Golden Kamuy – 20 – Inkarmat Holmes

Ah, the seaside. Warm breeze, giant sunfish, sea otter meat, and…swarms of locusts?! Golden Kamuy brings a lot of people together, but then immediately splits them apart, both with the swarm, and with sudden clashing stories about who is dangerous and who is (still) working for Tsurumi.

When Sugimoto, Shiraishi, Ogata and Tanigaki seek refuge in a building and proceed to cook the sea otter stew, they all start to get very horny and see sexier versions of each other (including the latecomer Kiroranke), resulting in a ridiculous sumo orgy. There’s more serious activity afoot outside, as a highly suspicious Asirpa demands Inkarmat tell her how she knows her father.

According to Inkarmat, Nopperabo they’re seeking isn’t her father at all. Her father is a man named Wilk, whom Inkarmat befriended and even fell for (though he only regarded her as a child). Wilk, Inkarmat tells her, was murdered by his best friend…Kiroranke.

That night, just as the others are coming down from the sea otter, Inkarmat mounts Tanigaki and disrobes. While there are any number of reasons she decided to sleep with him (including genuine attraction, which is definitely there) she later attributes the lay with the sea otter’s legendary aphrodisiac effects.

Once everyone is reassembled on the beach, Asirpa immediately confronts Kiroranke with what Inkarmat just told her. When Kiroranke plays innocent, Inkarmat produces evidence in the form of fingerprint matching.

Then Ogata draws his rifle on her, accusing her of working for Tsurumi, but she says she was only using Tsurumi. Tanigaki puts himself between Inkarmat and Ogata’s gun, and Ogata accuses him of letting himself be seduced.

It’s a big mess, with multiple people suspecting each other of murder, or conspiracy, or some such foul play. This week Sugimoto not only gets the horny sumo orgy started, but also plays the role of peacemaker (after all, no one is pointing any fingers at him for anything).

He tells everyone that their mission remains the same: go to Abashiri and meet with Nopperabo for answers. He half-jokingly warns that whoever “makes their move”, resulting in another member of the group suddenly meeting their maker, will share the fate of their victim. Call it Mutually Assured Justice.

Tsurumi’s intel network is formidable, and he is informed the moment the reunited group is headed to the prison. He even has a mole there, posing as a greenhorn noob. His superior officer is ordered by the warden to “feed him to the pigs” when his duplicity is uncovered, but the young lad make quick work of the two inmates who ambush him. Looks like our friends are heading straight into a hornet’s nest. What else is new?

As for the post-credits sequence in which a wagon is robbed in the night by a crack shot with a pistol…not enough info to form an opinion one way or another, except to assume the able gunman in question will probably cross paths with either Tsurumi, Hijikata, or Sugimoto & Co.

TenSura – 09 – Adult in the Room

With Shizu absorbed, the adventurers gone, and the village on autopilot, Rimuru explores his new human-mimicking ability, and learns that his default form has no gender.

He can make it any age and as masculine or feminine as he likes, but steers clear of the latter (looks too much like Shizu) and maintains the default form, continuing his practice of looking deceptively twee.

While practicing some of the new abilities he got from Shizu, Ranga reports in: the hunting party is under attack by a group of six ogres. These ogres (or oni) don’t match Mikami’s idea of the hulking, ugly brutes, but one thing’s for sure, they’re confident in their abilities.

Their red leader believes Rimuru is responsible for the destruction of their village and intends to get revenge. Rimuru leaves only the pink mage to Ranga and quickly dispatches three of the remaining five.

But the white ogre knows the skills he’s using and where he got them, and can even slip past magical sense. The red one also has a fire attack, which is obviously useless against the immune slime.

Rimuru decides to remove the aura-concealing mask and show them his true power by breaking out one his newest abilities, Black Flame. Red is impressed and scared, but as the leader of his people he’s not going to back down just because the cause is hopeless. It takes Pinky, who also happens to be his sister, to be the voice of reason among the ogres.

Everyone stands down and they work through the misunderstanding. Both sides’ people are healed up and Rimuru invites his new horned friends back to the village for a feast (which he’ll now be able to taste in human form). And now I know who all those horned folks in the OP and ED are!

As for what their story is, that will have to wait for next week. Until then, I welcome the introduction of six more very cool-looking characters.