#konbubbles

Episode Title: A Woman's Best Make Up Is Her Smile

MY 20 FAVORITE MOMENTS IN EPISODE 81 (manga chaps 122 and 123):

I wish the anime team had found a way to extend this arc for just a few more episodes. Love it so much! I am going to continue to hope that the next live action will cover this arc but I wonder what they’ll do about Princess Bubbles. CG? Person in a suit? Even little Binbokusai might be a bit of a challenge. Either way, would love to see it brought to life with the current live action cast, and I hope they find an awesome actress to play Kyuubei. (and yes, I’m assuming there’s going to be a third movie because hope can become reality)

1) Very cool silhouette of Shinpachi facing off against Kyuubei.

Episode Title: In Those Situations, Keep Quiet And Cook Red Rice With Beans, or aka, The Yagyuu Arc Begins!

MY 15 FAVORITE MOMENTS IN EPISODE 76 (manga chaps 110 and 111):

I love the Yagyuu arc, one of my faves in the entire series. I hope the next live action movie covers this arc...and they find a way to incorporate Zura and Elizabeth into it since live action Zura is so perfect.

1) Baby Tae-chan and Baby Kyuu-chan melts me.

MY 8 FAVORITE MOMENTS IN LESSON 693:

With all due respect to Sorachi-sama, I found the events within this chapter mostly distressing, depressing, confusing, and a little aggravating. Thankfully I am cursed with knowledge now so at least I know there’s hope at the end of this dark tunnel, but when I first read this, I felt pretty distraught at everything that was happening to dear Kondou. Our dear gorilla deserved better than this, and then the gods, our Great Lord Majesty Gorilla eventually agreed.

1) There were a few bright spots in the chap, my three Joui boys were definitely one of them. 

2) Kondou looked handsome at least...which actually just made me sadder cuz it was all wasted.

3) Like Kondou, I wanted to cry as well.

4) I know it’s just a flashback but it still made me happy and I really needed some happiness in this chapter.

5) Hijikata being all sexy and commandy.

6) Sougo made me smile too. He obviously enjoyed being back in his uniform as much as I enjoyed seeing him in it.

7) Nothing about Kondou’s marriage made ANY sense. It was so frustrating! I couldn’t figure out why Matsudaira was forcing him into this, or why anyone was. Drove me crazy.

8) His mosaic made me chuckle a little, but yeah, mostly I just wanted to cry.

SHIPS TALLY:

Kondou x Princess Bubbles: honestly I don’t even really want to talk about it. The memory of how I felt throughout this whole ordeal still haunts me.

Gintoki x Hijikata: yeah I know it was just a flashback and an indirect reference to Gintoki, but I NEEDED THIS DAMMIT.

Disclaimer: Gintama is not only about shipping. Gintama is hilarious, clever, exciting, poignant, heart-breaking, loving, brilliant, and just so freaking amazing.  It is only due to Sorachi-sama’s generosity that I can enjoy Gintama on yet another level, the shippy level, and I am forever grateful for that. GINTAMA IS LIFE AND LOVE.

Gintama manga chap 693

~

Dear Gintama gods and Sorachi-sama,

Something doesn’t add up: how can Kondou be only just getting married with Princess Bubbles when Shinpachi already had a picture of their marriage 23 chapters ago (lesson 670), which he showed it to Otose and Catherine at the start of this timeskip portion of the story? The wedding portrait back then clearly showed junior and the baby chimp as well...Princess Bubbles was wearing her gown, Kondou was in his tux...although it does look like he still has his pants on...so was that simply a pre-wedding photo? But Shinpachi made it seem like it was the actual wedding photo so...I’m confused. What’s going on? I know you can’t really answer me, so bear with me as I struggle through this enigma on my own. Based on the flashbacks in this chapter, the decision for Kondou to once again marry Princess Bubbles of the Planet Shoujo (what happened to “Planet Gorilla”...did they rename their planet in the interim?) happened two years ago, right after they decided to disband the Shinsengumi (and thank you for revisiting Hijikata’s declaration to search for Gintoki from a different angle...I am still riding that high from last week). Right off the bat, I don’t understand why he even has to go through this again, since back in the Yagyuu arc, the marriage was originally arranged by his higher-ups in the Bakufu who wanted peace with the Gorillans Shoujoans. Considering the fact that the Shoujoans didn’t jump in to help attack Earth two years ago, it would seem like they’ve been pretty cool with Earth all this time, so it’s not there’s actual conflict going on. Therefore, other than Matsudaira, who in the government right now is even pushing for this political marriage to go through yet again? I can’t imagine Soyo being that sadistic...and if it was a decision Zura and Matsudaira both came up with two years ago, first of all, why wait two years to have the wedding take place, and secondly, most important of all, WHYYYY? Why do they need to forge any type of relationship with the Shoujoans? If those guys were such a formidable force, where the hell were they two years ago when Earth really could have used their help with the Liberation Army? Sure, the Tendoshuu are attacking Edo again, but they’re a decidedly smaller group than the Lib Army...there is no way the Tendoshuu in their current form are a big enough threat to force anyone into marriage with a gorilla in order to secure an alliance with that army.  

