#Jiraia

[suchine-toki]

(A Totally Serious) Gintama Dads Tier List

Why does this series have so many dads help-

S

Isaburo: Despite his outwardly stern demeanor, he understands Nobume's past traumas and helps her cope with them, while also educating her on the harsh realities they face. He named her after his deceased daughter and cared for her as such, even texting her frequently and buying her donuts.

A

Shouyo: He's a father figure for several characters in the series, demonstrating unwavering love and acceptance, and provided a supportive environment for them to grow. His memory and teachings remain a guiding force for his students. Reason for losing points: He left his kids concussed and dumb.

Gintoki: He consistently shows protectiveness towards Kagura and Shinpachi, often putting their safety and well-being above his own. He's playful with them, teaches them important life lessons, and accepts them unconditionally. Despite his flaws, Kagura and Shinpachi love him very much. Reason for losing points: Has several mental health issues and his feet stink.

Zenzou's dad: He became a father figure to many children as he taught ninja arts and played kick the can with them. Many of his students attended his funeral, showing how loved he was. Reason for losing points: Sold Zenzou's JUMP collection to buy p*rn.

Matsugorou: Also known as Musashi, he's Ikumatsu's dad. It's shown that despite their poverty they were very happy together, until he lost his memory trying to save a boy from drowning. He saves her daughter and reconnects with her. Reason for losing points: He wears a jacket and fundoshi.

B

Jirochou: He abandoned his daughter Pirako because he felt compelled to protect what his friend Tatsugorou left behind after he died. His subsequent actions reflect a desire for redemption and a willingness to spend more time with her. Reason for losing points: Was too chicken to have a threesome with Tatsugorou and Otose.

Abuto: He's not the stepdad, he's the dad that stepped up. Although he's not exactly a parental figure to Kamui, he has been by his side since he was a kid and cares about him a lot. Kamui was even shown to hesitate attacking him. Reason for losing points: He's losing his will to live.

C

Shimura Ken: Not much is known about him, only that he died leaving Tae and Shinpachi with a huge debt. Although he cannot be blamed for dying from an illness, he didn't take any measures to prevent his children from suffering because of him. Reason for losing points: His name is a parody of a comedy actor.

Koshinori: Since the heir of the Yagyuu clan had to be a man, instead of changing the rules, he forced Kyuubei to conform to that identity. He later decides to let her live as she sees fit. Reason for losing points: His height is 122 cm (4'0").

Umibouzu: He has a complex relationship with Kamui and Kagura. His absence leaves a void in their lives and creates feelings of abandonment, even if he'd reasons to do so. His two children ended up finding substitute father figures elsewhere. Reason for losing points: Stopped a 3 day fight to take a dump.

D aka Betrayed their students tier

Jiraia: He takes on the role of Tsukuyo's mentor and trainer, but his influence extended beyond that, manipulating her emotions and exploiting her vulnerabilities. Their relationship becomes increasingly abusive and toxic until she breaks free of it. Reason for losing points: Bad skincare habits.

Utsuro: Despite his mentorship role, he manipulates his students' emotions and desires for his own ends, creating emotional turmoil within them as they uncover his true intentions and the extent of his malevolence. Reason for losing points: His existence.

[thef1rstmaster]

listening to another Taylor Swift song made me do this. *gets super emotional*

[sweettsubaki]

One day I will make a full meta on the difference between Moving On and Moving Forward and how the Shoka Sonjuku trio + Tsukuyo all show a different aspect of it but in the meantime, here's a meme:

Zura being on standby as a running joke also really hurts my Kokoro on a meta level (all the pictures were chosen on purpose even if, aside from Zura's, they're not my very 1st choice)

Also not really relevant to this but I WILL make a meta about all the parallels between Takasugi and Tsukuyo (this is one of the only themes that actually differentiate them) especially in regard to their relationships with Gintoki.

[tsunderrated]

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

the "shoyo is utsuro" reveal ostensibly makes sense with the theme of "fight/struggle against oneself" but considering a. all characters sans oboro flat out refuse to acknowledge shoyo and utsuro as the same entity, and b. shoyo doesn't even fight his own battle against utsuro in the end, you really can't say it works

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

gintama's red spider arc was really like 'jiraia, you're a horrible mentor... my mentor would NEVER fake his own death, abandon me, and cause me emotional harm by attempting to commit suicide in the worst way possible'

[lotus-tower]

okay so. i've always thought it was obvious that yoshiwara in flames arc's main relevance to gintama's overall narrative is as the prelude to rakuyou. like it's not thematically very interesting on its own, right? but it exists mainly for kagura and kamui's sake, establishing the sort of parallelism that gintama lives off of. it isn't really that connected to the red spider arc even though at first it might seem to be.

but i had no idea about the meaning of the name "rakuyou" until i saw @suchira 's post about it earlier today. and before that i also hadn't thought about utsuro's connection to the sun, which they've also talked about.

given everything that happens in rakuyou, this has expanded my thoughts quite a bit! i'm going be thinking through this as i go, so this is going to be me rambling.

housen is one of the few big arc villains who don't feel related to gintoki. jirocho, jiraia, oboro, takasugi--these kinds are obviously meant to be foils to gintoki. isaburo functions differently as a character, but even he gets directly compared to gintoki by nobume. but housen isn't really there for gintoki--he's there for kamui. he isn't a particularly interesting character, nor is his death very satisfying because of the wishywashy writing about hinowa showing kindness to him at the end. previously i'd thought that his thing with the sun was just a weaker example of craving something that would destroy you, and/or running away from one's weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the point that you become a sort of husk.

