she’s in the middle of those two men, for Kiro she’s the cause of Wilk’s change, for Tsurumi she represents Wilk’s gain at the expenses of his own loss, as well as the embodiment on Wilk’s will.

The story continues.

The flashback moves forward of some more years.

We’re told that a strange rumor starts being spread, the rumour of the discovery of an old Ainu man who was supposed to have died of smallpox (remember? There was a smallpox epidemic in which Cikapasi’s whole family died), and who was instead living alone in the mountains.

Tsurumi suggests the guy could have been Kimuspu, one of the Ainu who were involved in the attempt to buy weapons from Russia with the gold 50 years before and who, therefore, knows where the gold is.

Tsurumi explains that they too got the same info (though he doesn’t tell them HOW they got it), the image showing him, Kikuta, Usami, Tsukishima and Ogata (hinting how they were all involved in Tsurumi’s Ainu plan) and that they were in the 1902.

Now… a little break here.

The summer of 1902 is the summer in which Tsurumi staged Koito’s kidnapping.

If Asirpa’s dream is reliable Wilk told her his name when it was snowing. Asirpa said that after telling her his name her father went away, implying this was the last time she saw him.

We’ll see Wilk later on in the flashback and his beard is shorter than in Asirpa’s memory.

This might mean that between the discovery of Kimuspu’s body and Wilk’s death time went by. The Ainu aren’t dressed so heavily it suggests we are in winter, but neither so lightly it suggests we’re in summer (Kiro has his undershirt, which he didn’t wear in summer). This means this either happened in spring or in autumn.

We’ll see if the next chapter will tell us more and why when this happened might be relevant… for now let’s just say this seems to hint that Wilk’s death happened in the last months of that year and not in the first.

This, of course, if Asirpa’s dream/memory is reliable.

Anyway, let’s go on.

Kiro continues his narration, telling how this discovery changed the situation radically.

We move then to Noboribetsu where Wilk is having a reunion with 6 more Ainu

Yeah, Noboribetsu is the place where there was the hot spring in which Toni Anji was investigating and Kikuta and Ariko recovering. It’s also the place near which there was Ariko’s village, and it might even be they’re having their reunion in Ariko’s house.

This might also explain what Toni Anji was doing there, that place could have been the place in which Hijikata suspected the gold was hidden, hence he sent Toni to check it. The gold could very well be hidden in the same old mine in which Toni escaped or in a similar one as Ariko said there were others and he went to explore them when he was younger.

It’s entirely possible Hijikata had Boutarou’s same idea but Hijikata found sooner about Noboribetsu and went there to investigate. Maybe he talked to Ariko’s mom and, from her, discovered about Ariko being the son of one of the men involved.

If that’s the case, I’m pleased.

I’ve always wondered WHY Toni Anji was in Noboribetsu as it seemed weird he was there just to investigate on Tsurumi’s men.

But let’s go back to the story and to the conversation Wilk has with the others.

Wilk asks to Siromakur, who’s clearly Ariko’s father if his skin tone, eyes and eyebrows are meant to be taken as a reference, if he couldn’t ask Kimuspu the location of the gold.

So Ariko’s dad is the one who met met Kimuspu.

Now, remember how I said Tsurumi didn’t say how he got info about Kimuspu?

In hindsight this makes me wonder if Tsurumi has a man among the Ainu because if a rumour about this Ainu man being found spread, it should have spread among Ainu, not Wajin. They should have known him, known he was involved with the gold and known he was assumed to have died of smallpox.

Those aren’t info they would have shared with the Wajins.

Whatever, let’s go on.

Siromakur says the man didn’t want to talk with him so another Ainu, Mesira, suggests they should track him down and 'convince’ him to talk.

This worries me because it implies they might end up being forceful with him.

Sure, partisans in all the countries, despite claiming to stand with the local population, hardly had qualms in forcing the population to cooperate should they decide they didn’t want to align with the partisans’ wishes... and partisans are fighting a war, a war with different means but always a war and wars are dirty things but... but it always rubbed me the wrong way because while soldiers go at war merely because they obey orders, partisans claim they chose to go at war for ideals that include protecting people...

...and then sacrifice the people they wanted to protect.

It kind of reminds me of a dark joke popular in my country about this kind of people.

“Against violence, bullying, suffering we must all be united... and if someone doesn’t agree, we'll kill him.”

...because yeah, when they said they’re against violence they were talking of violence perpetrated by OTHER PEOPLE, they’re completely in favour of violence perpetrated by them...

