Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 288 âA Pleasant Manâ
So from a Watsonain perspective Iâve to praise Wilk as it turned out everything went...
yeah, just as he planned it... though Doylistically speaking let me be amazed by how Noda made this wonderful and intricate plot... but letâs start with order.
The story starts with a very useful timeline concerning the events that involved the gold.
There are little things I appreciate more than timelines so Iâm extremely grateful to Noda for it.
We move back to the Russian consulate in 1902.
Irenka, one of the Ainu working with Wilk, correctly guesses the government which rules Hokkaido wouldnât just give them the land, should they show up with the land deed.
Wilk suggests to ask Enomoto Takeaki for help at which the others correctly imply it would be a little hard for them to meet him.
As if this wasnât difficult enough, Kimuspu informs them the Japanese government is AFTER THE LAND DEED and would steal it before they were to reach Enomoto, which is why they were forced to hide it there.
But then he suggests a Nispa might be able to help to get in touch with Enomoto.
We go back to 1869 and to a much younger Kimuspu, one that looks more like Cikapasi due to how the signs on his face are now more marked.
He explains they used to go to Goryokaku as they negotiated with Enomoto over buying the land, without even knowing the battle of Hakodate would escalate.
Early at the beginning of the story (chap 30) Hijikata lamented how their battle was hampered by the struggle to get funds...
...which seems to hint whatever agreement Enomoto managed to reach with the Ainu, was reached too late.
Anyway, while the others go take part to the negotiation Kimuspu is left behind to take care to give water to the horses and, as he does so he meets Hijikata⊠who basically behaves like a Sugimoto with a slightly different face...
Hijikata is curious of Kimuspuâs tattoo, heâll help Kimuspu, is cheerful and modest, admitting all heâs good with are battles, horses and women. Okay, Sugimoto is popular with women but canât understand them at all while Hijikata was supposedly better at this but whatever, Hijikata really feels like him to me⊠though I doubt they plan to have them be related.
Anyway Kimuspu doesnât let him know why theyâre there but clearly likes him and finds him a âSawayakana otokoâ (çœăăăȘç· âpleasant/refreshing/invigorating/clear manâ). Later he finds out heâs Hijikata, an Ezo republic commander.
Enomoto keeps the land deed as a secret. I wonder if, should he had won the war, he too would have tried getting it back.
Anyway the Ainu prepare the gold, though they donât really trust Enomoto.
Theyâre being too slow though.
The government forces begin their all-out attack.
Weâre at June 20 (lunar calendar May 11), 1869, and Hijikata, instead than being killed as history wants, is just nearly killed near the Ippongi Kanmon but manages to drag himself back despite the wounds...
...and is helped by Kimuspu, despite his comrades being against it. In order to give them a reason to care about Hijikata, Kimuspu reminds them heâs Enomotoâs comrades but itâs clear heâs not helping him just for that.
Kimuspu should have been a nice person, it fits heâs Cikapasiâs grandfather.
Anyway he brings Hijikata in one of the house left empty when its owners evacuated, so as not to let Hijikata be found by soldiers.
When Hijikata awakes, heâs reached by the news the Kaitenmaru was also destroyed by fire (always on June 20) and thinks they should protect the fortress Benten Daiba as Goryokaku  will surely fall due to the bombing of the ships, but Kimuspu tells him the day before, (June 24th) while he was unconscious, the fortress surrendered. This means weâre at the 25th. Goryokaku will surrender the 27th.
At this Hijikata likely understands theyâve no more hope to fight and asks Kimuspu to bring him to mount Hakodate, apparently to a statue of Kannon. Hijikata, dressed up as an Ainu to disguise himself, doesnât manage to explain why he wanted to go there as the bombing on Goryokaku resumes and then theyâre found by soldiers, who recognize Hijikata.
Kimuspu, gets in between them and Hijikata. He explains his action saying he was desperate because he figured the Ainu would lose the land of the republic of Ezo. Although he manages to push the rifle away from Hijikata, the soldier fires anyway and kills one of the Ain that were with Kimuspu.
At this Hijikata tells him to stop or they all would be killed and let the guards take him away. Kimuspu who had been pushed on the ground, stares at the dead Ainu in shock but heâs evidently released later on as itâs only Hijikata whoâs carried away, apologizing to them and promising he wonât forget the debt he owns to them.
Kimuspu explains how, out of guilt for letting the soldiers take Hijikata, he couldnât tell Enomoto how the latter survived. However, when he tries to find information on Hijikataâs fate no one wants to say he was caught or executed and, several years later he begins hearing rumors about Hijikata having been looked in a prison, an ex-warden even confirming this. So Kimuspu is sure Hijikata is alive.
Ratci adds in he also hears rumors about Hijikata being alive and helping to build the convict road.
Anyway they work up in their mind that Hijikata could get their message to Enomoto. How since heâs a prisoner those survival theyâre basically hiding? Well, Oskeporo suggests they could pretend to be wardens and break him out. Itâs worth to mention by then Hijikata was already in Abashiri so making him escape isnât as easy as they make it out⊠but, on the other side, I do wonder if this was all part of Wilkâs plan. I mean, he and the other Ainu were hiding near to where there were those âprison lodgesâ in which Inudou kept laborers confined⊠and, when the other Ainu die Wilk rushes there and have himself being arrested, asking to give Inudou the message he killed 7 Ainu and knows the location to the Ainu hidden gold.
I mean, at a first glance it seemed he did it merely to escape from Tsurumi⊠but maybe his goal was reaching Abashiri and getting into contact with Hijikata in the first place so as to use the whole incident with the Ainut o carry on his plan.
We see him repeating Hijikataâs name with a thoughtful expression after allâŠ
...and then Kimuspu claims he knows a good spot to hide the gold, the good spot being the well. As they place the gold inside the well, one of them guarding the group in the distance, Kimuspu explains the last time they met Enomoto he saw the well being covered with dirt, so the Meiji government might not have noticed it existed. As a result the Ainu hid the gold there and starts planning an uprising among the Ainu.
So yes, they wanted to fight with weapons the Japanese government, not just use the land deed to have the land pacifically.
Wilk also thinks if Hijikata hadnât forgotten his debt, he should repay the Ainu of the future. Honestly I think he should repay only Kimuspu⊠as Kimuspuâs Ainu friends back then helped him solely because he was Enomotoâs friend and they were making business with him but whatever, we know how Wilk is, for him the Ainuâs cause is the only one that matter⊠though from how he speaks he seems to link âAinu of the futureâ to Asirpa, whose name means woman of the future. So he basically is saying Hijikata should help his daughter.
The flashback ends here and the visual is pretty good because it moves from Wilk looking down in the well to Asirpa looking up from the well, as if to give the illusion she and Wilk could see each other⊠but the one looking down in the well this time is Hijikata, who likely means to repay his debt anyway.
And so thatâs the story of how Hijikata and Wilk connected the whole horse kanji with a well whose existence only the two of them knew.
Iâll be honest, on one side Iâm not overly fond of all this background exposition as itâs just that, exposition with little personal drama (I mean, Kimuspu was clearly grief stricken when the soldiers try to arrest Hijikata and, in effort to stop them, he inadvertently cause one of his friends to get killed⊠but this isnât really explored⊠at most itâs exploited by Wilk) but, on the other side, Iâm amazed by how Noda came up with such an intricate plot.
I mean, the meeting between Nopperabou and Hijikata seemed casual, they were merely two prisoners in the same prison⊠and Wilk trusting Hijikata to take care of Asirpa and carrying on all that plan seemed a risky bet based on circumstances but now it turns out Hijikata was ALWAYS part of the plan and the code was made keeping not only Asirpa but he too into consideration because Wilk clearly assumed Asirpa wouldnât accomplish anything with the land deed without Hijikataâs support and the hideout of the gold is basically a jab at Hijikataâs moral sense so as to remind him Ainu (well, ONE Ainu) helped him so he should help them as well.
So while a side of me is âwell, I donât really care about this little sidestory per se as itâs just exposition and not emotionally engagingâŠâ the other side is âoh my this man actually planned all those plot details so damn carefully Iâm amazed! I love him! This is just great writing!â
Oh well, I hope everyone else is enjoying how the story is revealing itself as much as Iâm doing because, really, Iâm having lot of fun! I love to see such a well thought plot! This is such a masterful work!
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Do you have an issue with Noda's way of depicting Wilk's moral as gray like the fandom? Espacially with the reveal of the land deed that may ensure a future for Asirpa and the Ainu but wasn't part of his original plan
Hum...
I don't really know what the fandom is thinking in regard to Wilk so I can't really comment on it.
It's also worth to remember that Wilk discovered about the existance of the land deed only a short time before Tsurumi caused an argument between him and the other Ainu rebels that ended up with them killing each other.
Prior to that moment Wilk had no idea the land deed existed and therefore he couldn't include it in his original plan.
It's also worth to ponder if that land deed could be included in Wilk's plan after Wilk learnt of its existance. I mean, at first the land deed is presented as a cool thing.
That land deed exists by 50 years. The Russian warship Kalevala incident whcih signed the end of the tractatives with the Russians is dated 1867.
Hijikata says the deed was signed while he was in the battle of Futamataguchi which took place on the fourth week of May 1869. The Republic of Ezo is disestablished on the 27th of June, 1869 and Enomoto has then the Meiji government accepted the contract.
We know the Ainu gave them half of the gold and retrieved the contract but now we should ask ourselves an important question: why no Ainu used the land deed to claim the land?
When Kimuspu shows it to Wilk we're in 1902, it means that the land deed remained hidden for 33 years despite Kimuspu being still alive and knowing of his existance.
If the problem was the gold, they could have said they spended it all on the land deed and use it. Yet they hid it along with the gold.
Kimuspu says everyone was killed by the Wen Kamuy.
Notice Kimuspu's expression when Wilk and the others see the land deed. It's creepy. We tend to consider the gold as the Wen Kamuy but the land deed was bought with the Wen Kamuy so it can be that it too is a Wen Kamuy.
The land deed is inconvenient for the Meiji government. In order not to honour it, they might have secretly killed Kimuspu's companions and forced him to live in hiding. So Kimuspu didn't try to use it or to have other Ainu use it and that's also why Wilk and the other Ainu didn't grab it and immediately tried to put it to use.
It's possible Ogata himself was sent there to retrieve the land deed as discreetly as possible or make sure no one were to find it, which is why he was fine with killing Wilk.
Of course things might change if Asirpa manages to put together a force that can oppose to the Meiji government. I mean, if Hijikata conqueers Hokkaido, the land deed can be negotiated with him and not with the Meiji government... or Hijikata can use it to give his claims of Hokkaido some legal ground.
in short the land deed couldn't figure in Wilk's previous plans because he had no idea it existed... but he could have ended up figuring in his final scheme as he might have hoped Asirpa, joining forces with Hijikata, would manage to put the land deed to good use.
But land deed put aside, I've no problems with Wilk having a gray morality, this makes him the same as everyone else in the cast, as well as human.
Humans tend to have a grey morality, pure white knights or pure black knights are more a thing of fairy tales.
It's narratively good that Wilk is a character with grey morality, it makes him real.
Of course the downside is that Wilk is no more a perfect idealistic hero.... or a cruel terrorist... but I think most of the fandom knew this already.
Wilk is mostly a man of his time and culture, with a vein of idealism mixed with a machiavellian and utilitaristic approach.
