Golden Kamuy

Golden Kamuy unfolds in early 1900s Hokkaido after the Russo-Japanese War, where Saichi Sugimoto tirelessly pans for gold. Nicknamed "Sugimoto the Immortal" for his death-defying acts in battle, the ex-soldier seeks a fortune so he can fulfill a promise made to his best friend before he was killed in action: to support his family, especially his widow, who needs treatment overseas for her deteriorating eyesight. His prospects change when a drunken companion tells him of a man who murdered a group of Ainu and stole a fortune in gold, then hid it somewhere in Hokkaido before his arrest by the police. The only clue to its location is a coded map tattooed on the bodies of his cellmates in exchange for a share of the treasure, should they manage to escape and find it. Sugimoto dismisses the story until he discovers the drunken man's corpse bearing the same tattoos described in it. Before he can collect his thoughts, a grizzly bear—the cause of the man's demise—approaches him, intent on finishing her meal, and he is saved by a young Ainu girl named Asirpa, whose father happened to be one of the murdered Ainu. Combining Asirpa's hunting skills with Sugimoto's survival instincts, the pair agree to search for the hidden treasure: she wants to reclaim what was rightfully her people's, while he wants to fulfill his friend's dying wish. Their hunt soon expands beyond two partners in the wilderness, drawing in escaped convicts, the slippery Yoshitake Shiraishi, and Lieutenant Tokushirou Tsurumi's soldiers, turning the search for Ainu gold into a violent struggle across Hokkaido.