Food is a part of who we are, you are what you eat after all. Golden Kamuy does a great job at portraying this, and so much more. Link to the Discord: / discord Link to Patreon: www.patreon.co...
something I want to add to the wonderful points in this video is the idea of food as an indication of a person's place and context. look at the first scene of the first episode of Golden Kamuy. Sugimoto is shown in the trenches. he eats an ant, then spits it out, commenting that it tastes sour. he's hungry... starving even. but he claims that he'll take a bite out of an enemy soldier before he lets himself die here. his place and context are simply: war. this is why Sugimoto conceptualizes himself as someone damned in the early parts of the show... he says he never wanted to kill the way he did, but he can't deny how war seeped into every facet of him, and warped his persona into something unrecognizable to himself... and yet, something functional, that managed to keep him alive. what could he have been, if not that? to me, it feels like the soldiers in Golden Kamuy are different people in the context of war vs. civilian life... I would describe it as their civilian identities getting cast aside during the war, because war has no use for them as people. they go out on the battlefield along with so many other people, all identical in their utility, none worthy of defining in any other way. to do so would be to hope that they'd come back. if you have an animal that you intend to slaughter... the last thing you'd want to do is name it. and what happens when they do come back? it's almost as though they weren't really supposed to. for a lot of them, they look to some earlier point in their life, back when human connections were allowed to seem attainable and valuable to them. what did they used to do, back when they behaved like they were human? when Asirpa and Sugimoto begin cooking together, Asirpa isn't just feeding his physical body... she's feeding him a new sense of place and context. her culture isn't familiar to him, so she has a perfect excuse to teach him how to live as a civilian again, on even the most basic levels, from the foundation on up. this is the exact kind of gentle re-integration Sugimoto needs... it's what all the soldiers are searching for on some level. Asirpa steps up to fill the void where support for these men should ideally be... but so does Tsurumi. and while Asirpa focuses on using food and culture to allow these men to begin healing from the way war contextualized them... Tsurumi focuses on their unique traumas. he admires their trauma, emphasizes and elevates it, and simultaneously convinces them that they should exist that way, and that there's no other way for them to exist. nobody else could accept them as they are... nobody but him. he traps them there, and convinces them that he's the only one who understands. he replaces the idea of community in their mind, with this cult-like fanaticism that only he will continue to perpetuate. it is then significant to remember his conversation with Arisaka, about how if Arisaka is successful in his arms dealing business, then Tsurumi will likely be successful at the production of narcotic drugs, such as morphine and opium, if he can get his poppies to grow. after which he and Arisaka go to visit Nikaido in the hospital, who is now massively addicted to morphine. once again, we have a consumption based indicator of place and context. this is how the show sets up Asirpa and Tsurumi as foils... they still haven't even met in the anime yet, but you can feel how completely opposite they are in the same role. I also love the way that Asirpa and Sugimoto's animal affiliations come into play in terms of this... wherein Sugimoto is a deer, and Asirpa is a wolf. to me, Sugimoto seems like if you took the instincts of a prey animal (to lash out defensively for the sake of his self preservation) and used them viciously by necessity. and Asirpa is like if you took the instincts of a predator (to live within the ecosystem by hunting and providing for her pack/community) and used them constructively by choice. and Asirpa has problems killing people because she sees them as thinking, feeling, intellectual equals, while Sugimoto has problems killing animals because they've done nothing wrong, and can't even be applied to the concept of deserving it. I find it interesting that Asirpa is able to mend Sugimoto's fear of being hunted by instilling in him the sense of safety that comes from being a valued part of her community. looking at a few other specific food examples... it's notable that, in Tanigaki's backstory, the beginning point of his tale is defined by the kane mochi he uses to save himself and his friend. and after embarking on his whole revenge quest... after leaving for the war, losing his mother, grieving his sister, and trying to live for violence... it all comes back to the kane mochi, and the specific element of care that only Tanigaki adds, which makes him identifiable, more than anything else. it doesn't matter what he's done... this is still what defines him. he's not meant for ruthlessness. sharing kane mochi is contextualized by care. it's literally the last thing you have to give, and is meant to act as a lifeline, and it doesn't matter that Tanigaki is in the midst of war... his kane mochi is still why his friend knows he's there. meanwhile, for Ogata... his mother making monkfish stew over and over again means that her mind is far from him. if she were paying attention, she'd know that he hates this, and she'd see his efforts to change it. but her place and context are not with him. she may physically be there, but she hasn't truly shown him care in a long, long time. by the time he kills her, I'm pretty sure he knew, in no uncertain terms, that she was already gone, and was never coming back. food is literally such an important theme that helps weave the tapestry of interconnected influences in this show. each use of it says a new and interesting thing about the place and context of each character.
