Golden Kamuy – 47 – Pirate King of the South Pacific

Tsurumi’s scouts have arrived in Sapporo, assuming Hijikata is also there to look into the news of the red-light district serial killer. Asirpa, Sugimoto, Shiraishi and Vasily are searching towns for a tattooed peddler, Sugimoto and Shiraishi in particular get maybe a little overzealous in their desire to get every peddler they encounter to strip naked.

Shiraishi channels his inner Pennywise to get a tip from one of Golden Kamuy’s trademark useful kids and they track a tattooed peddler down, but the tattoos are on his face, not his body, and he manages to give them the slip on a coal trolley. Asirpa thinks she heard him say they’ll never find the gold, so he may not have been a dead end.

The quartet then boards a paddle steamship, the faster and easier way to get to their next destination of Ebetsu with the melted snow turning the roads to mud. Their ship is then attacked by Pirate, the prettiest Abashiri prisoner, who demonstrates his superhuman swimming ability in singlehandedly boarding the ship and pointing a gun (which he makes sure to dry out) at the Captain.

Asirpa is in the cabin while Sugimoto and Shiraishi are topwise, making Sugimoto nervous. However, once Pirate recognizes his old bud Shiraishi, he’s friendly towards him. When another steamship packed with soldiers passes, the pirates try to make it look like everything’s fine, but a grizzled, armed postman in the cabin with Asirpa has other ideas.

He wants to be a hero, so he starts shooting his post office-issued pistol at the pirates. It looks at first like he scores a headshot, but it’s actually Vasily with his rifle from one of the dinghies being towed behind the ship. When Pirate loses three of his “citizens”, he counters by throwing the anchor of the ship into the cabin.

Sugimoto takes exception to Pirate being so reckless with Asirpa down there, so the two get into a little scuffle, each of them proving their mettle to one another. Asirpa ends up saving herself by luring the postman out onto the deck with the promise of more ammo, then kicking him overboard.

With the chaos agent removed from the equation, Pirate re-engages Shiraishi and Sugimoto as chums and potential partners, suggesting they work together to find the gold. He intends to start his own island country with his share. Then he asks Sugimoto about his family, and learns he lost them all to Tuberculosis.

Sugimoto thinks back to that dark time in his life when he was utterly useless to stop the death of his father, the last member of his family left besides him. The last thing his father tells him is to get away and make a life for himself. Not to build and rule his own country, mind you: just a life.

Skip and Loafer – 11 – A Little Kindness

The famous Tsubame West High School Festival is off and running, and we get a little taste of everything before settling on Mitsumi’s POV as she watches Takamine continue to struggle with having a much more laid back bro as the president. That said, Kazakami puts a nervous prospective student at ease by making chatting with her about studying.

Sousuke does his thing on the stage, and his uneasiness looks like more than just acting. When Mitsumi is on break, she’s unable to speak to him, and indeed the two never interact this week, which is a bit of a drag. Mika seems ready to hang out, but then two of her middle school friends appear and she ditches Mitsumi, leaving her feeling a little lonely in Tokyo.

Fortunately, Mika is not Mitsumi’s only friend! She visits Yuzuki in the art club exhibition, where Yuzuki is exhausted and disheartened by having to fend off boys who want her name and number. But Mitsumi gives her a much appreciated assessment of her painting of her Yorkie.

When Makoto comes through with her friends, those friends interact with Yuzuki the exact same way Makoto did when they first hung out. Makoto realizes this, and knows it gets Yuzuki down, so she does her best to cheer her up by telling her friends all about her.

When Yuzuki’s on break, the three have some churros on the roof and are soon joined by “Sister” Mika. They all acknowledge that it’s been “just” six months since they all became friends, but Yuzuki thinks it doesn’t seem like it’s been that short a time. Such is their rapport and ease with one another as friends.

The first day ends without incident, but people from Sousuke’s life make the second and final day a little more hectic. First, his mom shows up, for reasons we’re not quite sure of. Within five minutes of arriving, lil’ Keiri wanders off and gets lost. Hey, it happens. I used to wander off so much my mom put a leash on me!

Kei doesn’t panic when he notices his mama isn’t around. He knows she’s headed to Sousuke’s class, so he goes there too, only he’s the first to arrive, and is welcomed by Sousuke’s kind and friendly classmates. They quickly realizes Kei is lost and keep him occupied while his mom and brother are tracked down.

Sousuke has been ensnared once again by Kanechika, only this time to watch his drama club performance. Sousuke’s face is a noh mask of ambiguity throughout, though the way the shots are composed afterwards when he’s watching Kanechika interact with patrons seems…almost wistful. Kanechika is hoping to get Sousuke’s opinion of his performance and script, but Mukai informs him of Kei’s whereabouts and he takes off with him.

Sousuke didn’t even know his mom was coming, and tells Mukai that he’s not great around kids and doesn’t think Kei wants anything to do with him. Mukai assures him, even with his limited knowledge of Sousuke’s family, that his baby bro 1000% cares about him.

Mukai is proven correct when Sousuke arrives in the room, Kei spots him, and immediately bursts into tears and runs to bawl in his legs. Yamada opines that Kei was being a brave trooper all this time, but seeing his little bro broke the flood gates.

He also says Kei takes after Sousuke in that they’re both too considerate to others. Sousuke realizes Kei may have been acting the way he did out of consideration, not disinterest. He picks an elated Kei in his arms and they head out to the hallway to wait for mom.

Corralling their mom falls to Mitsumi, though by the time she finds her Sousuke has already called her to assure her Kei is found and safe. As Mitsumi escorts her to the classroom, Mom notes how nice everyone is and how fine a school it is. But then she happens to cross paths with Saijou Ririka, and the look on Sousuke’s face suggests it probably isn’t going to be an affable affair. Heck, it might not even be cordial!