#gintama reference

[abibbi]

An apple a day keeps Astrid’s axe away.

[greenarrow-core]

The overgrown hood annoys me. That's not how hoods work.

*Reference to Gintama here.

It has a life of its own

[cheeseballcheeto]

doodle

[ibrokeeverything]

That sleep mask looks awfully familiar

[courtesanofdeath]

[wiskiemonk]

was doing a little research into Bakumatsu-era armour to see what exactly the joui boys are wearing on the battlefield and thought I'd put my findings here

Sakamoto's headgear usually gets called a kabuto, which come in such a wide range of shapes and sizes that it's difficult to narrow down what kind of kabuto it might be...my best guess is people think it's this type:

this is an Akodanari Suji Kabuto, named after a type of watermelon...this style was especially popular during the Muromachi period.

However! I don't think he's wearing a kabuto at all. I think it's more likely to be a piece of kusari katabira - a kind of light woven chainmail which was commonly worn by soldiers during the Edo period

To be more specific, I think he's wearing a kusari zukin (a chainmail hood) with a hachigane headband, of the type seen here:

the way Sakamoto's headgear hangs & the mail-like pattern imo has way more in common with this than any kind of kabuto I've seen. So I'm pretty sure that's what he's wearing

I'm pretty sure the cuirass-type things they wear are karuta-gane, a type of lightweight armour known as tatami. The karuta armour (which comes from the Portuguese word 'carta' - playing cards, referring to the square/rectangular plates) were made of leather or iron, often sewn onto a cloth backing. Sometimes they had chainmail between the plates.

Takasugi's coat is notably more Western-styled and he's not wearing karuta, but he is wearing what looks like a manchira - a type of auxiliary armour, which had small iron plates sewn between the layers of fabric. It's presumed to have been inspired by Western fashions and they were often made to be aesthetically pleasing:

the type Takasugi wears is the longer one, which was supposed to be worn as a standalone armour rather than the shorter version (manju no wa) which was usually worn with a breastplate. Perfect fancy armour for the little rich boy lmao

Apart from Takasugi who seems to be wearing more Western style trousers and boots/shoes, the other 3 wear the same kind of footwear and greaves - kōgake (basically armoured socks) worn with waraji (corded shoes)

It doesn't look like they're wearing suneate (armoured greaves) - it looks much more like standard kyahan, which were basically padded cloth leggings worn under the suneate. This was pretty common in footsoldiers apparently. Although Zura could be wearing suneate since his seem to be reinforced:

These could be Shino Suneate, which were lightweight and reinforced with iron strips sewn onto cloth backing. Low ranking samurai tended to favour them for their simplicity and ease of movement

On their arms they seem to be wearing some kind of kote (armoured sleeves) with tekko (metal plates covering the back of the hands) - we can see Zura's most clearly and his seem to be padded or otherwise armoured, so they might be han kote, which were a bit more like gauntlets

Zura, Takasugi and Gintoki are wearing pretty standard hachimaki - headbands with a little armour over the forehead:

Finally, the belts they're wearing are uwa-obi - used to attach the sageo of their sword in order to secure it. When worn with chest armour (dō) the obi would be knotted at the front with a hanamusubi knot to hold it firm

anyway! might come in handy as reference or might solely be of interest to me lol

[whosname]

[Id. Digital drawing of cats Ginsan, Takasugi and Zura. Gintoki and Zura are hugging a visibly desperate Sugi in the middle. end id]

Combo arrunchadito®

I can do this all day

[mechaking789]

Sakamoto Days With Gintama Reference ( Found this MEME on Google)

[sysig]

Enecomimi Banzaiiii (Patreon)

[abibbi]

Hiccup is a little shit.

Set right after Buffalord Soldier.

[epicdogymoment]

highlights

[joelletwo]

reading thru the The Final utsuro fight visuals with the vocabulary i gained while liveblogging gintama

[VD: the section of the fight that has gintoki and utsuro-in-takasugi's-body slide through reanimated flashbacks to past scenes of the series that cast them as past versions of themselves, shouyou, and takasugi]

bc the maths is insanes

the initial flashback is to their immediately previous silver soul fight - the casting of the conflict as unending, progressless, in utsuro's favor. have either of them appreciably changed since then? is anything different? what is initially an incomplete brief flash - with utsuro still inhabiting takasugi - solidifies when he regresses to his original body and begins to more effectively counter gintoki. utsuro remains on the right throughout.

direct cut from there pulled further back in time to gintoki's immediately previous fight with takasugi's body in shogun assassination - takasugi on the right, giving utsuro in his body the power of Unconscionable Violence (senseless, gleeful, and knowing you well enough to perpetrate it) (joelletwo tags on squeaky toy video, 2023, repeated endlessly every day since)

but it's mutual - gintoki also knows you well enough to turn the tables and get the upper hand back