Amazing review. I'm copying, saving and printing out this so much. This makes me want to reread Golden Kamuy again and I've only recently finished it in May. I am really sad about it though, as I wish I would've read it sooner.
@@mshbite thank you, I'm glad! I absolutely love Golden Kamuy, and even if it is over, it's still managed to be endlessly entertaining to me. I can't wait for the next season of the anime to come out... there's still some hype in our future!
Really fantastic essay on how important food is in Golden Kamuy, you've really captured it all! While Golden Kamuy is a huge mix of different genres, food shows up in the narrative of every character's backstory, and it's something that shows development in the characters, shows their origins, and explains their past traumas - like Tanigaki's walnut-flavored kane mochi explains the (severed) ties to his family or Ogata's monkfish stew revolving around his mother. Again, thanks for the great essay. It's always nice to see people analyzing Golden Kamuy's detailed narrative.
Ah, what a beautiful video, man. It suddenly made me introspect on my mother's river chili and all the dishes she made for me and my siblings with it. You've kind've convinced me to watch Golden Kamuy just by talking about this.
Love your Gundam video essays. Golden Kamuy is objectively one of the best written and drawn manga of recent years. Extremely under the radar, never see anybody outside Japan talking about it.
The topic of regional food is one of my favourites, experiencing new dishes and learning of their place in other cultures' traditions is something I really enjoy, it's one of many reasons I love Golden Kamuy. Speaking of citatap, in Poland (the country I come from) there is a very popular dish called tatar, which is basically the same thing prepared in the same way (aside from the chanting of its name) as citatap, so while watching the show I actually found that perticular Ainu dish to be the most reminiscent of my own country's cuisine, which immediately added to the feeling of familiarity with the culture.
Idk,, Ogata is smart and knows how to manipulate people. He might just be humoring our best girl to gain her trust since his conversation with Kiroranke about how that would be the best way to get information from Asiripa.
Actually I disagree. He isn't manipulative but acts simply as he wants. For example, he could have gained asirpa's friendship and trust by saying hinna or chitatap, but he took him long time to finally released those word and makes asirpa proud and happy. When he tried to persuade her to give the key for the gold, he didn't succeed which shows he isn't the kind to use manipulation. Sorry English isn't my first language and I realize my arguments don't seem very accurate but well, hope you can understand my point of view
@@alam8534 Ogata stumbled over a ton of details when attempting to make a cover-up story when he returned to Hijikata about what happened to Sugimoto, Kioranke and Wilk. He's not as cunning as Tsurumi or Hijikata-he's not as good of a manipulator as he is a strategist and analytic. He's still quite young and immature and thus tends to overestimate his opponents at time-I do believe what we see *is* in fact him just being himself. He's too bad at lying.
I think this is my favorite thing about Ogata... he's great at his specific area of expertise, but he's really bad at people. and it makes sense, given his hangups. basically, in terms of Ogata's psychology... Ogata believes that other people secretly all think just like him deep down. and if anyone is acting like a pure, innocent, or good person, they must be lying. the funny thing is... "pure" characters like Asirpa and Yuusaku behave like good people with such predictable consistency, that Ogata has no choice but to raise his gun to each of them, respectively, when he fails to corrupt them. his ideology isn't tempting to them. meanwhile, Ogata claims to feel no guilt over anything he's done... and yet, he keeps hallucinating Yuusaku bleeding from the head, which suggests otherwise. it feels more like Ogata is trying to repress his guilt, and it still won't go away. so if anyone is lying to themselves about the true nature of their own feelings, it's Ogata. so, given the backwards way Ogata sees other people's perspectives, as well as his own, it makes total sense that he's bad a manipulating people. he's good at lying... he's been lying to himself for a long time now. but he's really really bad at anticipating what really motivates people, or what they really want to hear. he's fine as long as he's like, 100 yards away and can detach himself, but the instant you put him up close and personal with other people, and ask him to function socially, he's completely out of his element.
@@kamuyking551 😭 Damn you just perfectly described Ogata's personality. Some People got mistaken and compare him with serial killers on real life which l disagree with them. You can even make video by diffusing this misunderstanding since l don't see any video of character analysis of Ogata and all other characters. All l can see is him trying to act tough like a smart cold blooded killer but actually he was awkwardly searching for a person who can deeply understand and see who truly he is that is one of reasons why he switch place one after another whenever he find it convenience like a cat and jeopardize people's plans to get attention (like a cat who would seek attention by disturbing you whenever you're working). Call me weird but that made me find "gap moe".
