Gintama Chapter 332

Leave it to Hideki Sorachi to turn a simple school field trip into..something else.

Hello everyone~! It’s Captain reporting for duty! Anyway, what I’m going to do in this post is actually review a manga chapter from Shonen Jump. I’ll be doing Gintama today. This chapter isn’t the latest, though >n<  But I’m just testing the waters, really! To see if anyone really wants this. It’s a completely new idea, after all.

The story of Gintama takes place in Edo (known today as Tokyo because of its name change in 1868), Japan, which was conquered by aliens called Amanto in the late Edo period. The samurai of Japan fought the aliens, but after their defeat the Amanto placed a ban on carrying swords in public. The plot is focused on an eccentric samurai, Gintoki Sakata who helps a teenager named Shinpachi Shimura save his sister Tae from a group of aliens who want to make her part of a brothel. Impressed with Gintoki, Shinpachi becomes his apprentice and works with him as a freelancer in order to pay the monthly rent where Gintoki lives, as well as to know more about him. The two of them rescue a teenage alien girl named Kagura from a group of Yakuza who wanted to use her superhuman strength to kill people. Kagura joins Shinpachi and Gintoki to work as freelancers and the three become known as “Odd Jobs Gin”. While doing their job they encounter the police force Shinsengumi several times, who normally ally with Odd Jobs Gin in their work since they commonly involve dangerous criminals. They also come to meet Gintoki’s former comrades during the Amanto’s invasion, including the terrorist Kotaro Katsura who maintains a friendly relationship with them despite his ambitions to destroy the bakufu. On the other hand, Shinsuke Takasugi acts as a major antagonist throughout the series, as he wants to destroy the bakufu in a more violent way than does Katsura. (credit goes to Wikipedia)

In the previous Gintama chapter: The children in Edo were asked to do an observational journal on the adults and their jobs in the town. Unfortunately, every adult only chased them away. Unable to answer the children’s questions about their ‘work’, finding themselves embarrassed, the adults looked for ways to getting back their pride. The fight continues against the said children, in the form of an invitation that’s going around.

Daigoro and his friends all appear to have received an invitation to the “Patriot Factory”, and the only thing that’s stopping them from throwing it away is the Bikkuriman (popular cartoon) sticker on it. So the kids end up at the factory, thinking, “What the hell…is a Patriot factory?” They’re greeted by Shinpachi and Kagura, who go under rather obvious and overused aliases, “Pachi” and “Gura”. Also, everything, including their speech, is a total rip off from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“I’m Pachi! I’m Gura! And we’re your guides to this factory of dreams!”

The children manage to spot the total unoriginality of their two ‘guides’, and question why they should enter the factory. The smart kid asks about the point of and profits of the factory. They also say that they need permission from the school to tour the factory, and that there’s no point in entering when they see no reason in the facility. But Kagura and Shinpachi convince them to enter the factory and say that all their questions will be answered once they’re inside.

And then Tsukuyo and Sa-chan appear, totally fangirling about the factory. They say they want to sneak a peek inside, but..they’re shot by an employee (obviously Hijikata trying to get his pride back).

The looks on the children’s faces – Priceless.

The sniper’s praised by the Chief, who then says that they need to “speed up the production of Patriot to bring destruction to mankind”. Hijikata offers to shoot the kids as well, but he’s shot in turn by Gintoki (the Chief), because they’re his guests and apparently the “last hope for humanity”. Gintoki welcomes them to the factory, and is informed by Kagura that the kids have no interest in the factory visit. He says they can’t go back, but he’s shot by Shinpachi and Kagura because they’ve told the kids that they can leave if they want to.

By this point, the kids are totally freaked out and are thoroughly convinced that this is an onservational study from hell, because the employees just kill each other like that. They contemplate leaving, but realize that whether or not they leave, there’s still the risk of being shot through the head like the others. The children begin to think that a Patriot must be some awesome weapon that can topple a country.

