#UMIBOUZU

[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.

[fuckthispost-andhappybirthday]

July 20: Happy Birthday Umibouzu / Kankou (Gintama)!!!!

[averagelonelypotato]

Umibouzu is iconic for getting a boner by looking at Utsuro cause honestly, same

[voca-song-a-day]

Today's featured song is: "Umibouzu" by Xishi feat. Hatsune Miku!

[masodemic]

Umibouzu 海坊主 are characterized in mythology as ghost vessels drifting around in the sea. Sometimes they’re ships, sometimes they’re hollowed boxes. So yes this would definitely be categorized as an umibouzu if it ever resurfaces

This whole 5-billionaires-locking-themselves-inside-a-coffin-and-throwing-themselves-into-the-sea reminds me a lot of the Umibozu episodes from Mononoke, where the girl locks herself inside a wooden boat that closes from the outside (an utsuro-bune to be more specific) and offers herself as a sacrifice to the sea, but ends up turning into a monster and you can still hear her scratching from the inside after 50 years.

Maybe it's too much of a niche series and nobody knows about it (please go watch it, I hate Netflix but I just found out they have it in their catalog) but I would L-O-V-E to see something (fanart? memes? Kusuriuri related content?) about these guys and this episode.

[thecrowsart]

😭take this

[witherdiritos]

brick stares at himself in the mirror thinking ughhh i shouldn’t have stayed awake until 3 in the morning watching creepypasta theories ssssshit

[joelletwo]

u_________u drive-by sad thing to say

[shutupdia]

Think Gintama is the only series i wanna read non shippy fanfics for like literally give me infinite amount of fics about Kamui, Kagura, Umibouzu and Kouka being a family and shit like that. AU where Kamui did not go insane after his mother's death. AU where Kagura makes Kamui gets therapy would probably murder his therapist actually

Therapist: I feel you've suppressed a lot of your emotions regarding your mother and distract yourself from the pain of her death by constantly fighting with people to get stronger since you felt powerless when your mother was dying

Kamui: Wanna die? :)

[hokkoshi]

✧. tag dump: kamui

[suchine-toki]

When you think about it… Umibouzu's genes didn't even try 😭😂

[hatsumishinogu]

Tantei ha mo, Shindeiru. Vol.9 (light novel)

[mihotose]

watching mononoke and squirrelling away ayakashi lore for the nikkari in my head

[gwaaaaar]

Favorite Mononoke Arc!

Very curious to see the consensus!

[sankatsuka]

Otose, Jirochou and Tatsugorou: Microcosms in Gintama

Back to being delusional and crazy about Takagin... I've always noticed some similarities between Jirochou and Takasugi, but because the narrative kept comparing Tatsugorou and Jirochou to Gintoki (+ the white hair), it was hard to decide what to make of it...

But now I would go on to say The Four Devas arc feels like a microcosm of Shogun Assassination arc. Otose, Jirochou and Tatsugorou could very well be a microcosm to the entire Gintama. I think there's a lot to say about Gintoki and Takasugi's characters based on this.

Warning for spoilers and romantically implied Takagin/Gintaka.

Edit: Added another microcosm I found. Marked *.

I don't even feel like this needs to be explained, but Jirochou and Takasugi have pretty much the same gruff, constipated, distant personalities, except of course Jirochou came from a better family. Not to forget the heights and the similar choices of kimonos. The narrative never makes any points on how similar Takasugi is to several characters, but it definitely is there. Especially if Gintoki often picks a fight with them (looking at you Hijikata and Umibouzu). But I think Jirochou is the biggest culprit for being most similar to Takasugi, often having the same intense sequences with Gintoki.

There are two big similarities in the setting and events of The Four Devas arc and Shogun Assassination arc -

Both involve an attempt at overthrowing the authority;

One takes place in Kabukichou, and the other in the entire Edo.

Whether its coincidence or not, the cast that appear in The Four Devas arc and Shogun Assassination arc don't appear in the other (aside from Yorozuya, of course). If you can believe this was intended as a microcosm, then this means Otose, Jirochou and Tatsugorou have big roles to play in Gintama's overall narative.

So if Jirochou's personality heavily references Takasugi, who represents Gintoki? Or is there a third character to represent Otose?

Nope, my take is that Gintoki represents BOTH Otose and Tatsugorou. The narrative clearly points out the parallels between Tatsugorou and Gintoki, but the ones with Otose are never said. In fact, Gintoki has many similarities to women but the narrative never points it out (aside from Tsukuyo, but even then Gintoki belittles himself compared to her). It's probably because it's weird to compare a good-for-nothing guy to a woman in the first place.