His idea that wolf culture is beautiful because he believes the wolves had killed a wolf because he had no place in their pack as he was sick, and that being a logical creature who cut away any excess kindness and has a functional efficency clearly tell us Wilk is not someone who's defending minorities because he believes everyone has a right to live and be protected.
Wilk's mindsetting is no better than the one of Japan and Russia who would decide minorities have no place in their country and sacrifice them.
He sets on protecting minorities not for some noble feeling but because he BELONGS to a minority and doesn't want to be judged the dischargeable spare.
In fact, when he decides to switch to Hokkaido he easily discharges the minorities on Karafuto even if he knew demanding from them to transfer in Hokkaido might be harmful for them.
In his group of three Wilk is the lest idealistic and the more prone to sacrifice others for his own goal.
Even Tsurumi realized with is the more cold blooded of the group, comparing him to Okubo.
HTo Wilk's credit there's to say Wilk is also willing to sacrifice himself for his goal, we saw it when he took a personal risk to deliver the bomb when attempting the emperor's murder or when he skinned himself to hide.
Wilk is not the sort of man who solely sacrifices others for his goal, he also has no problems sacrificing himself.
But Wilk lacked Kiro's flexibility (Kiro originally was all for prioritizing the Karafuto minorities and, after trying to make a family in Hokkaido he decided to raise all the minorities to equal level) or Sofia's compassion (she has nothing on Hokkaido except the families and the dreams of Wilk and Kiro and to honour them she's willing to fight for Hokkaido as well).
I think a good part of Wilk's mistakes/problems steems exactly from his lack of flexibility from his determination in carrying on his idea, believing his idea is the best.
He's intelligent and probably this caused others to rely on him a lot and helped him to accomplish many things, giving him the feeling he isn't prone to be wrong, but this ended up on coming back to bite him.
He makes an enemy out of Kiroranke, when he could have tried to face him, reason things with him and smooth them over.
He thinks he can keep the Hokkaido Ainu partisans unite and working under him while not being fully honest with them (he doesn't tell them he's a Russian partisan who originally came there to get the Hokkaido Ainu gold for the Russian minorities) only because now he has wholeheartedly embraced their cause, with the result only a couple of words from Tsurumi cause the whole group to explode and people to start killing each other.
He assumes Asirpa will just blindly embrace his goals and methods and become the Ainu leader... and the Ainu will accept her, without realizing Asirpa is her own person and might not be interested in all this (though this was a mistake typical of his time period) and that for Hokkaido Ainu it was really difficult to accept a woman as a leader, never mention one so young.
And so on.
Wilk makes mistakes in good faith, he means well for the people he loves but ends up hurting them, he's human like each of us.
He lives in a world where his rights are stepped over and people often has no other way to be heard than taking up in arms because he doesn't have the options we have nowadays and can't vote for a new president or pacifically protest to have his right acknowledged so most of his choices wouldn't be right for our time period so of course we aren't meant to take his same choices but we should still look at him as a man of his world and time.
A man who wasn't perfect, but a man like us anyway, and that's this what makes Noda a great storyteller, that all his grey characters are ultimately like us, humans.
Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 269 âWilkâs way of doing thingsâ
So weâre finally dealing with a new chapter in which we can say...
...yeah, poor Wilk... as while yes, he was also responsible for his own downfall, what happened to him was surely terrible.
The first page is a quick summary of how the Ainu killed each over conveniently letting Wilk alive and not having him kill a single soul.
For start we can see Wilk is the only one whoâs apparently without a rifle (his right hand looks empty at least). We can also see that the group split basically in two, a part is pro-Wilk (or, at least, letâs-not-kill-Wilk) and the other is letâs-murder-him-right-now.
So, Irenka (pro-Wilk) places himself in front of Wilk. He has a rifle but doesnât seem to aim to shoot anyone, just to defend Wilk and calm things down.
Oskeporo (kill-Wilk) aims at them with his rifle and is knocked out by Mesira (pro-Wilk).
Ratci (kill-Wilk), whoâs a friend of Oskeporo, aims his rifle at them.
Irenka gets shoot and, same as Tamai did, as he dies accidentally shoot and seems to hit Oskeporo who, fires as well.
At this point things are a bit hazy.
Siromakur, who seemed to be in the letâs- not-kill-Wilk team before (he was shown at Wilkâs side), is shown bleeding from a hole in his chest. Was he the one hit by Oskeporo. The guy is supported or used as a human shield by Sukuta. We see a knife in the image but that one is actually Siromakuâs if the  draws on the handle has to be believed. Itâs clear Siromakur isnât the one holding it as we can see both his arms so they probably took it from him.
The next image shows us Ratci firing, the knife in his belly.
The very last image shows Oskeporo and Sukuta on the ground, likely dead.
Yeah, thereâs plenty of holes in this page whoâs just meant to drive home Wilk didnât kill anyone, the other Ainu just started shooting, some by purpose, some by accident, some in self defence.
Possibly Siromakur didnât kill anyone either, Iâm not sure.
The image is not really clear on what exactly happened because Noda wants to keep it secret some details for a little longer.
Anyway we see Ratci crawling away and, interesting enough, two more bullets being shoot behind him. He also hears something being said but we donât get what it was.
The only Ainu of the rebels group that werenât shown dying or being wounded to death was Mesira⊠but itâs hard to tell if he didnât go shoot earlier since the images showed us so little.
We flash forward a little to Kikuta questioning a dying Ratci, asking him if Wilk was killed too and if others survived. Ratci dies before answering and the group then collects his body along with the heads of the other 6 Ainu, which were cut from their bodies. The total dead count is 7.
Usami wonders about who chopped their bodies since there should have been 7 Ainu and now their heads are all accounted for.
He tries to pick up Irenkaâs head to see the head slip out of the skin which is something I expected. Usami figures out all the heads were skinned and the skins swapped around. He also notices the heads are missing eyes.
All this doesnât faze Tsurumi in the slightest. He correctly figures one of those skinned head should have belonged to Kimuspu, which would mean that there were 8 Ainu.
Weâve a flashback in which Kimuspu is shown wounded and holding a rifle which means the group had keep him alive and he had taken part to the battle. Thatâs probably why we werenât shown the full battle in the intro page, to hid he was involved as well.
Tsurumi, holding the head covered with Wilkâs skin in a Hamletâs fashion, then easily sums up Wilkâs plan.
The Ainu were 8 and Wilk used Kimuspu (which nobody knew was among them) to fake his own death.
The eyes were then removed because Wilkâs eyes were distinctive.
He then seems to kiss Wilkâs skin⊠and Iâm starting to think this might be where his affinity with Edogai was born.
Weâre then shown the cover...
...and itâs an image we should be very familiar with as we saw it in chap 1 and used again when Inkarmat wanted to push fowward her Kiro culprit theory in chap 116.
The Ainu are on the ground and a man, Nopperabou, stand above them. Only this time we can see that the man standing above them is Wilk, not Kiro as Tsurumi told Inkarmat and, of course, despite surviving Wilk isnât the one who did the killing.
Usami notices that people is coming, theyâre the gold panners and the hunters who should have head the shoots during the night and are coming to check what happened.
Tsurumi split his forces, Usami is to go at the health resort facility at Noboribetsu (remember? The one in which Kikuta was) and call reinforcements while Kikuta remains there and secure the area. Tsurumi will instead pursue Wilk.
As Tsurumi leaves Usami notices Kikuta pensitive gaze. Kikuta is worried about Ariko. He wonders who will tell him the truth as he thinks Ariko will be upset to discover they were involved in his fatherâs death.
Usami says thereâs no need to tell him as they merely told Arikoâs father about Wilkâs identity and it was the group of Ainu which tore itself apart.
Kikuta points out how their plan relied on sewing discord in the group...
...which yes, itâs true, although Tsurumi clearly didnât want them to murder each other BEFORE confessing where the gold was. He was hoping to reach them before they all would die, this was a miscalculation on his part.
But this little scene traces a difference between Usami and Kikuta.
While Usami doesnât really care about how this will affect others (namely Ariko) and doesnât feel responsible for the consequences of their actions, Kikuta does.
Usami lives in denial of his own sins, where Kikuta looks straight at them, which matches with how heâs a man who told Sugimoto in hell theyâll be rolling the red carpet for him. Kikuta knows what heâs doing is wrong, Usami doesnât even stop to think if it is, or if it can have consequences on the others.
The following scene shows Sugimoto and Shiraishi meeting up with Ariko (evidently they managed not to get discover despite their car crash⊠no idea how since they should have made noise worth checking⊠unless Nikaidou also has left his guard post?).
We also gets a panel of Kikuta looking down under the rain. No idea what heâs watching but heâs sure sad and, I bet, heâs thinking at Ariko.
The fact that he and Ariko are on the same page yet divided by the panel with Sugimoto and Shiraishi is meaningful.
Thereâs a tie between this two men⊠but thereâs also something between them.
Meanwhile Tsurumi goes on in his narration.
Heâs impressed by Wilkâs resolve to cut away his face. He figured Wilk, given the situation, expected to be labelled as the murderer and was worried of how this would affect Asirpa.
Thanks Tsurumi, after such a gruesome story, Asirpa really needed you to push on her the blame of her fatherâs actions. I get you want to manipulate her but this can also backfire because it proves Wilkâs actions were done out of love for her.
Anyway Tsurumi is just impressed by how Wilk not only came up with such plan but could also manage to carry it to execution quickly as cutting his own face off isnât something a person would be able to do.
I agree and I would say itâs not just for the unbearable pain and the psychological trauma but also because it doesnât seem that easy to do. I would expect a person to end up cutting a muscle or a blood vessel. But whatever, itâs a manga, and Iâm not really an expert in skinned faces⊠and I like to remain as such, so letâs go on.
Tsurumi anyway thinks the plan was perfect if not for a detail, HE was the one chasing Wilk.
This isnât said for a lack of modesty. Tsurumi just knew Wilk, he recognized his skinned face, he figured out his plan and, when he sees an Ainu with his face bandaged, he immediately recognizes him as Wilk due to the colour of his eyes. Another person, who had never met Wilk, might not have managed to do so.
Add to this that Wilk makes a mistake because he too recognizes Tsurumi (who back then looked a lot more like his younger self as he wasnât disfigured yet), calling him âHasegawa-sanâ and giving away his identity.
Tsurumi doesnât tell us what happened after.
Thereâs clearly a timeskip and then weâre shown Wilk escaping on the lake, Tsurumi shooting at him and causing Wilk to end in the water and the boat to sink.
Among the things that sank there was Kimuspuâs face, which Wilk has taken away. Tsurumi runs, trying to reach Wilk but Wilk, after discharging his Ainu clothes, is faster at reaching a prison lodge where convicts were kept illegally.
Wilk asks whoâs the boss of the guards, whoâs of course nothing else but âslave-convict-traderâ Inudou, who was of course abusing of his power to illegally use prisoners in that area as well.
Wilk tell them about the 7 dead Ainu and claims to be the one who know the location where those Ainu hid the gold.
As the 7th division couldnât get around with the people ruling the prison the result is that the guards carry Wilk to the prison in secret and Wilk becomes Nopperabout.