Sukuta wonders if someone else, apart the 7 of them, knows about Kimuspu. As Irenka, another Ainu who so far hadn’t spoken, looks at Siromakur, the latter admits he talked about it with several people but didn't tell them where Kimuspu was.

Great move, Ariko’s dad, now we know who might have spread the rumour until it reached Tsurumi’s (and Kiro’s) ears. -_-

Do you want the news to be reported on newspapers too?

Just to make sure everyone knows....

Ratci, who seems to be the older among them and therefore the only one who has a chance to be the older brother of the old Ainu Boutarou met since the guy was supposedly one of those who died in the incident, comments Kimuspu was living deep in the mountains without anyone knowing, so he couldn't be found easily.

Oskeporo, who somehow reminds me of Kirawus, although his eyebrows looks more like Cikapasi’s, comments they too could have problems tracking Kimuspu.

Siromakur tells them he knows where he sets his arrow traps so they can wait him there. At this they decide to go find Kimuspu before others will track him down.

It’s clear they’re searching the old guy because they’re interested in the gold.

However, as they’re about to leave, Kiro shows up and demands explanations from Wilk. He’s clearly angry if his expression, his tone of voice and his clenched fists can be taken as a hint, and wants to know why Wilk hadn’t called him.

Did Ariko’s dad tattled out the discovery of Kimuspu to Kiro as well?

Great move, Ariko’s dad, really. -_-

What about informing Russia about it as well now?

They might want to know too...

Wilk tell the other Ainu to go ahead. As he does so, in his same panel we can see Ariko’s father and Mesira, who was the guy who wanted them to ‘convince’ Kimuspu to talk. They seem to accept it.

In another panel we see Sukuta and Osikepor. Sukuta seems just worried, Osikepor is clearly not pleased, a frown on his face but all he says is a line of dots.

Once they’re alone Kiro again, loudly demands some explanation and Wilk informs him he has decided they need to change plans, that his Far East Federation would be too wide to protect from Russia if they were to count on minorities alone, but if they were to make only Hokkaido, which is encircled by the sea, independent, they could manage it.

Now, please, let me facepalm.

Yeah, an island is a bit easier to protect than the huge land Wilk originally planned to involve, part of which was attached to Russia, but not that much it makes it an inexpugnable fortress.

The Far East Federation was a pure utopia but this is really no that much better.

They would then need to find another Russian captain willing to sell them weapons and warships, get some Ainu who know how to handle them all, chase away the 7th division who, by then is residing in Hokkaido along with all those military settlers who has stopped serving the army, beat the Ominato fleet and then whatever fleet Japan would send against them.

In case Japan were to give up on re-conquering Hokkaido they would have then hope that Russia wouldn’t try to do it or wouldn’t join forces with Japan in exchange for some compensations. Or that China wouldn’t lend a hand in place of Russia in exchange for compensations.

In short, yeah, you’ve less land to defend and it’s a little harder to get there but not by much considering how Kiro’s group could even cross the La Pérouse Strait on a small boat and Asirpa did it by walking on drift ice.

We’ve no info on how the Tsugaru strait was crossed back then but it’s half than the La Pérouse Strait, so Hokkaido can be attacked easily by two points and with a little more work as it would require a longer boat trip, from other points as Hokkaido’s coast is approximately 4,183 kilometres which is quite a bit to guard.

Islands had been conqueered through all the centuries, it’s not like the thing is unprecendented so really, Hokkaido might be slightly more difficult to attack but it’s not such a stronghold Wilk can hope to defend it with his meagre forces.

Of course things would be slightly different if Wilk were to plan to join hands with Tsurumi who, in that same year, managed to have Koito Heiji indebted to him and who has professional soldiers under him.

If Wilk’s state and Tsurumi’s state were to overlap this would provide them more tactical advantages. This, assuming Tsurumi wouldn’t, once he got control of the gold, kick the Ainu out of the deal.

But we don’t know if Wilk and Tsurumi know each other is in Hokkaido and, at this point, I’m not sure these two chessmasters would shake hands in an allegiance.

Anyway Kiro’s furious at the new plan.

We jump back into the present where Tsurumi explains to Asirpa the benefits of Wilk’s plan… or better how his plan diverged from the one of Sofia and Kiro’s which is something that would end up promoting discord between Wilk and his own allies.

(It’s also worth to remember that Sofia in truth wasn’t a partisan, she was a revolutionary who cared about the Russian population. Hokkaido Ainu are considered Japanese so it’s unlikely she would be interested in them. Wilk’s plan basically meant he will let her to her own devices... great way to handle your allies Wilk.)

