Honestly Koito must be so embarrassed of his past crush on Tsurumi. Imagine being in romantic competition with USAMI and losing.
It鈥檚 because he wasn鈥檛 actually crazy enough for Tsurumi. Oh, you like him bc he saved you and now there鈥檚 a little bit of a shady motive for his evil plans and you鈥檙e out? Usami killed a man when he was 12 to be closer to Tsurumi and he didn鈥檛 even have any childhood trauma that would explain it. Now that鈥檚 the sort of loyalty Tsurumi鈥檚 looking for.
it sucks to dislike ogata, as he's everywhere in fandom to the annoyance of many. it sucks to like ogata, as i've never met a single ogata enjoyer who'd agree with the common image of him, or the treatment he gets in most fan creations. he's a vortex of sucks. just like noda intended
im rewatching golden kamuy for the 4th time and im thinking about the seemingly contradictory motivations tsurumi has. like his (russian) family dying is a huge grudge he holds that spurs him onward, that grief compels him. but he also explicitly says "hokkaido should be governed [belong to] the japanese"; he is outright an ethnofascist. so what, does he see Fina and Olga as "exceptions", some of the "Good ones"? had he planned on bringing them back to japan with him when the time came, make them become (more) japanese? it's an interesting commentary to make on the way fascists often are, to some extent, enticed/aroused/sexually fixated on those they see as lesser - but im not positive that is the angle noda was going for either?