that's probably still a thing, but the introduction of the sun motif on the much more meaning-dense end of gintama adds so much more. because now the pre-existing thematic framework of gintama can do the heavy lifting for housen (who is, again, a pretty uninteresting character), hinowa (who is cool, but suffers from both Woman and Mom in shounen), and tsukuyo (who is very cool, but suffers egregiously from Woman in shounen).

so what is housen, really? he's the guy kamui chose to go with when making his very bad life decisions, the end result of the path he decided to pursue. for simplicity let's call him kamui bad end, though they aren't very comparable in canon itself because housen doesn't come across as nearly self-destructive enough. but the basic logic is that housen is one of those characters who gave up everything in single-minded pursuit of power--he's a flat character because he already "emptied himself out", as kamui says, before the series started. (but then he got scared and lonely, and all that.)

what's funny is that if housen is a bad end, then the guy who he considers his rival automatically comes to mind as an opposed route. i think it would be a serious stretch to call umibouzu the "good end" for kamui, and that's definitely part of the point in how the yato are written. but in any case, kamui clearly looked both ways (insert roads leading to two castles meme) and saw housen stereotypical villain bad end on one side, and his dad on the other. so obviously he chose housen.

rakuyou is a planet where it's always overcast. you could say that kamui chose to leave that "safety" in order to pursue something that shone much brighter to him, even if it would disintegrate him in the end. or, since rakuyou's name invokes the sun, you could say that he chose to flee the place of his weakness and pain, where his family was, like housen deciding to flee the sun and build an underground paradise.

when i go over my gintama cast tarot assignments, i always hesitate over hinowa. is she the Sun? or the Empress? how can i choose? and i think this is essentially the same conundrum. and i think the fact that she's both (thankfully, actual gintama storytelling isn't restricted to 1 character = 1 arcana) also provides us with the best answer here. hinowa is the object of yearning of both housen (as the sun) and of seita (as a mother). obviously, as i said before, the whole seita-hinowa thing is meant to lay the groundwork for kamui's motivations, and is also why he's introduced in this arc in the particular way that he is. but kamui is both seita and housen. he's the child yearning for his mother, but also the warlord who fears the sun so much he'll lock not only himself but countless others into the dark forever. but housen also desperately longed for the sun. kamui looks down on seita for being weak, and he looks down on housen for choosing to drown himself in vices at the end of his life. in the end, he doesn't kill either one of them.

if the sun is what kamui yearns for, he wants to leave rainy "rakuyou" behind--and/or he misses his home, his childhood, his family, even if these things feel like they will destroy him. or, if the sun is what kamui seeks to avoid, he wants to turn away from "rakuyou", all the things that hold him down so that he can throw himself into single-minded pursuit of self-destruction--and/or he's afraid of the weakness and pain that the sun inflicts on him, and desires to be strong enough that he won't feel them. see, a whole lot of words to say the same thing over and over.

i've always assigned housen the Emperor arcana. and i've often wondered, should it be umibouzu instead? should it be utsuro? and that, i think, is another illumination. thank you tarot for being an icon. it's so effective here because gintama is predictably built on parallels, and overlapping arcana assignments are bound to make you think: why?

in the end, housen builds a city underground in order to avoid the sun, but he also severs hinowa's ankles so that he can hold her, the sun proxy, captive in his grasp. he can't bear to feel sunlight, but he can't bear to let it go either. kamui is much the same, but he's young--he thinks he can let it go, his fears and regrets haven't caught up to him yet, because he still has so much to reach for. housen attained the peak of his strength and notoriety, and then there was little left for him.

what else happens in rakuyou? well, oboro and takasugi fight. oboro is sort of a seita figure in his own right, if seita had burned down yoshiwara in hopes that it would drive hinowa running to him. of course, seita didn't know that hinowa couldn't run; and oboro didn't know that shouyou couldn't, either.

but aside from seita and housen, there's another character in yoshiwara who yearns for the sun--not to possess it, but to protect it, to serve it. tsukuyo is an interesting character heavily let down by the realities of living in shounen jump. from my own understanding of sorachi's character, i don't think the following was intentional on his part. but i do think there are real reasons why these parallels are textually present (mainly through gintoki).

tsukuyo is the closest oboro has in this series to someone similar to him. not in the sense of a reflection in the mirror or hole-sided adjacency, but as in someone who sort of has a similar job and background to him. or had, anyway. as i implied earlier, the few, specific, clearly intentional similarities she has with gintoki (hello red spider) bleed over into her similarities with oboro, of course, because gintoki and oboro are... you know. just look at them.

tsukuyo swore herself to hinowa, but technically she was working under housen. she led housen's paramilitary force--fortunately, the hyakka loved her a lot more than the naraku were probably ever able to have an opinion about oboro. i don't think tsukuyo and oboro would ever get along--but they did have the same job. oboro did it in the heavens, tsukuyo did it underground. anyway, hinowa "saved" tsukuyo by teaching her about fighting from inside one's cage, and so tsukuyo gladly walked into the cage, just like oboro returning to the naraku without shouyou. because they thought it would be worth it. and also because tsukuyo had been groomed from a young age for the Hole (apologies to those who haven't read my ouroboros essay), to give up on her selfhood, and also to kill her sensei (hello gintoki). but hinowa remained around, unlike shouyou. tsukuyo never thought she could really free her--but protecting her, being able to see her, was enough.

