Yamada

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**Yamada** (山田, *Yamada*) is the troupe leader of the Yamada Circus Troupe and a former officer of the Imperial Japanese Army.

## Appearance

Yamada is a relatively middle-aged man with a slightly dark skin tone, thick eyebrows, a dandy mustache, and a dark mullet with a top hat. He wears a patterned robe over a long sleeved undershirt with a scarf, a piece of cloth tied around his shoulders down to his waist, dark pants long socks and geta shoes. Yamada also carries around a sword as part of a magic trick. He also possesses unusually huge areolas.

## Personality

Yamada appears to be a cheerful person as whenever a stressful event occurs, he would try to lighten the mood even if it meant using provocative methods to do so. He is also a rather courteous person and would scold Choukichi whenever he gets into trouble.
Yamada has taken a strong liking to Otonishin Koito due to his natural talent at acrobatics, often praising him and how good his addition to the Yamada Circus Troupe would be.

## Background

In his past, Yamada once worked as an officer for the Imperial Japanese Army and as the leader of the Yamada Circus Troupe, he travelled all over Russia since before the Russo-Japanese War began. During that time, he secretly gathered intellgence from all over Russia, which he reported to the Special Service Agency of the Japanese Army.
Prior to arriving in Toyohara, Yamada and his troupe performed all over Russia and received profound success for their shows. Afterwards, they returned to Japan and began to make preparations for their performance in Toyohara.

## Plot

### Karafuto Circus Arc

When Choukichi returned to the troupe tents, Yamada scolded him for not helping the troupe set things up. Yamada then noticed the knapsack that Choukichi is carrying before getting angry that he was stealing again. Just then, Otonoshin Koito, who had been chasing after Choukichi, fired off a couple of gunshots which caught everyone's attention.

Yamada and Choukichi bowed to Sugimoto's Group in apology for stealing Saichi Sugimoto's knapsack. He decides to take responsibility for Choukichi's theft by taking out his sword, which he cuts the boy across the face with. In response, Sugimoto punches him, but the soldiers quickly find out that it was all fake as part of a magic trick that Yamada wanted to use to lighten the mood.

He then properly introduced both himself and Choukichi and revealed to the soldiers that they are circus performers. Upon hearing this, Sugimoto gets the idea to join their act so that he can send a message to Asirpa by having the whole town of Toyohara talk about his act.

Yamada refuses Sugimoto's proposal since it would mean revealing their tricks to an outsider but relents after Sugimoto's threats and at Choukichi's recommendation, leads Sugimoto's Group into their tent to observe their acts. He allows them to try out the same tricks but other than Koito, all of them fails on every acts and so sends Sugimoto to practice the *harakiri* show and both Tanigaki and Tsukishima to the Girls Dance group. As Koito continues to excel at every act given to him, Yamada heaps praises upon him, saying he may even become the centerpiece of their troupe.

Afterwards, Yamada begins to show Sugimoto and Cikapasi how the *harakiri* act is done and allows Sugimoto to practice it but is immediately unnerved by his exaggerating and bad acting. Sugimoto is then distracted by Koito's performance and bickers with him momentarily. He turns his attention back to Yamada and suggests a roller skating performance but Yamada quickly shoots it down. Yamada is able to convince Sugimoto to continue with the *harakiri* act but is annoyed by his exaggerating once more. When the day of their opening finall arrives, Yamada gives a pep talk to the whole troupe to get them fired up for their performances.

Yamada kicks off the Karafuto show and presents the various acts to the crowd. However, when Koito sees a photograph of his superior, First Lieutenant Tsurumi, he breaks from his performance and chases after it, interfering with the other acts before majestically catching it. Despite this, the crowd believes it is all part of the show and applauds as Yamada weeps, saying that the god of acrobatics really does exit. He then presents Sugimoto as the final act of the show but is irritated by Sugimoto's acting.

When Sugimoto is about to cut himself, Yamada tells him not to say "ow" but gets annoyed when Sugimoto does say it, unaware that his blade had been switched with Koito's military sabre. He then looks over and sees that Koito and Tsukishima had the fake blade all along as Sugimoto continues with the show. They noticed several Russian men stepping on the stage, one of whom points a gun at Sugimoto only for him to counter and kill two of them while Tsukishima takes down a third. As the crowd believes it was all part of the act, Yamada tells the troupe to go out for the final bow while they recover the bodies.

Some time later, Tsukishima interrogates the Russian man he had knocked out and found that they were hired by the Russian government to kill Yamada. Yamada then revealed that he was once an espionage officer for the Imperial Army as he collected intelligence about Russia under the guise of being a troupe leader. Fumie comes in and insults Yamada, calling him a third rate spy before assassinating the Russian, saying that they will bury the Russians and leave the next day.

Yamada tries to have Koito join the troupe but is turned down by him due to his allegiance to Tsurumi. Tsukishima then reveals their purpose to find a member of a partisan group who will try to meet up with his comrades in the north. Yamada notes that there is a town north of Toyohara in which Alexadrovskaya Prison stood with members of an ethnic group that were arrested for being part of a liberation group. Upon hearing this, Sugimoto's Group believes that that is where Kiroranke will eventually head to.

## Trivia

* Yamada and Fumie are brother and sister, but they pretend to be a married couple.

## References

1. ↑ Q&A section from the Golden Kamuy fanbook