#tsukikoi flavored posts

[eyedelater]

every time tsukishima scolds koito

koito is tsukishima's superior officer, but sometimes tsukishima can't resist telling him what to do or yelling at him, and i like that.

volume 11, chapter 105 - 気をつけろ散弾銃を持ってる // 鯉登少尉先走るなッ "Watch out, he has a shotgun! // Don't rush in, Second Lieutenant Koito!" (when koito is about to go up the stairs in pursuit of the lightning bandit. koito ignores him and slides down the oily stairs backwards on the next page. you can't see tsukishima saying these lines, but noda-sensei confirmed in an interview that it was him.) (not polite speech)

volume 11, chapter 106 - 待て鯉登少尉一人で行くなッ "Wait, Second Lieutenant Koito! Don't go alone!" (when koito jumps up in pursuit of the lightning bandit. koito ignores him and runs across a ceiling beam and out the window.) (not polite speech)

volume 14, chapter 140 - ひとりでうろちょろしないでください "Please don't wander off by yourself." (accompanied by a big sigh. from when koito ended up in the hurep wine shop. koito ignores the scold and instead comments on the wine and recommends it to tsukishima.) (polite speech)

volume 15, chapter 141 - 鯉登少尉殿離れてください "Second Lieutenant Koito, please get away." (away from the wolverine. koito ignores him and goes on and on about how it's cute and then gets attacked by it.) (polite speech)

volume 17, chapter 167 - 鯉登少尉殿 前をうろちょろしないで下さい // 光を遮りますから "Second Lieutenant Koito, please don't wander around in front. // You'll block the light." (when they're in the lighthouse and koito is making the light flicker.) (second use of "urochoro" = wandering around) (polite speech)

volume 18, chapter 176 - 鯉登少尉殿戻ってきてください天幕で休ませてもらいますよッ "Please come back, Second Lieutenant Koito! They're going to let us rest in their tent!" (and he claps his hands twice. koito then comes back from looking at a small reindeer.) (polite speech)

volume 19, chapter 189 - あ...ッひとりで行くな!! "Ah... Don't go by yourself!!" (after the two of them get blown up by kiroranke's grenade trap and tsukishima is wounded. koito ignores him and goes off in search of kiroranke.) (not polite speech)

volume 21, chapter 201 - 伏せろ!! "Get down!!" (pushing koito down by the shoulders after shiraishi got sniped by vasily.) (not polite speech)

volume 21, chapter 201, a couple pages later - 頭を出さないでください! "Please don't stick your head out!" (or vasily will snipe it. koito does not stick his head out and instead asks to borrow tsukishima's hand mirror.) (polite speech)

volume 22, chapter 212 - 何をやっている // 近づくな鯉登少尉!! // 離れろ!! / そいつは... "What are you doing? // Don't go near him, Second Lieutenant Koito!! // Get away!! / He's…" (when sugimoto has been shot and koito goes right up next to him to confront asirpa. koito does not get away; instead, he gets stabbed right through the chest.) (not polite speech)

volume 22, chapter 212, a few pages later - 抜かないでください // いつも感情的になって突っ走るなと注意していたでしょう... "Please don't pull [the knife] out. // Aren't I always warning you not to get emotional and rush in…?" (when tsukishima is sitting with stabbed koito and has a rare tender look on his face. koito obediently doesn't pull it out.) (polite speech)

volume 26, chapter 251 - 鯉登少尉避けろ "Second Lieutenant Koito! Dodge!" (when ushiyama is about to throw an entire usami at koito and nikaidou. koito dodges usami well, and tsukishima and kikuta jump over usami, and then usami crashes into nikaidou.) (not polite speech)

volume 26, chapter 259 - 離れてくださいッ "Please get away from him!" (when koito is fighting boutarou, tsukishima shoots boutarou's hand and yells this. if it wasn't directed at koito, he wouldn't have said it politely. then boutarou runs away.) (polite speech)

volume 26, chapter 260 - 急いで上がってください "Please get up quickly." (as in, get up and out of the flooded beer, after tsukishima stomps on boutarou's face and boutarou swims away. koito does not immediately get up and out and instead yells at tsukishima for saving him.) (polite speech)

volume 31, chapter 306 - 来るなッ // ...なんで // いつもきかないんだ!! "Stay back! // ...Why do you // never listen?!!" (when koito sees that tsukishima is trying to hand-deliver a grenade to ushiyama and goes to stop him. koito does not stay back.) (not polite speech)

volume 31, chapter 307 - 放してください "Please let go." (of his clothing so he can go join tsurumi on the roof. koito ignores him and does not let him go up on the roof.) (polite speech)

conclusion

when tsukishima scolds him, koito often ignores it unless it was something he was already going to do. tsukishima almost always addresses koito with polite speech, but when scolding him, he forgoes polite speech about half the time. if koito wasn't so very prone to rushing in, he wouldn't have to get scolded all the time. isn't it obvious that tsukishima only wants what's best for him? usually?