oboro's life problem is a bit like if hinowa and housen were the same person. but kamui would see in that pairing only a reflection of his parents. and also, kouka is a bit like if hinowa and utsuro were the same person. but utsuro is already like if shouyou and utsuro were the same person--because oboro's actual life problem is that shouyou and utsuro are the same person.

i've spoken a lot about tarot, but the moon in gintama has little to do with the Moon arcana. in gintama it's the backdrop, the symbol of promises--promises made, promises fulfilled, promises held on to dearly whether they can be fulfilled or not. i don't truly think that the sun as represented by hinowa interacts directly with this. but tsukuyo and oboro share moon-related names, and their promises (or rather, their vows of devotion) towards hinowa/shouyou are one-sided. one-sided promises aren't a problem in gintama--our silver-haired protagonist wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them.

if the naraku, if utsuro, if oboro under utsuro is associated with the sun through the yatagarasu, perhaps it's because of the evaporation of the promise through the eclipsing of the moon. shouka sonjuku, after all, burned down, and utsuro emerged from a pyre. and though i think that the sun is overall a motif much more strongly associated with the yato--that which they avoid, are weak to, and secretly long for--i don't think that's incompatible with the crow-meaning.

rabbits can die of loneliness, you know--or they can die from overheating in the sun. i think the question here is, is this a trick question? are those two the same thing?

[joelletwo]

wrestling with the 4devas bitchslap again to convince myself its fine if graveyard wins the best ep tourney: it's not the other bloggers who are wrong, it's me

not a complete response to but definitely in conversation with and asking some of the same questions again as @reductionisms's 4devas essay, which tries to square gintoki's "life doesn't need to be fun, i just need you to live" being a series-sanctioned message he's given to villains as an arc-concluding moral continuously up until 4devas with it here being an incorrect worldview that needs to be (physically) corrected by shinpachi, the straightman tonal signpost of gintama

a conflict i have been perplexed by ever since i got to this line on my first watch a year or two ago, since i've seen this line before! all over fandom! as part of the general "dont [bottom text] kill yourself" motivational messaging of gintama that i love!

and, briefly, when i hit 4devas i was also in the middle of being really frustrated by the new arc pattern i was seeing crop up: i loved the villains-turned sympathetic-turned someone worth saving by gintoki tune of the first half of gintama, but it fell massively flat for me in Yoshiwara in Flames, where i was never convinced to be on housen's side but had to watch him get a heartwarming redemptive death at the side of the woman he abused anyways.

then shortly after i had the same exact experience in Red Spider with jiraia, and i thought, if this is what gintama is gonna do with its shitty dudes from now on im gonna quit the fucking show. and then shortly after that i met jirochou and saw him cut down otose the woman he loved (under a raining sky!!! the fucking sky motifs!!! the signpost im about to watch a dude be shittily violent to women and be expected to feel sorry for him about it) and saw too much red to really take in the rest of the arc level-headedly or care about anything in it lol.

so it was written off in my mind as the 'otose almost gets fridged' arc until i rewatched it this week. then i had to remember, oh yeah, there's a ton of political maneuvering fakeouts in this arc that i never actually squared back with how the plot presented itself prior to the reveals, so i'd still been thinking about the "fakeout" plot. then i read the manga version with all the "truths" in mind from the start, and finally i felt like i could understand what this arc is doing a little better.

(way) tldr (4.4k words. sorry): do i love this arc? eh. do i still hate it? eh. but it's doing stuff!

first, i was able to see an echo in all the "actually i was planning to betray you the whole time" "actually i was working to help you the whole time" plot beats of what sorachi does with the larger edo/universe story further into the back half of the manga. if i ever sound like i didnt enjoy or wasnt convinced by the execution of these "reveals," it's because i didnt and wasnt, lol. but it's fun that he had fun with them i guess.

the arc starts with pirako ingratiating herself into yorozuya, then having a classic "bump into you and pretend to be injured to extort you" encounter w her dad's gang. to resolve this without escalating into violence, gintoki... does it back to them, which is really funny. but thus the tone is set for the arc of: DISHONEST APPROACHES TO CONFLICT.

pirako isnt honest about her overall intentions the, like, seven different times that she "admits her real ones." kada plays at peacekeeper in the devas while being the ultimate person scheming to get the upper hand over everyone else in the end. (she's also secretly harusame, evil amanto outsider who acts as a unifying force for the kabukicho fighting itself to band together against and expel: sorachi's favorite move! the problem was never internal, it's the shadowy REAL antagonists who infiltrated us)

jirochou and otose are ultimately doing a pantomime of conflict to try to keep temperatures down and escalations from breaking out, so no one they care about has to get hurt. gintoki doesn't know this until the end, but he follows in their footsteps after his encounter with them in the graveyard: he plays at having given up to the rest of yorozuya so they'll leave and escape the coming kabukicho war, the same thing otose was trying with him. it fails both times. i'm really not sure why gintoki and otose thought it would work, honestly. they should know their kids are stubborn as hell.