Even from the Shoujoans’ point of view I’m not sure I understand their motivation for even wanting this marriage. They’ve been MIA all this time yet now, all of a sudden, they want Kondou to marry their princess again, even though she’s been knocked up twice already? I mean, I can understand them wanting to find her a husband during her first pregnancy YEARS ago to save her from embarrassment back then, and who better to marry her than the guy who was supposed to be her fiance anyway, but now that she‘s had two kids with some unknown baby daddy, hate to say this, but hasn’t the embarrassment ship sailed a while ago already? And if she’s telling her brethren that Kondou was the one who knocked her up both times, I would imagine they would have forced this shotgun wedding long ago. Which brings me back to the question: why are we doing this? I mean, not that the whole sequence wasn’t amusing, but it’s also rather distressing to see our dear Kondou being forced into the same nightmare scenario he managed to dodge half a dozen years or so ago. That moment above where he is thinking “I have no idea what anyone’s saying”? I pretty much echo his mood, except just replace his words with “I have no idea why this is happening...again”. When you first reintroduced the idea of Kondou actually marrying Princess Gorilla back in chapter 670, I must confess, I almost immediately went into denial mode. A large part of me was hoping that all of the gorilla shenanigans was just a façade for Shinpachi’s sake: that Kondou and Tae-chan have actually secretly wedded and she is indeed pregnant with his child, but she simply cannot bring herself to tell her little brother yet because she’s afraid of how he would react. I guess that lovely scenario can still be a reality, but I wish you would stop chipping away at my hope like this. I know you do have a sadistic streak, Sorachi-sama, but I’m also quite delicate at heart, so please, have mercy on me. I know Gintama is not a shoujo manga—thank the gods for that, I wouldn’t love it this much if it were one—so it’s not your problem that I’m constantly hoping for a final fantasy for my favorite couples, but if you are not going to give us true romance, then at the very least, please don’t torture us with non-consensual bestiality. Kondou is a sweet, decent, brave, and lovely man, despite his stalking and exhibitionist tendencies. He really does deserve better than being married to a gorilla three times his size. Have mercy on him too, please. UHO.

Yours truly,

A silly fangirl with yaoi dreams

(^3^)    

PS: Just to reiterate, I am still VERY grateful for this:

Really one of the most anxiety-inducing chapter images in the entire series considering the announcement that came with it.

MY 9 FAVORITE MOMENTS IN LESSON 694:

This chapter was even more distressing than the last because I just couldn’t believe we were spending so much time with the gorillas when we would only have five chapters left. I remember feeling rather alarmed, anxious and slightly depressed at the same time. But there was also a smidgen of resignation because I was thinking, if this was the way Sorachi-sama wanted to end the series, who am I to question. It was all in all, a very perplexing time, and I’m glad all of that is behind us now.

1) Kondou’s very very unsuccessful attempt at the Shoujoian (Shoujoan? Shoujoese? I really couldn’t decide so I just went with Shoujoian) language.

2) This was all an equal mixture of hilarity and distress for me because of the deep hole Kondou was further digging for himself due to his lack of fluency in the gorilla language (I guess that’s proof that he’s not as gorilla as everyone deemed him to be). I was seriously worried that he would never be able to leave his wife because he was unknowingly convincing her how much he loved her.

3) A few more inches closer and I would have had to count Kondou and Princess Bubbles’ baby daddy as CANON in the ships tally.

4) It was a cheap laugh but I still laughed anyway. Sometimes you just have to appreciate the simple, obvious jokes.

5) In retrospect, the fact that Sorachi-sama was still dishing out new names and concepts for us to remember when there was supposedly only five chapters left should have clued me in that something was up and there’s no way the series would be ending in just five mere chapters.

6) Even though the whole silly antics involving the Shoujoians were stressing me out because I hated that we were spending so much time with them, this chapter did make me feel sympathy for Princess Bubbles and I actually started considering things from her point of view. I guess that’s where my sense of resignation started coming in: I figured that if she had to stay as Kondou’s wife, despite her species, she really wasn’t too shabby a choice. I mean, she seems kind and she’s royalty. He could definitely do worse.

7) I didn’t think they would actually kill Kondou but I still found it darkly funny that they were trying by accident.

8) Kondou bare butt.

9) At the time, I THOUGHT it was the Shoujoians doing this, thanks to Kondou being smashed head first into the control console, and I was actually impressed. I thought the gorillas were going to be the ones to save Earth this time around, which I thought would be rather fitting, all things considered.

SHIPS TALLY:

Kondou x Princess Bubbles: I wasn’t thrilled about this final fantasy for Kondou of course, but I was seriously preparing myself to just accept it. That’s how defeated I felt.

Princess Bubbles x Junior’s Daddy:  Of course I wished all the best for this silly couple. In fact, I FERVENTLY wanted them to have a happy ending. 

Disclaimer: Gintama is not only about shipping. Gintama is hilarious, clever, exciting, poignant, heart-breaking, loving, brilliant, and just so freaking amazing.  It is only due to Sorachi-sama’s generosity that I can enjoy Gintama on yet another level, the shippy level, and I am forever grateful for that. GINTAMA IS LIFE AND LOVE.