bonus: the one time koito really scolds tsukishima, yelling at him for letting asirpa escape in order to save him (chapter 260), tsukishima makes this face and apologizes:

he can dish it out, but he can't take it...

(see also: every time koito says "tsukishimaa!")

#golden kamuy #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #golden kamuy spoilers #golden kamuy translation notes #a double slash // indicates a break between speech bubbles. and one slash / indicates a compound speech bubble #these posts aren't popular bc no one has taste except me but i'm not giving up #by which i mean i already compiled this information while reading so i might as well post it #these lines are all my translations. i don't remember how EH scans or VIZ translated them #tsukikoi flavored posts #tsukishima isn't used to getting scolded bc tsurumi never scolds him bc he's so good at his job...

[eyedelater]

i wanted to know the exact line when koito suggests to tsukishima that they exchange menko (chapter 249).

the sentence: そんなに心配ならお互いのメンコを交換して肌身離さず気を張っておこう (sonna ni shinpai nara otagai no menko wo koukan shite hadamihanasazu ki wo hatte okou)

breakdown: そんなに心配なら if you're that worried お互いのメンコ each other's menko を交換して exchanging, swapping 肌身離さず carrying close to one's person, carrying at all times, implication of keeping it next to the skin 気を張っておこう let's steel ourselves.

my translation: "If you're that worried, then let's steel ourselves by exchanging menko and always keeping them close to us."

EH scans translation: "If you're that worried about it, then we can exchange our own menko and always keep them with us." (that's perfect, but i liked the part about steeling themselves.)

VIZ translation: "If you're worried, how about trading menko pieces for mutual encouragement?" (as usual leaving out a lot of detail for no reason, but i do like "mutual encouragement.")

analysis of what koito means: he wants to communicate something to tsukishima like, "we both feel weird about tsurumi now, but what's important is that we are closer and understand each other better than ever, so as long as we remember that we have each other, we can get through this." and he also wants tsukishima to look at the cool menko he made of himself and be impressed.

(and then tsukishima's reply is just, "I haven't made one, though.")

#golden kamuy #koito otonoshin #tsukishima hajime #golden kamuy translation notes #golden kamuy spoilers #this is when they're in sapporo about to rendezvous with tsurumi in pursuit of jack the ripper and they haven't seen tsurumi in a while #bc koito was recovering in the hospital after getting stabbed. then there was the ordeal surrounding inkarmat giving birth around ch230. #koito's koito menko got wet with beer after this unless he left it somewhere else. #the real question is did koito really think tsukishima had made a menko of himself and was ready to trade. or did he just want to show off #tsukikoi flavored posts

[eyedelater]

every time koito says "tsukishimaa!"

koito is calling tsukishima's name constantly, and he likes to put an extra "a" at the end, so i thought i'd keep an eye out for instances of that as i was reading golden kamuy in japanese. i have rendered each line exactly the way he said it in canon, with links to screenshots of panels where applicable.

chapter 101 (volume 11) - 月島ぁ!! (immediately before plotzing at the thought of tsurumi scolding him; this is the very first page in which tsukishima and koito appear together.)

chapter 101, one page later (volume 11) - 月島あぁ! (after seeing the photo tsukishima brought him) (rare tsukishimaaa)

the last page of chapter 105 (volume 11) - 月島あッ (thudding down the oily stairs backwards)

chapter 141 (vol 15) - 月島ァ!! (with a wolverine biting into his neck)

chapter 141, several pages later (volume 15) - 月島ァ!! (being carried by tsukishima, yelling in fear that the wolverine is coming back)

chapter 147 (volume 15) - 月島ぁ!! (while being pulled out of the frozen pond after the stenka)

chapter 157 (volume 16) - 月島ぁ!? (at the circus, when tsukishima reveals that he is the culprit)

chapter 167 (volume 17) - 月島ァ!! (at the start of a speech bubble, when they're on a sled during a whiteout)

