#gintama spoilers

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

'wtf is gintama about' well if you listen to me (non intellectual) i'll tell you it's mostly about suicide but if you listen to some tumblrinas (intellectuals) they'll tell you it's about anal sex and if you look at it in terms of the grand scale of the plot it's about a guy with disassociative identity disorder trying to kill himself and getting thwarted by a magic dog. but actually it's about the opening of japan to foreign interests in the 1860s

#chitra.txt #gintama #gintama spoilers

[uynumeotp111]

Gintama Parallels "I had enough of your crying face"

#gintama spoilers #takagin #kyutae #zensachi #gintaka #sakata gintoki #takasugi shinsuke #gintama #sarutobi ayame #hattori zenzou #yagyuu kyuubei #shimura otae #they are so...

[peaches764]

#gintama #gintama fanart #shimura shinpachi #shimura tae #rewatched bfy yesterday. I regret it #a sketchyy drawing for my favourite siblings ♡ #be forever yorozuya #gintama spoilers

[yu-sigao]

I just finished Gintama and I'm still in awe. It's been a day and I still don't know how to collect my words of how deeply this anime struck me.

Utsuro was a beautiful villain. The way I interpret him is that he is almost pure yin - cold, dark, destructive, and all consuming, like, well, an 虚 ("utsuro", void.) But in East Asian cosmology, while yin is death, it is also fertility. It is the feminine component of the universe and required for land and animals to reproduce. So within a field of yin, there will always be a seed of yang.

This seed of yang is of course, Yoshida Shouyou. Just as yin inevitably grows yang, Utsuro talks of Shouyou's emergence as inevitable in episode 328.

"The one that hated humans, the one that feared humans, and the one that longed to be human... They were all me. It was inevitable that he would appear to stop them. The only Utsuro that stood up to Utsuro."

He even usually wears white compared to the black of Utsuro's cloak. Shouyou is warm, kind, nurturing, and active; it's said he never stopped fighting against Utsuro, even if at first he lost. And arguably that fighting is what got him killed. Utsuro slays him internally as Gintoki slays him externally, and when his body is burned in fire - a classic symbol of yang - Utsuro reemerges. The seed has sprouted, grown, withered, and returned back to fertilise the earth. Yang flows back into yin.

What I find interesting is the decidedly feminine metaphors that Oboro and Utsuro himself use to describe the formation of his different personas. He is said to have "given birth" to countless versions of himself (again also from episode 328), which further strengthens the association between Utsuro and yin.

This is not the first time a birthing/maternal metaphor has been used in Gintama. Consider Shouyou's speech to a child Gintoki:

"There's no difference between a monster and the child of a monster. They are both inhuman beings that are only born within a bloody pool of sin. And a monster's sword cannot cut another monster. So, Gintoki, stop trying to grow stronger by imitating me... You have to grow stronger than me by using your own sword, the sword of a human." - (episode 317.)

If in this metaphor, Utsuro is the parent and Shouyou is the offspring, then what does that make Shouyou? Shouyou subtly implies he considers himself a monster. Is this true? If you view Shouyou as a parental figure to Gintoki, Katsura, and Takasugi, then what does that make them?

Gintoki was called a corpse eating demon as a child, and by the time he was fighting in the Joui wars and forced to execute Shouyou, he had not shed that reputation. He instead became known as the Shiroyasha - white demon. Clothed in the colours of yang like his master who longed to be human, but a monster nonetheless. And a monster's sword cannot cut another monster. That is why when Gintoki kills Shouyou, Utsuro is born, and the cycle starts anew. It is only after 300+ episodes of character development that he becomes human, and can put an end to Utsuro.

"The people here must be what you were to me. Just as the eternal monster from that day became human by meeting you... Meeting you kids, the little monster with sad eyes from that day has also become human, hasn't he?" - (Shouyou to Gintoki in Gintama: The Final.)

But the cycle is never over. A baby implied to be Takasugi's reincarnation is born in the Altana gates at the end. At first I thought this was a cheap trick, and that Sorachi only did this to keep fans happy, but it does fit the theme of eternity and neverending cycles.

Gintama, to me, is about cycles, and the difference between productive and unproductive cycles. The Naraku's name refers to a sort of Buddhist hell, and they dress like Buddhist monks. The relevance of the Buddhist theme of reincarnation in regards to Utsuro's story should be obvious. But instead of a march towards enlightenment, Utsuro's numerous lifetimes are more like an ouroboros eating it's own tail. He did unto others what was done unto him, escalating into a plot to destroy Earth, which got him nowhere but perpetuating pointless samsara. He destroys himself as he begets himself, experiencing moral degradation and isolation as he shies away from even his other selves.

Or a cycle can be like making a philosopher's stone, which is what Gintoki experienced: a process of continuous refinement that produces objects of further and further purity. To use Buddhist terms, enlightenment is an ongoing process. The work of becoming human takes as long as your life will. And Gintoki is made human by his relationships with Shinpachi, Kagura, and every single person he met over the course of the story, while Utsuro remained so focused on himself, he destroyed his other selves.

