Golden Kamuy is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Satoru Noda. The story follows Saichi Sugimoto, a veteran of the early twentieth century Russo-Japanese War, and his quest to find a huge fortune of gold left by the Ainu people, helped by a young Ainu girl named Asirpa. The Ainu language in the story is supervised by Hiroshi Nakagawa, an Ainu language linguist from Chiba University. The manga won the ninth Manga Taishō award in 2016. An anime television series adaptation by Geno Studio premiered with two seasons from April to December 2018. A third season will premiere in October 2020. The series has been licensed for an English-language release by Viz Media in 2016.
Plot
Saichi Sugimoto, a veteran of the Battle of 203 Hill in the Russo-Japanese War, works as a miner in Hokkaido in order to provide for the widow of his dead comrade. He hears a dubious story about a hidden trove of Ainu gold, the location of which is hidden in the tattoos of a group of convicts who escaped from Abashiri Prison. When he discovers that the story is true, and that multiple other groups are in pursuit of the gold, he decides to search for it along with Asirpa, a young Ainu girl.
Media
Manga
Golden Kamuy is written and illustrated by Satoru Noda. It began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump magazine on August 21, 2014. The series has been collected into 22 tankōbon volumes as of June 2020. Viz Media announced that they licensed the manga at New York Comic Con 2016, and they have been releasing volumes in North America since June 2017.
Anime
The anime television series adaptation is produced by Geno Studio. It is directed by Hitoshi Nanba and written by Noboru Takagi, with music by Kenichiro Suehiro, art direction by Atsushi Morikawa, and CG direction by Yuuko Okumura and Yasutaka Hamada. Kenichi Ohnuki is adapting the character designs for animation, while Koji Watanabe designs firearms, Shinya Anasuma designs the props, and Ryō Sumiyoshi designs the animals. The series' opening theme, "Winding Road", is performed by Man with a Mission, and the ending theme, "Hibana" is performed by The Sixth Lie. Like with the manga, Hiroshi Nakagawa, an Ainu language linguist from Chiba University, works on the anime as an Ainu language supervisor. The anime was announced in July 2017 in Weekly Young Jump, and aired for twelve episodes starting from April 9 to June 25, 2018 on Tokyo MX, ytv, STV, and BS11. Golden Dōga Gekijō, a series of 25-second animated shorts based on extras included in the Golden Kamuy manga volumes and Weekly Young Jump, is directed by Kenshirō Morii and produced at DMM.futureworks and W-Toon Studio. It premiered on April 16, 2018 online. At the conclusion of the first season broadcast, a second season was announced and aired from October 8 to December 24, 2018. The second season's opening theme, "Reimei", is performed by Sayuri and My First Story, and the ending theme, "Tokeidai no Kane" is performed by Eastern Youth. On July 7, 2019, it was announced that the series will receive a third season. On March 13, 2020, it was announced that the third season is set to premiere in October 2020. The TV series is simulcast on Crunchyroll, and an English dub started streaming on Funimation starting on April 30, 2018. The series will also be released across three DVD and Blu-ray volumes in Japan, starting in July 2018; they had originally been planned to release starting in June, but were delayed one month to allow for improvements to the footage compared to the TV broadcast version. The Japanese home video volumes will include the Golden Dōga Gekijō shorts, including four episodes that are exclusive to the first volume. An original video animation based on the manga's "Barato" arc was released on DVD in a bundle with the manga's 15th Japanese volume on September 19, 2018. A second OVA was released with the manga's 17th Japanese volume on March 19, 2019. A third OVA based on the manga's "Monster" arc was released with the manga's 19th Japanese volume on September 19, 2019.
Reception
Golden Kamuy had 5 million copies in print as of April 2018. It charted on the Oricon Japanese Comics Rankings for the week of April 18–24, 2016, with volume seven placing eighth place. By June 19, 2019, the date that manga Volume 18 was released, the total number of copies printed had reached 10 million. The series won the ninth Manga Taishō award in 2016. It was nominated for the 20th and 21st annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2016 and 2017, and won the 22nd in 2018 in the Grand Prize category. It was also nominated for the 40th Kodansha Manga Award in the general category, and for an Eisner Award for best US edition of an Asian comic. It was ranked second in the 2016 edition of the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list for male readers. The British Museum in London used an image of the character Asirpa to promote its Manga exhibit, which ran from May 23 to August 26, 2019.
