Okay, GK fans. I need y'all to lock in with me for a minute because there's something that's been bugging me lately.
This gun that young Ogata has in his flashbacks.
To the best of my ability, this rifle, which he identifies as having belonged to his grandfather, visually appears to be a Spencer Repeating Rifle.
And if I'm right, it has a lot of interesting implications about Ogata's family. Although it may be unsurprising if you already know your mid-to-late 19th century Japanese history.
See, the Spencer Repeating Rifle is an American firearm that was developed in 1860 and saw use during the American civil war. However, it has a looooong list of other global conflicts it is known to have been used in. One of those conflicts being Japan's Boshin war. The very war that ushered in the beginning of the Meiji era in 1868.
For those that don't know, here's a very basic rundown of the Boshin war: Under the increasing pressure of western influence in Japan, a handful of opportunistic samurai clans gained control of the imperial court and influenced emperor Meiji to "modernize" the country, which included abolishing the shogunate. Shogun Tokugawa did not take kindly to this decision and launched a military campaign to seize the imperial court by force. Tokugawa had the numbers on his side, as most of the samurai in Japan were against the abolishing of the samurai caste. But what the Meiji empire had on its side was the backing of the west. And with it, came modernity. Modern tactics of war, modern military discipline, and modern weapons.
Which brings us back to the Spencer Repeating Rifle. This firearm is known to have been used by imperial troops in the second half of the Boshin war, during its push up north that would eventually end in the battle of Hakodate. In particular, it was used by the troops from Tosa, which is now the present day prefecture of Kochi.
Obviously, this is not Ibaraki prefecture, the canonical location of Ogata's family home where he grew up.
In fact, Ibaraki is one of the prefectures that fell to the Meiji empire during the first half of the Boshin war.
Now, remember that this war began in 1868 and continued until 1869. Going off a rough estimate that Ogata was born in ~1880 (Golden Kamuy begins in 1907, and Ogata is canonically in the 25 - 30 age range), it would mean his mother might've only been a teenager during the war, though she would've most likely been even younger than that (I'll get to that in a sec).
This leads me to conclude that, given Ogata's grandfather's possession of the Spencer Repeating Rifle, it means he fought as a member of the Meiji empire's Tosa troops as far as its northern push toward Hokkaido. After which he may have been granted a plot of land in Ibaraki as a spoil of war, and then moved his family there from Tosa.
And here is where I get to Ogata's mother, Tome. We the audience aren't told a whole lot about her. But what's one thing we do know? That Tome was a Geisha.
Now, I'm not sure if this is a translation/localization error, or if it was an intentional but subtle commentary on Noda's part. But we see throughout the story that Ogata is not only bullied by his fellow soldiers for having a geisha for a mother, we even see words like "whore" and "prostitute" get thrown around a couple times. With that said, I want to make something abundantly clear.
GEISHA 👏 WERE 👏 NOT 👏 SEX 👏 WORKERS 👏
Geisha were, first and foremost, entertainers and hosts. They were not only trained in fine arts such as music, dance, and poetry, but trained to be charismatic conversation partners as well. Their whole job was to be as charming as possible (to convince their guests to spend as much money on the establishment as possible). Historically, they have been closely associated with sex work, as they were most commonly employed by brothels to entertain prospective clients and convince them to spend their money on the actual sex workers. Most brothels would not pay Geisha for sex work. In fact, sleeping with their guests would severely damage their reputations in most cases.
Another thing about being a geisha is that, before modern child labor laws, the age at which apprenticeships began was very young. And by "young," I mean an average of six years old. It would've been near impossible to find a geisha house that would accept a new apprentice who was already a teenager. Meaning, if Tome's experience was at all conventional, she would've only been a little girl when her family moved to Ibaraki, where they likely sold her off as an indentured servant to a geisha house in Tokyo (which might sound weirdly heartless, until you consider that the meaning of Tome's name roughly translates to "Stop, no more children" and realize that her parents probably didn't want her in the first place).
"She needed to become a geisha to save her family" yeah, sure, as much as a little kid has a responsibility to heroically step up and make an informed decision to sell themselves off into servitude, and it definitely wasn't a decision made for her by her parents. Let's be so for real. Also, unless her parents never wanted to have any kids at all, her name seems to carry an implication that she's not an only child. Maybe Ogata has some older aunts and/or uncles that we haven't heard about? Maybe Tome was an unplanned afterthought child and all her siblings are much older than her? Maybe her hypothetical much older siblings were all left behind in Tosa because they were already adults?
But I digress. Unless a girl came from a prestigious family, indentured servitude was the most common way for peasants to be accepted as apprentices to geisha houses.
The career of a geisha was short-lived. Most girls made their debuts in their early teens and retired in their early twenties. After which, if they didn't want to join the ranks of the prostitutes, their only viable means of having a secure life was to either get married, or to become a mistress. See where this is going now?
So, assuming that Tome was about six years old at the end of the Boshin war in 1869, that meant she would've only been in her late teens around the time that Ogata was born. Meaning, she was nearing the end of her career and was definitely looking to secure a husband at the time.
Then, along comes Hanazawa Koujirou. And from what little we know of their relationship, there seemed to be some genuine mutual attraction between them. But since he was already married, that meant her only way to be with him was to become his mistress. As far as I remember, the story is vague about what lead up to their falling out. Either, Hanazawa promised to take care of Tome as a mistress only to pull back on his promise and abandon her later, once he had a son with his wife. Or, Tome knowingly tried to baby trap him and ultimately failed. (It could also be both. The two options aren't mutually exclusive.) Regardless, the result was her being left a destitute single teen mother, with her professional career and reputation ruined, so she had no option but to go back to her parents in Ibaraki. After that, she suffered some kind of psychotic break, possibly caused in part by lead poisoning from the white face paint that was standard of geisha makeup at the time.
In addition, perhaps the reason Ogata's bullies mislabeled his mother as a prostitute or any number of derogatory words for sex workers, was precisely because of how her career ended. She disgraced herself by sleeping with her client and ruined her reputation over it.
And that, you guys, is the end of this rabbit hole I fell into, all because I tried to identify what rifle young Ogata was using in his flashbacks. 😭