but gintoki is in a bind because of the things he needs to protect, and all of his actions are primarily in service of that, to the detriment of how he'd prefer to act if he were less restricted. he is unsurprised and unoffended to hear saigou is only willing to warn them, not help them, because her son is in danger if she acts directly. all four devas are, seemingly, being mutually restrained this way, holding back even when blatantly manipulated to do so. the other constant of this arc: everyone is dishonest, and no one wants to risk losing what they have.

gintoki understands that! of course! he's had to make that calculus before, after all :)

and this arc is just one big cliff scene echo: the entire graveyard scene pushing gintoki to emotional regression because he thinks he's losing another parent figure, one he's just seen the Gintoki Figure of the arc cut down, no less (takasugi stolen valor when he goes berserk against him and only ends up uselessly bleeding out on the ground about it, honestly). otose goes into this willingly so gintoki can live. he accepts this decision because he values protecting her values (her kids living on) and is briefly broken by it (the story says, before giving him shinpachi to "put him back on track"). prior to the bitchslap, after saying he just wants them to live, even if it has to be without him, he says:

i dont have a good understanding of when we start getting reveals of gintoki's backstory versus foreshadowing because i went into gintama already knowing most of it, but definitely by the recent red spider where we get our first real look at (or really, first listen to) shouyou. but here we actually get some of what gintoki felt about it, which he keeps closely guarded even when the whole truth comes out: he's done his best to survive having lost, but it was so unbearable he can't face losing again.

(also, honorable mention backstory echo, the person calling him a brother sets his home on fire to drive him and his parent figure out of town. as i liveblogged: this one would really hurt gintoki if gintoki cared about anything oboro ever did!)

but with the shinpachi story-rerouting, they get the good end, keep everyone (otose, yorozuya, all of kabukicho, even pirako and her dad - everyone but kada) safe without having to sacrifice a single thing, even keep gintoki hopeful for this outcome. so, as goose points out, we are left to understand that there could have been a good end on the cliff, that something is different here than there, and, skipping a lot of math, that that is the people around gintoki.

which i do find really funny to imagine as a slam on takasugi and katsura. sorry you kids suck too much, your teacher dies bc u were cringefail. but lets look at it.

everyone is dishonest, no one wants to risk what they have: gintoki rallies himself to keep fighting but is determined to do it alone. kagura and shinpachi fight him on this; they can't leave because they don't want to lose their home, they can't let him fight alone because they don't want to lose him. they're just as restricted by what they have to keep safe, but their only option is to act where everyone else's is inaction. shinpachi says:

if i may skip over the bitchslap itself for now, gintoki does consent to let his allies fight with him after it. yorozuya stands alone against saigou, who's heavily demoralized but resigned, strongarmed into fighting them by the threat to her son. but on seeing their resolve to keep protecting their own precious home and family she says:

and, to skip straight to my thought, i think this is what turns the tides back in their favor. there are more twists and turns to the fight. pirako equates what binds saigou, which she herself equates to what binds the yorozuya, to what binds her:

(with an intentional distinction that she's willing to actively destroy the others', as opposed to their purely self defensive fighting, which is echoed at some point in her distinguishing gintoki from jirochou in the same way, that jirochou not only lives to protect like gintoki but is willing to destroy in the process. i don't find that part as interesting, but it's more fuel to the power of having something to protect as a driving force as an arc theme.)

so now all three stand on the same ground, absolutely unwilling to give up what they hold dear, but all their cards are on the table. they aren't dealing in 12 dimensions of tricksy defensive pre-emptive moves anymore. they know it wouldnt work, anyways, since they all know their drives to protect are the same and no one will be talked into backing down. now they can directly duke it out and let the winner be determined that way, on strength of will. even before the actual circumstances change, the fight somehow feels freer seeing how inevitable it is. and with everything out in the open, yorozuya can now protect each other and saigou's son, taking out one side of the conflict.

(and with everything out in the open, the ultimate 4devas villain can become the single person who continues to betray the others, kada, whose further machinations - with everything out in the open! - saigou (and later yorozuya) can choose to protect pirako from. everyone wins! because everything was out in the open! do you see where i'm going)

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the arc is rerailed to the better outcome. so is the correction justified?

what does the correction accomplish outside of its moment? most convincingly to me of goose's presented options, i also think it's done as a thematic shift, a, okay, just live was a strategy that worked before but now doesn't suffice, so we need something more.

as to why this is needed now and not earlier or later...tldr bad planning <3 but like.

we have, prior to this, a consistent thrust of arcs where gintoki teaches people to lose. as well, while we meet the harusame and we visit space and we get the barest glimpses of takasugi's weird shadowy background moves there, largely we're dealing with kabukicho characters and kabukicho stories. we see or only hear about the shogun for short comedic moments only. we've largely dropped the series intro focus on things like the shinsengumi or hasegawa acting as foreign diplomats. it's a local series, a hometown series, a kabukicho and not even an edo at large series, a personal story about gintoki making personal connections with his personal experience as a flawed person with a flawed approach to life that has let him, chronic slacker, get by on the bare minimum.

at this moment, chapter 300, we have a slow trickle of gintoki backstory starting to come out to us. we've recently expanded the story focus to include yoshiwara, which gets a callout in this arc by kada to keep it relevant. we have an arc of sorachi testing out plot beats that he'll use again for the endgame, in all the political maneuvering and alliancing and betraying and shadowy outsider space governmenting, where he's also doing a lot of echoing of that backstory that only becomes clear later. so it's possible he's thinking about shifting gears and setting up for the eventual endgame, which means getting out of the episodic cycle so things can stick.

