Golden Kamuy Book Club - Ch. 101-200, March 15th
Added 2025-03-08 23:58:51 +0000 UTCDon't miss the next Book Club meeting in one week on Saturday, March 15th at 2pm EST. We are covering up through Chapter 200.
Also, for those reading official releases, I noticed a few strange name localization choices in the Viz print regarding two characters. i just want to clarify so we all use the same names when we're talking about them at the next meeting, kind of like how we did with the Pokemon Manga re: Blue/Green's name localization swap.
The man on the left who first appears in Volume 11 has a name with a few different translations, but his name is Kirawus.
In Japanese, everything is made up of little blocks of sounds that get romanized into two-letter pairs. For instance: "Cupcake" is a loan word they use from English, but they pronounce it "Kappukēki" (cup-pu-kay-kee) so it fits the format of the language.
The initial translators at Viz working on Golden Kamuy were pretty diligent about translating Ainu proper nouns into English directly instead of romanizing the Japanese spelling. Ainu is its own language, after all. For some reason they don't do this with Kirawus and instead translate his name as Kiraushi, among other things. We're going to call him Kirawus.
The man on the right is Asirpa's father. The Viz chooses to use the romanized Japanese version of his name, Uiruku, which looks pretty clunky. His actual name and the way we will be referring to him is Wilk. We learn later in the story that Wilk is partially of Polish descent, hence he and Asirpa having their distinctive blue eyes. "Wilk" means "wolf" in Polish. Asirpa has a history of "wolves" looking after her, i.e. Retar in the early chapters. It's thematic. You get it. The Viz translators didn't didn't catch this early, which is fair. They're being paid to translate Japanese to English, knowing Polish isn't part of the skill set.
Anyways his name is Wilk.
See you Saturday!
Comments
My brain is so poisoned During that discussion of "The thing that defines a good person in Golden Kamuy is 'will they focus solely on their goal or philosophy in every scenario' or 'will they change in the moment to do the right thing'" My brain just went "fuckin', Rogal Dorn vs Perturabo"
Elated Megalodon
2025-11-16 05:29:18 +0000 UTCfeeling so much vindication for the kadokura and ariko appreciation. i basically have the same notes that aloha has, i too love luck based characters and ariko is hot
joebean
2025-04-18 14:29:40 +0000 UTCHey now don't cat slander me. Neferpitou is also like my favorite character in Hunter x Hunter and the circumstances of their defeat is one of the reasons I hate Chimera Ant arc lmao
JelloApocalypse
2025-03-29 16:30:01 +0000 UTCI keep having to miss these but it's still nice to listen to in post. I didn't notice how frequently Sugimoto appears in others backstories being a good man in contrast to Tsurumi fucking things up that's really cool! I did want to point out though that Tsurumi's kidnapping plot wasn't meant to endear himself to Koito, the target was Koito's father whos favor gave him an in with the Navy. Obviously Tsurumi is never one to waste an opportunity to snag another meat shield when Koito does become obsessed with him, but he really doesn't fit Tsurimi's MO which is interesting and arc relevant (He's loved by his family, has a good sense of self-worth, has a not entirely broken moral compass, ect). I think it's neat that he's on the surface the most obsessive and loyal member of Tsurimis followers (lets ignore that Usami exists please) but in reality is more a guy with a hardcore celebrity crush than an indoctrinated cult member, especially when paralleled with Tsukishima who on the surface is the least brainwashed of the crew (Privy to most details, understands how messed up they are, knows Tsurumi lies and manipulates to gain favor) but in reality is more far gone than any of them. TLDR, I think most of the 7th division thinks Tsurimi is righteous because they love Tsurumi but Koito loves Tsurumi because he thinks he is righteous, which is an important distinction. Speaking of parallels I also love the difference in Tsurumi and Koitos reactions after Tsukishima got severely injured protecting his superior officer. Koito having the far more correct reaction of getting angry at the perpetrator, disappointed in himself, then concerned for his comrade only makes Tsurmi's overjoyed reaction and feigned concerned more chilling. Anyway glad to hear you guys like Ogata, I was worried from the Hunter x Hunter and Dungeon Meshi stuff that Jello just doesn't like cat themed characters which would be a shame as I do think he's the best/most interesting character even if he's not my personal favorite. I recommend checking out the Asirpa vs Ogata scene in the anime (Episode 35 I think?) as the VAs do a great job, Ogata is voiced by Kenjirou Tsuda in the Sub and its a perfect fit. I had fun with the dub too though it works better in the comedic than dramatic scenes.
MonsterGF
2025-03-25 06:10:33 +0000 UTCIenaga's weird and I high-key hate her but yeah, her gender identity is handled just fine. It's the everything else about her I hate lmao
JelloApocalypse
2025-03-20 06:13:46 +0000 UTCTwo interesting things I want to point out about Ogata: 1. He is the first member of the 7th division that we meet, and one of the first enemies Sugimoto defeats. In that encounter he gets taken out pretty easily, only to come back as an endgame boss. 2. While escaping from the hospital he knows Sugimoto won’t be able to hit him because of his bad marksmanship, so he goes out of his way to be a cheeky dickwaffle.
Self_Respecting_Strawberry
2025-03-15 22:48:48 +0000 UTCHey gang, I was curious to hear your thoughts re:ienaga. on the one hand she's introduced as this hulking sexual deviant monster who eats other women in order to look prettier, which, not great, have some notes, but on the other hand, a lot of people in the story is weirdly respectful towards her identity and she *is* treated like a woman by the text, never playing her being trans as a joke (at least in what I've read so far). is GK trying to do representation here? if so, is it good? what would you guys change, because I have no clue what I'd do to make ienaga easier to stomach (especially as a trans woman myself)
Violet DB
2025-03-15 06:22:59 +0000 UTCHaven't gotten that far! Wanted to be sure I put this out ASAP just in case so people didn't get confused.
JelloApocalypse
2025-03-09 18:44:56 +0000 UTCI think the official translation just starts calling him wilk somewhere around ch. 160 after you get more of his backstory.
Psycho
2025-03-09 00:08:25 +0000 UTC