(not that this meaningfully stops you for long).

direct cut from there slightly forward in time to gintoki's first fight with utsuro in the immediately following farewell shinsengumi, where the revelations overwhelm him and reduce him to being fueled by the pure instinctual anger of The Demonic, a state of losing yourself and your ability to fight effectively (reductionisms, 2023),

conditions where it's all you can do to hold out against an enemy that represents something so big in your psyche,

which he knows about, since he's been that for you before. back in time again to the first (onscreen) takasugi confrontation, right before taking advantage of your precarious mental state to punch you out of the plotline (kraniumet tags on yamameta post addition, 2022)

but utsuro keeps a vice grip on control of the story, surfacing back into the present to stop and reverse his fall mid-air so he can stay anchored in the battle with gintoki,

meaning he remains vulnerable to the weaknesses of the body he's in, which only ever exists anymore in one memory - you're unable to move, only to witness. a third figure is introduced, who is more you than you here, while gintoki remains himself.

the you more you than you accepts death while you watch it approach with helpless despair and terror.

the collapse of utsuro back into the body he inhabits in present invites a re-examining of the series of flashbacks thus far - where the perspective of who controls the focal memory seems to flip from utsuro to gintoki back to utsuro here, does it? the farewell shins->festival transition is 1:1 substitutional, working out so that utsuro-as-takasugi winds back up on the right.

but it isn't utsuro borrowing a strength of his like Violence here - it's, just like in the execution, succumbing to one of his weaknesses. flipping between the two scenes, takasugi's derailing fear of gintoki as a figure becomes gintoki's of utsuro. there's a double elision of takasugi (missing from farewell shins due to his fight with gintoki) so that utsuro becomes both gintokis - making him both the one who looms large, and the one who is destabilized by.

gintoki signifies something huge to utsuro, after all.

he takes up the role he had back then, the one you assigned him from the start, because half of his time always exists in that one moment now as well.

being the one who acts on the story and moves it forward, brings it to an end.

the regression through history continues to child against unbeatable teacher, again the question of if either of you has grown since you met. gintoki becomes the underdog challenger on the right.

the refusal to give up an unwinnable fight, no matter how many times it's tried, the even-back-then way that gintoki becomes a shouyou figure for others, fluidly shifts you forward in time.

the reverse shot, the perspective flip - the identity lines cross.

he drags you through time with him, until you're someone he knows how to beat.

(because, again, you know each other so well as to be losslessly interchangeable, for two opposing souls in the process of finding themselves - conquering themselves - to become indivisible.) (reductionisms translation, 2024) (yamameta ouroboros poem, 2023)

and even when you win - earn by ceaseless trial and effort the right to play his trick back on him and dethrone/defang him by pushing him literally out of frame - ...

he learns from you as well and pulls himself back in by your anchor.

[kakapim]

It would be super funny if the fandom is taking the "There will be a scene explaining why Kaito and Shinichi look alike" a bit too seriously. What if it's just a meta scene before/or post credits of Kaito saying something like "Hey! You talk big for someone who is an offbrand version of myself! My manga launched years before yours!" Maybe Gosho is there too. Idk

[yuzuria]

Honkai Impact 3rd x Honkai Star Rail Collab

[wiskiemonk]

piecing together an extremely rough pre-canon Gintama timeline cross referencing actual events of the Bakufu period

obv disclaimer: i'm only at ep 263 or so, so there are big gaps in my knowledge, and I haven't looked any of the Gintama stuff up to stay spoiler free, so forgive any inaccuracies. Also historical inaccuracies, because I'm researching some of this on the fly. Please no spoilers if I'm wrong!!

Also, the events of Gintama aren't 1 for 1 the same as those of the Bakufu, so there will necessarily be variation

1853-1854: Commodore Perry's "Black Ships" arrive in Edo Bay; the Treaty of Kanagawa is negotiated between Japan (via the Shogun) and the US, effectively ending the Sakoku isolationist foreign policy instilled since 1603.

We can probably assume the first Amanto landed in Edo at the same point in time.

In 1854, Yoshida Shoin (Shoyo's real life counterpart) tried to stow away on an American ship to learn Western tactics. He was arrested, and released in 1856, wherein he opened Shoka Sonjuku - a radical anti-Shogunate school

1853: Tokugawa Nariaki, a daimyo who ruled the Mito domain (modern day Ibaraki) wrote a document inspired by the writings of Aizawa Seishisai, whose works inspired the anti-Shogunate movement. "Japan: Reject the Westerner" inspired the Emperor's later edict, the 'order to expel barbarians'

The roots of GIntama's sonnō jōi movement are likely the same.

1854-1856: the Ansei Treaties are negotiated, culminating in the signing in 1858 of five treaties of commerce between Japan and other nations. These treaties were largely imposed upon Japan and were considered unfairly weighted in favour of the West. This was an inciting incident in increased anti-Shogunate sentiment.