Tsurumi claims he understands Wilk’s plan, and of course he does as he plans to do the same but Tsurumi is much better organized, with better men, connections, inside knowledge, trusted allies and back up plans to support his country so Tsurumi’s chances of success are WAY HIGHER than Wilk, despite his plan remaining very hard to pursue successfully.

Meanwhile we go back to the flashback.

Predictably Kiro sees Wilk’s idea as a betrayal. Wilk came up with such plan without discussing it with him or Sofia and it’s a plan that is not beneficial to the other minorities, the minorities to whom Kiro belongs or has grown to care about who live in Karafuto or in Russia, just to the Hokkaido Ainu.

Wilk says according to him they should migrate in Hokkaido and he would be willing to welcome them there, which again, is naïve.

For start he’s not the ruler of Hokkaido. The migrants might end up being seen by the Hokkaido population as no better than the Wajin, never mentioning he’s just asking to all those people to leave their lands and move there.

It’s similar to Hijikata’s plan but Hijikata at least didn’t have to really care for the migrants he wanted to welcome, nor for their living style. For him they were just an usable commodity. Wilk should care about them instead and yet he’s not.

Still, I love how cleverly this page is constructed.

We’ve three panels.

The two above show Kiro and Wilk and their contrasting positions.

The visual pins them as contrasting in every possible way, Kiro is angry, Wilk is calm, Kiro is seen frontally, Wilk from behind. With their images Noda is setting up the premise for the fight between them that will follow.

The line that divides the two panels might as well be the fracture between them.

On the bottom we see Kiro’s reaction to Wilk’s world. Wilk’s words only upset Kiro further.

It’s meaningful how we see only the top of his head, his hands holding it, everything shaded by a swirling shade, hinting at the many thoughts that should infest Kiro’s mind in that moment.

It gives me the feeling Kiro feels his world too is wirling and he’s desperately trying to keep it together, to make sense of it and can’t.

Wilk is the person he loved, trusted and admired the most and now Wilk comes out with... this? How is that even possible?

Kiro reminds Wilk of how his birth village disappeared and his people died due to them being forced to leave the land.

Wilk is unaffected by this, he’s sure since they know why the first time things went wrong, they wouldn’t make mistakes this time.

Sure, failed immigration attempts plague us in moder times as well but Wilk would have managed to magically solve them all, Wilk could do everything better, Wilk knows.

WILK CAN YOU PLEASE COME BACK DOWN ON PLANET EARTH FOR A CHANGE? YOU AREN’T THE GOD OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD, YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO SOLVE IT! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO MANAGE YOUR LITTLE REBELLION OR HOLD CLOSE YOUR ALLIES OR PERSUADE THEM YOU’RE RIGHT! EITHER YOU’VE A SECRET BACK UP PLAN OR HOW YOU’LL SAY TO KIRO YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH IS BEYOND DUMB AND NAIVE! PLEASE, STOP!

Ahem... okay, back with the story.

Kiro then points out how the Uilta wouldn’t be able to continue their lifestyle as Hokkaido is too warm to keep reindeers so they can’t protect their culture in Hokkaido.

Wilk waves the problem off, saying they would accept only who wants to move there.

In short if the Uilta don’t want to move because this would mean to change their lifestyle… well, their problem.

So yes, it’s a betrayal of their cause, their cause that was about protecting all those minorities and their lifestiles.

Wilk belonged to a group, a group who wanted to take care of all those minorities. He can’t just arbitrarily decide that some of them don’t matter and it’s their problem.

It would be different if he had said ‘let’s fix the Hokkaido Ainu, let’s start from here and then spread, we can’t help the Uilta RIGHT NOW, but once we’ve consolidate our forces we will, we’re postponing, not giving up.’

Instead he’s giving up.

He should have talked with the others, he should have proposed Hokkaido as a starting point, not as the solution. Let’s free Hokkaido, strengthen our defences there and then move to free the rest... as Tsurumi is planning to do.

For Tsurumi is first Hokkaido then Vladivostok.

For Wilk it could have been first Hokkaido then Karafuto, then the rest. A step at time.

It was still an utopia but it wouldn’t be betrayal of his teammates and they could have accepted it. It would have made sense.

Instead Wilk didn’t discuss things, he just decided them behind his companions’ back without talking with them because he’s Wilk and knows what’s better to do.