Asirpa asks Sofia about Kiroranke and Sofia explains once he freed himself Kiro began to search for Kimuspu as well and, while doing so, he heard the commotion and ended up on the crime scene while the 7th division was carrying away the bodies of the Ainu. He saw Wilkâs head being carried away as well and crumbled on his knees, crying and mourning Wilk.
No matter how mad he was at Wilk for his own decision, back then Kiro was still his friend and cared for him. He even wondered if he would be able to understand him by starting his own family in Hokkaido.
However, once he was back from the Russo-Japanese war he hears the rumour that Kimuspu was among the Ainu corpses. An Ainu testified that due to him recognizing the tattoos on Kimuspuâs hands.
Due to this Kiro too starts piecing together things.
He believed the Ainu had let Kimuspu go once they gotten the location of the gold⊠but now that he knew they were 8 and only 7 bodies were found he believed one of them killed the other 7.
Hijikata coming to ask about Asirpa, the rumours about Nopperabou and the tattoo code⊠all lead Kiro to think that Wilk is Nopperabou⊠and, likely, that Wilk was the killer.
Kiro goes on saying despite having a family in Hokkaido he couldnât arrive to the same conclusion as Wilk, he still believes that if the gold was used for the Far Eastern Federation this would protect the Hokkaido Ainu too.
Kiro thinks barricading themselves away was a pathetic way of thinking that would never allow them to win against Russia or Japan.
Tsurumi nods in agreement.
Iâll discuss my two cents in a while.
Weâve then a flashback in which Kiro gives the sign and Wilk is shoot and then we see Kiroâs expression.
His eyes⊠are void of light but not black, grey as he thinks that Wilk was a wolf within the pack who has grown weak and that therefore Kiro followed the âway of the wolvesâ Wilk admired and did Wilk the kindness of killing him. As he says so we see a flashback of Kiro, Wilk and Sofia drinking together and being happy, Kiro with his arm around Wilk and trying to get him to drink something and Wilk holding Kiroâs wrist.
Although Sofia is included so that they look a single unit, a single âbodyâ, itâs clear the picture focuses more on Kiro and Wilk, in how they touch each other, in how their heads are close.
Itâs not meant to be romantic, itâs meant to deliver how those two men were close, as close as two best friends could be in the past.
So okay, letâs go back.
I think I lost count of how many times I criticized Wilkâs plan, both the early one the âFar Eastern Federationâ and the new one the âFree Hokkaido onlyâ plan not because theyâre wrong per se but because theyâre horribly planned so this time Iâll spare you of them.
Iâll discuss a bit of the why Kiro, despite making a family in Hokkaido doesnât just switches like Wilk.
The key is likely that Kiro, differently from Wilk, had no reason to switch.
Letâs go back a little. In the flashbacks located in Russia Wilk was presented like an idealist, his plan a beautiful utopia for which he was willing to bet his own life and the one of his teammates.
He has lost his village, likely his parents were already dead and he was on his own. Sure, he was friend with Kiro and later with Sofia but their attachment for them was, compared to his own goal, his own ideal, minor. He has devoted his life to that goal and thatâs it.
And because no one is special in his eyes âAll are equalâ among the minorities.
Thatâs also what allows him to keep a cold, practical mind setting, that he doesnât get deeply attached.
When he moved to Hokkaido he did a mistake.
Well, no, itâs not a real mistake, itâs just something that caused him to shift priorities.
He grew more attached to his wife and child than he was to his goal.
His priorities shifted and so he could sacrifice part of his goal for the benefit of his Hokkaido family, which he prioritized and, in sacrificing his goal, he accepted he could sacrifice all his Russian allies who had fought with him.
He wasnât anymore ready to do everything he could to give ALL the minorities freedom.
He wanted to give freedom to his daughterâs minority, if the other minorities wanted to benefit of the freedom he planned to gain for the Hokkaido Ainu, they would have to come to compromise, give up their land, their customs. He would be still willing to help them but at his own conditions as they werenât anymore part of his priorities.
Itâs absolutely human⊠but itâs also a betrayal of the cause, of his ideal who used to held all the minorities as all EQUAL.
Now, âAll are equal, but some are more equal than others.â
For Kiro instead the problem is different.
Kiro has built attachment for the Russian side, attachment that lies especially in Sofia but possibly he also had other companions he cared about. He couldnât be as cold as Wilk, which means he was more emotionally involved in them.
In fact Kiroâs point as they argued was that âHOKKAIDO never had anything to do with them in the first placeâ, meaning deep down he prioritized the Russian minorities among whom he lived from childhood and fought together than Hokkaido in which he transferred only recently. He views Russia as his homeland, he views his people as the ones who live in Karafuto and in the Russian far east.
In a desperate attempt to understand Wilk he tries to build himself a home in Hokkaido⊠but it never worked. Contrary to what some part of the fandom thinks, Kiro NEVER sees himself as an Hokkaido Ainu, he sees his children as Hokkaido Ainu, heâs a Tartar with Karafuto blood from his grandmother side.
In short, marrying with an Ainu whom he loves and having children whom he loves helped him to INCLUDE Hokkaido in his priorities, not in demoting Russia from them.
Therefore, where Wilk started from an âAll (minorities) are equalâ and then moved to an âAll (minorities) are equal, but some are more equal than othersâ Kiro did the opposite.
Thatâs why having an Hokkaido family doesnât help him to embrace Wilkâs idea they should have prioritized Hokkaido but, if anything, pushes him to place Hokkaido and Russia on the same place.
He wants Sofia and Asirpa to join forces also because in this way they will become guarantors for both Russia and Hokkaido, theyâll protect the interests of both parties, of the countries he now both loves. And this too is a human view, same as Wilkâs was, even if it sits at the opposite extreme.
On a sidenote I wonder if the experience in which the Hokkaido Ainu slaughtered each other opened Wilkâs eyes and pushed him to realize that heâs an outsider, that he canât hope he could just unite and lead them. But whatever, thatâs just food for thoughts, it can be he escaped in that direction merely because it was the most convenient direction in which to escape for him and the speculations he was running in that way to bring the gold back to his Russian companions done by various cast members were just that, speculations.
Last but not least, Kiroâs reasoning as he killed Wilk.
We know that Kiro isnât really that good at murdering people.
He can do it just fine in the heat of the battle or when he sees them as enemies (the Russian guards, the Russian soldiers) but not when heâs up close to them. He lacks Wilkâs coldness, which is what pushed him to hesitate when tossing the bomb to the emperor.
After all his weapon of choice, explosive, is a weapon that allows people to keep distance with their victims and itâs perfect for avoiding to get an empathic connection with them. Murdering people up close is a lot harder.
Although Inkarmat got in the way he didnât mean to kill her and when she got stabbed by accident his first reaction was to try to help her, when Tanigaki let him know he was there to avenge Inkarmat he didnât feel like finishing him off and he didnât want Ogata to shoot Sugi.
Wilk though had betrayed them when he made clear he didnât plan anymore to pursue their partisan groupâs goal, circumstances paint him as the Ainu murderer and the fact heâs entrusting the gold to Hijikata, a Wajin, and Asirpa, Asirpa who has no idea about the other minorities, only worsen the picture.
Wilk, the NEW WILK who killed the OLD WILK and betrayed them, had to die.
Itâs something Kiro likely knew Wilk had to die even before the Ainu incident, because partisans killed who betrayed them, yet he wasnât ready to face, in fact, as soon as he believed Wilk died, he broke down and cried.
When it turned out Wilk instead survived, he could have been the one behind the Ainu murder and acted none the wiser by basically entrusting the gold to Hijikata, killing him for betrayal at that point was mandatory.
Yet the mental gimmick Kiro does to manage to condemn Wilk is interesting. Not only he has Ogata do the job but manages to persuade himself heâs doing Wilk a favour. The NEW WILK is a WEAK WILK and, according to Wilkâs ideas about âthe way of the wolvesâ, the weak has to be killed.
Basically Kiro persuades himself heâs not hurting Wilk, heâs doing it an act of kindness according Wilkâs own mind setting (Kiro had no idea why Wilk was called as such but the volume version added a scene in which Wilk saw a lone wolf and talked with him and Hasegawa about âthe way of the wolvesâ so Kiro knew about it).
Thatâs probably why the image shows us a Kiro with no light in his eyes, a Kiro whoâs blinding himself to the truth with a lie to cope with the guilt of killing his best friend otherwise heâll probably break.
And this probably ties in with how, when their group was threatened by the Russian border guards, Kiro exposed himself to save the Orok and then called it âKamuy Renkayneâ, âthanks to the Godsâ. What Kiro did is similar to what Sekiya was doing.
Before acting Kiro thought at how they murdered the Emperor, which is likely why they are held under fire but was also the moment in which Wilk, with an amazing coldness, grabbed the bomb and took care to correct Kiroâs mistake by placing the bomb in the royal coach. He likely gained Kiroâs loyalty with that act.
And by taking an amazing personal risk Kiro basically tested the will of the Gods to prove himself if he was right or wrong. If the Gods hadnât spared him then his actions toward Wilk were wrong.
On a sidenote⊠itâs not a common occurrence for wolves to kill a weak wolf.
Normally they actually protect the weak in their pack by bringing them food and by defending them from larger predators because theyâre like a big family, although they wonât hesitate to kill wolves that donât belong to their pack, weak or not.
Wolves kill or drive out of the pack a silk or a weak or an old wolf only if theyâre in conditions of great stress, for example if food is scarce.
Long story short, Iâm more tempted to think the wolf Wilk saw as a child was killed not merely because he was weak but because he didnât belong to the pack of wolves which found him.
Probably that wolf was kicked out by his own pack, trespassed into the area of another pack and was killed.
Anyway the irony is great and tragic.
We saw Wilk killing a member of his group due to âthe way of the wolvesâ mind setting and probably part of this mind setting is what made him cold when Hasegawa daughter and child were killed or when he left behind Sofia or now, that he decided only Hokkaido had to be saved⊠and yet this mind setting came back to bite him when his friend judged him through the same lens Wilk used to judge others.
His pack came back to him, only to get rid of him because he has grown weak in a perfect application of the contrappasso law.
Still, Iâm sad for Asirpa. She didnât deserve to see it.
But well, with this we likely have finished with the flashback for now⊠unless theyâre going to include how the cat alliance formed, which I doubt as I expect Noda to save it for another time.
So, with the murder of the Ainu out of the way and all the tattooed convicts tracked down all that remains for the plot is to solve the code.
Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 267 âSeveredâ
So we have a new chapter that deals with a painful topic...
...which is nothing else but Wilkâs betrayal of Kiro and of their cause.
We resume the story with⊠well a flashback showing Kiro writing a letter to Sofia while they were in Karafuto.
We see a glimpse of Ogata behind him, teasing us readers whoâre wondering WHERE IN THE WORLD HE IS CURRENTLY AND WHAT THE HELL HEâS DOING as itâs from chap 261 weâve no info on him and this silence is worrisome.
I love how Noda divided the page in three panels, the top one showing Kiro, while the lower one showing Sofia (Svetlana behind her mirroring how Ogata was behind Kiro) with Akou prison parting them, mirroring how it was the prison who was keeping them parted back then.
Above the images weâve the content of the letter Kiro is writing.
Heâs basically telling her that it might be too early to talk about what happened between him and Wilk in those years with Asirpa, which is why heâs writing it to her.
