[Spoiler Review] Anime 'Golden Kamuy' Season 5 Episode 51 "Fireworks"

This week's 'Golden Kamuy' was exactly as the title suggests—a beautiful yet cruel episode like "fireworks." The impact left by tattooed prisoner Kamijou Keiji, an irredeemable yet somehow captivating monster, has carved deep scars into our hearts.

Overall Impression: At the End of Self-Display. The "Worst Beauty" Left by Kamijou Keiji

Episode 51 was a tremendous episode. What overwhelmed me most was how they depicted Kamijou Keiji's "final moments."
This work features many perverts (meant as praise), but Kamijou was a man bearing a kind of modern loneliness—the fear of "being ignored by everyone." The fireworks of "his own tattoo" that he launched into Sapporo's sky. Many viewers likely felt both horror and indescribable emptiness at the sight of him betting everything on that one moment of brilliance.

The production team's dedication shone through. While fireworks color the night sky, brutal killing unfolds inside the beer factory. This contrast between "stillness and movement," "beauty and ugliness" is the essence of Golden Kamuy! You can feel how much the staff treasures the "atmosphere of the original."

Episode 51

The story accelerates from the strange-patterned fireworks rising over Sapporo.
Kamijou's bizarre act of "fireworks copying tattooed human skin" throws Sugimoto, Hijikata, and the 7th Division into chaos. Yet even in this confusion, Private Usami's obsession never wavers.

Particularly heated this time was the exchange between Usami and Sergeant Major Kikuta.
The battle in narrow passages lined with beer barrels, and the "certain fate" flowing between them. Kikuta's gaze at Usami, somewhere between pity and contempt. And Usami's "love" directed at Lieutenant Tsurumi, so pure it borders on madness.
The action scenes utilizing Usami's incredible physical abilities had such force they seemed to leap from the screen, and Matsuoka Yoshitsugu's "Hyahahaha!" laughter is burned into my mind.

• The shocking direction of Kamijou's "peeled skin" dancing in the night sky
• Glimpses of Sugimoto's trust in Asirpa that supports his "immortality"
• Shiraishi's pride as the "Escape King" proving unexpectedly useful(?)

And Kamijou's end.
With the monologue "Are you watching, father?", he scattered his life as fireworks. The composition where what he left behind becomes the trigger that throws the gold rush into further chaos is magnificent.
The last scene—the silence after the firework's light fades, and cold snow falling on Sapporo's streets. A wonderful conclusion suggesting the calm before the storm, before the "hell" about to begin.

Next Episode Preview

The fireworks have ended. But the battle does not.
Next time, Episode 52.
Will Lieutenant Tsurumi finally bare his fangs at Sapporo in earnest!?
The great fire at the beer factory, and the "serious clash" of those men begins.
Can't wait until next week!