and after this arc, to my opinion and memory, we stop getting the classic gintama flavor sympathizable'd antagonists. a lot of the bigger arcs don't even have clear Big Shot antagonists anymore, being more about the shouyoucore theme of characters fighting against themselves, or if there is one they're always explicitly part of the Shadow Government now, a unified and more daunting force than someone they can win over with an inspiring gintoki interaction.

so 4devas does act as a turning point at least in some way. and it's not possible to say this definitively, since all gintama arcs are ultimately never going to be about gintoki or his friends Actually losing something instead of beating the odds, but it does feel like theres a different flavor to, say, dekobokko with its direct look at how chars lives could be different and better and they will still choose to keep struggling as themselves. and Kintama arc definitely doesn't feel like an early days arc, like it can only resolve the way it does with a gintoki who is now able to face his past and the possibility of losing again and again and again (now with, natch, his faith that yorozuya will by his side when he does).

why now, after 300 chapters of letting it sit ignored in the back of his brain working out perfectly fine except when it doesn't (the very reminder of shouyou in a fight making him go Demon Mode, which is like regular gintoki but worse at fighting, bc he is so unprepared to think about shouyou)? well i personally am in big favor of the "take a decade off" strategy for facing problems. it worked for me too. realistically watsonianly its nice to let things percolate in the brain and do some of the processing behind the scenes until its less immediately painful. and he's made many bonds over these 300 chapters, shown in this arc when the whole town rallies behind him, that are there to support him when he needs it now and weren't there before.

realistically doylistly eh. bad planning.

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the series as a result is rerailed to a writing space where things can start changing (leave the episodic, as you guys say, sazae-san format). it's useful in the future. so is the correction justified in terms of what comes before it? was the correction needed?

thinking about the bitchslap leads to thinking about the cliff scene leads to (sorry kagura and katsura, you guys arent really relevant here) pitting shinpachi and takasugi against each other in how they act with something on the line they can't bear to give up.

i don’t need the lesson of 4devas to apply logistically to the cliff scene. once they were set up on that chessboard, frozen in their assigned places as a backstory, it’s not like takasugi could’ve power of friendship’d his way out of being physically retrained if he decided he wanted to. it’s set up as a forced choice, it has to play out as a forced choice.

but we see that even before it’s asked of him, takasugi is willing, prepared, unbothered to give up his own life for shouyou’s. this is, goose lays out in the sequel, the cardinal sin in gintama - a teacher shouldn’t outlive their student. it would have been especially egregious to shouyou, whose whole desired life’s purpose is to raise students who can outlive him and outgrow him, take his lessons and go out into the world and do their own thing with them. takasugi doesn’t expect to do this and doesn’t seem to see a point in the possibility if shouyou isn’t back with them.

though we can also think of shouyou as a little too quickly willing to give up on the cliff - sorry, gintoki, the suicidal guy has thought about it for .02 seconds and decided the best outcome is for you to kill him even though he could get out of this no problem. maybe its no wonder gintoki gave up too. can we ask katsura what he would’ve done?

and is takasugi different from shinpachi there? he rejects the mentor’s attempt to exchange his own life for his. he’s not willing to consider a life without him.

but shinpachi is convinced no one is going to die. because they’ll be there together. incredibly naive - shinpachi and kagura, restricted to one option by what they need to protect like everyone is in 4devas, have acting as that one option because they are still free in a way gintoki and the other adults aren't. they’ve never actually experienced the impossible choice that forces you to give up, so they can act as if there isn’t one - what else would they do? why would they think to give up?

but gintoki is defined by having lived the impossible choice. its built into the foundation of him as a character and leaks out everywhere. he couldn’t have relied on his friends on the cliff because they were quite forcibly removed from the picture as an option, not by his or their choice. its written as an inevitability, logistics we find out later be damned.

if we refocus to 4devas, we can look at the Gintoki Figure for a different angle. jirochou, after he and gintoki resolve the arc conflict by being able to team up because they - say it with me - put everything out in the open, tells gintoki about his impetus for abandoning his family and coming back to his wayward life in kabukicho, the death of otose's husband.

it's, um, another now really obvious parallel to gintoki, lol. characters talk about how jirochou does everything he does in this arc to try to atone for his failure to both otose and tatsugorou, and i guess thats true bc he was written that way but he has an odd way of showing it, but anyways he resolves that, despite his guilt over this, all he can do now is keep living and keep protecting what they loved together. he's come to the usual gintama message all on his own, reinforcing that this is the correct way to live in this series. he had his own unavoidably shitty situation, and he came to terms with it.

so then where did jirochou go wrong, in the narrative's eyes (other than abandoning one woman and their child to deal drugs in the town of his other woman while ignoring her)? was there a point he could've changed how their trio's story played out? but he loved and trusted tatsugorou, and he was happy to step aside and let him be the one by their otose's side. i doubt he would have been happy stealing her away even if it were possible.

but if we look at the resolution tool of 4devas... he never put everything out in the open!!! everyone knows he loved otose, but in more of an open secret way. in classic romance plot, he never confessed for second male lead rejection closure. indeed, in the closest we ever get to a main character having a romantic plot in gintama, the very ending of the arc flirts with him doing just that now that he's made a little progress with the arc message, with the entire cast of the arc expecting him to (and interrupting before he can).