So, once in Hokkaido he and Wilk parted ways, searching for info about the gold. Their plan was to mix witht he local Ainu and integrate among them so as to get info more easily.
Poor Inkarmat likely got involved with Wilk during this period.
In the end, to better do this, Wilk married and had a daughter.
The following page shows the cover of the chapter, that carefully mirror the cover of chap 256. In chap 256 we had Tsurumi/Hasegawa with his family, while in this chapter weâve Wilk with his family, each of them in the same exact position as they were in the Hasegawa picture.
In a way itâs kind of painful to place one image next to the other.
Two men, two fathers with their beloved daughters and wives.
Tsurumi lost his family and blamed Wilk for it, Wilk, who made his own family, who had a daughter like Tsurumi, who was among the Hokkaido Ainu trying to discover where they hid their gold, like a spy in short, like Tsurumi.
Thereâs a huge parallel between these two men and, in a way, I think for Tsurumi the real enemy has never been Hijikata or Sugimoto or Ogata.
Heâs still fighting Wilkâs ghost, Wilk who still lives in his own daughter where Tsurumiâs daughter is long dead.
Itâs a tragedy, in a way.
But thereâs another parallel between them.
They both married to better integrate with the local... but the marriage that was meant to be merely a toll, ultimately caused them to love the daughter who was born out of it and their wife.
They thought to use it to further their goals and, instead, were changed by it. They, who prized themselves so much for their control over the situation and their emotions, lost control.
Anyway letâs go on.
Wilkâs expression as he holds Asirpa impresses Kiro, it was an expression of gentleness he never saw before on Wilkâs face.
This page too is cleverly constructed.
On the top panel weâve Kiro, with a not pleased expression. As he blamed Wilkâs change to Asirpaâs birth, itâs easy to speculate that seeing such expression on Wilkâs face worried him, it made him think Wilk might not remain loyal to their cause.
On the lower panel thereâs Tsurumi.
He also doesnât look pleased, but likely for different reasons from Kiro. He knows what Wilk might have felt holding his daughter, he know he might have felt the same he had felt when he had held Olga... but the thing probably burned him. The man whom he viewed as the cause of his loss had the chance to hold his own daughter, a daughter Tsurumi canât hold anymore.
In the middle, parting Kiro from Tsurumi there are three panels, one is the one of the church, that divides the flashback from the present time, and the two below it shows, one the inside of the church with Tsurumi, Sofia and Asirpa, Tsurumi though completely a dark shadow and the other Asirpaâs face as she heard her father, holding her, made an expression Kiro had never seen on his face.
Asirpa seems happy of hearing this, of hearing his father looked at her with a gentle expression he never had before, her eyes shining and her checks slightly redded.
In a way sheâs in the middle of those two men, for Kiro sheâs the cause of Wilkâs change, for Tsurumi she represents Wilkâs gain at the expenses of his own loss, as well as the embodiment on Wilkâs will.
The story continues.
The flashback moves forward of some more years.
Weâre told that a strange rumor starts being spread, the rumour of the discovery of an old Ainu man who was supposed to have died of smallpox (remember? There was a smallpox epidemic in which Cikapasiâs whole family died), and who was instead living alone in the mountains.
Tsurumi suggests the guy could have been Kimuspu, one of the Ainu who were involved in the attempt to buy weapons from Russia with the gold 50 years before and who, therefore, knows where the gold is.
Tsurumi explains that they too got the same info (though he doesnât tell them HOW they got it), the image showing him, Kikuta, Usami, Tsukishima and Ogata (hinting how they were all involved in Tsurumiâs Ainu plan) and that they were in the 1902.
Now⊠a little break here.
The summer of 1902 is the summer in which Tsurumi staged Koitoâs kidnapping.
If Asirpaâs dream is reliable Wilk told her his name when it was snowing. Asirpa said that after telling her his name her father went away, implying this was the last time she saw him.
Weâll see Wilk later on in the flashback and his beard is shorter than in Asirpaâs memory.
This might mean that between the discovery of Kimuspuâs body and Wilkâs death time went by. The Ainu arenât dressed so heavily it suggests we are in winter, but neither so lightly it suggests weâre in summer (Kiro has his undershirt, which he didnât wear in summer). This means this either happened in spring or in autumn.
Weâll see if the next chapter will tell us more and why when this happened might be relevant⊠for now letâs just say this seems to hint that Wilkâs death happened in the last months of that year and not in the first.
This, of course, if Asirpaâs dream/memory is reliable.
Anyway, letâs go on.
Kiro continues his narration, telling how this discovery changed the situation radically.
We move then to Noboribetsu where Wilk is having a reunion with 6 more Ainu
Yeah, Noboribetsu is the place where there was the hot spring in which Toni Anji was investigating and Kikuta and Ariko recovering. Itâs also the place near which there was Arikoâs village, and it might even be theyâre having their reunion in Arikoâs house.
This might also explain what Toni Anji was doing there, that place could have been the place in which Hijikata suspected the gold was hidden, hence he sent Toni to check it. The gold could very well be hidden in the same old mine in which Toni escaped or in a similar one as Ariko said there were others and he went to explore them when he was younger.
Itâs entirely possible Hijikata had Boutarouâs same idea but Hijikata found sooner about Noboribetsu and went there to investigate. Maybe he talked to Arikoâs mom and, from her, discovered about Ariko being the son of one of the men involved.
If thatâs the case, Iâm pleased.
Iâve always wondered WHY Toni Anji was in Noboribetsu as it seemed weird he was there just to investigate on Tsurumiâs men.
But letâs go back to the story and to the conversation Wilk has with the others.
Wilk asks to Siromakur, whoâs clearly Arikoâs father if his skin tone, eyes and eyebrows are meant to be taken as a reference, if he couldnât ask Kimuspu the location of the gold.
So Arikoâs dad is the one who met met Kimuspu.
Now, remember how I said Tsurumi didnât say how he got info about Kimuspu?
In hindsight this makes me wonder if Tsurumi has a man among the Ainu because if a rumour about this Ainu man being found spread, it should have spread among Ainu, not Wajin. They should have known him, known he was involved with the gold and known he was assumed to have died of smallpox.
Those arenât info they would have shared with the Wajins.
Whatever, letâs go on.
Siromakur says the man didnât want to talk with him so another Ainu, Mesira, suggests they should track him down and 'convinceâ him to talk.
This worries me because it implies they might end up being forceful with him.
Sure, partisans in all the countries, despite claiming to stand with the local population, hardly had qualms in forcing the population to cooperate should they decide they didnât want to align with the partisansâ wishes... and partisans are fighting a war, a war with different means but always a war and wars are dirty things but... but it always rubbed me the wrong way because while soldiers go at war merely because they obey orders, partisans claim they chose to go at war for ideals that include protecting people...
...and then sacrifice the people they wanted to protect.
It kind of reminds me of a dark joke popular in my country about this kind of people.
âAgainst violence, bullying, suffering we must all be united... and if someone doesnât agree, we'll kill him.â
...because yeah, when they said theyâre against violence they were talking of violence perpetrated by OTHER PEOPLE, theyâre completely in favour of violence perpetrated by them...
Sukuta wonders if someone else, apart the 7 of them, knows about Kimuspu. As Irenka, another Ainu who so far hadnât spoken, looks at Siromakur, the latter admits he talked about it with several people but didn't tell them where Kimuspu was.
Great move, Arikoâs dad, now we know who might have spread the rumour until it reached Tsurumiâs (and Kiroâs) ears. -_-
Do you want the news to be reported on newspapers too?
Just to make sure everyone knows....
Ratci, who seems to be the older among them and therefore the only one who has a chance to be the older brother of the old Ainu Boutarou met since the guy was supposedly one of those who died in the incident, comments Kimuspu was living deep in the mountains without anyone knowing, so he couldn't be found easily.
Oskeporo, who somehow reminds me of Kirawus, although his eyebrows looks more like Cikapasiâs, comments they too could have problems tracking Kimuspu.
Siromakur tells them he knows where he sets his arrow traps so they can wait him there. At this they decide to go find Kimuspu before others will track him down.
Itâs clear theyâre searching the old guy because theyâre interested in the gold.
However, as theyâre about to leave, Kiro shows up and demands explanations from Wilk. Heâs clearly angry if his expression, his tone of voice and his clenched fists can be taken as a hint, and wants to know why Wilk hadnât called him.
Did Arikoâs dad tattled out the discovery of Kimuspu to Kiro as well?
Great move, Arikoâs dad, really. -_-
What about informing Russia about it as well now?
They might want to know too...
Wilk tell the other Ainu to go ahead. As he does so, in his same panel we can see Arikoâs father and Mesira, who was the guy who wanted them to âconvinceâ Kimuspu to talk. They seem to accept it.
In another panel we see Sukuta and Osikepor. Sukuta seems just worried, Osikepor is clearly not pleased, a frown on his face but all he says is a line of dots.
Once theyâre alone Kiro again, loudly demands some explanation and Wilk informs him he has decided they need to change plans, that his Far East Federation would be too wide to protect from Russia if they were to count on minorities alone, but if they were to make only Hokkaido, which is encircled by the sea, independent, they could manage it.
Now, please, let me facepalm.
Yeah, an island is a bit easier to protect than the huge land Wilk originally planned to involve, part of which was attached to Russia, but not that much it makes it an inexpugnable fortress.
The Far East Federation was a pure utopia but this is really no that much better.
They would then need to find another Russian captain willing to sell them weapons and warships, get some Ainu who know how to handle them all, chase away the 7th division who, by then is residing in Hokkaido along with all those military settlers who has stopped serving the army, beat the Ominato fleet and then whatever fleet Japan would send against them.
In case Japan were to give up on re-conquering Hokkaido they would have then hope that Russia wouldnât try to do it or wouldnât join forces with Japan in exchange for some compensations. Or that China wouldnât lend a hand in place of Russia in exchange for compensations.
Islands had been conqueered through all the centuries, itâs not like the thing is unprecendented so really, Hokkaido might be slightly more difficult to attack but itâs not such a stronghold Wilk can hope to defend it with his meagre forces.
Of course things would be slightly different if Wilk were to plan to join hands with Tsurumi who, in that same year, managed to have Koito Heiji indebted to him and who has professional soldiers under him.
If Wilkâs state and Tsurumiâs state were to overlap this would provide them more tactical advantages. This, assuming Tsurumi wouldnât, once he got control of the gold, kick the Ainu out of the deal.
But we donât know if Wilk and Tsurumi know each other is in Hokkaido and, at this point, Iâm not sure these two chessmasters would shake hands in an allegiance.
Anyway Kiroâs furious at the new plan.
We jump back into the present where Tsurumi explains to Asirpa the benefits of Wilkâs plan⊠or better how his plan diverged from the one of Sofia and Kiroâs which is something that would end up promoting discord between Wilk and his own allies.
(Itâs also worth to remember that Sofia in truth wasnât a partisan, she was a revolutionary who cared about the Russian population. Hokkaido Ainu are considered Japanese so itâs unlikely she would be interested in them. Wilkâs plan basically meant he will let her to her own devices... great way to handle your allies Wilk.)
Tsurumi claims he understands Wilkâs plan, and of course he does as he plans to do the same but Tsurumi is much better organized, with better men, connections, inside knowledge, trusted allies and back up plans to support his country so Tsurumiâs chances of success are WAY HIGHER than Wilk, despite his plan remaining very hard to pursue successfully.
