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shoyosoneandonlywife · 6 months ago

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Why is Gintoki's Wooden sword so resilient?

The tenacity of Lake Toya

Before I begin I wanna say that I have a few theories regarding this and after doing some research I would also like to cross over a few other analysis I've seen of this topic as well to provide a wider scope for you.

Fundamentally, we can infer that the reason gintoki switched to using a wooden sword is due to the sword ban imposed as well as his choice to not take lives anymore and would use this sword as a way to immobilise or injure his oppenents without necessary killing them, unless the situation becomes dire.

Originally, it was mentioned and I quote that his wooden sword is, "created from a ten-thousand-year-old tree from an unknown planet. The sword wields the power to cut through anything like metal swords, boulders, and even a meteor." So from, this my analysis can be cut short since it clears the question of how a wooden sword is able to be used efficiently even in battle.😭😭

However, lake toya has been broke multiple times throughout gintama, so this contradicts this so called origin of Lake toya. Moreover, It was also shown how Gintoki had come in possession of Lake toya by simply ordering it online and requesting for lake toya to be inscribed on it after he had previously broken his wooden sword. So going by that, I would like to base my analysis on the theory that his sword is simply an ordinary wooden sword.

Moving on from the creation of it, I would mainly like to focus on how an ordinary tool is able to be used even against the most formidable enemies with iron swords, the alien masses, and even against the final boss and considerably the strongest man on the planet, Utsuro. All of which Gintoki had fought with his lake toya while they had actual swords with them. Which should have been disadvantageous to gintoki, yet he was still able to go toe to toe with his opponents.

So how does he do it? Eventually I would relate it back to his unyielding spirit, but before that we would need to look through some other of his traits as well.

Gintoki's past:

His parents are unknown, and as far as we know, when he was a child, the war was still ongoing. And he wandered around the battlefields, swiping food from the dead soldiers and even using one of their swords as a defence. From this, I can assume that he had no safety or a sheltered life due to his mystery of family and lineage, and no protection from anyone.

He can be seen as a child who was outcast and left to fend for himself. Due to which his way of life was that he had grown accustomed to because there was nobody ready to guide him, up until shoyo had met him. Which shows how similar, Shoyo and Gintoki's beginnings had been.

So right from the get go he had been able to adapt to protecting himself from any sort of person opposing or posing a threat to him, as seen in a part where he immediately jumps away from Shoyo and draws a sword that is much bigger than himself to defend with ease. Which is surprising for a kid who I assume was less than 10 years old at the time.

Thus, due to his solitude he had been put in a situation where it was a survival of the fittest which led to him being able to wield a sword, albeit with inexperience yet enought strength to defend himself, even as a child. Due to his peculiar environment for growing, he had cultivated a good sense for survival as well as unimaginable strength and adaptability for a mere child.

This laid the groundwork for him to be able to be one of Shoyo's disciples, someone who is considered unbeatable till the end, and hone his already blooming skills in a more knwoeldagble environment with a guide to aid in his journey of becoming a genius swordsman.

After training under Yoshida Shoyo for years, who he had himself called a monster and was unable to beat. He was bound to expand his skillset and strength to a higher than ordinary level automatically, paired with his natural talent.

As Gintoki had said himself as a kid to shoyo, that he was able to win over any opponent, young or old, but only up until he had met shoyo.(And afterwards takasugi as well given that they both had an almost equal amount of wins and losses against each other).

So from the very base itself, given the way Gintoki had started off in this world, he can be considered a naturally gifted man in this aspect or was forced to cuktivate these skills much sooner than normal. And since he had the right conditions to be taught in and improve his skills, he continued to go on to become a formidable warrior in the joui war, and even afterwards, right until edo had settled into peace again after the silver soul arc.

So ranging from him being forced to adapt to survive and cultivating a strength that is higher than average as a young child, to being able to have the chance to hone his abilities under arguable the strongest swordsman in the country. It gives him the perfect environment to expand his abilities to his maximum potential. And grow into a genius of swordplay and various other combat.

"For the capable, even a blade of grass can be used as a weapon" is saying which means that, for a person that is strong and competent, they will be able to use anything that is available to him at the moment. Gintoki is a perfect example of this saying.

This is given with how he is able to hold his ground and even win against his enemies with a mere sword made of wood, while going up against opponents with the same level or even much more brute strength or skills than him with the higher chance of being killed off in a fight. Even though his opponent may not lose their life due to his bluntness of his sword.