chapter 168 (volume 17) - 月島ァ!! (when the hammer gets stuck to his hand)

chapter 176 (volume 18) - 月島ぁん (while shaking tsukishima, who is looking at the reindeer collar) (there it is... the long-awaited tsukishimaan…)

chapter 186 (volume 19) - 月島は? // どこだ月島ァ // 月島ァ!! // 月島ァ!! // 月島どこだ!! // 月島ァ? ("Where's Tsukishima? // Where are you, Tsukishimaa? // Tsukishimaa!! // Tsukishimaa!! // Where are you, Tsukishima!! // Tsukishimaa?" he lost track of tsukishima on the drift ice because he was busy slicing a man's head into wedges.) (he says it 6 times.)

chapter 186, a few pages later (volume 19) - 月島ァ!! (when he finds tsukishima with svetlana)

chapter 189 (volume 19) - 月島ァ (right in tsukishima's ear, after the latter got exploded and is bleeding)

chapter 191 (volume 20) - 月島ァ!! (followed by しっかりしろshikkari shiro, "hang in there!" when he sees that injured tsukishima has fallen to his knees)

chapter 201 (volume 21) - 月島ァ!! (right next to him, while hiding from vasily's sniping, asking what they should do)

HONORABLE MENTION: chapter 227 (volume 23) - 月島~~~~~ (extending his name with the special tildes that blend together into one wavy line) (while chewing on an ikema root and explaining how inkarmat is so good at fortune-telling. and tsukishima asks, "What are you chewing on?")

PHANTOM TSUKISHIMAA: in chapter 231 (volume 23), when koito rides up to stop tsukishima from killing tanigaki, EH scans has koito saying, "Tsukishimaaa!" but in japanese (both magazine and volume version), he says 月島ッ and that little "tsu" at the end means that he ends it in a staccato way, the opposite of drawing it out longer. psych!

chapter 244 (volume 25) - 月島ぁ (after smacking tsukishima's head with a menko piece due to being a sore loser)

chapter 259 (volume 26) - 月島ァ!! (twice on one page right before boutarou comes up to Get'im)

first page of chapter 260 (volume 26) - 月島ァ (making it the third time he has said it in the past 30 seconds or so)

chapter 260 (volume 26) - 月島ぁああ (while surfacing from beer after tsukishima stomps on boutarou's face) (rare tsukishimaaaa, though it's followed by "garagara" gargling because his mouth is full of beer)

chapter 260 (volume 26) - 月島ァ (while asking tsukishima where asirpa went)

chapter 263 (volume 27) - 月島ァ!! (while falling off a horse that was shot)

HONORABLE MENTION: chapter 273 (volume 28) - koito realizes something shocking, and his first instinct is to quietly call out 月島... even though he knows tsukishima isn't nearby. so he didn't add any extra letters or anything, but i liked this one and wanted to include it.

chapter 299 (volume 30) - 月島ァ!! (at goryokaku, when he sees tsukishima riding by on a horse. but he doesn't get on the horse; tsurumi gets on the horse.)

chapter 302 (volume 30) - 月島ァ (when he catches up with tsukishima on horseback next to the train. this one made me laugh because it's so small)

chapter 314 (volume 31) - 月島ぁ!! (approaching tsukishima as he searches the harbor)

chapter 314 (volume 31, two pages later) - 月島ぁ!! (telling tsukishima to hop to it! it's part of his very last speech bubble in the whole series.)

CONCLUSION: koito extended the last syllable of tsukishima's name a total of 29 times. he said it with a hiragana A あ 10 times. he said it with a katakana A ア 19 times. (i really don't think there is any difference in meaning or connotation when he uses one A or the other. i think noda-sensei just switches it up for fun. likewise, i kept track of it just for fun.) he used a double exclamation point 17 times. he used a question mark twice. there was one tsukishimaaa, one tsukishimaaaa, and one tsukishimaan. and i'm pretty confident that i didn't miss any, but i'd have to reread the entire manga to double-check.

in koito's section of the official fanbook, in the "character connections" panel, the arrow pointing to tsukishima says, "Tsukishimaa!!" and the blurb says, "This is the subordinate meant to assist him, so whenever there's trouble, he'll start by calling his name."