Meanwhile we go back to the flashback.
Predictably Kiro sees Wilkâs idea as a betrayal. Wilk came up with such plan without discussing it with him or Sofia and itâs a plan that is not beneficial to the other minorities, the minorities to whom Kiro belongs or has grown to care about who live in Karafuto or in Russia, just to the Hokkaido Ainu.
Wilk says according to him they should migrate in Hokkaido and he would be willing to welcome them there, which again, is naĂŻve.
For start heâs not the ruler of Hokkaido. The migrants might end up being seen by the Hokkaido population as no better than the Wajin, never mentioning heâs just asking to all those people to leave their lands and move there.
Itâs similar to Hijikataâs plan but Hijikata at least didnât have to really care for the migrants he wanted to welcome, nor for their living style. For him they were just an usable commodity. Wilk should care about them instead and yet heâs not.
Still, I love how cleverly this page is constructed.
Weâve three panels.
The two above show Kiro and Wilk and their contrasting positions.
The visual pins them as contrasting in every possible way, Kiro is angry, Wilk is calm, Kiro is seen frontally, Wilk from behind. With their images Noda is setting up the premise for the fight between them that will follow.
The line that divides the two panels might as well be the fracture between them.
On the bottom we see Kiroâs reaction to Wilkâs world. Wilkâs words only upset Kiro further.
Itâs meaningful how we see only the top of his head, his hands holding it, everything shaded by a swirling shade, hinting at the many thoughts that should infest Kiroâs mind in that moment.
It gives me the feeling Kiro feels his world too is wirling and heâs desperately trying to keep it together, to make sense of it and canât.
Wilk is the person he loved, trusted and admired the most and now Wilk comes out with... this? How is that even possible?
Kiro reminds Wilk of how his birth village disappeared and his people died due to them being forced to leave the land.
Wilk is unaffected by this, heâs sure since they know why the first time things went wrong, they wouldnât make mistakes this time.
Sure, failed immigration attempts plague us in moder times as well but Wilk would have managed to magically solve them all, Wilk could do everything better, Wilk knows.
WILK CAN YOU PLEASE COME BACK DOWN ON PLANET EARTH FOR A CHANGE? YOU ARENâT THE GOD OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD, YOU DONâT KNOW HOW TO SOLVE IT! YOU DONâT EVEN KNOW HOW TO MANAGE YOUR LITTLE REBELLION OR HOLD CLOSE YOUR ALLIES OR PERSUADE THEM YOUâRE RIGHT! EITHER YOUâVE A SECRET BACK UP PLAN OR HOW YOUâLL SAY TO KIRO YOUâLL ACCOMPLISH IS BEYOND DUMB AND NAIVE! PLEASE, STOP!
Ahem... okay, back with the story.
Kiro then points out how the Uilta wouldnât be able to continue their lifestyle as Hokkaido is too warm to keep reindeers so they canât protect their culture in Hokkaido.
Wilk waves the problem off, saying they would accept only who wants to move there.
In short if the Uilta donât want to move because this would mean to change their lifestyle⊠well, their problem.
So yes, itâs a betrayal of their cause, their cause that was about protecting all those minorities and their lifestiles.
Wilk belonged to a group, a group who wanted to take care of all those minorities. He canât just arbitrarily decide that some of them donât matter and itâs their problem.
It would be different if he had said âletâs fix the Hokkaido Ainu, letâs start from here and then spread, we canât help the Uilta RIGHT NOW, but once weâve consolidate our forces we will, weâre postponing, not giving up.â
Instead heâs giving up.
He should have talked with the others, he should have proposed Hokkaido as a starting point, not as the solution. Letâs free Hokkaido, strengthen our defences there and then move to free the rest... as Tsurumi is planning to do.
For Tsurumi is first Hokkaido then Vladivostok.
For Wilk it could have been first Hokkaido then Karafuto, then the rest. A step at time.
It was still an utopia but it wouldnât be betrayal of his teammates and they could have accepted it. It would have made sense.
Instead Wilk didnât discuss things, he just decided them behind his companionsâ back without talking with them because heâs Wilk and knows whatâs better to do.
Really, I see a lot of parallels with Sugimoto because Iâm sure Wilk too is persuaded he meant well... but heâs actually deciding things arbitrarily for others, looking more at his own advantage than at theirs.
Kiro accuses him of not caring about the Russian minorities because Wilkâs goal is now merely to protect his daughterâs future as sheâs an Hokkaido Ainu.
Wilk insists his method is just the most realistic.
This part is again well constructed as it again represent the split between them.
Below the image of Wilk saying that only who wants to immigrate should do it weâve on one side a panel with Kiro, accusing Wilk of selfishly caring only about Asirpa.
On the other weâve two panels, one of Asirpa and one of Wilk, Asirpaâs panel taking most of the space.
Although Wilk insists heâs taking the most realistic path, itâs clear Asirpa weightens a lot on his decision... and in the future Asirpa is there to listen how she ultimately caused the division between those two friends just by... existing.
At this point though, the discussion takes a really ugly turn.
Kiro, who back then likely wasnât married yet, remarks that itâs Hokkaido who actually has nothing to do with them, and that Wilk is caring about it merely because he now has a lovely family there.
The page is split in two. On one panel thereâs Kiro and Wilk, this time together, on the other thereâs Asirpa whoâs âlisteningâ to the discussion theyâre having, whoâs called to hear of their actions and judge them.
And we make a break because weâve a problem here and I wonder if Asirpa has caught up with it as well.
I stand by Kiro when he says Wilkâs plan is a betrayal of the other minorities and of his companions and therefore a pretty dirty move.
But they were planning to buy their freedom by using the Hokkaido Ainu gold. Now, unless they planned to steal from them, the Hokkaido Ainu should have mattered as well, they have something to do with them, theyâre a minority too who deserves to be protected and of whom they wanted to use the resources and the support.
Hokkaido has everything to do with them if they want to involve it in their war and not just profit from it... which probably was exactly what they, deep down, meant to do since both Kiro and Wilk didnât come to Hokkaido with the most honest intentions but disguised themselves among its people to try and find info about the gold.
So the discussion reveals that below those menâs oh so pure ideals, thereâs something else, something else thatâs not pure and selfless at all.
Self interest.
And Trurumi translates this in words for Asirpa.
Right from the start both Kiro and Wilk had two goals.
One was the noble one they presented to the world, protect the minorities.
The other was the more human one, protect whose they loved.
More often than not, expecially when interacting with a story, people tend to think other people/characters are moved solely by ONE SINGLE GOAL.
Thatâs not really true, people is usually moved by multiple goals.
both goals existed in both Kiro and Wilk but they presented to the world only one, the noble one, and kept the other hidden in their heart.
Thatâs because the world could understand and support the noble goal but would scoff at the other goal... yet the other goal is probably much more important to them than the other one.
In fact things are breaking among them EXACTLY due to that other goal being denied.
Their priority is that other goal, the noble goal exists... but comes second best and will never come first.
Tsurumiâs words reflect his own situation as well.
He too has a noble goal, to conqueer Hokkaido for the men of the 7th... a goal that to him is real and that he wants to reach... but he also has a much more private goal, which is tied to the loss of his family.
The existance of this goal doesnât deny the existance of the previous goal. They both exists, itâs just he presents only one because only one would be considered acceptable and give him support... and also because the other is personal, private.
Something that holds in his heart but doesnât dare to voice.
Tsukishima, outside of the room, hear all this and is impressed (we can see that on his face there arenât anymore signs of anger) as he likely understood this can be applied to Tsurumi as well.
Tsukishima has naively believed Tsurumi has to have only one single goal, either he was fighting for the men of the 7th or he was fighting due to his own family but thatâs not the case.
Tsurumi can as well fight both for creating a military state in Hokkaido for the men of the 7th but also for the people he loved and while the people he loved would be his main motive this wouldnât make his second reason untrue.
Kiro, in an agry and distraught face reminds Wilk of how Sofia is still waiting for them in Russia, before attacking Wilk, who fight him back.
While back then it was all about what moved Wilk, now this page is all about what moves Kiro. He loved Sofia, not just the minorities.
He canât bear the idea to sacrifice her, heâll fight for her.
For her heâll fight Wilk whom he admired and loved so much.
Asirpa understands all this.
While his father wanted to protect the minorities but, ultimately, prioritized her, Kiro too loved and wanted to protect the minorities, he was angry on their behalf but, more than everything, he loved and wanted to protect Sofia, Sofia, who was the last word he said before dying.
She explains Kiroâs feelings to Sofia and itâs so terribly sad to think back at how Kiro killed Wilk for her, because Wilk would just dump her and yet Sofia was still so in love with him when she met Kiro again she slapped him because he killed Wilk.
The pain Kiro should have felt in that moment... he just took the slap and didnât counter, didnât say anything. He killed Wilk FOR HER, it hurts him to kill Wilk and yet he couldnât tell any of this...
... and, at the same time, he didnât regret any of this. For her he would kill Wilk all over again.
Meanwhile, in the flashback we can see that the winner of the fight is Wilk... which was predictable enough, not because we knew Wilk was the better fighter (we didnât) but because Kiro attacked him in blind rage, while Wilk managed to stay calm and, apparently, catch him in a strangle hold, suffucating him and causing him to lose consciousness.
Thatâs why Wilk walks away all bruised while Kiro, despite ending up on the ground, seems in better conditions.
Asirpa suggests her father might not have said the truth to Kiro because he knew Kiro loved Sofia.
It makes sense but itâs not a great justification because itâs the admission Wilk knew he was betraing them.
Kiro was allied with Wilk for a reason, Wilk knew that reason and so he tried to do things behind Kiroâs back because he wasnât going to respect the deal he had with Kiro and Sofia, knowing Kiro wouldnât agree to it.
Now... okay, as I said before itâs possible that Wilk is actually in an alliance with Tsurumi as well, or that he suspects Tsurumi has spies in his group so heâs serving Kiro a fake story but letâs assume heâs being sincere.
Wilk might claim and claim this is more rational, and maybe he even believes heâs doing all this because itâs more rational and not for his daughter, maybe heâs in denial about his own true reason so really, he thinks heâs choosing the best option... but the fact he knew Kiro wouldnât accept it, hints at how deep down Wilk should have known it was betrayal.
Yet, itâs still possible Wilk wasnât consciously aware of it, that he was lying even to himself.
Weâve seen this kind of betrayals through the story, with the character doing the deed not realizing he was betraying the other party but thinking he was picking up the best option for everyone.
Sugimoto sold Asirpa to Tsurumi, demanding money solely for himself and not caring about Shiraishiâs fate. By doing so HE BELIEVED he was protecting Asirpa (he wasnât) and that Shiraishi should have just spontaneously given up to his own share of gold. Sugimoto could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.
Asirpa decided to join forces with Hijikata because she believed it would be a better option for them. By doing so SHE BELIEVED she was chosing the better option for everyone as an alliance would give them more chances of success and Hijikata has a better future in mind, but in truth she basically demanded from Boutarou to give up on his goal as Hijikataâs goal and Boutarouâs are mutually exclusive. Asirpa could have realized this (though I tend to give her a pass because sheâs young but really, Boutarou pointed out he wanted to fulfill his goal too many times to miss it, and even if she still were due to her young age, Sugimoto and Shiraishi should have realized and give her a head up), but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.
