'Golden Kamuy 3' Movie Ending Explained: Did Kiroranke Kill The Anui?

[Spoiler Alert] Golden Kamuy 3’s ending was largely about Sugimoto, Asirpa, Hijikata, Ogata, Kiroranke, Ienaga, Ushiyama, Tsurumi, Inkarmat, Tsukishima, Tanigaki, Shiraishi, Koito, Kantaro, and Cikapasi heading in separate directions to commence the next phase of the search for the titular treasure. If you have watched the first film, you will know by now, Noppera-Bo, the father of Asirpa, had allegedly slain a bunch of Ainu villagers, stolen their gold, hidden them away at a discreet place, and etched the map to that location on the bodies of twenty-four inmates who were imprisoned with him in Abashiri Prison. Then those inmates broke out, which prompted treasure hunters to go on a nationwide manhunt to collect all the pieces of that map. By the end of the sequel series, The Hunt of Prisoners in Hokkaido, Tsurumi had four genuine map pieces and five fake ones, Hijikata had five pieces (and two that were kinda dubious), and Sugimoto had seven pieces. And in the third installment of this franchise, while Sugimoto’s faction was in Kushiro to look for another piece of the puzzle, Hijikata and Tsurumi’s factions were en route to the Abashiri Prison to simply learn about where the gold had been hidden from the horse’s mouth, i.e. Noppera-Bo. While taking shelter at an inn, Sugimoto’s crew ran into a group of blind bandits led by Toni Anji, who happened to be one of the twenty-four prisoners. After they were done taking him down, Sugimoto’s faction joined hands with Hijikata’s faction to infiltrate Abashiri Prison. In the meantime, Tsurumi took his squad to mount an onslaught that’d help him get his hands on Noppera-Bo and raze Abashiri to the ground. Who succeeded and who failed? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Hijikata Betrayed Sugimoto

On Hijikata’s advice, Sugimoto’s team made a tunnel into the chamber of one of the guards of Abashiri Prison, Kadokura, who was Hijikata’s inside man. He informed Hijikata and Sugimoto’s crews that the warden of the prison, Inudo, never kept Noppera-Bo in one cell. But Kadokura assured them that he had analyzed Inudo’s methodology well enough to guess where Noppera-Bo would be on the day the Sugimoto and Hijikata’s teams decided to infiltrate the prison. Hijikata selected the next new moon night as the day of the mission; based on that, Kadokura stated that Noppera-Bo would be in Block four, cell 66. Now, the infiltration part of the plan went quite swimmingly, but when Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi entered the cell that Noppera-Bo was supposed to be in, they found themselves face to face with an impostor. The impostor raised the alarm, thereby prompting all the guards to descend upon the trio. Inudo had apparently anticipated it, which was why he never kept the real Noppera-Bo in the main cell blocks of the Abashiri Prison. He moved the impostor around and since so much effort was being put into protecting this individual, everyone just assumed that that was in fact Noppera-Bo. Based on that assumption, if anybody leaked the whereabouts of “Noppera-Bo,” they’d simply fall into Inudo’s trap, and well, that’s what happened. While Sugimoto’s faction rushed to find an alternative, Tsurumi attacked the prison. That was when Inkarmat revealed to Tanigaki and Kantaro that she was Tsurumi’s informant. Tsurumi had apparently hoped that Sugimoto’s plan would work out, Sugimoto would extract Noppera-Bo, and then Tsurumi would swoop in and kidnap Noppera-Bo. Since that had gone sideways, thanks to Inudo, Tsurumi had to take the hard way and barge into Abashiri Prison with fire and fury. There was another major revelation during this chaos: Hijikata, Kadokura, and Toni apparently knew that it was the fake Noppera-Bo who was moved around the prison. They wanted Sugimoto’s team to fail so that Inudo would rush to the cell where he was keeping the actual Noppera-Bo, thereby unknowingly Hijikata’s crew to the prized prisoner.

