Yasaku Edogai

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**Yasaku Edogai** (江渡貝 弥作, *Edogai Yasaku*) was a taxidermist who pledged allegiance to First Lieutenant Tsurumi. On Tsurumi's request, Edogai created six fake tattooed skins, which allowed the 7th Division to bring chaos into the gold hunt.

## Appearance

Edogai is a man of average build, with light brown medium length hair. He also has distinctive eyebrows and vertical lines that runs below his eyes to the cheeks. He also wears an apron and gloves as part of his job as a taxidermist.

The mask that he uses while killing people is made from 12 fingers surrounding his head and ears, two mouths with their teeth serving as holes for his eyes to see through, and two ears position like a pig's nose for him to breath and speak through.

## Personality

Edogai first appears as an affable and professional young taxidermist, before revealing his side interest in working with human skin and inventing high fashion.

It is worth noting that despite his rather gruesome hobby, Edogai has not in fact killed anybody and is using the bodies of recently deceased miners he digs up from the local cemetery instead.

After the death of his mother, he began to hear her voice and the voices of other dead people and communicate with them as though they were alive. He also has an effeminate side. After meeting with First Lieutenant Tsurumi and sharing the details of his life's work, he seems to develop a high level of respect for the Lieutenant, and would only listen to him. Edogai has shown to get very irritated if he hears loud noises while working, such as the slamming of a door.

## Background

Edogai was born in Nara, but since it was too hot with rainy seasons there, it was not the right environment for his occupation as a taxidermist. Sometime in the past, Edogai's mother killed his father and then castrated Edogai herself, since he was "acting like his father." Edogai's mother eventually passed away from a heart attack, and he turned her corpse into a stuffed body; soon after Edogai began to have delusions that his dead family was communicating with him. Later on, he moved to Hokkaido where he opened a taxidermy store.

## Plot

### Edogai Arc

In the Yubari graveyard, Edogai (silhouetted) had been attempting to dig up a grave when he heard a branch snapped under Kouhei Nikaidou's foot. He attempted to flee but drops one of his gloves which First Lieutenant Tsurumi picks up.

He manages to reach his store, where he pretends to sit down and have a leisurely chat with other people when Tsurumi approaches and knocks on the door. He answers it and lets Tsurumi inside his shop, who begins to fire off questions about his job as a taxidermist. As Tsurumi begins to praises him and pats his shoulder, Edogai looks at his hand to see that it is made out of human skins. He backs away asking what he is talking about and bumps into a mount, causing the other people in his house to wonder if something is wrong. In the middle of the interrogation, Tsurumi asks if he could make him another pair of gloves, to which Edogai says he'd be willing to grab them from the other room. He is seen talking to the other people in his house and says he is happy to have met Tsurumi, before Tsurumi barges in to see that the other people are not alive. Behind Tsurumi, hiding behind a door, Edogai is seen with a knife and a mask made from human parts, preparing to kill Tsurumi. (71)

Before he could perform the deed, Tsurumi spoke up, surprising him. As Edogai is arguing with his mother, Tsurumi takes off his his coat to reveal a tattooed human skin underneath it, which Edogai is completely enamored with. Back in the workshop, as per Tsurumi's request, Edogai takes out several costumes to flaunt and show off his handiwork. When he goes back into the dining room to grab another costume, he is startled by Nikaidou's position on top of his mother and as he begins to scream at him, he is grabbed by Tsurumi. He gives Edogai a gun and tells him that he must leave the nest, to which he shoots his mother. Later on, as they are having one last dance, Tsurumi tells him that he wants him to make fake skins with fake tattoos that only they can tell the difference, and that they will create confusion and chaos among those also in the middle of the hunt for the tattoos.

In his workshop, Edogai works tirelessly to make fake tattoo skins, but despite his efforts he is unable to make it look exactly like the real ones and throws a fit. When Tsukishima tells him to concentrate and that he can do it, Edogai only just gets mad at him and asks where Tsurumi is. Upon hearing that he has returned to Otaru, he throws a bigger tantrum saying that only Tsurumi can tell him what to do.