Tsukishima, for most of the story, is not fighting Tsurumiâs orders but just agreeing with Tsurumiâs methods of deception of the other characters, because HE BELIEVED they will lead everyone to be saved. Practically heâs lying to Koito and denying Tanigaki the chance to opt out, attempting to force everyone in the 7th to betray Central. Tsukishima could have realized this, but he preferred to think he was doing the right thing for everyone.
Long story short those people didnât see their behaviour as betrayal but as pursuing the better option for themselves and the others, expecting the others to just agree with them.
Wilkâs behaviour, the fact he insists heâs picking up the better option as if heâs trying to persuade himself more than Kiro, reminds me of them, of people who were stubbornly thinking they were doing the right thing, they were picking the best option, when they actually were walking all over their friends, neglecting them and their goals in favour of a goal they prioritized.
But, back to the story, as soon as Asirpa tells Sofia that Kiroâs problem was that he loved Sofia so he couldnât just leave her behind, Sofia lowers her head, her eyes wet.
She loved Wilk... but, in her own way she loved Kiro also, whom she saw as a little brother. It should pain her greatly to know in the end she was the reason that pushed Kiro to kill Wilk, that caused the split between them... even if this isnât all true. As said, the goal to protect the minorities still existed in Kiro... but Sofia was the drop that broke the camel's back.
Also I get Asirpa meant well, she wants to deliver Kiroâs feelings and, at the same time, defend her fatherâs actions but that wasnât probably the best moment to deliver Kiroâs feelings since Sofia was already shaken by how she was facing Tsurumi/Hasegawa... as for defending Wilkâs actions... honestly she only end up as painting him as calculative.
Because Wilk knew Kiro wouldnât have agreed with his plan, he worked behind his back. Iâm not sure Asirpa realizes though, she likely is buying the narrative in which Wilkâs choice was mainly for the greater good as well as her, while the order of the things was completely reverse and the plan was so dumb I canât believe Wilk came up with it.
Anyway as a battered Wilk walks away we can see a Kiro tied to a tree coming to his sense with a murderous expression on his face.
Kiro sees even the fact Wilk has left him alive as a betrayal, not as of regret that he has actually betrayed his friend and canât just bear to kill him.
Kiro tells himself the Wilk of the past would have killed Kiro, since Kiro was an obstacle to his purpose. Yet Wilk has left him alive which, to Kiro, proves Wilk has changed and isnât anymore the Wilk he loved.
This makes me wonder if Kiro actually would have preferred to be killed, if this could have made him swallow the bitter pill Wilk betrayed them, if, in his furious mind, this would have been a proof that Wilk really believed they couldnât do any better than conquer Hokkaido and then relocate everyone there.
Kiro has said he blindly trusted the old Wilk.
In a way the fact that Wilk, whom he loved and admired so blindly, betrayed their cause and tried to work behind his back should have hurt him terribly. That betrayal is the fall of a hero and, in a sense, Kiro tries to compensate by âdenying that new Wilkâ.
The ânewâ Wilk is no more the Wilk he loved, therefore heâs no more Wilk, his friend. It makes sense he decided to kill that Wilk, who has turned into a stranger to him, no, worse, into an enemy, an enemy of their cause and an enemy who would sacrifice the people Kiro loved for his own goals.
So, clearly Wilk had to die because he betrayed their cause... but, since weâre talking of people doing things for more than one motive, I wonder if itâs also possible Kiro wanted him destroyed because Wilk wasnât Wilk anymore, as if the new Wilk killed the old Wilk he loved.
This kind of remind me âThe Return of the Jedyâ
Luke Skywalker: Ben! Why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Obi-Wan: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" the Sith Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke Skywalker: A certain point of view?
Obi-Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.
Luke Skywalker: There is still good in him.
Obi-Wan: He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.
Luke Skywalker: I can't do it, Ben.
Obi-Wan: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again.
Luke Skywalker: I can't kill my own father.
Obi-Wan: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.
Kiro is Obi-Wan, who believes Wilk ceased to be âthe Wilk he lovedâ and became âthat Wilkâ and when that happened, the good man who was Wilk was destroyed so, like Obi-Wan, he thinks âthat Wilkâ has to be killed (by Luke/Ogata).
Contrary to him, Sofia is more like Luke Skywalker. She didnât agree with Kiroâs idea they had to kill Wilk and slapped Kiro for what he did.
In all this though, itâs interesting Wilk left Kiro alive.
Iâve mentioned that other situations, similar to this one, happened in the story but this is the first in which the two parties confront each other BEFORE the deed his done. It would be interesting to know if his conversation with Kiro affected him, it made him realize his best option wasnât so good and so right after all.
Wilk was still in time to change his mind, to go back on being the Wilk Kiro loved... or at least fix his plan so that it would include Kiroâs goals as well hence he might not have wanted to ruin everything by killing Kiro.
Wilk was still in time to try and patch things between them so maybe, albeith he had to leave right then, he left Kiro alive because he wanted to make up, to fix things between them, because he realized he wronged Kiro and didnât want that.
But well, this is something weâll discover in the next chapter.
On a sidenote is interesting how Kiro ties the fact that Wilk has changed to Wilk being irrational. The old Wilk was rational, the old Wilk would sacrifice companions because it was rationally the best choice and Kiro believed him.
This new Wilk leave him alive, which is not the best choice, therefore heâs being irrational, heâs being motivated by emotions, therefore even his choice to care only about Hokkaido is motivated merely by emotions, is not rational and shouldnât be trusted.
Itâs surely a convolute mental gimmik but itâs interesting because itâs totally a reasoning a person can do, especially when burning with blind rage... but well, Kiro is being emotional himself and, probably, not even realizing it.
Noda made great characters with them... but their situation is so sad it hurts and even mroe so because we know is hopeless.
Kiro will kill Wilk and will never get to understand his side and neither of them will ever manage to make peace with the other. Such a long friendship ended up in ashes and all for something that should be supposedly positive, the fact they loved someone.
Itâs sad.
Itâs sad that their friendship ended, itâs sad they didnât manage to respect each otehr feelings and come up with a solution that would make them both satisfied.
Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 268 âA single poison arrowâ
So we finally shed some light on what happened during the Nopperabou incident and on Tsurumiâs involvement in the whole thing and how...
...how suspicion can lead everything downhill.
Well, actually the meme opening this chapter is based on the aria, âLa calunnia Ăš un venticelloâ (âCalumny is a little breezeâ) from the Opera Buffa âIl Barbiere di Sivigliaâ (âThe Barber of Sevilleâ) by Gioacchino Rossini... but Iâve to say calumny and suspect work in very similar way so the whole thing felt fitting.
Before we start this chapter I feel Iâve to place a warning here.
In this part of the story GK talks of how Ainu were feelings in regard to Japanese and in regard to each others. Iâm not even going to try to dig into if this respected things in real life or not, Iâll just discuss it as itâs presented in the story because itâs of the story Iâm discussing.
Thatâs not because real life historical discussions are uninteresting, theyâre probably way more interesting and relevant to present life than my little ramblings on a manga chapter here.
However, real life discussions on how real life Ainu historically were and which kind of relationship they had among them or with the Wajin back then, should take place in a more appropriate place, thatâs not my ramblings for a manga chapter, and be done by people who have a way more accurate knowledge of this part of history than I can ever hope to reach.
Said so I invite everyone to make them in a more fitting place, a place in which whatâs discussed isnât a FICTIONAL STORY who might or might not respect reality, but real HISTORY and real people, who deserve respect and didnât exist purely for our intellectual entertainment.
Letâs not confuse Nodaâs tale with an historical book or my ramblings as something more than comments on a fictional story. It would show a lack of respect to all of the above.
And now, lets start.
We resume with a continuation of Kiroâs letter.
Kiro wrote to Sofia Wilkâs last words to him where that Wilk was praying for Asirpaâs happiness, that, instead than having her be someone who has others fight for her and live in a safe place without feeling any responsibility, he wanted her to become someone who chooses the difficult path of her own will and tries to grasp her own happiness by herself like Sofia.
So, although he probably never fell in love with Sofia, she did an impression on him as well.
Something else thatâs noteworthy is that Wilkâs thoughts resemble both Koito Heijiâs, who, aware his son would one day become a commander, wanted him to become a man capable to face hardship on his own and that he had no right to shield his son when he himself lead other men to war (chap 139)
and Boutarouâs, when he told Shiraishi happiness doesnât fall from heaven but one has to grasp it (chap 258).
At the same time they contrast with Hanazawaâs ideas, as he turned his son into a flagbearer, someone who yes, lead men to war but doesnât fight himself (although he undoubtedly risks his life even more than them) and not even think for himself (as Yuusaku explained he was doing what he was doing merely because his father told him so),
...and Sugimotoâs, as he believes he should be the one fighting for the people he cares for and they should just sit back and let themselves be protected.
I hope youâll forgive me if Iâll focus a bit on Wilkâs and Sugimotoâs mindsettings in this regard as I know thereâs a great divide in the fandom about whoâs right... and the key point is probably that both are right and wrong at the same time.
Letâs start with Wilk.
His intentions toward Asirpa are good on the outward.
He wants her to be happy and her to be in charge of her destiny, responsible and aware of her condition.
This should be every fatherâs wish for his own children.
But, at the same time Wilk fails her in the sense he projects his own thoughts and ambitions on her, thinking she would automatically embrace them once he were to prepare her to do it. Like he had done with Kiro, telling him his own idea was the best plan and not bothering to discuss things with anyone else, he just expects Asirpa to see the Ainu question the same way as he does, became a partisan and fight a guerrilla warfare against the Japanese as the leader of the Ainu.
Asirpa at the time was a child around 6/7, she might have been wiser than her age, more mature, but still a child who hadnât a fully formed personality, ideals and wishes for her future.
And Wilk, sure his own ideas are the best, projects them on her, thinking she too will choose them and will pursue them in the exact same way he would.
Giving Asirpa the instruments to be able to pursue them should she decide to do so is a great thing, assuming she would SURELY decide to do so and would do so in the manner Wilk would pursue them, is a completely different matter, unfair to her as she doesnât exist as an extension of Wilk and might have completely different wishes, ideas or ways to fulfil them... and this is twice as wrong as she pushes that burden on her when sheâs still way too young to decide and risks ending up being manipulated or worse by men whoâre way older than her and much more expert at this game.
Long story short, Wilk talks of Asirpa choosing... but he actually forces Asirpa into the situation and, while she could have still turned it down, well, this wasnât really an option Wilk expected her to take as he believed Asirpaâs happiness would only come by fighting for the Ainu independence as a guerrilla as he and Sofia did.
Sure, part of the problem is that Wilk is the sort of person who, yes is highly intelligent but this gave him the belief he knows better than everyone else, so of course his choice to fight as a guerrilla is the best choice and the only one who can lead to happiness, but we also have to consider how, assuming a son was merely an extension of yourself, meant to carry on your job, ideals, wills and so on was a deeply rooted belief at the time, as well as the idea children were nothing else but âshort adultsâ.
This means even if Wilk hadnât been so overconfident in his own ideas and beliefs he would have still assumed Asirpa would have chosen his path merely because sheâs his daughter, so part of Wilkâs mistakes are undoubtedly due to him living in a time period in which people believed in a completely wrong sets of ideas so yes, for him is difficult to realize heâs actually wronging Asirpa, but we, as readers, should know better.