Sugimoto Found Noppera-Bo 

Hijikata didn’t bother to let Sugimoto and Shiraishi know about this turn of events because they were irrelevant when it came to confirming if the real Noppera-Bo was in fact the real Noppera-Bo, and also convincing him to reveal the location of the gold. For that, Hijikata just needed Asirpa and that’s why he took her with him to the place where Inudo had stashed Noppera-Bo away. Why didn’t Hijikata always keep Sugimoto and his team in the loop regarding this plan? Because, firstly, Hijikata would have to share the gold with Sugimoto and his team, and secondly, if Hijikata decided to do something shifty like killing Noppera-Bo after he revealed the location of the gold so that only Hijikata would know that info, Sugimoto would oppose him. When Asirpa learnt about all of this, she gave Hijikata and Toni the slip, reunited with Shiraishi and Sugimoto, and confirmed their suspicions about Hijikata’s deception. Since the fight between Tsurumi’s army and the guards of the Abashiri Prison was getting chaotic, Sugimoto ordered Asirpa to leave with Shiraishi, while he himself took Asirpa’s knife (if Noppera-Bo identified that, it’d confirm that Asirpa was in fact his daughter) and went off to find Noppera-Bo. Sugimoto got trapped fighting Tsurumi’s men, the guards, the inmates, and Nikaido, which was why Hijikata got to Noppera-Bo’s cell first. However, Hijikata got embroiled in a fight with Inudo (which Inudo lost and he died), which allowed Noppera-Bo to escape. Sugimoto randomly ran into Noppera-Bo and since he recognized the knife that Sugimoto was carrying, Sugimoto knew that he had finally met the real Noppera-Bo. After learning that Asirpa was around, Noppera-Bo told Sugimoto to bring her to him if he wanted to know where the gold was. Sugimoto put the topic of the gold on the backburner and began berating Noppera-Bo for being a horrible human being and even worse father.

Ogata Shot Sugimoto And Noppera-Bo

Now, here’s where things got a little confusing. As far as I knew, the Ainu were collecting the gold (that Noppera-Bo allegedly stole) to fund their revolution against the Japanese Imperial army and preserve the sovereignty of their sacred land. And, based on Noppera-Bo and Sugimoto’s conversation, the former wanted the same thing; in addition to that, Noppera-Bo wanted Asirpa to lead their people to victory. Which seemingly meant that Noppera-Bo wasn’t the one who had stolen the gold and killed the Ainu people. Of course, the film couldn’t reveal the real truth behind the allegations leveled against Noppera-Bo; so, they derailed the conversation between him and Sugimoto with a binocular-staring contest between Noppera-Bo, Asirpa, and Inkarmat (Noppera-Bo used to treat Inkarmat like his daughter when he spent time in her village). When Noppera-Bo was about to bring the discussion back on track, Ogata shot both Noppera-Bo and Sugimoto in the head. This prompted Inkarmat to turn to Asirpa and tell her to run and never look back because, with Noppera-Bo dead, she was the “key to the gold.” Hence, everyone who was looking for the gold would come for her. But why? She didn’t know where the gold was; she went on this wild-goose chase because she wanted to meet her father. Even if any of the treasure-hunters got a hold of Asirpa, what could she possibly reveal to them? My theory is that (and I haven’t read the manga or watched the anime) the biggest complication about the treasure hunt isn’t assembling the correct pieces of the map; it’s interpreting it in the language that it’s written in.e. Anui. Or maybe it’s in a code that only Noppera-Bo and Asirpa know about, thereby making her integral to the search for the treasure. With Noppera-Bo and Sugimoto “dead,” Tanigaki ordered, Kiroranke, Shiraishi, and Asirpa to get to the spare boats parked near the shores of the Abashiri Prison, while Tanigaki went to collect Noppera-Bo and Sugimoto’s “dead” bodies.