Shinpachi goes through the history of the Patriot with them. Failing to conceal the fact that they have absolutely no idea what a Patriot can be used for, they come up with some lies, such as the “Father of all Patriots” being the Kin(Patriot)Man from the Sugomanda tribe. None of which I’ve heard of, and this “Father” is obviously just Gintoki wearing a beard. The start of the Patriot is surprisingly just..a slab of meat. (later evolving to a spicy piece of meat, and then to a KFC meal, complete with fries.

The Patriot: Kleenex with two toilet rolls on a stick.

Evolution: Slab of chicken —> Slab of spicy chicken with a bite taken out of it –> somehow becomes a Patriot.

The description of the Patriot then ensues. They’re introduced to the ‘solid part’, Kleenex, which is just the tissue brand, and the neck piece, created from two toilet rolls. And last but not least, the pole, which gets zero description..because it’s a pole. The next place they visit is the production line, because the Patriot is apparently mass-produced. And the first part is.. the Chief, who else?

Gives “Working yourself to death” a new meaning.

How the Patriot is produced:

1.       They take the broken chief and send him down the line. He always had a screw loose. He must be wearing sunglasses.

2.       Take the Kleenex from the Patriot and clean up the bloody chief.

3.       Take the toilet paper from the Patriot and clean up any of the remaining blood.

4.       Use the Patriot to produce a Patriot, use it to wake up the broken chief.

5.       Add a Bikkuriman sticker to the chief.

And the chief has been reborn, but a Patriot has not been produced. It’s not the end of the line, yet. The conveyor belt picks up speed, changing the chief out of his factory outfit, and Tsukuyo and Sa-chan re-appear, cheering for the chief.

Pun note: The fake name given to the chief is ‘Kouji’, which can mean factory work as well as be a name.

Start of the next process, Patriot production part 2:

1.       Enter a flashback from the chief’s life. It must be his father talking about how important it is to make paper to clean people’s posteriors.

2.       Have the kids / visitors freak out and wonder why the hell there’s a flashback.

3.       The mother of the chief appears. Make sure the mother has a beard and resembles a gorilla. Let her talk about how she raised the child to follow his dreams.

4.       Get a “WHY IS THIS EVEN HAPPENING?!” from the children.

5.       A second conveyor belt appears, with another employee on it, talking to the broken chief about how great his dad was, the best at making toilet paper.

6.       Let the conversation on toilet paper drag on.

7.       DRAG ON.

8.       AND DRAG ON until the reviewer is tired of seeing double-entendres.

9.       Let the employees spark rumours of how the chief is creating a weird new product.

10. THE PATRIOT IS COMPLETE!

On a side note: This was also my reaction when I finished this review..

Okay, enough of numbered instructions xD The chief then gets up, amazingly ‘fixed’, and runs against the conveyor belt towards his father, dangling from the ceiling with the wings of an angel. Shinpachi and Kagura ask the kids whether they can still think of the Patriot as garbage, going into philosophy mode. “No matter what work you’re doing, all that matters is that the feeling is there. Anything else is secondary. People gather when you work hard, and it’s this support that makes the work go round.” They then conclude that the children now understand what work is, and ask them to show their support to the chief, but..

“GET OFF THE CONVEYOR BELT ALREADY AND DO SOME WORK!”

End thoughts: Well, this is another typical Gintama chapter. Completely random and..strange. It actually continues on from the previous chapter, where they discover the Patriot and the students get assigned the task to go for an observational study. I still have no idea what a Patriot does, though. I mean, what can two toilet rolls, Kleenex and a pole do? (other than have people dress up in them like in the previous chapter)

I like Gintama because it makes me laugh, a lot. I don’t know, it suits my humour, I guess? I laughed a lot at the part where they all got shot in the head by each other. Ahh, I’m such a sadist. Anyway, I hope you guys like it! This is..a different idea from Hoshi’s manga posts and the usual ani-blogging style so I really don’t have a very clear idea on what I’m doing. Do you want me to continue to do Gintama..or switch to another series in Shonen Jump? Just testing the waters :>

Either way, I want Gintama to lapse into another serious arc. I want to see Gintoki as a hero again, not being kicked around by a group of kids. By the way, this isn’t the exact latest chapter, but ah well, I couldn’t find the scans for the newer ones. Sorry~ >n<

Until next time..

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