However, in the hands of this great warrior, he is very much capable of killing them. But yet he makes the choice not to. (Of course, there are exceptions like aliens and that guy from the grim reaper arc I forgot his name woops)

In short, due to his strong mind and body, he is even able to use a wooden sword with ease as his strength stems from his very own spirit and physical prowess, rather than the weapon itself. It falls in line with the saying, "it is the wielder who makes the weapon strong."

Shiroyasha:

As we know, the definition of Shiroyasha is the white demon. White is to refer to his silver hair and white outfit he wore during the war, a every odd choice given the bloodshed. Yasha can also refer to the term Yaksha, where it means demon, which can also be described as oni and asura.All that points back to the basis of supernatural beings.

The reason as to his moniker is due to his impressive display as a warrior/swordsman as well as his remarkable capabilities. He had dominanted the battlefield due to his talent and fantastic skills, which earned him the name as his skillset had been so great it was considered inhumane/superhuman. As anything we see to be incredibly amazing or talented, we tend to calm them a beast at it or something like that.

From where I'm from when a person displays an immense amount of talent, we usually call them as a someone who is a supernatural being/possesses a demonic skillset within them as a compliment to show how their output crosses the ordinary level of expertise. Or to give it another title would be that they are superhuman.

He was considered to have the prowess of a deity on the battlefield which earned him fear and respect as well as being infamously known as this mighty swordsman participating in the war along his friends.

Even after the war, his friends had still kept actual swords in their possessions despite the sword ban, while Gintoki was the one who changed his sword to lake toya and rebranded the way he was from Shiroyasha to Yorozuya Ginchan. Yet he was still held to be as equally tough as his fellow friends he grew up with despite the change in weaponry.

This blatantly points to how his physical, mental, AND even through his soul, he had still remained robust and adept despite his exterior of being a lazy man.

From his childhood all the way till his adulthood, throught all adversities and struggles to survive, Gintoki had prevailed. And the fundamental reason for him to be able to pass all these obstacles despite his disadvantages, is his very soul itself.

His steadfastness and will to thrive(to live somehow) is what kept him alive on the battlefield as a child, wandering around corpses and scarcely able to gather food.

His unyielding soul is what had made him able to be mentored under the strongest man in the world and one of the most incredibly skilled swordsman, maybe even the best of that time, and take after his legacy of monstrous strength and genius craft.

All of this attributes to his willpower and his inner strength stemming from his strong-minded resolve as well as a pure and unbreakable soul that refuses to back down in the face of trouble, and even death.

To be able to withstand or even flourish in the environment controlled by a man so powerful like Yoshida Shoyo right from the get go, in Gintoki's case(excluding other memebers of shoka sonjuku as they have different strenghts and talents) only gintoki's bizarre growth and backstory had been able to prepare him for the upcoming events of training and evolving his body and power of his throughout hsi training and improving as well after Yoshida Shoyo had been arrested/executed.

Gintoki's Swordsmanship:

Despite the nature of his soul, how the hell does it empower a wooden sword? Maybe it still remains an ordinary sword, or Gintoki is very well versed in swordplay that he is able to determine the weak points of a person or where exactly he can spar with an iron sword considering it's vulnerable points or any other variety of a sword while not breaking his own weaponry.

It is nearly impossible, but if he is observant enough, he may just be able to pull it off, Gintoki is canoncially a beast at swordplay, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was so. In the end, like I had mentioned before, it is the wielder that determines how the weapon will perform.

But that may only take him so far, against brute strength his lake toya will break. So what then? His confidence in himself and unwillingness to back down from a fight despite the odds and high chances of losing already display that he is ready to face the extremes in order to protect and overcome.

I would sound cheesy, but people that have the hearts to overcome any adversity are already incredibly powerful and adept in my mind. Gintoki himself, with the amount of struggles and trauma and loss of loved ones he has faced in his life, still refuses to let his soul break. And that energy, that tenacity, is what I think is reflected in his trusty sword as well.

The hardships of Gintoki,Katsura and Takasugi faced are immense that it drove one of them to mercilessly kill for a certain period of time(for his own ambitions that are revealed later on) and Katsura to resort to terrorism to battle the shortcomings of the current monarchy.

However, Gintoki had taken such a turn from the rest of them that he had simply settled down and opened up a job for freelancing. Despite his calm and relaxed demeanour, I would call him an absolute beast that chooses to sleep. This line itself is mentioned in gintama if I recall.