but if he had when they were young. if he had been honest with his friends. could it have opened up other options that weren't available on his own, that they didnt know to offer? i have a preferred one lol. but u can get creative with all sorts of life paths that avoid tatsugorou dying that way or, at the least, jirochou feeling chained to a shameful life (living in a town he doesn't go out in to protect a woman he doesnt talk to and feeling like he doesnt deserve the family he abandoned for this) because of it.

and then if we take this and rewind back to the cliff... we get to grind my favorite ax, "shouyou shouldve told literally anyone literally anything about his deal." if gintoki knew more about shouyou, they could've faced his horrors together, the whole time. he couldve known that shouyou was being literal calling himself a demon and not internalized his own identity as one for life just because shouyou bonded with him over it. i truly genuinely think the logical conclusion of all of gintama's big messages are that shouyou and gintoki should have been more open with each other.

but i don't think sorachi thinks that. and, you know, by 4devas rules, the unriskable precious things he was protecting by staying silent were his students' humanity, and secondarily his own fragilely newly hopeful heart that literally couldnt stand another 10 millionth round of rejection (killed himself and then went on a 12 year rampage over it. girl i would too).

and takasugi really isn't dishonest about what's going on in his head when he tells us he expects to die for shouyou. that's as cards on the table as i could ask. gintoki is, a little bit, by omission. he does what i'd want him to here - tells takasugi try just not dying - but doesn't give him a reason to, and doesn't tell him he has no plans of letting anyone die for shouyou.

so what goes wrong on the cliff - shouyou is happy, gintoki is happy, oboro's even kind of happy, katsura is irrelevant - is that takasugi is blindsided (whoops) by their silent agreement that betrays the one he thought he and gintoki had. and then ruins everyone's party about it and spends the next ten years doing so for good measure.

which is also, basically, what shinpachi is going through that prompts the bitchslap, too. he thought they were a team, that they had each others backs, not that gintoki is a one-way protector of them. he is blindsided by gintoki lying to and tricking them and hiding things from them. he is hurt by gintoki feeling hopeless all by himself when he could share that with them and be encouraged by their endless child optimism.

and would it need to have changed anything on the cliff? in the moment after the bitchslap, what contributes to gintoki changing his mindset is tama telling him, we trust that you're capable bc youve always shown us that, can you trust us this time? when, later in the arc, gintoki seems to regress by sending kagura and shinpachi away, he asks them to trust that he's still trusting them, relying on them to help shoulder his burden, and in return they know he's staying alive, not self sacrificing. maybe it would've helped just to feel on the same team and not shut out, to be able to trust gintoki like gintoki was trusting shouyou?

so. two paralleled instances of gintoki making a bad situation worse by keeping to himself and being too self sufficient. that feels clear cut that feels fine im okay with that as a takeaway. do i think its exactly what sorachi had in mind while writing this, as opposed to just a good series 'hey lean on your friends' moment to read cool and tug at the heartstrings? eh lol. i think theres definitely room to read takasugi into this arc (i still need to refind the takagin 4devas post...) but its not so baked in that i think he was a PRIORITY in the plotting.

but is the shinpachi SCOLDING necessary is the scolding justified... and yes its in response to life doesnt need to be fun i just want you to live. still a confusing framing i can't immediately square. but/and more immediately its directly responding. to gintoki opening up to them about his insecurities!!

which, as said, he doesnt do!! he doesnt talk about his failures! its basically like, here and to hijikata that one time and otherwise even when we know all the facts about what happened we still never hear gintoki himself talk about it. (so he really DOESNT learn the lesson here either. he stays dissociated and triggered every time utsuro comes up. he tries to solve the altana baby problem on his own. he doesnt talk to his new friends OR his old friends. bwah. gintoki. silver soul.)

so this is like. its just in the wrong order!! its just in a baffling order lol. if you want gintoki to share his burden do you need to punch him when he shares it. does it also need to sound like you're blaming him for not being capable of upholding his promise to protect anyone when thats the insecurity thats got him all discombobulated this arc in the first place (a whole set of notes i took on this that i didnt find a place for in this post)?? its so weeeeiiiiiirddd lol i dont liiikeee itttttt. theres plenty of things shinpachi can validly punch gintoki for but this is such a weird one.

so i guess. having a clearer understanding of this arc do i hate it less? YES honestly. i hate fakeout plots generally they irritate me but everything... more or less makes sense by gintama standards now that i have the whole plot in mind.

do i hate jirochou less SORT OF? i enjoy him. in his individual relationships. i like his shitty dad deal i love shitty dads. i like him pining for otose who genuinely likes him but also brings up her husband every sentence she says to him just to keep him down. i like his parallels with gintoki that they both explicitly acknowledge and find macho comfort in. hes still not theeeeeeeee most well-developed gintama antagonist but you know? i at least think otose and pirako would want to be around him after this.

do i feel like i have a clearer understanding of the bitchslap moment. NOT CONVINCED I DO. i feel like its going to be one of those things that slips in and out of my understanding like sand in cupped hands. i have a tentative understanding of it that i dont think sorachi actually had in mind. so i dont think ive solved it lol.

will i be cursed to think about 4devas forever? god i hope not. am i okay with it beating farewell shins in the polls. god i fucking hope it does. in the horrible timeline where i have to see 305 make it all the way and then lose i guess id rather it be to this one than to hijigin. consider this poll propaganda?