(see also: every time tsukishima scolds koito)

#golden kamuy #koito otonoshin #tsukishima hajime #golden kamuy spoilers #tsukikoi flavored posts #How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsukishimaa! Tsu

[eyedelater]

the past

(part 3 of a series of posts about tsukishima hajime. this is the last and longest one. see also parts 1 and 2.)

tsukishima's biggest hurdle in life is figuring out how to square away his troubled past while continuing to live. he feels like the only path he can follow is the one forged by tsurumi, a great man with big ideas who saved his life. he doesn't have any dreams or ambitions other than that because he doesn't value his own life at all. but it was tsurumi who made him that way in the first place.

when tsurumi asks tsukishima if he should have let igogusa know he was alive, tsukishima tells him that it's fine, but he only says that because he is on death row and has no reason to expect he will ever escape from it. he thinks that igogusa knowing he was a death row inmate would only shock and dismay her, so he would rather just die without her knowing the truth. (the line he says is, "iie… ima sara kanojo ni nanimo shiteageraremasen kara" "no… because there's nothing i can do for her at this point.") but that's based only on what he understands as his current situation at that time! if the order of things had been different, if tsukishima had first understood that he would be escaping with his life and living as a free man (albeit with a great debt to tsurumi), maybe his answer would have been very different! tsurumi intentionally timed his question so that tsukishima would give the wrong answer and then feel compelled to stand by it! tsurumi wants tsukishima to feel resigned to never seeing igogusa again, because then, he can focus solely on serving tsurumi's goals. now, because tsurumi made him say it was fine, changing his mind would be going back on his word and challenging the person who saved him from execution. he could not do it. his will was already mostly broken on that day.

isn't it a little cruel that we the readers have the dramatic irony of knowing that igogusa is alive and well when tsukishima never knows for sure in canon? apart from trusting that tsurumi told him the truth, that is. but tsurumi told him a mixed and tainted truth in the first place, and tsukishima realized that, so of course his trust is also tainted by painful doubt. he threw the hair away, but he hasn't forgotten her; he hits a low point and ends up asking inkarmat about her, and when he asks, he thinks of her face! for the first time in the story! it's such a meaningful reveal. and even if he later decides that doesn't want inkarmat's answer… does he really never want the answer? can he ever get closure? it's so sad… the line between "wanting to know" and "thinking you don't want to know" is painful to tread. i mean, on my part, i want him to let go of her so he can be with koito forever, joyful and unburdened... but maybe it would be finding out that she's fine without him that would really help him get closure and move on with his life… to then be with koito otonoshin forever… i mean, he and koito are canonically together forever either way, but i mean together in TRUE AND UNFETTERED ROMANTIC LOVE...! ahem.

in chapter 210, when tsukishima puts on his scariest face, he says, "あなたたちは救われたじゃないですか" "weren't you (plural) saved?" (polite form) (he keeps polite speech during his whole subsequent monologue, even though he gets a little emotional.) it took me a long time to understand this line, but maybe it's just dullness on my part. at first, i thought he was talking about koito and his father being "saved," but that's not right; the other party in the "you (plural)" must be ogata. then i was thinking that it was about ogata and koito not appreciating being "saved" by tsurumi, and tsukishima is upset that they're not just quietly cooperating like he does. like, "why can't you fools just go along with it? were you saved by him or not? if you were, just shut up and don't question it. like i do." but after thinking about it more, i've decided that he actually says it with a wry and pained irony: he was also "saved" by tsurumi and has mixed feelings about it, and that makes three. like, "you two were saved, weren't you? what, it doesn't feel that way? of course not... it's the same for me..." and that explains why he goes on to tell koito about how he himself was tricked. and the scary face is not that he's upset with koito or trying to scare him but rather a reflection of his own internal turmoil finally showing on his face for once.

the thing is, among ogata, tsukishima, usami, and koito, koito was the least "saved" out of all of them, because there was nothing for him to be "saved" from in the first place, and tsukishima knows that. koito was just kidnapped. by them. you could argue that he became closer with his father because of the incident, and that he was able to solve his problem of being shoehorned toward the navy despite being prone to seasickness, but that hardly amounts to "saving" from anything. koito was slated to live a bonbon life either way. so that's why tsukishima can't help but give his little sweet lies monologue to koito. because he knows that koito was wronged and not actually saved at all.

