It may be a lazy holiday weekend here, and we’re taking advantage of it with some downtime where we can, but we also want to get the day started off right. And what better way than with the opening sequence from the Golden Kamuy anime, which Funimation is now streaming. The sequence uses the song “Winding Road” performed by MAN WITH A MISSION but it’s sadly not subtitled due to music rights issues, though it does give us a bit of a cleaner look at the animation.
The show has Jeremy Inman on board as the ADR director with Clint Bickham and Jessica Cavanagh handling the scripts for it. The show is focused primarily on two characters so we only learned that Ian Sinclair is playing Saichi Sugimoto while Monica Rial is Asirpa. There’ll be more cast revealed later to be sure.
Studio Geno is on board to handle the animation production for the show and has confirmed that Hitoshi Nanba will direct it based on the series composition by Noboru Takagi. Kenichi Ohnuki is handling the character design adaptation.
The Japanese cast includes Chikahiro Kobayashi as Saichi Sugimoto, Haruka Shiraishi as Ashiriba, and Kentarou Itou as Yoshitake Shiraishi, Houchou Ootsuka as Tsurumi, Kenjirou Tsuda as Hyakunosuke Ogata, Yoshimasa Hosoya as Genjirou Tanigaki, Jouji Nakata as Toshizō Hijikata, Kenji Nomura as Tatsuuma Ushiyama, Akio Ohtsuka as Tetsuzo Nihei, Tomokaze Sugita as Yohei and Kohei Nikado, and Toshihiko Seki as Kazuo Henmi.
The opening theme song will be “Winding Road” performed by MAN WITH A MISSION while the ending theme “Hibana” is being done by THE SIXTH LIE.
The series has thirteen volumes to its name so far as serialized through Young Jump and it looks like most recent volumes in Japan have sold around the 200,000 range. Viz Media is releasing the series in English in North America.
Check out our review of the first volume of the manga.
Check out the official site and Twitter.
Plot Concept: In the early twentieth century, Russo-Japanese War veteran Saichi “Immortal” Sugimoto scratches out a meager existence during the postwar gold rush in the wilderness of Hokkaido. When he stumbles across a map to a fortune in hidden Ainu gold, he sets off on a treacherous quest to find it. But Sugimoto is not the only interested party, and everyone who knows about the gold will kill to possess it! Faced with the harsh conditions of the northern wilderness, ruthless criminals and rogue Japanese soldiers, Sugimoto will need all his skills and luck—and the help of an Ainu girl named Asirpa—to survive.