Giving Asirpa the instrument to pursue whatever choice she were to make is cool, pushing her in a situation to force her taking a certain choice assuming she wants to take it when sheâs in a age in which sheâs not ready for such things, is not right.
On the other side thereâs Sugimoto, a generation younger than Wilkâs, who just wants to protect her (and also Umeko and all the people he happens to love). This seems so very nice and itâs fitting for the modern way in which we expect one should deal with children, protecting them, sheltering them and creating a better world for them, not just passing on them all the responsibility, but the key point here is that, at the same time, same as Wilk, Sugimoto believes to know better than the ones he protects, when the story proves over and over than he doesnât. This lead Sugimoto, same as Wilk, to push over and over his decisions on the people he wants to protect... so ironically, although on the surface he seems to be doing the opposite as Wilk, heâs actually doing the same, deciding a course for the people he loves instead of letting them choose for themselves, the real difference is that the course he decides is opposite to the one Wilk decided for Asirpa.
Sugimoto wants Asirpa to live someplace safe without a care in the world as others fight for her.
The mistakes here are:
- Ainuâs lifestyle is at risk and he doesnât know nearly the next thing to Ainu situation to be able to decide for Asirpaâs well being, nor is he willing to fight for the Ainuâs sake in her place... and he clearly doesnât wish a fight between Ainu and Wajin because the latter wouldnât be beneficial for him either. Long story short heâs deciding things from a very uninformed point... a point thatâs also very biased as heâs a Wajin who donât really see much value in Ainu culture and didnât know or experienced many of their hardship.
- he wish to take decisions for Asirpa without even considering Asirpaâs will. While Wilk automatically assumed Asirpaâs happiness would be to turn into a partisan and fight for her culture because this was what it was for him, Sugimoto assumes Asirpaâs happiness canât be fighting for her own people because he loathed it. Asirpa is no more an extension of Sugimoto than she is of her father. Sheâs her own being, deciding if she wants to spend her life fighting for her people or not is up to her. Sure, sheâs undoubtedly too young to do it NOW so Sugimoto, as her friend, should do his best to help her to realize she shouldnât make this choice now, that sheâs not ready for it, not that âthis choice is not to be performedâ (yeah, the resemblance with a quote from âThe Betrothedâ by Alessandro Manzoni is deliberate).
So this leaves Asirpa with two figures who think they know best and try to push her in opposite directions... without realizing theyâre basically imposing on her their views. Iâm curious to see where this will lead Asirpa.
The story depicts both Wilk and Sugimoto as opposite in this and too extreme in their opposition (either lead the Ainu in battle or sit there and do nothing pretending nothing is going on), so I wonder if the idea Noda is trying to pass is that Asirpa will chose something thatâs in the middle. Weâll see.
Back to the story another important bit in all this is that Kiro said  those were the last words Wilk told him. This tells us Kiro didnât get the chance to confront with Wilk again, which seems to imply he either wasnât involved at all in the Ainu massacre or didnât manage to talk with Wilk during it.
We move to Asirpa who seems a bit saddened...
...but then proceed to defend her fatherâs mindsetting, saying this was the sort of person he was, that if he was making others fight he would feel the need to put his daughter at the forefront of the battle.
Asirpa might not realize it, but sheâs basically saying she too was a pawn in her fatherâs game. In her words Wilk was making everyone fight, and he placed her in a certain position in order to make her too fight like the others.
It would be different if she had said Wilk knew her and knew she would want to fight so he shared his dream with her... it would imply not manipulation but regard for her own wishes... but put in the way she put it, itâs still Wilk deciding for her.
Iâm not sure she realizes or, if she were to realize, she would care.
The idea children are an extension of parents works both ways, with children BELIEVING they had to fulfill their parents expectations so, for her, it might be natural to expect she had to obey to her fatherâs will.
Tsurumi, whoâs another father, agrees that if Wilk has simply wanted to protect his family, he could have simply had them live quietly, hidden away somewhere far from battle...
...which in a way is what he tried to do with Fina and Olga and that spectacularly backfired when Fina decided she had a mind of her own and came back despite Tsurumi telling her not to.
I wonder if the idea is Tsurumiâs mindsetting about handling his family was meant to be similar to Sugimoto, not only he wanted to decide for them because he knew what was best, but wanted to just keep them out of it. Itâs noteworthy the thing backfired also because Fina came back for the wrong reason, she assumed the problem were Wilk and Co once she was the wanted posters, she had no idea Tsurumi was a spy targeted by the secret police. Itâs possible if she had known the situation she would have made different choices. Tsurumi kept her in the dark and decided for her... she refused to play by his rules but, as she lacked all the information, she took the wrong decision and she and her baby died.
As Tsurumi suggests Wilk would have had the option to let his family live quietly Asirpa counters that in this way they would forget... basically the whole Ainu way, including the language and the Kamuy and this would eventually lead the Ainu to disappear, which not necessarily imply they would die but, as Kiro told her in the past, that their culture would be simply erased and they would be assimilated.
Asirpa clearly doesnât want this, at this point she clearly wants to stand up for her fatherâs cause, for the Ainu cause.
And itâs at this point Tsurumi attacks.
Gone is the conciliating man mourning for his wife and child as with an open mouthed grin which well show his teeth he yells heâll tell them about the miserable end that awaited Wilk and the other Ainu who were fighting so bravely to protect the Kamuy, scaring Asirpa and Sofia both.
Tsurumi says after Wilk split with Kiroranke he and the others went to search for the gold. At the same time they tracked down the source of the information about the old Ainu man, Kimuspu, the guy who survived smallpox and was among the others who tried to buy weapons from the Russians.
And guess who was the one who had the bright idea to inform everyone and their moms of Kimuspu being alive and kicking?
Yeah, Siromakur, Arikoâs dad. -_-
Iâm start to think he was the personification of the blabbermouth for the Ainu. Is there a reason why he felt the need to tell everyone about Kimuspu being alive? Because really, I donât think it was a smart choice.
Tsurumi confirms the guy was the one who first spotted Kimuspu and who had originally joined Wilk and the others in their search for the gold.
Tsurumi went to visit him with Usami and Kikuta. The uniform heâs wearing is the one who had during Koitoâs kidnapping, but itâs missing its sleeves. I would say this means this meeting is taking place AFTER Koitoâs kidnapping and Tsurumi didnât have the time or the money to replace the uniform (if my memory doesnât serve me wrong officers were meant to pay for their own equipment).
Thereâs no sight of Tsukishima or Ogata.
It can be theyâre busy with something else, or that Tsurumi doesnât want to involve the more morally sensible parties in this part of his plan.
Why I call them more âmorally sensibleâ?
Because we know Tsurumi felt the need to test and strengthen Tsukishimaâs loyalty during the Russo-Japanese war, and because Ogata showed weakness toward Koito, feeding him with Anpan which nearly gave away the fact they werenât Russian and even patted his back in sympathy. So itâs entirely possible the both of them back then werenât jaded enough yet to be considered reliable by Tsurumi, should things turn ugly.
Siromakur is carving a knife for his own son. Tsurumi acts appreciative of the carving, with his usual technique of playing polite and respectful to get other people to trust him and talk to him.
Siromakur explains how the knifeâs design is passed down in his family and how heâs going to send it to his son in the army so that he doesnât forget about being an Ainu.
Siromakur will reveal himself as a man whoâs balanced between wanting to keep the Ainu alive yet also wanting his people to coexist with the Wajin peacefully. While this is not a bad position per se, I fear his problem is most heâs not really working to find a way for them both to coexist but well, weâll discuss this more later on.
Anyway Siromakur knows why Tsurumi and co are there, he tells them theyâre too late if they planned to go after Kimuspu as Wilk and Co should have found the gold already... since they caught up with Kimuspu OVER A MONTH AGO.
Tsurumi then asks him why heâs not with the other Ainu and Siromakur explains he couldnât go along with Wilkâs groupâs way to do things.
He explains Kimuspu didnât want to talk about the gold, saying it should remain buried right where it is because itâs cursed...
...which was what Makanakkuru said as well. Coincidence?
Maybe.
Still this causes Asirpa to ponder. I wonder if she remembers his uncle also thinking so. Itâs worth to remember Huci said in their village there was a man knowing about the buried gold. Sugimoto and Shiraishi assumed that man was among the ones who died in the Nopperabou incident but this might not be the case.
That is, unless Noda retconned some details.
I mean, previously Makanakkuru talked about âtheir ancestorsâ (ć ç„ âSenzoâ) collecting the gold but Tsurumi, in chap 266, said the gold was gathered only 50 years ago.
Either someone is lying, or the gold was collected long before, then 50 years ago the Ainu tried to use it again or Noda retconned the story. Weâll see.
Anyway Siromakur goes on saying the more short-tempered men refused to accept this answer and started making threats, promising they would harm the manâs brother (the guy who talked with Boutarou) and the manâs grandson whoâs no one else but Cikapasi...
and Iâm not surprised. This is the ugly side of many partisans, they fight to protect their people but, if their people donât cooperate with them, they turn against them as well.
Kiro, who felt bad for harming Inkarmat to the point he didnât finish off Tanigaki when he came to avenge her, was a pretty uncommon one and the same goes for Siromakur, who claims he just couldnât forgive that and so he left.
Tsurumi asks him if he heard the goldâs location but Siromakur, without looking at him, denies it, claiming he left before they find out and... Iâm a bit impressed by how they let him leave. I wonder which excuse he used or if he was really that important they couldnât force him to cooperate.
Anyway Tsurumi proceeds to try to paint himself as a friend who believes his words and only means the best for Siromakur.
He praises Siromakur saying he knows him and his son showed utmost dedication in helping Wajin recovering the bodies lost in the Hakkoda mountains and that heâs sure Siromakur is proud of how Ariko joined the 7th division and how Siromakur was wise in leaving whose who plotted to divide Ainu and Wajin.
Tsurumiâs words are clearly nice and amicable but they can be viewed also as a subtle reminder of how Ariko, being in the 7th, is under Tsurumiâs control and how Siromakur could easily be accused to have plotted against the Wajin.
Siromakur still tries to mediate.
He says he understands how whose Ainu feel.
According to him, in his region, Ainu relations with the Wajin were MOSTLY positive (meaning not perfect but good enough they, according to him, donât have to complain) but in other regions Ainu have a deep hatred on the Wajin.
Itâs interesting how he tries to be subtle and do not openly push the blame on the Wajin, not explaining why this deep hatred exist.
Siromakur says he cooperated hoping there was a way to use the gold without spilling blood... but then goes and say those 6 are stubborn and difficult men with a not deep relationship, united only by their shared extreme ideology toward the Japanese.
Itâs overall... a pretty negative portrait and I donât know how faithful that one is as the other 6 have no way to make their voice be heard but, assuming itâs faithful, it remarks the biggest failing of Wilkâs plan (by the way, interesting enough Wilkâs face among them is the only one shaded).
But Iâll discuss it in a while.
Siromakur however says there was one man, among them, who was capable to unite them with an incredible deft touch. He then proceeds to show how the group come to argue over one of the tradition which belonged to the Ainu from the Saru area. The argument is... ugly, because it seems to be chosen to point out how among Ainu from the same area there still were heavy discriminations as the Ainu from Saru are looked down because they eat a particular type of earth. Itâs the sort of talk many readers would expect from a Wajin who would look down on Ainu, not from an Ainu to another.