[gintama-polls]

Gintama Episode Tourney

Episode 87, "Perform A German Suplex On A Woman Who Asks If She Or The Job Is More Important" Okita's wish for his sister's happiness struggles against Hijikata's sense of duty while Mitsuba's health takes a turn for the worse. The second half of the Mitsuba Arc.

Episode 180, "The More Precious The Burden, The Heavier And More Difficult It Is To Shoulder It" Gintoki takes on Jiraia, determined to show that the assassin doesn't deserve to be called master. The climax of the Red Spider Arc.

[suchine-toki]

Thoughts about Tsukuyo

She was introduced late as part of the main cast, but I think it was a good decision on Sorachi's end. This is because when he created her, he was already a more experienced writer, he’d been writing his characters for a while and knew what his story needed.

I really like the dualities of Tsukuyo’s character. Her exterior is hard and cold, but inside her lies a very sensitive and protective person. She was a rebel, she fought against an oppressive system from the shadows. This caused enormous loneliness, keeping an emotional distance from the rest, especially from Hinowa.

Jiraia's teachings had a deep impact on her. It went against her kind nature, but she was led to believe that caring for others, loving others made her weak. These characteristics, regarded “feminine” by her master, made her weak.

This is why I consider her arc to be so important and one that resonates with me personally. These ideas, although they’ve been changing, still linger in our society today. And the society of Gintama's world remains particularly sexist.

This is also explored with Kyuubei. But while Kyuubei completely rejects femininity and embraces masculinity, Tsukuyo rejects the idea of femininity (what she was taught it meant at least), but she still feels like a woman. They’re different paths facing the same situation.

It’s over time that Tsukuyo begins to open up to others, learns to lean on others and overcome her traumas, especially in relation to her teacher. Being a caring person and loving is not something feminine or weak, on the contrary, it makes you someone strong. Sorachi completes her arc with these aspects in mind.

Although I consider Tsukuyo to be one of the best developed characters in the series, I was left wanting to see her interact with more characters. Don't get me wrong, her interactions with her family in Yoshiwara, the Yorozuya and the Gintaladies are extremely important, but I wish we’d seen more.

For example, I would’ve loved to see her in a trio with Sacchan and Zenzou (wait not that kind of trio-) as ninjas, more interactions with the Shinsengumi (considering the Hyakka is also a type of police). Speaking of the Hyakka, it would’ve been great to have a recurring character who was the vice-captain of that organization.

There's also the fact that almost all the characters Tsukuyo interacts with regularly are women, with the exception of Seita, Shinpachi, and Gintoki. A boy, a teenager, and a man (whose relationship hasn't caused any controversy amirite), but it would’ve been interesting if she’d more male friends.

That being said, I think Tsukuyo's character development was pretty good. Her character is realistic, multifaceted. More importantly, I believe that she reached her potential, both personally and professionally, with her being not only the leader of her organization, but also the leader of her city.

[ciaossu-imagines]

Hello there! For the mini event may you please do gintama with the au avatar the last airbender, thank you!

Hello there, my lovely anon! I definitely can do that - I really couldn't come up with solid ideas, so I admit to taking the lazy way out, so have a pretty comprehensive list on what type of Benders everyone would be in this AU! And guys, there are so many characters in Gintama so I swear it wasn't as easy and lazy as it looks! Thanks for sending in a request and I hope you'll enjoy!

Okay, so we're going into this AU with there being the four major bending types - Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Each bending type is as it is portrayed in Avatar: The Last Airbender, with people possessing different degrees of bending and different skills being present within each bending type.

So, when considering which type of Bender each character would be, I kind of broke it down into personality types and traits and qualities to look for, based on what I figure the 'stereotypical' Bender is for each of the four.

Earth Benders are a little rough around the edges, slow to anger, slow to decide on things, but stubborn once their mind is made up. They can be sensitive and they are often very patient.

Air Benders are gentle souls, respectful and adaptable, changeable. They're fast, both in their movements and in their thoughts.

Water Benders are typically calm and easy-going, flexible enough to adapt to their companions or situations. They're often quite easy to talk to and rather content with their lives.

Fire Benders are often prideful and confident individuals who are loyal, determined and ambitious. They can be very playful and fun but they often also have very short fuses on their tempers, which can be very volatile and explosive.

Keeping that in mind, this is what I figure the characters would be for Benders.

