xparrot | on Gintama'

Gintama 211, second ep into the Kabuki-chou arc, and DAMN. I love this series because of, not in spite of, all its crack - but that once a year or so when it drops the comedy and gets its fight shounen on....yowza. The hiatus didn't change that any. And they were clearly saving their budget for this one, too, because it looks gorgeous:

Right after this, Gintoki taking on Jirocho in the graveyard, was one of the two scenes in this arc that I was most looking forward to seeing animated. It did rather the opposite of disappointing.

I love Gintoki and Otose's unique relationship, that he's the pathetic stray she couldn't help but take home, and he skips on the rent and calls her "baba" and she blows smoke in his face and yells and sends Tama after him - but she understands him. Gintoki's very good at understanding people, reading their hearts, but Otose might be the only one who knows him better than he knows her. And she showed him kindness, and she's maybe the first person he dared promise to protect after the war, his first step back to life - and he knows he can never fully repay her, and maybe doesn't realize that being her family is enough.

I also may have a little tiny thing for seeing my heroes completely lose it. Shiroyasha especially, because he's so dangerous, so completely rabid-dog vicious, for all that he's not out of control - I love that Gintoki's not one of those shounen split-personality type fighters; unlike Kenshin or Ginji, or Goku or Kagura, he doesn't lose his mind or his conscience. He just gets really fucking motivated.

And there's just something about seeing this:

become this:

...Yeah.

I love that he doesn't say anything, he just yells (oh Sugita~!) and keeps flinging himself at his enemy. And even for a shounen, the moment that his bokutou is shattered mid-swing and Gintoki grabs the spinning shard out of the air and stabs it into Jirocho's shoulder is about an eleven on the scale of badass battle.

Of course being the first confrontation, no badassery is enough.

Not that Shiroyasha gives a damn.

But it's not a serious arc unless Gintoki is nearly killed, and while he's been hurt worse, he's maybe never been as badly beaten as this, that we've seen: