The search for gold is just cover. Season 2 is really about two people who have nothing left learning to need each other, built on the kind of trust that only survives starvation and gunfire. Sugimoto stops being a war machine the second Asirpa's in the frame, and the show knows exactly how much comedy it can wring from a grizzled veteran getting parented by a teenage Ainu girl who speaks fluent sass. The gold treasure map plot keeps moving, but what actually hooks you is watching two people from completely different worlds figure out that survival in Hokkaido's wilderness means choosing to stay.

Sugimoto and Asirpa keep up their search for a fortune in gold hidden somewhere in Hokkaido's unforgiving wilds, while more and more rivals chase the same prize. The catch is brutal. The map to the treasure was tattooed onto the bodies of escaped prisoners, so every hunter is after the same marked men and their skins. Sugimoto, a former soldier, depends on Asirpa to guide him through the land, and their partnership is their best chance at the gold. As spring arrives, the pair pause to gather herbs for her village, but First Lieutenant Tsurumi and the 7th Division are closing in. Tsurumi enlists an unusual taxidermist to assemble the tattooed skins into a map and to make fakes only he can spot. Meanwhile, Sugimoto and Asirpa follow a strange rumor out of Yubari about preserved human bodies, one bearing odd tattoos. Allies and enemies alike wait on the road ahead, and action and adventure mix with plenty of comedy along the way.