Edogai continues to work on the fake tattoed skins, when he hears the sound of a door being slammed. Annoyed at this, he puts on one of his skin costumes and goes to yell at Tsukishima and Maeyama for not closing the door quietly. He then brings out a mount of Tsurumi for them to apologize to, but only gets even more upset when Maeyama tells him to actually work on his duties. Later on, Edogai is able to create a set of six fake tattooed skins and hugs the mount of Tsurumi wondering how he is going to praise him. He hears a loud noise from another room, and heads into it, beginning to scold Maeyama to close the door quietly. Suddenly, he sees Maeyama lying on the floor, dead from a bullet in his head, calling out his name. Edogai looks out of the window, to see Hyakunosuke Ogata, who had finished sniping and wonders if he is going to steal the skins.

Edogai rushes to grab the skins, but is distracted by a cat who had brought him a dead mouse as a present. However, he was able to disguise himself as a small white bear and manages to fool Ogata, who went to search around the store. As Ogata is preoccupied, he takes this opportunity to flee, saying that he has to get the skins to Tsurumi, no matter what. Despite his start, Ogata was able to track him down, with his gun aimed and ready. Suddenly, a mine cart rolls by with Tsukishima inside who is able to grab him and run away from Ogata.

Edogai and Tsukishima heads into the mine, with the former saying that they should be able to escape and that he will give the skins to Tsurumi. They are pursued by Sugimoto and Shiraishi in another cart, and while Tsukishima and Sugimoto trade gunfire, Edogai throws a bunch of rocks at them. Sugimoto and Shiraishi were able to catch up to them and attempts to board their cart, but Tsukishima activates a switch that causes their carts to go down different paths. However, since the miners had just lit a dynamite, they are caught in the explosion and sent flying from their cart. Edogai gets caught under a rubble of logs and rocks, with his legs crushed by them. Knowing that his time is near, he hands the bag of skins to Tsukishima and asks him to relay one final message to Tsurumi.

His message was just a simple word of "iron" and he says that Tsurumi should realize what he meant. After parting ways with Tsukishima, Edogai succumbed to his wounds and died and his body was found by Ogata who later confirmed his death to Sugimoto and Hijikata. Tsukishima was able to make it back to Otaru and reported to Tsurumi of the situation in Yubari as well as Edogai's last word. At this, Tsurumi vowed to not let Edogai's sacrifice go to waste.

## Abilities

* **Taxidermy:** As part of his occupation, Edogai had the ability to stuff and mount the skins of dead animals to be mounted as display. He also used his taxidermist ability on humans, being able to keep them in pristine condition and skinned their bodies as well. It was due to his practices on humans, that Tsurumi personally recruited him to create fake skins with fake tattoos in order to throw the other parties also searching for the skins into confusion.

## Trivia

* Edogai's character may have been inspired by two personalities:
	+ Much like Kano Ienaga, Edogai is based on Ed Gein, a notorious American killer and body snatcher who also had a fascination with human skins; had a very controlling, fundamentalist mother. While both have effeminate traits, Ienaga is much moreso as a trans woman. Ed Gein being transgender is nevertheless an urban legend, possibly based on him wanting to wear his mother's skin. Also, Ed Gein and Ienaga, unlike Edogai, have actually killed people. Ienaga also does not use human skin. It is also clear that like Ed Gein, Edogai has symptoms of schizophrenia (while Ienaga, while sadistic, is lucid). Altogether, it seems that traits of Ed Gein were chosen differently for both characters.
	+ Norman Bates, a fictional character from the *Psycho* series. Norman is a serial killer who as a child was abused by his mother. Now when his mother is dead, he, just like Edogai, keeps her preserved body in his house and occasionally hears her voice that makes him murder people. Norman is also interested in taxidermy and has bird mounts in his home.
* Edogai likes soba but dislikes figs.
* In 2018 Golden Kamuy All-Stars popularity poll, Edogai ranked 16th, gaining 2,526 votes.
* Koito and Edogai are the same age.
* Edogai's house is based on the Natural History Museum in botanic garden of Hokkaido University in Sapporo.

## References

1. ↑ ゴールデンカムイ(公式), @kamuy\_official, Twitter
2. ↑ Kamuy Central, @KamuyCentral, Twitter
3. ↑ 「ゴールデンカムイ北海道オールスターズ総選挙」
4. ↑ Kamuy Central
5. ↑ 【北大植物園】札幌中心部にある広大な植物園を写真多めに紹介