Really, I see a lot of parallels with Sugimoto because I’m sure Wilk too is persuaded he meant well... but he’s actually deciding things arbitrarily for others, looking more at his own advantage than at theirs.

Kiro accuses him of not caring about the Russian minorities because Wilk’s goal is now merely to protect his daughter’s future as she’s an Hokkaido Ainu.

Wilk insists his method is just the most realistic.

This part is again well constructed as it again represent the split between them.

Below the image of Wilk saying that only who wants to immigrate should do it we’ve on one side a panel with Kiro, accusing Wilk of selfishly caring only about Asirpa.

On the other we’ve two panels, one of Asirpa and one of Wilk, Asirpa’s panel taking most of the space.

Although Wilk insists he’s taking the most realistic path, it’s clear Asirpa weightens a lot on his decision... and in the future Asirpa is there to listen how she ultimately caused the division between those two friends just by... existing.

At this point though, the discussion takes a really ugly turn.

Kiro, who back then likely wasn’t married yet, remarks that it’s Hokkaido who actually has nothing to do with them, and that Wilk is caring about it merely because he now has a lovely family there.

The page is split in two. On one panel there’s Kiro and Wilk, this time together, on the other there’s Asirpa who’s ‘listening’ to the discussion they’re having, who’s called to hear of their actions and judge them.

And we make a break because we’ve a problem here and I wonder if Asirpa has caught up with it as well.

I stand by Kiro when he says Wilk’s plan is a betrayal of the other minorities and of his companions and therefore a pretty dirty move.

But they were planning to buy their freedom by using the Hokkaido Ainu gold. Now, unless they planned to steal from them, the Hokkaido Ainu should have mattered as well, they have something to do with them, they’re a minority too who deserves to be protected and of whom they wanted to use the resources and the support.

Hokkaido has everything to do with them if they want to involve it in their war and not just profit from it... which probably was exactly what they, deep down, meant to do since both Kiro and Wilk didn’t come to Hokkaido with the most honest intentions but disguised themselves among its people to try and find info about the gold.

So the discussion reveals that below those men’s oh so pure ideals, there’s something else, something else that’s not pure and selfless at all.

Self interest.

And Trurumi translates this in words for Asirpa.

Right from the start both Kiro and Wilk had two goals.

One was the noble one they presented to the world, protect the minorities.

The other was the more human one, protect whose they loved.

More often than not, expecially when interacting with a story, people tend to think other people/characters are moved solely by ONE SINGLE GOAL.

That’s not really true, people is usually moved by multiple goals.

both goals existed in both Kiro and Wilk but they presented to the world only one, the noble one, and kept the other hidden in their heart.

That’s because the world could understand and support the noble goal but would scoff at the other goal... yet the other goal is probably much more important to them than the other one.

In fact things are breaking among them EXACTLY due to that other goal being denied.

Their priority is that other goal, the noble goal exists... but comes second best and will never come first.

Tsurumi’s words reflect his own situation as well.

He too has a noble goal, to conqueer Hokkaido for the men of the 7th... a goal that to him is real and that he wants to reach... but he also has a much more private goal, which is tied to the loss of his family.

The existance of this goal doesn’t deny the existance of the previous goal. They both exists, it’s just he presents only one because only one would be considered acceptable and give him support... and also because the other is personal, private.

Something that holds in his heart but doesn’t dare to voice.

Tsukishima, outside of the room, hear all this and is impressed (we can see that on his face there aren’t anymore signs of anger) as he likely understood this can be applied to Tsurumi as well.

Tsukishima has naively believed Tsurumi has to have only one single goal, either he was fighting for the men of the 7th or he was fighting due to his own family but that’s not the case.

Tsurumi can as well fight both for creating a military state in Hokkaido for the men of the 7th but also for the people he loved and while the people he loved would be his main motive this wouldn’t make his second reason untrue.

Kiro, in an agry and distraught face reminds Wilk of how Sofia is still waiting for them in Russia, before attacking Wilk, who fight him back.

While back then it was all about what moved Wilk, now this page is all about what moves Kiro. He loved Sofia, not just the minorities.

He can’t bear the idea to sacrifice her, he’ll fight for her.

For her he’ll fight Wilk whom he admired and loved so much.

Asirpa understands all this.

While his father wanted to protect the minorities but, ultimately, prioritized her, Kiro too loved and wanted to protect the minorities, he was angry on their behalf but, more than everything, he loved and wanted to protect Sofia, Sofia, who was the last word he said before dying.

