Golden Kamuy – 46 – Making the Mortar Dance

I didn’t know we’d delve into Tanigaki and Inkarmat’s situation so soon, but I’m certainly not complaining! Inkarmat keeps things light at the hospital where she’s being held, selling roots to Koito and using her clairvoyance to locate Nikaidou’s false hand. Tsukishima tolerates it all, but remains all business.

Ienaga Kano is there too, hoping to experience what he couldn’t when his mother fells down stairs and miscarried: the “perfection” of a mother. He also wants to eat the placenta, which…gross. As for Tanigaki, when faced with the choice of searching for Asirpa and Sugimoto or returning to his love’s side, he picks the latter.

Thanks to a flashy rich kid who also chews on roots, Tanigaki learns where Inkarmat is being held, and sneaks in under cover of darkness to reunite with her. Their reunion is soon stained with blood, as Tsukishima returns from his bath with his gun drawn.

Inkarmat uses her pregnant body to shield Tanigaki, having told him moments prior that she’s ready for danger. They both are; being together no matter what the consequences are. Thankfully fortune favors them; Ienaga drugs Tsukishima (and is shot dead in the process), and Koito, grateful for everything Inkarmat did for him during his convalescence, lets them go.

Tsukishima still manages to get a few shots off which graze Tanigaki and leave a trail of blood for him to follow. Needless to say, horseback is no proper place for a nine-months-pregnant woman. But when they rest in an abandoned house, Tsukishima is on top of them almost immediately.

They manage to slip away, but when Inkarmat’s water breaks, Tanigaki carries her the rest of the way, reluctantly shooting his horse in the bum so Tsukishima will follow the wrong blood trail.

By morning Tanigaki and Inkarmat are in Asirpa’s kotan, where Huci and Osoma’s mother are ready to take care of her. The latter tells Tanigaki that Huci has been delivering babies since she was nineteen, and even has a personal god behind her neck that helps her determine the babe’s gender, and thus the proper orientation for delivery.

Tsukishima arrives with gun drawn once more, but hot on is trail is Koito, who orders him to stand down. Tsukishima initially asks Koito whose side he’s on, but in this Koito is unequivocal: he’s on Lt. Tsurumi’s side, but doesn’t believe Tanigaki and Inkarmat need to be killed.

Tsukishima, initially remaining rigid as doing his job is all he has left, Koito appeals to the Tsukishima who gave up on his lost love Igogusa (covered in episode 27). Finally, he stands down. Inkarmat replies to the anguish in his face with an outstretched hand, but then her contractions start.

From there, Osoma’s mom starts barking out orders for the men to make themselves useful. We’re treated to a lot of details of Ainu neonatal care, from the use of sagebrush gauze, tar straps for bracing, antiseptic rasupakap, and Huci’s midwife chanting. The men also roll a mortar to aid the difficult birth.

Eventually, the cry of a newborn babe emanates from the hut. Inkarmat holds her new child in her arms, then offers it to Tanigaki, who makes the obligatory mistake of thinking the umbilical cord is a big dick. It’s a girl, and he couldn’t be happier.

In the aftermath of the successful delivery, Koito insists that Tsurumi must be a man concerned with more than a petty lust for power or willingness to sacrifice anyone and everyone for his own ends. He holds Tsurumi to higher ideals, even Tsukishima isn’t sure if Tsurumi even has any beyond burying his comrades and securing prosperity for Japan.

Koito resolves to believe in Tsurumi, and urges Tsukishima to believe in him in turn. A week later, Tanigaki, Inkarmat, and their daughter depart the kotan. We may not see them again, as their part in this story seems to be complete. Inkarmat offers to tell Tsukishima what she saw in her clairvoyance, but he declines to hear it.

Like the brand-new family whose freedom he and Koito are allowing out of nothing but compassion, he has everything he needs to move forward. So he doesn’t need to hear it.

Skip and Loafer – 10 – Tough Little Rose

When Sousuke is asked if he’ll agree to be cast in the school play for the festival, he looks at everyone watching him expectantly and agrees with his usual easygoing demeanor. His old acting friend Chris tells him if he puts “staying in character” before his own feelings, he’ll eventually snap.

That said, Chris tells Sousuke that he always seemed to be having the most fun acting, so it can’t be all bad that he’s found himself in a position to act again. Maybe he’ll summon that happiness. What Chris might not know, but Mitsumi does, is that Sousuke wasn’t happy because he was acting, but because he was making his mom happy.

As rehearsals commence, Sousuke is, as expected, great in his role as Johan the gardener in an adaptation of a Sound of Music stand-in. While Mika notes that his love interest in the play is spoken for in real life, a part of her worries about Mitsumi, as “School Festival Magic” is a real thing. Then she remembers she’s supposed to be a bad girl, and forgets about worrying about Mitsumi.

Mitsumi doesn’t have time to worry. As a member of the Student Council, she’s on call for any and all little odd jobs that need doing, meaning she’s scrambling along even more than usual. She’s also not getting proper sleep and probably skipping meals to keep up with the work. When she nearly trips on the wooden sets, thankfully Sousuke is there to catch her.

She agrees to take video footage of the rehearsal and the script home to study and offer feedback to the director, but that night, while clipping festival voting ballots, she nods off, and the next day has to tell the director that she has nothing for her.

The director vents about this to her friend later, and Sousuke overhears it. So does Mitsumi, who had just watched the footage on her phone and was going to provide some belated input. Sousuke redirects her and treats her to a cold drink.

That’s when he realizes Mitsumi has been reminding him of his younger self: practically tripping over himself to please others; always on the verge of falling flat on his face. Mitsumi remembers Sousuke saying he only acted ot make his mom happy, realizes he went out of his way to cheer her up after what the director said behind her back.

Mitsumi gets emotional over how nice Sousuke is, and the two have a break in the sun-dappled shade. As always, Mitsumi is direct and earnest in how she’s feeling: she had the ambition and desire to take on a job, but couldn’t deliver. At the same time, she feels even worse for not speaking up when Sousuke ended up agreeing to be in the play, when she knew it wasn’t his cup of tea.

Sousuke is happy for her concern, but part of him wonders if someone as pure and sensitive as Mitsumi is really cut out for Tokyo or politics if she gets so worked up over things that, at least to him, aren’t that big of a deal. As much fun as it is having her by his side at school, he wonders if she wouldn’t be happier in the countryside.

When talk shifts to Sousuke’s role as Johan, he dismisses him as a bad guy who went to the dark side and ran when the going got tough, but Mitsumi presents a more optimistic view: that the writers of the play left out the endpoints of the characters’ paths, leaving open the possibility for redemption.

Hearing this, Sousuke stands up, holds out his hand, and invites Mitsumi to join him for a little song and dance—the first time they do so outside of the adorable OP. I cannot tell you how sweet it is hearing Mitsumi’s off-key flubbing of the lyrics as she and Sousuke dance about.

Mitsumi then allays Sousuke’s unspoken fears about her by telling him that she’s the kind of person who falls flat on her face a lot, but that’s made her a pro at dusting herself off and getting back up. So she may feel the sting of adversity, but she’ll never let it keep her down long.

Hopefully Sousuke won’t just admire this about Mitsumi, but learn to live a little like she does as well, rather than gripping his burdens so tightly.