Noppera-Bo Died But Sugimoto Survived 

As Shiraishi and Asirpa raced ahead, Inkarmat stopped Kiroranke in his tracks and accused him of giving Ogata the signal to shoot down Noppera-Bo and Sugimoto. Why? Originally, Noppera-Bo was Wilk and he was part of a liberation movement against Imperial Russia in the Karafuto region. Earlier in the film, Inkarmat said that Wilk got injured during the fight and then he fled to Hokkaido. But as per Kiroranke, Wilk abandoned them. So, he and Ogata used this treasure-hunt and the chaos at the prison to take revenge on him for that betrayal. As Inkarmat was extracting this info from Kiroranke, they got into a fight and he ended up stabbing her. Kiroranke left her to die and when he and Ogata reunited with Shiraishi and Asirpa at the boats, they claimed that Inkarmat had died. Later on, Ogata clarified that he “killed” Sugimoto to make sure that whatever information Noppera-Bo had relayed to Sugimoto died with him. By the way, before running away from Abashiri Prison, Ogata turned on Tanigaki as he went to collect Noppera-Ba and Sugimoto’s bodies, and he shot Tanigaki in the arm. Tanigaki would have carried the bodies all the way to the boat, but when he found Inkarmat’s body, he abandoned that task and tended to her. This allowed Tsurumi to catch up with Tanigaki but he and his men didn’t kill Tanigaki; he took him under his wing and admitted him, Inkarmat, and Sugimoto to the hospital. Tanigaki needed a sling for his injured arm, Inkarmat was unconscious, and thanks to Ienaga’s surgery skills and Sugimoto’s immortality, Sugimoto returned to form. No, Tsurumi didn’t actually care about any of them; he needed the pieces of the map they had in their possession. Did that mean that Tsurumi had all the pieces of the treasure map? Nope. While the authorities were sorting through the wreckage of the Abashiri prison, we got a glimpse of Hijikata, Ushiyama, Kadokura, and Toni in the chamber where Inudo used to keep Noppera-Bo. There they find out that the 24 tattooed pieces that everybody knew about didn’t make the complete map; there were more people with tattoos on their bodies that weren’t public knowledge. That info was stored in documents in that underground chamber of the Abashiri Prison. I know what you are thinking; if Hijikata has gotten his hands on these names, he has the upper hand. Well, no, because he still needs the other tattoos to complete the map. He can get his hands on these new tattoos and use that as leverage to get Tsurumi to give the maps that he currently has.

Kiroranke Might Have Killed The Anui

Hijikata might say that he will give Tsurumi a share of the gold if he shares his maps and complete the picture (and then kill Tsurumi once he has all the maps) or he might threaten to destroy these new pieces and ruin Tsurumi’s progress if he doesn’t share his maps. Well, we have to wait till the fourth installment to witness this altercation. Where will this altercation take place? In Golden Kamuy 3’s ending, Tsurumi revealed that their next destination was Karafuto, i.e. the place where Wilk/Noppera-Bo had fought against the Imperial Russian forces. Tsurumi also underscored the fact that Asirpa was “the key” to finding the gold; and since she was with Kiroranke, he had somewhat of an upper hand. Sugimoto took it upon himself to go to Karafuto, extract Asirpa from Kiroranke’s clutches, and get the gold on Tsurumi’s behalf. He was joined by Tanigaki, Tsukishima, Koito, Heiji and several other elite soldiers of Tsurumi; Tsurumi and Ienaga stayed back in Abashiri probably because they knew that Hijikata was around. While heading to Karafuto, Sugimoto relayed Noppera-Ba’s last words to Tanigaki; he told him that Noppera-Ba hadn’t killed the Ainu, and that Kiroranke and “the others” were the traitors. Sugimoto also stated that there were other matters he had to discuss with Asirpa. What was that about? I don’t know for sure. It’s obvious that Noppera-Ba didn’t kill the Ainu to steal their gold. I don’t think Kiroranke and his troops did it either because if they did, Kiroranke would have known where the gold was. Somebody created a confusion between Noppera-Ba and Kiroranke, thereby leading them to blame each other for the massacre. In a moment of panic, Noppera-Ba did secure the gold so that he could give it to Asirpa later, which she’d use to fund the revolution against Imperial Japan. Now, based on Sugimoto’s words, I have a feeling that Asirpa isn’t just the key to unlocking the map’s mystery; she actually knows where the gold is. She is going on this treasure hunt to find out the identity of the person who slaughtered her people. Maybe she was under the impression that it was her father who had done the deed. After learning that he was innocent, she’s extending her role in this game to unmask the true traitor and kill them for betraying her people. Is that what you think Asirpa is playing at? Let me know in the comments section below.

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