She explains Kiro’s feelings to Sofia and it’s so terribly sad to think back at how Kiro killed Wilk for her, because Wilk would just dump her and yet Sofia was still so in love with him when she met Kiro again she slapped him because he killed Wilk.

The pain Kiro should have felt in that moment... he just took the slap and didn’t counter, didn’t say anything. He killed Wilk FOR HER, it hurts him to kill Wilk and yet he couldn’t tell any of this...

... and, at the same time, he didn’t regret any of this. For her he would kill Wilk all over again.

Meanwhile, in the flashback we can see that the winner of the fight is Wilk... which was predictable enough, not because we knew Wilk was the better fighter (we didn’t) but because Kiro attacked him in blind rage, while Wilk managed to stay calm and, apparently, catch him in a strangle hold, suffucating him and causing him to lose consciousness.

That’s why Wilk walks away all bruised while Kiro, despite ending up on the ground, seems in better conditions.

Asirpa suggests her father might not have said the truth to Kiro because he knew Kiro loved Sofia.

It makes sense but it’s not a great justification because it’s the admission Wilk knew he was betraing them.

Kiro was allied with Wilk for a reason, Wilk knew that reason and so he tried to do things behind Kiro’s back because he wasn’t going to respect the deal he had with Kiro and Sofia, knowing Kiro wouldn’t agree to it.

Now... okay, as I said before it’s possible that Wilk is actually in an alliance with Tsurumi as well, or that he suspects Tsurumi has spies in his group so he’s serving Kiro a fake story but let’s assume he’s being sincere.

Wilk might claim and claim this is more rational, and maybe he even believes he’s doing all this because it’s more rational and not for his daughter, maybe he’s in denial about his own true reason so really, he thinks he’s choosing the best option... but the fact he knew Kiro wouldn’t accept it, hints at how deep down Wilk should have known it was betrayal.

Yet, it’s still possible Wilk wasn’t consciously aware of it, that he was lying even to himself.

We’ve seen this kind of betrayals through the story, with the character doing the deed not realizing he was betraying the other party but thinking he was picking up the best option for everyone.

Sugimoto sold Asirpa to Tsurumi, demanding money solely for himself and not caring about Shiraishi’s fate. By doing so HE BELIEVED he was protecting Asirpa (he wasn’t) and that Shiraishi should have just spontaneously given up to his own share of gold. Sugimoto could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Asirpa decided to join forces with Hijikata because she believed it would be a better option for them. By doing so SHE BELIEVED she was chosing the better option for everyone as an alliance would give them more chances of success and Hijikata has a better future in mind, but in truth she basically demanded from Boutarou to give up on his goal as Hijikata’s goal and Boutarou’s are mutually exclusive. Asirpa could have realized this (though I tend to give her a pass because she’s young but really, Boutarou pointed out he wanted to fulfill his goal too many times to miss it, and even if she still were due to her young age, Sugimoto and Shiraishi should have realized and give her a head up), but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Tsukishima, for most of the story, is not fighting Tsurumi’s orders but just agreeing with Tsurumi’s methods of deception of the other characters, because HE BELIEVED they will lead everyone to be saved. Practically he’s lying to Koito and denying Tanigaki the chance to opt out, attempting to force everyone in the 7th to betray Central. Tsukishima could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.

Long story short those people didn’t see their behaviour as betrayal but as pursuing the better option for themselves and the others, expecting the others to just agree with them.

Wilk’s behaviour, the fact he insists he’s picking up the better option as if he’s trying to persuade himself more than Kiro, reminds me of them, of people who were stubbornly thinking they were doing the right thing, they were picking the best option, when they actually were walking all over their friends, neglecting them and their goals in favour of a goal they prioritized.

But, back to the story, as soon as Asirpa tells Sofia that Kiro’s problem was that he loved Sofia so he couldn’t just leave her behind, Sofia lowers her head, her eyes wet.

She loved Wilk... but, in her own way she loved Kiro also, whom she saw as a little brother. It should pain her greatly to know in the end she was the reason that pushed Kiro to kill Wilk, that caused the split between them... even if this isn’t all true. As said, the goal to protect the minorities still existed in Kiro... but Sofia was the drop that broke the camel's back.

Also I get Asirpa meant well, she wants to deliver Kiro’s feelings and, at the same time, defend her father’s actions but that wasn’t probably the best moment to deliver Kiro’s feelings since Sofia was already shaken by how she was facing Tsurumi/Hasegawa... as for defending Wilk’s actions... honestly she only end up as painting him as calculative.