Utsuro recognises his mistake upon his death:

"Humans are hollow beings. But because they know that, they take root in the heart of others, never fading, even after death, and continue to live forever, is it?" - (Gintama: The Final)

His hollowness and eternity did not have to mean all this pain. He denied the version of himself, Shouyou, that went against his omnicidal death wish, and was life giving instead. In giving life, Shouyou became mortal, and was given death. In death, Shouyou became more influential and powerful than Utsuro, having touched the heart of people who would come back to defeat him. The immortal becomes mortal becomes immortal. Yin flowing back into yang flowing back into yin.

In the end, everything goes back to where it started, yet everything is new again. The Yorozuya are back, and Edo is still Edo, even as Tokyo looms on the horizon. I can only hope for the baby we see at the end, that if they are immortal, they will have a kinder life than Utsuro/Shouyou did. That they will be more human than monster. The monster's child became human, after all.

#gintama #gintama meta #gintama spoilers #utsuro gintama #yoshida shouyou #i love utsuro and this is my love letter to him

[yamameta-inc]

alternatively

original post

#don't want to be that person who derails a post with an addition in a completely different direction so #gintama #gintama spoilers

[eiichiro]

— Gintoki, this crushed left eye of mine closed forever on that day, with the last thing it saw etched into the back of its eyelid. I’ve lived my life staring at your gloomy face from back then, and I’m sick of it. So at least when my right eye closes, don’t go looking like a goddamned fool.

GINTAMA: THE FINAL (2021) by hideaki sorachi

#gintama #gintamaedit #gintama: the final #sakata gintoki #takasugi shinsuke #gif #* #gif: gintama #gintama spoilers #GOD #userroh #fyanimegifs #userzuura

[sattosugu]

gintama the final (2021) - list of my favorite anime male characters:

takasugi shinsuke

#gintamaedit #fyeahanimegifs #gintama #animangboys #mygifs #dailyanime #dailyanimation #usergojoana #usergokalp #usertorichi #usermica #usermoonz #userartless #useradrienne #useraki #fyeahanimanga #gintama spoilers

[asheoninactive]

Do u ever think about how Sakamoto has canonically invested in crypto

#gintama #sakamoto tatsuma #gintama spoilers #??? #not really #well a bit #idk #it’s one of my favorite bits from the very final

[necronatural]

i dont like how my old gintama art looks but my absolute immortal favourite is this shoka sonjuku teen modern AU i drew in a fog when I was first watching gintama. the hair comic is the first time I drew the 80 face that permeates my art now

#gintama #art #fanart #gintama spoilers

[regnigt]

#gintama spoilers #kotaro katsura #katsura kotarou #gintama polls

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

yeah (id under cut)

(image id: a redraw of a twitter meme. gintoki (@/shiroyasha) posted a picture of him, katsura, takasugi, and sakamoto at the pool (with the background left in from the original tweet, but the characters drawn on top in a simple style; everyone is drawn in their joui-era designs, with takasugi having both eyes.) the picture is captioned with 'you see us all at the pool wyd'. utsuro (@/naraku) has quote tweeted it with 'Killing myself in front of you to forever change your bonds and the trajectories of your lives'.)

#chitra.txt #gintama #gintama spoilers #joui 4 #my art #<- low effort af but it counts lol

[uynumeotp111]

Gintama & Trigun parallels - spoilers below

#trigun #trigun maximum #trimax #trigun spoilers #vash the stampede #nicolas d wolfwood #gintama #sakata gintoki #gintama spoilers #hijikata toushirou #takasugi shinsuke #the reason for this is i'm kind of obsessed with gintoki and vash right now

[peaches764]

A quick drawing of the siblings who broke my heart </3

#gintama #okita mitsuba #okita sougo #maybe I drew Sougo too small #and Mitsuba's arms kinda strange looking #but it's finneeee #(I really need to pick up an anatomy book sometime) #gintama fanart #gintama spoilers #?

[whosname]

Here's for a second Gintama tittle card calligraphy post, 'cause the Battle on Rakuyo Arc title card game is stupid amazing

stupidstupidstupid amazing

#gintama #calligraphy #gintama's title cards #i'm sorry handa sensei #barakamon screenshot #never seen someone hallucinate over calligraphy before? #well now you do #stupidstupid amazing #gintama spoilers #i guess

[yamameta-inc]

inspired by that one poem about a dragon

#gintama #utsuro #yoshida shouyou #swastika warning #also don't take the scholarship too seriously i'm just having fun #gintama spoilers

[lady-joker]

ive nearly finished the shinsengumi crisis arc and by far this is deffo one of my favs. you've got otaku hijikata, okita fucking things around as usual and so much more. also, by far the most depressing arc??? poor yamazaki???? he better be alive i love him 😭😭 and tbh poor ito too, im bawling at his death. also yorozuya-shinsengumi era im so here for it, they really committed to the bit and i respect that so much

#gintama #shinsengumi #hijikata toushirou #okita sougo #gintama spoilers