withering up

when tsukishima looks perfectly desolate after tsurumi revealed the depth of his farce with igogusa's fake bones (the moment tsukishima refers to as having "withered up completely" when explaining it to koito), i had a hard time discerning what he was feeling in that moment. he had just had his old wounds opened up, he got upset and punched and yelled at tsurumi, he tried to protect tsurumi from a shell, they both got grievously injured, and then tsurumi explained just how far he went for tsukishima's sake. so what exactly was it about that chain of events that made tsukishima wither up completely? i think i've realized that it was shame. what tsukishima felt in the withered-up panel was shame for having doubted tsurumi. it was deep self-disgust because he had lost control of himself enough to resort to violence, just like when he killed his father. not only that, but it was violence against the only person who valued him enough to save him! he hates himself in that moment. and that's exactly what tsurumi wanted, because the foil to miserable, self-hating tsukishima in that moment is tsurumi, his shining savior. everything about the interaction went exactly as tsurumi planned (apart from losing part of his skull).

as tsukishima explained to koito, it was only later that he slowly started to doubt tsurumi (after thinking about the logistics of meeting that sado resident in the field hospital); in that moment, he didn't doubt tsurumi whatsoever. he trusted him and respected him so deeply that that interaction is what led him to finally throw away igogusa's lock of hair after 9 years. tsurumi had finally broken him completely. the depth of his trust and respect for tsurumi was the depth of the shame and self-hatred that he felt, and that's how tsurumi was then able to pour in his affection and cement tsukishima as his most loyal pawn. he broke tsukishima's will and then touched him gently on the head. urgh! (gritting teeth! fists clenched!) a nicer person should touch tsukishima gently on the head…!

and then, when tsukishima slowly started to doubt what tsurumi told him, he didn't act on that doubt or tell anyone or do anything differently because he still didn't trust himself enough to feel like his feelings of doubt could actually be warranted. he just slowly let those feelings ferment, and it wasn't until koito confronted him about the kidnapping incident that he was able to actually bring those feelings to the surface and consult with someone about them. but even then, he did it in the habit of tsurumi's dirty work dog and finished his monologue by threatening to kill koito…

this whole character arc of being unable to decide whether to doubt himself or doubt tsurumi is extra painful because of the dramatic irony. he never gets closure about igogusa! he never knows for sure that she's alive, even though we, the readers, do! the question of whether tsurumi told the truth about her is integral to tsukishima's doubt or trust of tsurumi, and he never closes that door in canon.

the fact that igogusa is alive seems to indicate that what tsurumi did for tsukishima was real and that igogusa's parents really did orchestrate an island-wide lie about tsukishima's death so that they could marry her off to a rich family. when you first read the scene where tsurumi explains that to tsukishima, you must suspect that it is tsurumi's completely manufactured story to manipulate tsukishima, toeing the line of believability. but if tsurumi didn't lie and that's what really happened, then it's worth focusing on how that's a uniquely fucked up thing to happen to tsukishima. it's so sad and bizarre. and the pain tsukishima must have felt knowing that he killed his father not as revenge for igogusa's suicide but without any good reason at all, only as a consequence of losing his self-control because he failed to understand the ruse behind it all… he felt that hideous guilt at having lost his self-control, and then, 9 years later, tsurumi's charade provoked him and he lost his self-control AGAIN! and this time, it was tsurumi he punched! so when it became clear once again that tsurumi actually did help tsukishima and that igogusa was in fact alive, it was a new dose of the same hideous guilt, compounding it! and that's why tsukishima is so defeated. he loses ALL trust in his own judgment (at least for a period of time… of years) and bolsters only his self-control. he decides to not try to figure out things for himself anymore and instead surrender his free will to tsurumi, who is so kind to him and so clear and admirable, and as long as he holds onto his self-control while burying his own will, everything will work out… it's a win-win in his view! he knows he's being manipulated, but because he can't trust his own free will to guide him, he feels like being useful to tsurumi makes his life worthwhile! and of course tsurumi benefits from having created the perfect pawn! tsukishima turns off his free will and his heart, turns his self control to max, and follows instructions to a tee! that's why he's so good at dancing in the girl's group at the circus.