But it wouldn't be weird if Gintoki was meant to represent a son to Otose and Tatsugorou, considering how they never had a child and Otose took him in. In a way, you could say he has a half of Otose and a half of Tatsugorou--

Gintoki has also coincidentally had two occasions where he is associated with halves. The first is in the Soul Switch arc, where the soul in the cat corpse Dozaemon with half of Gintoki's soul embodies the losses Gintoki suffered. The second is in Takasugi's death, where for some reason, he says he wished he could have shared a drink with him, even if it was half the number of times they fought.

These halves can be traced back to Otose and Tatsugorou. Dozaemon was highly characterized by wanting a place to belong and found it in Tae, which very much resembles Tatsugorou who is heavily implied to long for a place as a lone wolf and found it in Otose.

Then, Gintoki's words to Takasugi about sharing a drink seems very much like why Otose opened her snack bar in the first place - so anyone, no matter how different, can have a drink together. Maybe it's coincidence, but if Gintoki chose to say half + sharing a drink, then this could be one half of him speaking (Otose).

Another implication of Otose's half in Gintoki is in the amnesia arc. If it took away all memories, including the bad ones, from Gintoki, then what was left was just his soul as it is. He acts surprisingly more polite and empathetic compared to his usual self that even Tae is captivated. He also naturally cares about everyone's feelings around him, apologizes a lot and chooses to leave Yorozuya so as to not burden Shinpachi and Kagura any longer. Gintoki's base soul has always been someone who cares deeply about people, which we see demonstrated in his own way in the rest of the series.

Tatsugorou's traits in Gintoki are obviously that he's a lone wolf who gets along with everyone, but never gets too close and keeps his past a mystery. Otose's traits in Gintoki are how he easily acts like her proxy, always bringing people together. There is that huge parallel of how the entire Kabukichou came together to protect Otose and the city and to fulfil Gintoki's wish in the end. I would simplify their traits in Gintoki as wanting a place to belong (Tatsugorou) and sharing a kindred spirit (Otose). It's probably why the Gintoki in Hijikata's body isn't so different from the usual - because the soul and some memories that defined it were still there.

There is the argument that Tatsugorou would act like Gintoki without his memories, of course. But Jirochou describes Tatsugorou as chivalrous rather than an idiot who would protect everyone like Gintoki. So I'm inclined to think that Tatsugorou doesn't have the unconditional loving side for everyone that Otose has and acts mostly on his justice. He does get into physical fights for no reason.

Now that I have established Otose, Jirochou and Tatsugorou's traits in Gintoki and Takasugi, the events in their past and the Four Deva arcs has more to say about their characters:

Tatsugorou dying because of Jirochou, and Jirochou making a promise to protect Otose and Kabukichou | Takasugi making Gintoki promise to protect Shouyou, who breaks it and kills Shouyou to protect both

I know, the most obvious parallel is how Tatsugorou died in Jirochou's arms. But I'm taking a more psychoanalytical approach as always, as this event became what changed Jirochou immensely. I would think that Shouyou's death would be the parallel to this, given how it changed Takasugi.

Jirochou and Takasugi (partly) letting their guards down was what caused these tragic events to happen. Jirochou distances himself from Kabukichou and lives out the guilt of having let Tatsugorou die for someone like him, and Takasugi lived on suffering the guilt of having made Gintoki bear the cross of killing Shouyou. Both even feel like they were the ones who killed Tatsugorou and Shouyou.

Not to mention how Takasugi literally threw away his humanity in the Silver Soul arc to protect his teacher, just like Jirochou metaphorically doing so to protect Kabukichou. And Pirako comments how Jirochou really couldn't care less about the city and only did so for one woman. This is the same mindset Takasugi openly fights with in the war, fighting only for Shouyou, but later that reason reveals itself to be Gintoki.

Both Jirochou and Takasugi threw away their humanities to make it up to the man they admired who died protecting them (Tatsugorou and Shouyou), and make the person they love happy through that (Otose and Gintoki).

I would even go as far as saying the Tatsugorou half of Gintoki died alongside Shouyou at that time. There is the symbolism of how all three students created their graves. After all, Gintoki lost his home, something Tatsugorou always wanted for himself. He started wandering around afterwards, distancing himself from people but still protecting them. Even being willing to give up his life for strangers, like Otose sacrificing herself for everyone.

It's as if during this period, he closed the part of him who wanted a place to belong entirely but not the rest of it. He did say he no longer wanted to carry the burden of belonging somewhere with something important--

As he expresses it openly to Kamui 500+ chapters later, he had tried to live on empty and not let people in anymore to protect himself. But when he met Otose behind Tatsugorou's grave only did Tatsugorou's half start to come back alive, fighting once again to belong somewhere.

Gintoki does after all promise to stay somewhere to protect someone, despite having avoided belonging anywhere until now.