But since he's such a goat, he knows when to act accordingly to the situation needed. You need to fight your longtime friend to get him to stop? You got it? You need to fight some mf from another planet to save yoshiwara? You got it? You gotta defeat an evil master to help a friend of yours? You got it. You have to defeat your resurrected master or else he'll destroy the world? You got it.

And what astounds me the most out of all of this is that in need of the situation he could have, by all means, switched to an actual sword for combat. But he didn't, he stayed true to himself, true to his heart and soul, his idea to not take a life anymore but rather fight to protect what's his. No matter how dangerous the situation was, it is what truly makes Gintoki stand out as a wonderful and unique lead.

(I would like to clarify in the final fight of silver soul, technically Utsuro's consciousness channeling thru Takasugi's body didn't realise at the time that he was dying, as in Takasugi was already injured gravely and would have died either way if his wounds had not been treated, or maybe even if they were treated he would die, due to Oboro's ashes and Utsuro's immortal blood he was able to sustain for a certain time.

Yet as stated in silver soul, he had already died and was now running out of time. So I can say that Gintoki(alongside takasugi) defeated Utsuro, or Takasugi's body. But he didn't necessarily play a part in killing him. Even if Gintoki had not fought him, Takasugi would have died anyway)😭😭😭

(Arcs like benizakura are the exception as he had to use a specifically made sword to defeat the sword rather than the wielder itself) Another example is towards the end of the grim reaper arc

Lake Toya's Strength:

As much as I have discussed how lake toya was able to hold its ground against actual swords and other weaponry, we should also look at how it was able to overpower other swords. One example is below

HELLO??? LAKE TOYA LITERALLY BROKE AN IRON SWORD??? THIS IS FROM THE TAKASUGI VS GINTOKI FIGHT BTW.

NOW WE CAN THINK "HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE????" Gintoki may be able to use his strength and cleverness to his advantage when fighting against an opponent with stronger weaponry, but how did he BREAK it. In this fight can see takasugi slowly going into a breakdown and revelling in the past and his trauma during his fight against gintoki, taking out all of his rage on Gin and blaming him for somewhat of the pain caused.

And yet Gintoki had held strong and proclaimed that no matter what he will protect the soul of Shoka Sonjuku and bring back Takasugi with him as his loved one that he learnt together with, atleast as a fellow student of his loved teacher, Yoshida Shoyo.

Even though he went through as much struggle and damage as Takasugi, he still refused to become purely destructive and strive to protect rather than conquer or destroy the world where Shoka Sonjuku had existed.

At the very least, if not the world, atleast the soul and sanctity of Shoka Sonjuku and their teacher. Takasugi had shown the broken sides of him, unhealed and agonized, while Gintoki, even though not fully recovered, just like Sugi, had still wanted to try and overcome his past. No matter how difficult it seemed.

That mighty spirit of his is what had enabled him to break Takasugi's sword, as Takasugi was slowly metling with a breakdown and was gradually losing focus as well. Giving into his own sorrows and rushing into ending Gintoki? Ending the fight? Ending his suffering? It may be none or all idk.

Thus, Gintoki's unyielding spirit and refusal to give up is what enabled him to overpower Takasugi in that fight and literally break his sword(which can symbolise how he broke his endless cycle of trying to destroy or self destruct) and save him. His affection and need to protect his fellow schoolmates, his loved ones, his friends, his school, his master's legacy, his lessons, his ideals.

All of this combined with his unwillingness to let it die, let it perish, is what let him win the fight, and ultimately and importantly commit the impossible act of breaking an actual sword with a mere wooden lake toya.

Another remarkable feat of his is when he had broken a sword with his TEETH(Oboro vs Gintoki), this aspect can also be categorised under the points I have listed above. And with the additional fact that warriors trained are already on another level of strength(slicing bullets, incredible strength and speed) and tenacity. AND given how he was trained under Yoshida Shoyo, considerably the strongest man on the planet x2. I think we shouldn't be all that surprised by that feat anymore. 😭

This was more of an analysis than a rant im sorry😭😭😭 I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR THOUGHTS ON LAKE TOYA AND THIS🥰🥰

I'll try an edit in more pics in my reblogs as an example or proof later on and add in the links to some posts(they were very short so I think I have already covered the same points as well here briefly). Thank you and I hope you can add onto this meager rant of mine!!

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