it took me a really long time to realize that the reason tsukishima had such an emotional reaction to the lighthouse parents not knowing the whereabouts of svetlana is that he can relate to it directly because he himself still doesn't know where igogusa is or whether she's alive (because he can't fully trust what tsurumi told him, even though we the readers know it's true). the pain of not even knowing whether someone important to you is alive or dead…

when tsukishima was chasing after tanigaki and inkarmat and koito came over and stopped him by saying it was an order from his superior officer… that was really brave and smart on koito's part. he understood that tsukishima is motivated by duty and commitment to tsurumi, but he couldn't have been 100% certain that tsukishima would obey his order and not kill him too. despite that, he was 100% confident in his authority to give that order, and tsukishima didn't expect that. tsukishima had been looking down on him to a degree (understandably), and that's why he was surprised that koito was willing to step up and use his authority like that despite being wounded and at a disadvantage. he called tsukishima's bluff (as a soldier, do you respect authority or not?), and tsukishima faltered. it was perfect because really nothing but an order from a superior officer (and fellow tsurumi loyalist) could have stopped him at that moment. (another note about that scene: i never noticed before but tsukishima is pointing a rifle at tanigaki and inkarmat, koito shows up, and tsukishima keeps his rifle pointing at those two while picking up a handgun with his other hand and pointing it at koito behind him. that's such a goofy maneuver!)

it seems very unlikely that tsukishima has talked in detail about his past ordeals to anyone but tsurumi (although i suspect others in the unit understand the general gist of things), and the two of them probably haven't talked about it since the battle of mukden. the reason is that tsurumi isn't actually interested in helping tsukishima heal, as that might diminish his capacity as a pawn. but koito would never think that way, and he would want to actually help tsukishima and make him happy. so i want to see koito and tsukishima talk to each other about his past and his pain so that tsukishima won't feel so alone in his internal struggles. i think i've become fixated on the idea of tsukishima achieving happiness… i just want it for him so bad… i need to go on ao3 or something. (i've only read 1 golden kamuy fanfic so far.)

#tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #tsurumi tokushirou #golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #tsukikoi flavored posts #this could be more cohesive and better organized but i'm done messing with it #golden kamuy spoilers

[eyedelater]

tasks

(part 1 of a series of posts about tsukishima hajime)

tsurumi puts tsukishima up to the worst tasks. he does not shy away from having tsukishima do anything that needs to be done. tsukishima does his work skillfully and without complaint because his will has been broken. let's examine some of that dirty work.

thinking back to the first arc where tsukishima was important to the plot... when tsurumi was pursuing edogai (volume 8, chapter 71), tsukishima told nikaidou that tsurumi had him dig up a grave in yubari to see if the corpse had coded tattoos. it was only mentioned in passing, but that task sucks. i bet he had to do it in the dead of night and then neatly fill in the grave again afterward. (granted, it would have been worse if the coffin wasn't empty.) a little later, tsukishima was given the task of overseeing edogai as he made the counterfeit skins and ensuring that the skins made it safely to tsurumi. setting aside all of the strangeness of edogai's hobby that he had to kindly overlook as an extension of tsurumi's good will, the task became incredibly rough! his comrade maeyama was killed by ogata! ogata tried to kill him! super scary sugimoto the immortal tried to kill him! there was a gunfight in moving minecarts! two explosions! deadly suffocating gas! he watched poor edogai-kun die horribly! tsukishima came very, very close to dying! and his clothes got all dirty with coal :( sure, he survived thanks to his incredible toughness, and tsurumi praised him at the end, but praise for a job well done can only take you so far. tsukishima must have questioned on some level whether it was worth it. his loyalty to tsurumi is incredibly deep, but loyalty and enthusiasm are two different things. tsukishima is unique in that his loyalty dial is turned all the way up and his enthusiasm dial is turned almost all the way down. (koito's enthusiasm dial is turned all the way up.)

going further back in time (but forward in the story)... around chapter 200, we see that tsurumi had tsukishima play a central role in staging a violent kidnapping. tsukishima, ogata, and kikuta had to kidnap a child, take care of him for like 3 days while pretending to be russian, find some russian prisoners to act as stand-ins, sneak them out of prison, bring them to the appropriate places, dress them up, and kill them at the appropriate times— all as part of the tsurumi theater. it wasn't tsukishima alone this time, but that task really fucking sucks. for everyone involved except tsurumi. you really can't overstate it.

and was tsurumi the one who assigned tsukishima to be koito's sergeant advisor? if so, that was another difficult task, because it forced tsukishima to pretend that the two of them hadn't already met as kidnapper and victim. but maybe helping cover up his sweet lies is among the least offensive tasks tsurumi assigns. after all, all you have to do is lie more...

the only task tsukishima complains about is having to serve as koito's interpreter when talking to tsurumi, and he only complains about it inside his own head. he really is stoic.