Because Wilk knew Kiro wouldn’t have agreed with his plan, he worked behind his back. I’m not sure Asirpa realizes though, she likely is buying the narrative in which Wilk’s choice was mainly for the greater good as well as her, while the order of the things was completely reverse and the plan was so dumb I can’t believe Wilk came up with it.

Anyway as a battered Wilk walks away we can see a Kiro tied to a tree coming to his sense with a murderous expression on his face.

Kiro sees even the fact Wilk has left him alive as a betrayal, not as of regret that he has actually betrayed his friend and can’t just bear to kill him.

Kiro tells himself the Wilk of the past would have killed Kiro, since Kiro was an obstacle to his purpose. Yet Wilk has left him alive which, to Kiro, proves Wilk has changed and isn’t anymore the Wilk he loved.

This makes me wonder if Kiro actually would have preferred to be killed, if this could have made him swallow the bitter pill Wilk betrayed them, if, in his furious mind, this would have been a proof that Wilk really believed they couldn’t do any better than conquer Hokkaido and then relocate everyone there.

Kiro has said he blindly trusted the old Wilk.

In a way the fact that Wilk, whom he loved and admired so blindly, betrayed their cause and tried to work behind his back should have hurt him terribly. That betrayal is the fall of a hero and, in a sense, Kiro tries to compensate by ‘denying that new Wilk’.

The ‘new’ Wilk is no more the Wilk he loved, therefore he’s no more Wilk, his friend. It makes sense he decided to kill that Wilk, who has turned into a stranger to him, no, worse, into an enemy, an enemy of their cause and an enemy who would sacrifice the people Kiro loved for his own goals.

So, clearly Wilk had to die because he betrayed their cause... but, since we’re talking of people doing things for more than one motive, I wonder if it’s also possible Kiro wanted him destroyed because Wilk wasn’t Wilk anymore, as if the new Wilk killed the old Wilk he loved.

This kind of remind me “The Return of the Jedy”

Luke Skywalker: Ben! Why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.

Obi-Wan: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" the Sith Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.

Luke Skywalker: A certain point of view?

Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.

Luke Skywalker: There is still good in him.

Obi-Wan: He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.

Luke Skywalker: I can't do it, Ben.

Obi-Wan: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again.

Luke Skywalker: I can't kill my own father.

Obi-Wan: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.

Kiro is Obi-Wan, who believes Wilk ceased to be ‘the Wilk he loved’ and became ‘that Wilk’ and when that happened, the good man who was Wilk was destroyed so, like Obi-Wan, he thinks ‘that Wilk’ has to be killed (by Luke/Ogata).

Contrary to him, Sofia is more like Luke Skywalker. She didn’t agree with Kiro’s idea they had to kill Wilk and slapped Kiro for what he did.

In all this though, it’s interesting Wilk left Kiro alive.

I’ve mentioned that other situations, similar to this one, happened in the story but this is the first in which the two parties confront each other BEFORE the deed his done. It would be interesting to know if his conversation with Kiro affected him, it made him realize his best option wasn’t so good and so right after all.

Wilk was still in time to change his mind, to go back on being the Wilk Kiro loved... or at least fix his plan so that it would include Kiro’s goals as well hence he might not have wanted to ruin everything by killing Kiro.

Wilk was still in time to try and patch things between them so maybe, albeith he had to leave right then, he left Kiro alive because he wanted to make up, to fix things between them, because he realized he wronged Kiro and didn’t want that.

But well, this is something we’ll discover in the next chapter.

On a sidenote is interesting how Kiro ties the fact that Wilk has changed to Wilk being irrational. The old Wilk was rational, the old Wilk would sacrifice companions because it was rationally the best choice and Kiro believed him.

This new Wilk leave him alive, which is not the best choice, therefore he’s being irrational, he’s being motivated by emotions, therefore even his choice to care only about Hokkaido is motivated merely by emotions, is not rational and shouldn’t be trusted.

It’s surely a convolute mental gimmik but it’s interesting because it’s totally a reasoning a person can do, especially when burning with blind rage... but well, Kiro is being emotional himself and, probably, not even realizing it.

Noda made great characters with them... but their situation is so sad it hurts and even mroe so because we know is hopeless.

Kiro will kill Wilk and will never get to understand his side and neither of them will ever manage to make peace with the other. Such a long friendship ended up in ashes and all for something that should be supposedly positive, the fact they loved someone.

It’s sad.

It’s sad that their friendship ended, it’s sad they didn’t manage to respect each otehr feelings and come up with a solution that would make them both satisfied.

It’s so very sad...