NOTE: Golden Kamuy is rated M for Mature.

Have you ever been out on your own in the wilderness? Hiking, fishing, camping—most of us have some sort of experience of the great outdoors. But what would you do if you had to survive out there on your own?

Satoru Noda’s Golden Kamuy is a classic adventure story set in the early 20th century, just after the Russo-Japanese War. My first comparison is to the old Humphrey Bogart film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where a down-on-his-luck prospector tries to outwit a bunch of bandits and other miscreants to find a horde of gold. My second comparison would be to modern American western movies like the recent remakes of True Grit and 3:10 to Yuma. There also something of a Quentin Tarantino flavor to some of the characters, and the level of violence portrayed in some of the action scenes.

In Golden Kamuy, our hero is Saichi “Immortal” Sugimoto, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). We first meet him panning for gold in a tapped out river in the wilderness of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, which at the time was still relatively undeveloped compared to the main Japanese islands and mostly populated by the indigenous Ainu people. When Saichi hears a crazy story from a fellow prospector about a cache of Ainu gold, it sets him off on a dangerous quest for hidden riches. He soon meets up with Asirpa, an Ainu girl from a nearby tribe whose father was murdered by the man who stole the gold. The two join forces—Saichi to seek his fortune, and Asirpa to seek revenge.

Even though Japan won the short but costly Russo-Japanese War, for many veterans, like Saichi Sugimoto and others in Golden Kamuy, the victory rang hollow as they found themselves cast aside when they returned. Saichi earned himself the moniker “Immortal” since he managed to survive some of the most terrible fighting of the war, particularly the siege of Port Arthur and the assault on 203 Meter Hill. Saichi’s goals for himself are modest, as he’s trying to keep a promise to take care of the wife of his dead comrade, a woman he himself also loves. But some of Saichi’s fellow veterans are much more ambitious. Lt. Tsurumi, one of the main antagonists of Golden Kamuy is bent on nothing less than taking over Hokkaido for himself!

The central plot device—a cryptic map tattooed onto the bodies of several dozen death row inmates that leads to a hidden horde of Ainu gold—keeps things moving forward. Saichi and Asirpa face the sometimes gruesome task of collecting the skins of some of these prisoners. But of course, they aren’t the only ones looking for the treasure. A murderer’s row (literally) of cutthroats including the aforementioned Lt. Tsurumi’s rogue army unit, a swordsman with ties to the Shinsengumi (an old paramilitary police force of the former Shogunate), and a cast of other rogues is out looking for the gold. So there is plenty of action (and it can be bloody at times).

Saichi’s companion on his search for fortune and glory is the Ainu girl, Asirpa. Asirpa provides Saichi, and thus the reader, a window on the lifestyle and culture of the Ainu. The Ainu are Japan’s indigenous people, mostly found in the northern regions of Honshu and Hokkaido. Their language and culture are completely different from the Japanese and these aspects are focused on and highlighted in Golden Kamuy. The scenes of Ainu life, their methods of hunting, their rituals and beliefs, are really fascinating. Certainly, the scenes dedicated to Ainu cooking will make your stomach rumble—or possibly turn over!

Noda carefully researched the Ainu (even providing an extensive bibliography of Japanese sources), enlisting the help of Hiroshi Nakagawa, a Japanese university professor who is an expert on the Ainu language. Ainu as a language has no written form, and no linguistic connection to Japanese, which means transliterations using Japanese phonetics are imperfect, and thus going from Japanese to English is even more of a challenge.

On that note, I’d like to mention that the word “kamuy” has appeared in manga and anime in the past (I am thinking in particular of one of VIZ Media’s very first releases back in the 80s, Dagger of Kamui). VIZ Media was provided with an extensive list of and notes on all the Ainu words and phrases used in the manga. I’ve used Professor Nakagawa’s English spelling of Ainu vocabulary, thus the use of a “y” instead of “I” on the end of “kamuy”.

Satoru Noda skillfully weaves together plotlines and scenes that both entertain and educate at the same time. Golden Kamuy takes on themes of loyalty and friendship, the effects and the aftermath of war, the loss of cultural identity and lifestyles, and the morality of survival—Mother Nature doesn’t care who you are, she’s always trying to kill you. It’s always good to learn about the history of some part of the world you never knew about before, and if you can do it through a great story like Golden Kamuy, so much the better!