when tsukishima and koito became inseparable (narratively), koito began to take part in tsukishima's unpleasant tasks as well. in volume 14, tsurumi brought the two of them to abashiri to help him achieve the explicit goal of leaving no surviving witnesses. that was a really fucked up, unpleasant, and morally abhorrent task. that's just a massacre. and they achieved that goal, more or less. a little later, sending tsukishima and koito to karafuto with sugimoto was also a rough assignment (traversing unfamiliar northern lands during the winter, chasing a moving target, pursuing a dangerous soldier and a dangerous partisan and shiraishi) that left both of them seriously injured (tsukishima's explosion injury to the neck, koito stabbed through the arm and the chest). but maybe that task in particular ended up being worthwhile for tsukishima and koito, because during their trip, they grew closer to each other and realized that much of the pain they had endured could be laid at tsurumi's feet. they were able to share in their growing doubts about tsurumi and get a clearer view of the whole situation.

another task that fell to tsukishima was bringing the peepee bottle to and from bedridden koito after sugimoto stabbed him. did everyone notice the peepee bottle? in volume 23, chapter 223, we see tsukishima holding the bottle that is specially made for peeing into. i'm pretty sure it reappears at least one other time. when i first saw it, i didn't understand what it was (i thought it might be like... some kind of feeding implement?), but now i have learned it is called a shibin 尿瓶 (尿 shi means pee, 瓶 bin means bottle) and it's a bottle for bedridden people to pee into. i would love to see the discussion that ended in tsukishima agreeing to do that. i mean, they're in a hospital. there are orderlies who could carry the pee bottle, right? anyone else could do it. but the one transporting the pee bottle is sergeant tsukishima. you have to wonder, would tsurumi really delegate that task to him? or the other question could be, would tsukishima do that without being asked to? does he think such a thing would just be expected of him? is his self-esteem so low that he wouldn't see such a task as below him? or... is it love 😳

an especially troublesome task that tsurumi seems to have assigned to tsukishima was guarding the pregnant hostage inkarmat, which came to a head around chapter 230. however, it's not clear exactly what tsurumi instructed him to do and what tsukishima may have come up with on his own. when you do dirty work for 10 years, maybe every task becomes a little dirtier in your mind, and you start leaning more toward violence as a default. would tsurumi really have explicitly told tsukishima that if tanigaki tries to rescue inkarmat, tsukishima should kill them both? or did tsurumi just make it clear that inkarmat was being held hostage without giving any further instructions, and it was tsukishima who decided how important it is to follow up on threats? i don't think it was ever spelled out clearly. in the end, that was the first dirty work task from which koito was able to save tsukishima (by using his authority to stop him) and the first time the two of them explicitly defied tsurumi together.

it is a testament to tsukishima's broken spirit that he remained loyal to tsurumi to the very end, despite all the dirty work he put him up to, even after tsurumi disappeared into hakodate bay. but tsukishima was saved by koito's own loyalty to him, and by the end of the story, it seems like happiness is within his reach.

#tsukishima hajime #golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #tsukikoi flavored posts #tsukishima series #i had a tsukishima draft that was like 5k words and i decided that i must split it into shorter posts. as a mercy. #but all the pieces are gonna be killer long like this bc i keep adding more words to try to tie it all together bc it's so disjointed! argh #i have lots of drafts but i have to read and edit them 500 times each to make sure they're normal before i let them out in the world #golden kamuy spoilers

[eyedelater]

morality

(part 2 of a series of posts about tsukishima hajime. part 1 here)

one could argue that tsukishima is as bad a person as ogata because he too killed his own dad and has killed many other people, not just for military reasons, but at the behest of the head of a REBEL military faction with shady plans and shadier means. and he does tend to kill people up close instead of from far away like a sniper. you have to consider, though, that when tsukishima killed his dad, he wasn't intending to, and he didn't revel in it and give a whole big speech like ogata did. he let his rage take over and decided to beat the hell out of his dad, but he never decided to kill him. that part was accidental. (he did tell tsurumi that he didn't regret it, but that was based on the mistaken notion that it was revenge for causing igogusa to kill herself. once he found out the truth, he regretted it. we know this because after the stenka, he warned sugimoto against losing control and doing something that he can't take back.) the bottom line is that tsukishima does not enjoy killing people. he kills people because he feels that is part of his duty, which arises from the debt he feels he owes to tsurumi for saving him. he doesn't pay close attention to his feelings of guilt or allow himself to express them publicly or privately, but he does have them. he just grits his teeth and does what he is told to do (and sometimes even does the expected dirty work without being explicitly told) because he has given his free will over to tsurumi completely. by comparison, ogata seems to enjoy killing people explicitly of his own free will, in the same way he enjoys hunting game… or in a similar way, depending on who he is killing. ogata always kills willfully and intentionally, because that is what a hunter does. tsukishima doesn't wallow in feelings of guilt over killing people because that part of him has withered up, whereas ogata doesn't wallow in feelings of guilt over killing people because he does not have the innate understanding of those feelings that most people have and hasn't for his whole life.

