Golden Kamuy live action review

Once upon a time, the idea of a live action remake of manga/anime shows would send a shudder down my spine. Sure we had shows like H2 which are easy to adapt but we had crap like Ranma 1/2 and Shingeki no Kyojin where it did not translate well to live action. I think a lot of the shows had bad budget and people still did not know how to do the costumes and makeup and everything looked like bad cosplay.

Then Sato Shinsuke brought a new standard to jmovie manga adaptations with Gantz, I am a Hero and Inuyashiki and it seemed like manga adaptations were getting better and better. Now we have one very faithful adaptation of Golden Kamuy.

Golden Kamuy is about 3 groups of people chasing this secret treasure of the Ainu people in Hokkaido. We have our main characters, Sugimoto who is a former soldier and Ahsiripa, a young Ainu girl looking for her father who hid the treasure.

Hot on their hells is the evil Lieutenant Tsurumi and his soldiers from the 7th division.

Along with Hijikata Toshizou's group. Yes, that Hijikata from Shinsengumi! One thing Golden Kamuy does really well is the casting. I am kind of meh Yamazaki Kento is Sugimoto because he gives off a rougher impression from the anime but everyone else is just sublime.

The casting and make up is just perfect. Having seen so many manga adaptation, I do not recall an adaptation with so many characters where everyone is just perfectly cast. I guess Rurouni Kenshin had a good cast but Takei Emi was so wrong for Kaoru.

Golden Kamuy live action came out as a movie which I watched on Netflix and then 9 episodes on WOWOW. There is going to be a movie after this set in Abashiri prison. As someone who has watched the anime, I have no complaints. I am not a huge fan but I am enjoying the jdorama more because how many action/comedy jdorama/movies are there with such a budget?

It is not all perfect. The bear scenes are pretty bad with the bears being men in suits ala Ultraman. Some scenes look very cinematic and some look very cheap and sound stagey. I can't complain because what WOWOW have been able to do with their budget is amazing. 

One of my favourite things about Golden Kamuy is showing the culture and customs of Ainu people, the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido. Their culture is so different from Japanese culture and is something you don't really see in Japanese media.

All I look for in manga adaptations is faithfulness and Golden Kamuy is right up there with I"s. Very watchable and I hope it continues to succeed so they have money to adapt the whole thing.