@@hteteaindraykyaw996 yeah, I think one of the great tragedies of Ogata is that he only ever figures out what's good for him after he's already ruined it. like, when Ogata meets Yuusaku, he hates him right away because Yuusaku represents all the privileges that their father gave to his preferred son. Yuusaku is living a blessed life, while Ogata feels like he is cursed. however, on some level, you have to figure that Ogata did want what Yuusaku had. otherwise why would he care so much. Ogata's main goal with Yuusaku was to corrupt him... to drag Yuusaku down into the pit with him. but Yuusaku was literally trying to open his arms to Ogata and bring him to a better place. the fact that Ogata hated Yuusaku prevented him from realizing that such a thing might've actually been good for him, if he could bring himself to accept it. technically, that would've been good for him. psychologically, it was impossible for it to work. and then Ogata starts to observe Asirpa and Sugimoto. and like... in the season 3 finale, Ogata draws a pretty clear comparison between Asirpa and Yuusaku. people who go into a violent situation like war, and expect for their souls to remain clean. people who maintain a goal of peace... and on a technical level, they aren't wrong to do that. peace should be the end goal, and even those who fought deserve to have it someday. and when you look at how Asirpa affects Sugimoto... when you watch, and see how she makes him feel better by cooking with him, caring about his life, and inviting him into civilian community settings... what Sugimoto is accepting from Asirpa, is the very thing that Ogata rejected from Yuusaku. the ability to heal. and then Ogata takes matters into his own hands and destroys this. see, Ogata was originally a member of the 7th division, and while he defected from them pretty quickly, he's still got something in common with the way most of the men under Tsurumi think. Tsurumi controls people by finding guys who are crazy, and thus, their way of thinking or acting is rejected by broader civilian society. Tsurumi then comes in and establishes himself as the type of person who can accept them as they are... he'll love them specifically for the qualities that make the rest of the world reject them. and this is especially relevant in the context of soldiers, who were damaged by the war, but who are now convinced that war is the only context in which they belong. outside of war, they don't know what to do with themselves. Ogata might not rely on Tsurumi for that sense of validation, but I think he does feel like war was a place where a cursed individual like himself actually fit right in. generally speaking, Ogata is more comfortable when everyone around him is corrupted to the point where they resemble him. he's not receptive to the idea that he might need to be the one to change. so shooting Wilk (more father murder), and then shooting Sugimoto (the one that Asirpa is healing) made sense to him. what's ironic is, if Asirpa is comparable to Yuusaku, then Sugimoto exists in direct contrast to Ogata. and in a way, Ogata shooting Sugimoto is sort of like him trying to kill this vision of what he might've been like, if he'd chosen the healthier path. then, if you consider Ogata to have been softening up because of Asirpa at any point throughout season three, it's already doomed. Ogata shot Sugimoto. if Asirpa ever finds out the full truth about that, then Asirpa would never be on good terms with him again. that information is just a ticking time bomb, and in the end, Ogata tries to bring Asirpa lower... to corrupt her, and bring her to his level. in some twisted way, it feels like he wants the two of them to be relatable to each other somehow. but their ideological battle is, once again... can she make him any better, or will he make her worse? in the end, it's Sugimoto that makes all the difference. Ogata failed to kill him, and Asirpa succeeded in humanizing him. so when Sugimoto shows up, despite his anger, he saves Ogata's life. early in the story, Asirpa had to keep reminding Sugimoto that she didn't want to unnecessarily kill anyone in their hunt for the gold. and now, Sugimoto understands. whatever hell war was to him, Asirpa shouldn't have to know it too. Sugimoto is the anti-Ogata. he doesn't want her to be corrupted. and Sugimoto himself is well enough to be able to stand for that ideal. even so... that still leaves Ogata on the outside looking in, as someone else lives a blessed life that he has no chance of being able to partake in. and it makes you sort of wonder... at what point should he have known better? how much of this was really preventable? Ogata is a fascinating character, because there are no clear answers with him.
This review was heartfelt and beautiful. I've been meaning to find a way to write growth through characters in unique ways and this video helped me immensely.
this was such a great video to watch. it was great to hear your thoughts on the importance of food and how it plays into golden kamuy, especially since it’s one of my favorite series and i’ve been starting my own journey in cooking
Food is a large part of culture, simple as that. That’s why you see so many different family restaurants in America. You can get Polish Food at one place, Italian food down the street, Japanese Food across the street, and go to an Irish Pub afterwards. Like you said, Food is a good way of others getting to know one another. Hence the nickname of America as a Melting pot.
Beautiful video, made me immediately go and start watching this show. As a native londoner that bit about your experience in england was really interesting, we take fish and chips for granted as cheap fast food a lot of the time lol.
great video, loved it, the food is one of my fave parts of gk i got a cat food ad which i refuse to believe is just a coincidence in a video about food And ogata
Injust öike tha fact its and anime toucjing on the russo japanese war of 1904/1905 after ww2, its probably the most important event in Japans history post meiji restoration
yup and the manga is funnier and cover more than the anime (they omit half of the arcs due to be perceived as fillers, as in less important to Asirpa and Golds hunts plots)
