#when I first started watching gintama ten or so years ago Gintoki seemed like such a loser

[katsurakotarou]

I've been rewatching Gintama with a bit more perspective, and something that is standing out to me in these early episodes is that Gintoki is really quite young. He matures throughout the series (impossible not to, after taking in two teens), but at this point in the series, he's really, really young. Like he says, there's a child in him. Someone small and fragile, and very alone. And although he plays it up as a joke, I think part of it is that he defaults to this sort of immaturity as a shield. After all he has gone through, this is his answer.

It's only after he meets Shinpachi that he starts to come out of that shell he created for himself and I'm having a lot of feelings about this. He's suffered so much.