Earth Benders

Shimura Shinpachi

Shimura Tae

Shimura Ken

Chin Pirako/Doromizu Pirako

Kanemaru

Otose

Hanako

Saigou Tokumori

Saigou Teruhiko

Doromizu Jirochou

Hiraga Gengai

Hiraga Saburou

Haji

Terada Tatsugorou

Otaki

Jigsaw

Ofusa

Kirara

Urara

Rokkaku Kirie

Hongou Hisashi

Terakado Tsuu

Terakado Ichi

Hachibei Takaya/Takachin

Takatin

Rotten Maizou

Hijikata Toushirou

Sasaki Tetsunosuke

Kumanaku Seizou

Saitou Shimaru

Sasaki Isaburo

Oboro

Katsura Kotarou

Dragon Leader

Fat Dragon

Nakamura Kyoujirou

Shachi

Kameyama Duuke

Onijishi

Hijikata Tamegorou

Tsukuyo

Mutsu

Daraku

Abuto

Shijaku

Blu-Rayko

Prince Dai

Princess Bubbles

Otakai Sayaka

Water Benders

Sataka Gintoki

Kanemaru

Hasegawa Taizou

Hachirou

Tatsumi

Obi Hajime

Ketsuno Crystel

Ketsuno Seimei

Kuzunoha

Uchino

Hashida Kantarou

Hashida Kanschichirou

Hashida Kahei

Daigo

Kitaooji Daigorou

Izumi

Kawakami Bansai

Yamazaki Sagaru

Kamiyama

Harada Unosuke

16th Ikeda Yaemon

Hattori Zenzou

Wakikaoru

Momochi Rappa

Kurokono Tasuke

Takechi Henpeita

Kidomaru

Ebina

Seita

Suzuran

Hinowa

Kamenashi

Neptune Shokaku

Umibouzu

Shiramizu Pinko

Anigasaki Momo

Air Benders

Ikesawa

Tama

Oryou

Azumi Agonoske

Musashi

Kozenigata Heiji

Honjou Kyoushirou

Juurouta

Murata Tetsuko

Murata Tetsuya

Murata Jintetsu

Hedoro

Nishiki Ikumatsu

Hasegawa Hatsu

Hayashi Ryuuzan

Hayashi Fuyou

Sakurajima Chiharu

Okuni

Isao Kondou

Tokugawa Shige Shige

Tokugawa Soyo

Tokugawa Mori Mori

Tokugawa Sada Sada

Sarutobi Ayame

Elizabeth

Sakamoto Tatsuma

Yoshida Shouyou

Chougorou

Urashima

Oiwa

Rei

Enshou

Daishikyou

Mahha Noriko

Fumiko

Megami

Sorachi Hideaki

Fire Benders

Kagura

Kamui

Sakata Kintoki

Catherine

Ane

Kurogama Katsuo

Kujaku Hime Kada

Madame Yagami

Kanbei

Yagyuu Kyuubei

Yagyuu Binbokusai

Yagyuu Koshinori

Toujou Ayumu

Kitaooji Itsuki

Nishino Tsukamu

Minamito Sui

Shirino Douman

Gedoumaru

Antenmaru

Mone

Professor Meguro

No.305

No.502

Death Cancer

Ochi-san

Ben

Haga Kenji

Yocchan

Kimiko

Matsudaira Katakuriko

Matsudaira Kuriko

Hanano Saki

Goemon

Bichie

Sougo Okita

Hitotsubashi Nobu Nobu

Itou Kamotarou

Shinohara Shinnoshin

Imai Nobume

Ikeda Asaemon

18th Ikeda Yaemon

Utsuro

Jiraia

Banzou

Takasugi Shinsuke

Kajima Matako

Okada Nizou

Tendou Soutatsu

Mashiroi Kaguzou

Mashiroi Utsuzou

Inoue

Tasuke

Kuraba Touma

Eromes

Kurikan

Okita Mitsuba

Housen

Otohime

Admiral Abou

Ougai

Soutatsu

Kouka

Suitsu

Prince Hata

Jii

[agroupofcrows]

ok self indulgence time because in this post about the spider symbolism in gintama, @ suchira used the expression "vibrating [...] web," and if you know me you know that i'm not normal about either of these words.

So in the storytelling layer of things, the threads of the spiderweb are the narrative paths that the reader/viewer walks. (The characters walk it too, but they aren't real so it's not happening to them like it's happening to you and me.) We walk on it towards the center, where the spider(s,) locked in perpetual battle, (gintokiutsuro beheading himself) are found.

^ tolkien enjoyer experiencing their second anything. i am so sorry

And vibration happens when someone or something moves the web. In gintama, often our literary spider weaves a narrative for someone to walk into it; if the web is strong enough, the spider gets to eat. If it isn't, it will be torn apart. We see this on micro level with Gintoki vs. Bansai, and again more overtly when Gintoki, Zenzō and Tsukuyo beat Jiraia by setting another version of the teacher-student story against his. On macro level, when Utsuro is monologuing about the hopelessness of humanity until he gets trapped in the middle of the web that connects the people of Edo. Narrative against narrative, threads against threads, text against text, Story agains story.

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Jiraia: She’s beautiful

Tsunade: *shoving him to the side* hell ya she is, and she’s mine

Sakumo: *hugging his wife* ummm, hi? I’m right here

[landofsamurai]

( Jiraia basically was reason Tsukuyo didn't depend on anyone EXCEPT him and never saw herself as beautiful either, I wonder if part of the reason he made her injure up her face to make her 'damaged' goods was so he could have her all to himself. So no other man would look twice at her. )

[piduai]

my favorite gintama characters are mutsu > nobume > takasugi > shoyo > tae > kagura > zura > sacchan > shinpachi > kyuubei > tsukuyo > sabuchan > asaemon > tama > shimaru > gedoumaru > soyo > otsuu

i like matsudaira but it's literally the voice acting only. and i like papi too but he's so ridiculous. voiced by hayami sho as a deadbeat bald alien hunter

i also liked a number of arc villains like yaemon, ito and jiraia. this series has so many characters

[lotus-tower]

their misguided, destructive, cowardly, ignoble desire to die (utsuro, takasugi, jiraia) vs our poignant, tragic, humanizing, compelling desire to die (gintoki,