Jirochou attempting to kill Otose for his plans of protecting Kabukichou | Takasugi fighting to kill Gintoki to go through with his plans of toppling the Bakufu

Another big similarity here is how both Jirochou and Takasugi are willing to kill someone they love for the apparent greater good. Jirochou critically injured Otose, and Otose was at great risk of dying.

This emphasizes how Jirochou and Takasugi always play the roles of villainous anti-heroes. We learn in the Liberation Army arc that what Takasugi was trying to do was play hero and make a miracle to avenge the dead, even though it was impossible.

Something I also have to talk about is the romantic feelings that this trio captures. Jirochou's feelings for Otose seem to have come about from the way she loved everyone equally, even never giving up on straightening Jirochou up no matter how much he misbehaved.

As I discussed in previous posts, Takasugi's romantic feelings for Gintoki seem to stem from a similar place of unconditional love. It makes me think that gruff guys ware drawn to gentler, unconditional people who can see through their facade, contrast them and express their love for people when they themselves can't. Someone who wouldn't give up on them.

Even Gintoki being the one to keep getting back up to stop Takasugi on his rampage, like Otose had done with Jirochou.

With how the story teases Otose with Jirochou too, I'm inclined to believe that Otose did harbour some romantic feelings for him. But she was more attracted to Tatsugorou, who shared her values of being present with people, unlike Jirochou who distances himself all the time. There is a scene where Otose notes how Jirochou and Tatsugorou communicate with their fists, and she looks from far away as if it isn't a world she is part of. A way to see this, could be that if Otose understood Jirochou better, she may have fallen in love with him first.

Whereas Gintoki already knows how important it is to communicate with your fists, that it's what he uses to wake Takasugi up in the end. The chapter even being titled Fists.

This is what makes both Otose and Tatsugorou's halves in Gintoki important. Without Tatsugorou's traits, Gintoki would have never been able to see eye-to-eye with Takasugi. Gintoki probably knew Takasugi better than Otose knew Jirochou because of this too, which is a recurring theme in the story of how they can just tell each other's thoughts. And without Otose's trait of loving people and never giving up on them, Takasugi would have never found a place and fell in love with Gintoki.

And in Takasugi's final moments, if Gintoki was speaking with the half of him who is Otose - then it could mean that part of him fully reciprocated Takasugi's feelings.

Takasugi plays strong roles to both halves - he was the one who encouraged Gintoki to just do what he wanted honestly and with all his heart at the start (here, just a theory though), and he was the one who fought to his death for his sake fully committing Gintoki's place within Takasugi's soul in the end. It's just that only one half of him could be honest, but it doesn't mean the other didn't love him either.

In the end, Jirochou's conclusion is to properly return to his life, to stop being bound to a promise and pay attention to what really matters now in the present. This is similar to Takasugi's conclusion in the Liberation Army arc: to live life as just a human and to face and accept everything that's happened.

The ending of the Four Deva arcs involve Jirochou reuniting with Pirako, and so does Takasugi's ending reuniting with Matako.

*(Another strong microcosm is in the Invasion arc: Jirocho made his entrance with a speech about the role of men in Kabukichou - how they become cowards when they can't protect one woman, so with that title, they will keep roaring about their chivalry till their death. And this is exactly what Takasugi does both as a terrorist and at his death, playing hero and never divulging the real reason why. Sadly I can't add anymore photos - this speech is in Chapter 622.)

I did talk about Tae being drawn to instances where both halves were showing. I personally think the reason Gintoki and Tae aren't together is because of how they are too similar as people, both being a combination of Otose and Tatsugorou instead of one. Both of them are kind caring people but also terribly cunning, that it isn't an exaggeration to say Tae IS the female Gintoki and vice versa. It's even emphasized in how they coincidentally have many similar character traits (having stalkers and chibi rich kid one-eyed simps, being a useless woman and man). Even the teasing of how Tae seems to return the feelings of many people like Gintoki.

As halves, I do think they would have been together. But as wholes, they probably understand each other better than anyone that they want to care about everyone (hence why they aren't together).

They can only really be with someone who is happy with them just the way they are. Even Kyubei being happy just seeing Tae smile, even if it could be taken in a romantic context of reciprocating Kondo's feelings. Kyutae was heavily implied to be mutual and canon if Kyubei was a man (grrrr). Takagin feels mutual but just won't happen even if Takasugi was alive because of their clashing natures.

Yup, I'm pretty much convinced Takasugi->Gintoki was 100% implied romantic at this point. Pirako commenting how Jirochou was doing all of this for the woman he loved and didn't care about the town, Takasugi having parallels to almost every man canonically in love...

Takasugi saying he can just a bit honest about doing what he wants to do and not entirely. This motherfucker.

(Gin-san is my honest reaction to him.)

[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?