in the past, i've made a big deal of it (in my head) when fictional characters have a habit of killing people. a character's moral standing meant a lot to me on a personal level. but now, something has changed in me, and i don't get stuck on that point as much. probably i have hardened my heart, and it's a problem on my end, but let's set that aside. despite tsukishima and koito both killing a lot of people, i want them to be happy. maybe it's because they both would not have gone out of their way to kill people if not for their circumstances (such as being in the military and also being in a rebel military group). they are not killers at heart; it is the innate immorality of war (and the military itself) that has corrupted both of them into killing. they have both done unforgivable things, but they can improve as people and do their best in the future to be a positive force in the world instead of a negative one. (except they both stay in the military until the end of WWII so that's really difficult. that's one reason it's kind of nicer to put them in a reincarnation AU...)

when inkarmat blocks tanigaki from being shot by tsukishima and tells him to kill her first if his sense of justice allows it, it's probably not quite as big a mental struggle for tsukishima as it should be. after all, for years now, it's not like he's been believing that he is steadfastly pursuing justice. he knows he's a pawn for tsurumi's plans, and he knows tsurumi's plans will hurt some people and help others. he may vaguely believe that tsurumi's plans will work out better for japan in the long run, but justice itself is not something he has been overly concerned with. his personal sense of justice has greatly deteriorated over his long tenure as a pawn. later, when koito sees tanigaki and inkarmat on their way out, hesitates, and decides not to stop them… that's because his sense of justice hasn't been fully corrupted yet. of course, it has been a little corrupted, because he had already killed lots of people for tsurumi before this (at abashiri) and he will kill more people for tsurumi after this (at goryokaku). but he still has a basic sense of right and wrong that tsukishima lacks at the time. that's why it's good that he becomes a guiding force for tsukishima in the end… if tsukishima feels like he needs to follow someone with big ideas, it should be someone who still believes justice is worth pursuing.

#part 1 is not required reading. it's completely separate #tsukishima hajime #golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #golden kamuy spoilers #tsukikoi flavored posts #ogata hyakunosuke #koito otonoshin

[eyedelater]

hi! just wanted to say i love reading your gk analysis posts. im really bad at analysis personally so they really help me! plus it's nice to have info all organized in one place like your tsukikoi flavored posts :-)

just wondering, where do you access the jp manga raws? there are some lines i'm curious about looking at the original text of myself but can't seem to find the raws

thank you so much! personally, i can't understand my own thoughts and feelings about works of fiction without writing them out into grammatically correct prose and then editing them 500 times. i'm very happy if at least 1 other person enjoys reading them afterward.

as for the second part, a couple things:

first of all, if you want, you can let me know about any lines you're curious about and i'll go get them for you.

but anyway, to actually get the raws, if you go here:

and click on any volume you want and then scroll down and click the second box that says デジタル and then scroll down further and it'll show you a list of a million vendors from which you can buy that ebook. the easiest one might be amazon.co.jp, but you'll have to make a separate account, because an amazon.com account won't work.

i was reading the official VIZ translation of GK through their website, which charges you $3 a month to read up to 100 translated manga chapters a day, which is insane if you consider that buying one volume of a manga is like $13 for like 10 chapters. so you could read like 3000 chapters a month if you're a maniac. but i haven't been able to find any similar deal for the manga in japanese, which is what i had been hoping for... though it seems the ebooks in japanese are more like 570 yen per volume, which is closer to $4.50, which is a lot less than $13.

and if you happen to, for example, not that i would know, have trouble figuring out how to get a japanese ebook seller to accept your american credit card... there is another option that i'll tell you about if you DM me.

i'm not aware of the raws in their entirety, volume version, being posted browsable on any manga websites; only bits and pieces of the magazine version. i'm reluctant to link directly anywhere lest it increase the odds of it getting taken down.

#i'll go get any GK lines anyone is curious about if you want. and i'll translate them if you want. or not.