#eclipseofshadows

oH hello! :D

Essentially, this paragraph you wrote summed up my general reaction to Katsura’s entrance in Farewell Shinsengumi. 

After all the angst of the previous arc and the heavy, all-pervasive mood of sorrow and ever-encroaching dread which ruled episode 308 and much of this one, the new infusion of hope and plain FUCK YEAH was sorely needed

https://printfogey.dreamwidth.org/186174.html

The arc intentionally builds up such a heavy mood. Depressing event after depressing event just keeps hitting our heroes harder and harder. Shigeshige’s funeral, Kondou’s arrest and scheduled execution, Shinsengumi members scattered, Hijikata’s obvious depression. Suddenly Nobunobu threatens Otae - the crux of what makes their home and a vital part of everything that binds Shinsengumi and Odd Jobs together. Hijikata can’t stay his hand and Gintoki painfully understands due to the parallel of his past, so he sacrifices himself to uphold their collective honor and protect his friends. He protects the chance HIjikata still has to recover the master he’s lost because that’s the chance Gintoki wishes he himself had had.

As he is arrested, you really get the feel ‘how are they going to get out of this this time?’ This is truly the threshold. They can never go back to the way things were. 

As he is helpless to do anything but watch Gintoki get hauled away, Sakaki delivers the final blow to Hijikata’s despair. “You can no longer be heroes.”

And suddenly, the stubborn answer of defiance waiting on stand-by for the perfect moment appears. The title of episode 309 finally makes sense. Heroes always arrive fashionably late.   

Old gags reappear as serious plot devices, showing us that there has always been more to them than just comedy. A cameo reminder of Sho-chan in briefs, Zurako herself, the exploding Nmaibo smokescreen. BOOM. INTENSE MOODBREAKER.

You can’t help but cheer as the whole atmosphere is single-handedly lifted by Katsura. The arc enters a new and rebellious mood as he temporarily hijacks the spotlight and kickstarts his own plan of action - forcing everyone to follow suit if they want to survive. Katsura essentially comes in saying, Welcome to my world. We are doing things my way now. Beggars can’t be choosers! 

Not only that. At the heart of this scene, you can also see the extent of Katsura’s loyalty for his friends. He stubbornly snatches away the martyr’s burden Gintoki has placed upon himself and steals it. But no worries, he’s Runaway Kotarou. He’s got more of a plan than Gintoki, who only acted only on instinct. Katsura’s odd preparedness is more than meets the eye. And he makes his entrance in the most overly dramatic and perfect combination of goofy and serious possible - as Zurako. It’s all of what Katsura’s character encapsulates. (Was it really really really necessary to dress up to get arrested? Sure he did it to sneak in and blend in with the ladies, but his dress is much more extravagant than what the hostesses wear in general. Something tells me he just wanted to dress up like always, period. Even in front of enemies he displays a flagrant lack of shame for his antics. It’s absolutely adorable, haha.) 

He rescues Hijikata from his own negativity and proves he is willing to risk everything to save Kondou, his former enemy. That also speaks to the lengths he will go to. Katsura has steadily gained a strange camaraderie with the Shinsengumi, something Kondou is hesitant to admit until Katsura takes an outright bullet for him later. (All while worrying about Gintoki’s face-off with Naraku on the side!)

As a development built from over 300 episodes’ worth of misadventures and in-fighting come together, the Katsura Faction and the Shinsengumi finally join forces and attempt to let bygones be bygones. In prison, Katsura reinvigorates Kondou’s will to live just as Gintoki knows he must do to Hijikata’s fighting resolve. Shigeshige’s death provided the avenue for unification, something that Katsura is not going to let go to waste.

Katsura’s entrance in 309 is is one of my favorite scenes because throughout it all we are reminded of Katsura’s true depth. No matter how goofy and foolish he is, he is just as much a trickster and mastermind. These sides of his character are not at extremes. It all comes around. His ambitions, his promise with Shigeshige, his bond and shared past with Gintoki. These are some of the driving forces behind every action he takes. 

Something endearing is Katsura’s own smugness about the whole thing. “Let us meet at dawn,” Katsura tells Gintoki with a knowing smile. It’s referencing the dramatic phrase Katsura seems to sling around everyone every once in a while. ‘Fighting for the dawn of this country.’ 

Katsura knows Gintoki and the Yorozuya will not be sitting out the whole affair, even for their own good. He has the utmost faith that Gintoki’s own participation will even be crucial to their overall success. And most of all, Katsura knows that he will finally have the thing he has wanted since he reunited with Gintoki at the start of the series - to fight for the same cause together again. And he’s turning the Shinsengumi into rebels along with him. 

As the group is running away from Snack Smile with Katsura’s diversion, Gintoki almost looks peeved. That’s because he knows he’s been manipulated by his friend. After all, he’s spent the whole series dodging Zura only for everything to end up falling right where he wants it. At the end of the arc when conversing with HIjikata, he calls him a con-man. Roles flipped, now its the Shinsengumi listening to Katsura haha.

But for all Gintoki’s wariness, they seem to be completely in tune during the mission on Kokujo. The trust and familiarity is clear. Even if they’re on opposite ends of the island, they know their roles. And they do meet at dawn on board Matsudaira’s ship.

Ah… So that’s that.

I laughed so so hard after reading this, bwahaha. You’ve brought me so much random joy :’D

hhhhhhhhhhhhh im channeling bitchy zura aesthetic, but you’re obliged to not take him seriously because he’s like well um BALD!! 

Originally, I asked @teamrocketcutie to chose an icon for me. So she’s responsible for this monster! A bold choice  💖

Come to think of it, the icon I had before this for years was a different character but had a very similar pose asdfghj. Complete coincidence though. 

Also what is up with the current big terrorist attack in Edo.

(Major manga spoilers up to 689 beneath cut!)

I’ll check it out then!  😊

Aaaaaaaaaaaa! Another message? This is too much! ❤️  Actually, I worried my sentences were kinda wordy but I’m so glad to hear you’ve enjoyed it!! Yes, we don’t talk about Katsura enough. Even though he’s such a sweetie!😭 Also I’m strangely kinda shy about posting publicly in general so I’m glad I got an incentive to do an analysis like that with an ask! Now I want to do another one soon, haha.

Thank you so much for the compliments!  I appreciate it!

What is this site?

I will be lazy and use this reply from someone else. With some additions:

Like Journalspace (LJ, Dreamwidth, more) it separates between individual journals and communities (comms). Like Tumblr and Twitter, it allows you to reblog posts by others to your own blog, and to tag such reblogs Like Tumblr, tags are searchable through the whole site. Unlike Tumblr, if the original poster deletes their posts, all the reblogs disappear as well. Unlike any of these, it usually costs money to get an account (I somehow got a free one, but there were months before I signed up until it happened), and there's a waiting list. More caveats: the site is still in beta, the staff can be slow to answer requests, they've had security leaks, and the servers don't seem to strong since traffic slows it down a lot. Generally I prefer Dreamwidth to Pillowfort by far, so far. But it's worth it to try new things out. There's a Gintama comm on Dreamwidth as well which has been dormant for a long while. I posted a couple of times there the other week: one post got several replies, which was fun, but the other didn't. But I haven't given up yet!

(Are you on Dreamwidth, by the way? Dreamwidth runs on the "freemium" model: basic accounts are free, and you pay if you want to upgrade to get more functions, like being able to edit comments or get more icon space. The downside of Dreamwidth is that you can't reblog things, only post links, and there's little in the way of image hosting, so you have to rely on third party hosts. (Tumblr works for that!)