© 野田サトル/集英社・ゴールデンカムイ製作委員会

Before I get too far into this review, can we talk about how cursed Golden Kamuy’s anime production has been? The first three seasons were by Twin Engine subsidiary Geno Studio, and based on the limited visuals and artistic direction in that season, it’s clear that this new studio was working out some talent acquisition, management, and budgeting kinks in these seasons. The stalwart and even occasionally inspired, Brain’s Base took over the anime beginning with season four, but a member of the production team tragically passed away while the season was being produced, and that shadow tangibly hangs over that season.

In some ways, season five is the first earnest and uncompromised attempt at adapting the Golden Kamuy manga into an anime, and it’s already everything I ever wanted it to be.

Golden Kamuy is a LOT! It’s a Japanese spaghetti western, a celebration of the indigenous Ainu people, a battle royal mystery, viscerally gory, hilarious, super duper gay, and one of the best examples of character-motivated writing you’ll experience in fiction. It is an incredibly specific work that’s expressed perfectly by mangaka Satoru Noda and his small team, and season five has so far been a terrific attempt at holistically bringing this work to the medium of animation.

This season opens with the audience thrown into a whirlwind of conflict and competing allegiances in the city of Sapporo as various characters attempt to get the final tattoos from actual Jack the Ripper and the buffoonishly evil Keiji Ueji. These three episodes are packed full of just about everything I love about Golden Kamuy; including some character-motivated social drama, interesting fights, and characters utilizing their talents in unexpected ways. Episode three, ending with Botaro, who’s a phenomenal swimmer and aquatic combatant, venturing into a burning factory to try to save Asirpa and Sugimoto using his near-inhuman lung capacity, is a creative application of that character’s skillset, and I love how often these kinds of developments show up in this work.

As for downsides, the animation is still a little rough in spots. I know it’s challenging to make a character wearing bulky winter clothes run convincingly, but a lot of characters still look awkward while performing that kind of movement. Additionally, these three episodes feel a little bit rushed, but I can forgive this shortcoming as it also makes the violence feel so much more casual and impersonal. I don’t think this was the intention with this pacing, but more than ever, these anime characters feel like they’d be just as quick to have a meal with each other as they would murder each other, and that makes Golden Kamuy all the more engrossing. What I can’t forgive, though, is Crunchyroll’s lackluster subtitling once again diminishing a work. Vasily, a character who cannot speak, has his mumbles translated via on-screen text, which Crunchyroll leaves untranslated in the English dub unless you turn on the subpar English closed captions. This isn’t a huge issue, but it is another blemish in a long line of Crunchyroll posting an L that could have been avoided with a relatively minor amount of work.

All in all, though, this is a better return than I ever could have imagined for Golden Kamuy! The animation is now of a high enough caliber as to not distract from the top tier writing, and I’m so excited to experience the conclusion to this story once again! Golden Kamuy is quietly one of the best manga to ever do it, and I’m thrilled to say that the anime is finally starting to live up to that legacy.

Also, I have to note that the end credits animation being Sugimoto doing an interpretative dance that incorporates events and moments important to the series and him as a character is a brilliant choice and I hope whoever pushed for that on the Brain’s Base team gets a raise!

**Rating: **

*The immortal Lucas DeRuyter (no one’s been able to kill him yet at least!) is an entertainment writer with a focus on anime, video games, and other forms of niche media. A sampling of his past work is available on his portfolio and you can keep up with him on a weekly or daily basis by checking out ANN’s This Week in Anime and his Bleusky account, respectively. *

• Golden Kamuy Final Season is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. *