Again, we can probably assume a similar trajectory with the Amanto.

1856: Yoshida Shoin opens Shoka Sonjuku. Takasugi Shinsaku becomes one of his most prized students.

the real life Takasugi would've been around 17 here, so either Shoyo opens Shoka Sonjuku a little later in Gintama, or Takasugi is just a lot younger. I'd bet on the former because iirc Shoyo finds Gintoki first, then opens the school - and since Gintoki was found on the battlefield he was probably orphaned either by a cholera epidemic, which was brought to Japan by Western ships, or through some other conflict (which we'll get to)

1858-1860: The Ansei Purge takes place. A crackdown against dissidents and rebels, the Shogunate, led by Ii Naosuke, targeted daimyos and intellectuals who questioned the Shogunate's authority. Shoin is executed in 1859 as part of the purge.

We know the Kansei Purge is Gintama's equivalent. It probably takes place a little later in Gintama's universe, since there were armed conflicts preceding it - either that or there were armed conflicts in Gintama's timeline with no neat analogue in the real world. This seems likely - the Joui war participated in by Gintoki and co seems analogous to the Boshin War, but it's implied in Gintama that the war lasted 10 years - the Boshin War was only 1 year and spelled the end of the Bakufu. We can probably assume, then, that the Joui war spanned the period of time between Gintama equivalent 1859-1869 - and the Kansei purge happens in the midst of all of this.

1862: the Tosa Loyalist Party is started by Takechi Hanpeita working under the sonnō jōi philosophy. Ryoma Sakamoto participates, but eventually becomes disillusioned and leaves Tosa to become a ronin. His sister commits seppuku in despair.

We can probably assume Sakamoto's family (probably his dad) was part of this movement, and was likely why Sakamoto joined the war despite being a self-confessed pacifist

1863: Emperor Komei issues his edict to expel the barbarians. the the sonnō jōi movement quickly gains steam, and attacks against the Shogunate and foreigners, often perpetrated by pro-joi ronin, increase in number.

Takasugi Shinsaku founds the Kiheitai, a volunteer militia mostly from the Choshu Domain.

The Shinsengumi are founded in Kyoto by Matsudaira Katamori.

In Gintama, it seems the Shinsegumi were formed as a peacekeeping force post-war, so the timelines are different here.

1864: the Mito rebellion, the Kinmon incident and the First Choshu Expedition take place - all skirmishes between Shogunate loyalists and Sonno Joi rebels. The First Choshu Expedition was a nominal Bakufu victory - the belligerents were from what is now Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The Mito Rebellion saw forces from modern day Ibaraki defeat a shogunate force of 6700 with just 2000 insurgents. They were forced to surrender to the Bakufu after their numbers dwindled; a large number were executed.

The Kinmon Incident was a rebellion by the Sonno Joi forces of the Choshu Domain against the Shogunate. Their defeat was the catalyst for the First Choshu Expedition.

Also in 1864 was the Ikedaya Incident - a skirmish between sonno joi ronin (including Katsura Kogoro) and the Shinsegumi (led by Kondo Isami)

1865-1866: The Second Choshu Expedition saw the Bakufu defeated and was considered to have sealed the fate of the Tokugawa shogunate. The following years were the steady decline of the Bakufu.

Obviously in Gintama the Bakufu are still very much in place - so the timelines here played out differently.

1867: Emperor Meiji ascends the throne. Ryoma Sakamoto is assassinated in Kyoto. The Shinsengumi are blamed, and Kondo Isami is executed on this charge.

Obviously Sakamoto and Kondo are still alive, so we can disregard this!

1868-1869: an alliance of samurai from Western Japan (mainly Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa) secure control of Emperor Meiji's court. The shogun in power abdicates and hands over political power to the emperor. This kickstarts the Boshin War, a year and a half of conflict between the Imperial Court and the Shogunate, including the Shinsengumi. The Shogunate loyalists retreat to Ezo (now Hokkaido) where forces including Hijikata Toshizou found the Republic of Ezo, at least until their defeat at the Battle of Hakodate. 8,200 men (and women - the onna-bugeisha also fought) were killed and 5000+ wounded.

Ultimately, the Shogunate is defeated and the Meiji Restoration begins.

This is likely the last stand fought by the Joui 4, and probably lasted a similar amount of time - with Sakamoto joining sometime in the early months (?) (still not sure how or when he gets there). At some point during this time, Shoyo is killed. Presumably when the war ends, the 4 go their separate ways - Sakamoto into space (iirc he leaves earlier than the others?) Takasugi forms the Kiheitai, Zura continues fighting alongside the remnants of the Joi movement, and Gintoki goes to Edo.

[whosname]

[Id. Alcohol marker drawing of Gintoki happily walking with cat Zura on his shoulder. End id]