SAKATA GINTOKI
"The country? The skies? You can have them. I’m busy just protecting what’s right in front of me. I don’t know what’ll happen to me in the future, but if something has fallen at my feet, then the least I can do is pick it up."
| Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Japanese Name: | 坂田 銀時 | |
| Romanized Name: | Sakata Gintoki | |
| Official English Name: | Gintoki Sakata | |
| Date of Birth: | 10 Oct / Libra | |
| Age: | Late Twenties | |
| Titles: | Shiroyasha, | Corpse Eating Demon |
| Physical Features | ||
|---|---|---|
| Race: | Human | |
| Gender: | Male | |
| Height: | 177 cm (5' 9½") | |
| Weight: | 68 kg (150 lb) | |
| Eye Color: | Green/Gray (Manga), | Maroon/Wine Red (Anime) |
| Hair Color: | Silver | |
| Status: | Alive |
| Professional Status | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Affiliation(s): | Old Yorozuya (Former) | Old Jouishishi (Former) | 4 Devas of Kabuki District |
| Occupation(s): | Founder and President of Yorozuya |
BACKGROUND
It is unknown where he was born, what happened to his parents, and what he was doing before becoming a child scavenger. It is also unknown how long he was doing this. He gained the nickname "Corpse Eating Demon" from the nearby villagers due to being commonly seen wandering in deserted battlefields searching corpses for food and weapons to survive. During one search, Gintoki encounters Yoshida Shouyou who had heard the rumors about the child and came to investigate. Taking a liking to Gintoki and seeing himself in the child, Shouyou gave Gintoki his sword and asked him to come. Gintoki became Shouyou's first student of his newly opened school, Shoka Sonjuku, where he learned basic swordsmanship and academics. After gathering more students, all mostly poor, the school earns the attention and scrutiny of the wealthier people in the village. They also gained the attention of two military academic students who became disillusioned with the academy and the people attending it, Katsura Kotarou and Takasugi Shinsuke. The two were attracted by the school's goal for the children, striving to achieve their own ideal of a samurai while struggling against themselves. The two will later officially join after helping fend off some officials from trying to arrest Shouyou. Gintoki later earns himself a rival, Takasugi.
Years later during the Kansei Purge, despite Gintoki's best efforts to stop them, the Tenshouin Naraku arrested Shouyou and burned down the school. Before leaving, Shouyou asked Gintoki to protect his fellow students, as a promise, to which Gintoki mentally agreed. After learning what happened, the students decided to join the ongoing Joui War, allied with the Joui, to rescue their imprisoned teacher. They met Sakamoto Tatsuma during the fight and Gintoki gains the nickname Shiroyasha ("White Demon") due to his mostly white attire, silver hair, and of course, his ferocious fighting style. At one point, Takasugi asked Gintoki to protect Shouyou in his stead, though Gintoki never truly agreed and instead asked Takasugi for a promise: to stay alive. During a battle, after Sakamoto was taken off the front lines due to injury, everyone except Gintoki, Katsura, and Takasugi were killed, and the trio was captured. Gintoki was forced to choose between killing Shouyou to save Katsura and Takasugi and vice versa. He decided to keep his promise to Shouyou and protect his friends, but in turn "broke" his promise to Takasugi. Shouyou gives Gintoki a final "thank you" before he is beheaded by him. After their enemies left, the trio buried their teacher's head and their comrades' corpses, then went their separate ways, leaving the war. Sakamoto was only able to find Gintoki before he too, left.
Sometime later, a wandering Gintoki overheard a man trying to offer his daughter to be executed in his place to a group of officials. The man was a Joui informant who had given up information on certain Joui and their families to these officials that belonged to a political faction within the government. Gintoki offered himself in the daughter's place to protect her; both he and the informant were arrested. In jail, he unknowingly met the girl that he saved, who was adopted by the executioner, the 16th Ikeda Yaemon. He saw Gintoki's deeds, and after executing Asaemon's father, declared that he had no right to execute the person who was a good man, then presumed to released him. Injured and starving he wandered in the cold winter night to a graveyard to die, until he encountered Otose leaving food offerings at her husband's grave that he was leaning on. He asked her if he could have the manjuu offerings she set down and she told him to ask her husband, who was receiving the offerings instead of her. Gintoki then ate her husband's manjuu without asking him, saying that dead people don't speak. In return, he made a promise to her husband that he would protect Otose until she dies.
After this encounter, Gintoki became a tenant on the second floor of Snack Otose and founded the Old Yorozuya with Kanemaru, Ikesawa, and Furuhashi. Together, their business flourished and they became famous. Nevertheless, for many reasons, Gintoki threw his partners into a river, and ended up working in the Yorozuya alone until the start of the series.
APPEARANCE
Gintoki has naturally wavy hair which causes him no end of distress. His silvery-blue hair is in a perpetually messy state, which is sometimes exaggerated into a frizzy afro when Gintoki's hair is hit by extreme heat. He has indeterminate grey/green (in the manga) or bordeaux-colored (in the anime) "dead fish eyes" (comparison courtesy of Hijikata Toushirou), which are called such because they are nearly always half-lidded. He has fair skin and has a fairly muscular build despite the amount of sweets he eats.
His standard outfit consists of a white yukata with a blue swirl pattern on the bottom and at the end of the sleeves, worn so that his arm only goes through the left sleeve and the right half droops down over his obi. Over this he wears a black belt buckled so that there is leftover dangling from the buckle, from which his bokutō Lake Toya hangs. Underneath, he wears a black red-lined shirt with a popped collar and black pants. He also wears knee-high black boots, buckled at the top and above his foot, which appear to add about half an inch to his height. It is shown that he has a closet full of replicas of this outfit, so whenever it gets destroyed he can appear in the next episode or chapter with a new one. All in all, his outfit suggests an air of laziness and may be a reflection of Gintoki's own personal sense of style, though it is revealed that his usual attire is actually the school jersey for the Zunborans.
During the winter, he will sometimes wear a haori, thicker kimonos, or more layers of vary colors as well as scarves.
During the events of the Dekoboko Arc he switched genders due to a curse and was seen in his female form. In that form he had silvery-blue hair and was wearing Gintoki's normal clothes. Later, he wears a sleeveless white yukata with a blue swirl pattern on the bottom with a blue obi and black boots.
As with most Gintama characters, his outfit and appearance change regularly for the sake of gags
PERSONALITY
Gintoki is extremely lazy. He is often seen wearing a dumb expression on his face and spends his days lounging around reading Shounen Jump whilst imparting wise and sage-like advice to his younger employees, even though he doesn't actually know what he's talking about most of the time. Due to his poverty and unwillingness to do mostly anything, he is always behind on his rent and often runs away when Otose, his landlady, comes to collect the payment. He often blows all of his savings on Pachinko and other gambling games, which Shinpachi and Kagura often scold him for. However, even though he is lazy, Gintoki is quite dedicated to his job and tries to help people with the best of his abilities (usually in a very strange and twisted way).
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