I thought we were done with boners after Tetsuzou died, but boy was I wrong!
— I thought the old man wanted to revive the Shinsengumi. It now turns out he wants to create a new nation. I think you need a little more than gold for that, though.
— Anyways, back to Shirashi. The action here is too comical for me. Ushiyama is spinning the guy in a circular motion as if he’s in a video game. I wish Golden Kamuy was either more serious or more devoted to the Ainu stuff. The action kinda sucks. During the fracas, Shiraishi eventually manages to slip away.
— Apparently, Hijikata fed Tsurumi false information, and amidst all the chaos, he and his men manage to rob a bank. See? Who needs the hidden gold if it’s this easy to rob a bank?
— Apparently, the old man is after a really valuable katana. It must have a lot of sentimental value, because despite what anime in general might want us to believe, I hardly doubt that Hijikata can block bullets with a sword.
— Shiraishi wants Retar’s help to sniff out Ushiyama’s location, but Asirpa doesn’t want to get the wolf involved again. After all, it has a family and everything. I’m fine with that. If Retar can live happily ever after with his family, at least we’ll have one happy ending.
— In the meantime, however, we get to watch Sugimoto catch a tanuki. We’re basically eating every furry creature that we can find in these woods.
— Welp.
— Oh good, the doggy is still around. We won’t eat that… I don’t think.
— So without Retar, Shiraishi decides to rely on Ryuu instead. I thought he was in this together with the other two. Why isn’t he telling them about what he’s doing? Maybe he’s just for himself, but I thought he was a nice guy. Ah well, we’ll find out soon enough.
— Meanwhile, Sugimoto and Asirpa stumble across a dead body. Well, that’s ominous. We then cut to Ushiyama talking to some dude about Henmi Kazuo, a notorious serial killer with over a hundred victims to his name. I feel like the story has too many characters, and it’s silly that each and every one of these escaped convicts has a special gimmick to them. I think Golden Kamuy would’ve been better served to focus in on the key players and let the plot move along at a a much more thrilling pace. Right now, however, all this boring setup for Henmi is putting me to sleep. You can blame it on the Nyquil, but I honestly think Golden Kamuy tends to meander between one meaningless prisoner to the next. I just don’t care about Tetsuzou, and I doubt I’ll care about Henmi either. They just feel like diversions.
— Well, Shiraishi’s a fool.
— No, seriously, what is that thing on his forehead? Have they ever explained that?
— Hijikata shows up and spares Shiraishi for now. He wants Henmi’s tattoo, and I guess the latter will just have to comply. I really don’t know what Shiraishi was hoping to accomplish by going up against Ushiyama alone. He ends up having to mention Sugimoto to the bad guys, but he lies when he claims that they haven’t gotten any tattoos. At least he hasn’t betrayed the good guys, I guess.
— And now it’s his turn to convince Sugimoto to help him out with the serial killer. Unfortunately, he won’t mention anything about Hijikata to either the ex-soldier or Asirpa.
— Uh, is Henmi getting a hard-on from remembering his brother’s death?
— This is almost like a beach episode.
— After hearing everything, Asirpa makes the decision for Sugimoto: the serial killer will be their next target. Apparently, her uncle is currently at the coast where Henmi is hiding out, so his life is potentially in danger. Gosh, this sure is working out for Shiraishi. I wonder if he feels any guilt.
— Yo, don’t eat whales.
— Sugimoto wonders why Henmi would leave out clues for the police to find, but I mean, these psychos can’t help themselves. Some of them can’t help but have a calling card. The ritualistic quality to their murders is what drives them to commit the heinous act over and over again. They wouldn’t be serial killers if their thought process made sense to us.
— Well, Asirpa’s uncle seems safe… for now.
— Our heroes are not going to go whale-hunting, are we?
— Oh no.
— Dude, how are you gonna drag that behemoth back to the coast? In any case, this is horrible.
— One of the fishermen falls overboard, and it might even be our notorious serial killer. What a nice coincidence.
— I can’t tell if Sugimoto is suspicious of the guy or not. I hate it when protagonists are blissfully ignorant for no other reason than to give the writers an easy way to generate conflicts.
— Huh, this guy wants to die real bad. It turns out he’s just hoping to find someone who would make him feel as helpless as his brother once did.
— Sadly, Sugimoto isn’t aware enough to save this poor sap.
— This place must smell. I don’t do well with any sort of fishiness. I don’t even like stopping by the local fish market. This is why I generally prefer my fish to be pan-fried. Cooking fish this way tends to remove the smell the most in my opinion.
— Dude is getting an erection just watching Sugimoto chop some fishy block in half. I really want to know if his crotch also looks like this in the manga, ’cause this is ridiculous.
— No episode is complete without a meal. At least it’s not a fish stew.
— Anyways, the episode ends with Henmi hoping that Sugimoto will be able to kill him. So for that to happen, he’ll try to kill Sugimoto instead. Seems to me like it would be easier to target Asirpa instead. He should assume that she’s easy to overpower since she’s a kid and all that, and this would piss Sugimoto off enough to murder him in cold blood. But whatever, it’s not important. Dude’s a creep, and I kinda just want his story to be over and done with by the end of next week’s episode.