Golden Kamuy Season 3

Episode 11

Shiraishi tackles Sugimoto out of joy, and Sugimoto asks him where Asirpa is. Shiraishi mentions that she is with Kiroranke and Ogata, putting Sugimoto on alert immediately. Sugimoto mentions that Ogata shot him. Up ahead, Asirpa scolds herself for forgetting the important fact about her father but realizes that after he told her was around when he and Retar both left her life.

Asirpa and Ogata find driftwood to make a fire, and set out to find more. Ogata confronts her about remembering something important. He says that if she tells him the code he will take enough of the gold to disappear and she can be free of the killings as well.

A little further back, Tsukishima discovers a person in the snow. It turns out to be the young girl from the family at the lighthouse. He tries to convince her to go back, but she wants to see St. Petersburg and have a life in the city. She also admits that she cannot go back and face her parents after what has happened. Additionally, Koito and Tanigaki get accosted by two brigands with blades who try to rob them of their clothes and items. Tanigaki leaps up just as one of the brigands goes to shoot him and deflects the bullet with a chunk of ice. The gunshot alerts Ogata, who spots Sugimoto with binoculars.

As Tanigaki and Koito make short work of the robbers, everyone else moves into high gear. Kiroranke is attempting to catch Asirpa and Ogata who are fleeing up ahead. Kiroranke wanders into the path of Tanigaki who immediately bull rushes him. A fight ensues, and it seems that Kiroranke is about to finish Tanigaki off. However, Tanigaki drives the knife Kiroranke left at Abashiri Prison into the latter's chest.

Up ahead, Ogata reveals that Sugimoto asked him to give some of the gold to his best friend's wife Tome for surgery on her eyes. Asirpa accuses him of lying about Sugimoto being dead already, but Ogata explains it as sheltering her from a harsh truth. She asks to know the full truth about his death - still unaware that he is not far behind. Ogata reveals that Sugimoto wanted to eat monkfish stew, and Asirpa is immediately on alert because something is wrong. She breaks away from his grasp and draws her bow on him. Ogata takes a moment to confront her about her unwillingness to kill on this journey, daring her to kill him.

She lowers her bow. He goes to fire. Sugimoto screams.

She lets go and fires an arrow straight into his eye.

Sugimoto immediately dives in, cuts out the eye, and sucks the wound clean, bandaging it, and saves him as the ice breaks. As it threatens to take them all under he reaches out to take Asirpa's hand and save her too. She also gets her eyelid frozen to his metal button, but thankfully Shiraishi has a full bladder and pee pee ensues she is soon free.

Koito and Tsukishima find Tanigaki's rifle but Kiroranke boobytrapped it. The bomb goes off, injuring Tsukishima and leaving Koito to go it alone. He and Kiroranke engage in a battle up ahead as the episode closes out.

L O R D

Golden Kamuy is a lot but in the best possible way.

As you can probably tell by the lengthy summary, a ton of stuff happened in this episode. The back and forth and following the various groups across the ice is pretty daunting to try and explain, in part because of the sheer number of moving parts but also because of how lightning fast everything is. Honestly, it's remarkable that all this is going on without it being impossible to keep track of and all of the pieces feel engaging. Once again, the tension is through the roof and it seems like every couple of seconds we are jumping from one place to another hearing dramatic revelations, seeing someone in a potentially fatal scenario, or both.

The fact that all of this comes together is a testament to both Noda and the anime production team. I think that even if you had no context for anything that was going on with these characters you would get a sense of the sky-high stakes and the way the tension keeps finding new ways to ratchet higher and higher. But compounding all of this is deeply and genuinely caring for what happens to everyone involved and seeing how all these threads play out. On top of the usual masterful art and brilliant moments like the slow motion drop of the shell-casing as Tanigaki and Kiroranke cross paths.

I am, of course, at once deeply grateful for more Tanigaki content. We get to see him fight Kiroranke, drop a cool line, and even get a brief flash of Inkarmat thrown in to sweeten the deal. It's unclear what has happened to him but I am nervous for the outcome there.

Asirpa and Ogata's face-off has to be one of the best moments in the series thus far. In true Golden Kamuy fashion somehow it manages to be as violent and ridiculous as expected while being completely unexpected all at once. Sugimoto diving in and sucking out Ogata's eye and the poison - I probably played that back three times alone.

And - of course - it ends with Shiraishi gleefully peeing on everyone.

This. Show.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Golden Kamuy Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation. Save on Anime Streaming Subscriptions with Funimation.