In truth, although in a more peaceful way, Golden Kamuy has already depicted Ainu from various regions of Hokkaido as very different. We readers call them all Ainu and expect theyâre all the same and feel the same, but the story actually portrayed them as if each region was its own country, with its own tradition and culture, similar to the other yet not the same.
Those men are now fighting for a common cause... but each of them carries with himself the baggage of their own region, a mix of beliefs and traditions and cultures that differ from the ones of the others, not as drastically as they do with the Wajin, but enough that, among them, they can spot differences that, to them, are jarring.
Anyway, as they start to toss insult and fight against each other, Wilk speaks up, explaining WHY the Ainu from the Saru area eat earth, and why the Ainu from Asahikawa and Nemuro donât.
The biggest part of the Ainu seems to be impressed by Wilkâs words (except whose who started the argument) and Wilk, face completely shaded to the point itâs just a black spot and only his scar is visible, claims discrimination is born from ignorance (confirming that yes, the argument was spawned by discrimination) and that he thinks Ainu should understand each other and come together as one.
On a sidenote Iâm not sure why Wilkâs face here is depicted as completely black, as if he was some sort of scary person. Overall I get the feeling from Siromakurâs words he somehow came to dislike Wilk, as if he were afraid of him.
I mean, Siromakur joined those extremists but he aimed actually at using the gold in a peaceful way that wouldnât harm the Japanese. Maybe he was counting on them arguing, because, as long as they argue, nothing could be done by them against the Japanese.
âDivide et imperaâ is always true.
As long as the Ainu are divided, is easy to control them. Wilk instead unites them, which could make possible for them carry on a plan in which they would rebel against the Wajin. So for Siromakur, whose region is in good relation with the Wajin, a war wouldnât be beneficial in the immediate times, so he fears it, he wants to keep the status quo.
According to him he joined them to do damage control, to stop them to use the gold against the Japanese... and then Wilk spoiled everything by making them more than willing to join forces against them.
Back to Wilkâs word about discrimination and how you should fight it with knowledge, this makes me think is this what Wilk was talking about with Sugimoto when he said in the magazine version that Asirpa has been training him (chap 136)...
âSisam yo⊠Ano ko ni zuibun to shikoma reta yĆda naâŠâ
So maybe originally Noda wanted Wilk to have Asirpa educate people, Wajin included, so as to overcome discrimination toward the Ainu, but then he just switched to Wilk wanting to unite the Japanese Ainu against the Japanese and the fact a Wajin could care about his daughter impressed him.
Weâll probably never know.
Anyway Siromakur goes on saying each of them ultimately acknowledged and trusted Wilk, as there had never been anyone who could bring together and lead the Ainu from all the different regions... again remarking how strongly divided the Ainu from the various regions were.
So letâs have another break here.
Wilkâs group, the one made by him, Kiro and Sofia, was, on the surface, a close one. They knew each other by years and trusted each other blindly.
We donât really know about the other partisans, but we saw how Sofiaâs men were fiercely loyal to her... and itâs possible the Partisans were the same at least toward Wilk and Kiro who basically spent their youth among them and murdered the emperor for them.
However now Wilk has moved to work with the Hokkaido Ainu.
Among them heâs an illustrious nobody who came from Karafuto, therefore not one of them. He managed to impress them enough to gain their trust but I genuinely doubt itâs a blind one.
As for the Hokkaido Ainu they arenât really united, actually they are all basically strangers to each other and to him. He has to bridge among those men to create unity among them.
Overcoming discrimination isnât something that can be done overnight.
Knowledge about the other can help only as long as youâre willing to open up and accept the other as an equal. If you remain trapped in your cocoon of ideas about the other being different because inferior, you wonât progress much even if you study the other.
Wilkâs idea he could easily unite those men, who, despite being against a common treat they loathe, can hardly stand each other and then have them accept also to host on their land minorities from Russia, who would have been likely subjected to even more discrimination, both for being different and for being migrant, was extremely unrealistic.
His idea Asirpa, a young girl in a culture that greatly discriminate women, could do it just because she was partly Hokkaido Ainu and partly Karafuto Ainu, is equally unrealistic.
We saw Ainu villages always ruled by an elder male, Iâm not sure Ainu would be willing to take orders by a young girl.
So Wilkâs idea that his charisma or Asirpaâs could just solve everything is tenuous at best and, in fact Tsurumi will immediately shows us how it was easy to crash everything.
In fact weâll see first how Tsurumi is impressed by the impressive feat this mysterious Ainu accomplished, uniting Ainu of different regions... or better just 6 Ainu from different regions, and asks from where Wilk was but Siromakur claims, against without looking him, he doesnât know, tossing in the names of Bihoro and Sapporo as possible places from which Wilk could come. He says though heâs an Ainu from Karafuto, called by everyone Wilk and who has blue eyes and a scar on his face.
This produces quite a strong reaction in Tsurumi, his irises whitening, a sign used to point out Usamiâs madness and the other charactersâ murdering impulses.
Tsurumi, grinning, has realized this Ainu is the one he met in Vladivostok, who has become involved in his life again.
At this point, with eyes completely white, with no sign of pupils or irises as if he were looking not at what is in front of himself but in the far past, he announces Asirpa how âhe shot a single poison arrow, aimed at Wilkâ.
Tsurumi is using figurative speech as he shoot no arrow, he just planted the seed of mistrust and then âsat and watched everything as it crumbled down on Wilkâ.
Okay, he didnât sat, but you get the drill.
All Tsurumi had to do before leaving Siromakur is to reveal what Wilk has hidden to his companions, that Wilk was a guerrilla fighting against Russia, searching for funds for the revolutionary activities in Russia... and thatâs why he came in Hokkaido in search of the Ainu gold.
Tsurumi asks Siromakur if Wilk came clear with them about this, knowing OF COURSE Wilk didnât.
Wilk wouldnât trust the others that much and coming clear would put him in an unfavourable position as gaining the othersâ trust would be even more difficult.
However the fact he didnât come clear becomes even more suspicious. Siromakur at this point doesnât know anymore which is Wilkâs goal, if to hand the gold to the Russian partisans or to use it for the Hokkaido Ainu and likely fears he and the others had been manipulated by Wilk... and in a way they had. Only now theyâre also being manipulated by Tsurumi.
Itâs the same trick Tsurumi used with Kiro, telling Inkarmat Kiro was a partisan involved in the Nopperabou incident and let her report that information to the group to create distrust.
In Kiroâs case things worked a little better then theyâll do with Wilk, but thatâs because Kiro has many things playing in his favour.
In Wilkâs case...
But letâs go on and see for ourselves.
Tsurumi waited with the others outside Siromakurâs house and, as expected, saw him rush out in panic. Tsurumi is sure Siromakur lied when he told him he didnât hear the location of the gold and that now heâs headed there, to reveal to the other Ainu Wilkâs identity.
Tsurumiâs plan was to tail him but itâs late and Siromakur is impressive at moving in that area so he easily leaves them behind without even trying to do so.
Tsurumiâs men then hear gunfire...
...and then, at dawn, they find one of the Ainu men at deathâs door. Heâs Ratci, the Ainu from Asahikawa (or Nemuru but I tend to think heâs the one from Asahikawa) with an Ainu knife deep in belly. This sort of wounds cause a slow, painful dead, which is why heâs about to die but managed to last for so long.
Still the guy, differently from the other, is still whole and alive.
Tsurumi asks him if it was Wilk who killed him but the other claims Wilk didnât do anything and it was just everyone who started killing each other. The knife in his belly is Siromakurâs by the way, we can recognize it by the design showed in this chapter and in chap 207.
Thereâs to wonder on those words because it seems pretty weird that the other said âWilk didnât do anythingâ. We would expect Wilk to be accused, to try to defend himself and the argument to degenerate, while here it seems as if the other started to try to kill each other for a reason unrelated to him.
To a shocked Asirpa Tsurumi says that those who wanted to defend Wilk and those who didnât started fighting each other and killed each other.
As said before they were cooperating thanks to their trust in Wilk but that one was extremely frail. Tsurumi brags on how his âpoison arrowâ caused it to crumble.
Still, in this reconstruction thereâs no mention of Wilkâs role, itâs as if he just stood there and watched the other fighting. And then there were those three shoots. Did the Ainu go there with rifles? Did they shoot each other?
Was it as Ratci said or they realized theyâve been tricked by a smarter enemy and, before dying, Ratci spread misinformation so as to trick Tsurumi as well? Hard to say.
Anyway Tsurumi sums up that whoever revealed his identity to Siromakur would come after him following his lead. His plan to lose tracks was smart, impressive and terrible at the same time. Wilk... cut off his own face, put it on someone elseâs severed head and faked his own death.
I... donât want to think to how painful it was to do all that and if a man could really pull it out on his own or would have needed help to do it.
I mean, most of what happened in this chapter fits with my expectations of what happened in the incident.
I assumed one person couldnât kill 6 Ainu and cause Wilk to escape, so the idea the Ainu killed each other fits with my belief.
I assumed Tsurumi couldnât have killed them all because it wouldnât fit his purposes and, in fact, the whole plan escaped from Tsurumiâs control as he only revealed those things to Siromakur in hope he would lead him to the others, not aiming to get the others killed.
Wilk claiming he didnât kill the Ainu might fit in the sense he didnât start the killing nor betrayed them. It feels weird he wasnât involved at all in the fight, but maybe Wilk wasnât present (if Asirpaâs dream/memory is to be trusted, his father was with her prior to the incident, so it might be he was coming back to Otaru when things took a turn for wrong and he reached the place when the fight had already started) when it started and only come there to see the result so he technically didnât kill anyone.
Itâs possible though he disembowelled them to disguise himself among the corpses.
I mean, one cut head with his face looks odd among many perfectly preserved corpses but if all the corpses are torn apart a cut head feels âperfectly normalâ.
All the Ainu things presented cuts as per Ainu tradition. Unless someone else got there after the fight, it seems after the fight Wilk had to work a lot to both tear people apart, cut his face away and also mark the Ainu objects before he could leave the place.
This was... well, pretty risky for him as his chasers could be on him sooner than they did.
On a side note, unless Siromakur warned Kiro as well, this might mean Kiro had no idea what happened that way and also came to believe Wilk killed all those Ainu.
Going on with the speculations, Tanigaki wasnât present but Ogata implied Tanigaki knew all the objects on the crime scene were retrieved by Tsurumi and Asirpa told Sugimoto the incident took place in Tomakomai... but Arikoâs fatherâs house in Noboribetsu, which is around  50 km from Tomakomai (it can be slightly more or less depending on which way you take) and, according to google, this means a 10 hours walk following the coast line.
I should praise Tsurumi, Kikuta and Usami for managing to do all that in the middle of the night, taking the way that goes through the mountains without even getting lost.
At this point we know Wilk escaped and reached the Shikotsu lake before being captured.
I always wondered if Ogata knew something about all that but, so far, what we had been told doesnât help us to guess.
He wasnât with Tsurumi for sure, was he the one who shoot? But if thatâs the case why he was around?
The fact Kiro wanted him to kill Wilk dated to that time? Hard to say and itâs entirely possible the shoots were just due to the Ainu shooting each other.
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