Thank you for buying Gintama 38!
I haven’t told you yet, but it’s been decided that starting from April the anime will resume. And that’s also thanks to your support!
You might think that at the very moment it was finished, it was decided behind the scenes that it would be resumed, but that’s not the case. It’s true that everyone said they wanted to do something so that they could rebroadcast it, but I thought it was definitely over. However, understanding the atmosphere, I said: “With everyone’s strength we’ll make it!”, but then, alone with my editor, I spoke as if it was no longer necessary. Talking about the directors, I would call them ‘superfluous’, or ‘useless’, and maybe they too would think ‘We don’t need you there’, or ‘We only need the Jump brand’. But I wouldn’t have imagined that we would start to see each other as a ‘source of income’ for each other again… The world is hard to understand. I hear anxious voices like “Won’t we have to worry, since we don’t have enough episodes of the original work yet?”, or “They’ll finish again soon”. No problem, before the supply of episodes runs out, such vulgar anime will definitely be deleted! In fact, just in case the original work will be eliminated too… So I can’t guarantee anything about the duration, but I can promise you one thing: I’ll work hard, as I did until now, both for the manga and the anime, so that I won’t have any regrets.
So just in case the time comes when we fall down and set off a dirty firework, say the following: “The anime is to blame, but the manga is healthy… Resume its publication!”
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 97
QUESTION FROM MR. “MY DAD HAS METABOLIC SYNDROME” FROM HYOGO PROVINCE
The title of the 150th lesson in volume 18 is “There’s no two without three”, but the 322nd in volume 37 is also titled “There’s no two without three”. They are completely the same. Is this a simple mistake?
ANSWER:
It is not a mistake. You say it as if you have made a great discovery, but I want you to re-read that title carefully and keep waiting because… There is no two without three.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 98
QUESTION FROM MR. “BECAUSE I LIKED THE NAME OF A CERTAIN CHARACTER, I MEMORIZED IT IN TWO DAYS BY REPEATING IT OFTEN, SO MY MOTHER SAID, ‘BUT DO YOU HAVE A HEADACHE?’ DAMN IT!”, FROM YAMANASHI PROVINCE
Good morning, Sorachi sensei! I have a question, or rather a favour to ask of you. My family has decided to have a dog, but we haven’t chosen a name yet. So I’d like to ask you to do that. I hate normal things, so I don’t want to give him the usual name that everyone gives their dog. I think you could come up with a wonderful name (?) like a certain character’s…
ANSWER:
You don’t ask a middle-aged man you don’t know to choose a dog’s name lightly. Since it will be his for life, I don’t like the idea of it being chosen in such a bizarre way. Even a banal name is fine, if it’s one you’ve thought up in your head and with all your heart. Even something as common as Pochi or Taro becomes unique in the world! Can you understand me? The important thing is your heart, period.
You can even call it ” Heart-period”.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 99
QUESTION BY MISS RISA MINAKAWA
I think you underestimate Mr. Yamcha too much, sensei! It’s true that he is often cited as an example of weakness, but you shouldn’t judge his worth from that point of view alone. First of all, he enjoys everyone’s trust. You only have to see Puar to understand that. Dragon Ball is famous as a manga in which revolts of the inferiors and the subversion of the hierarchical order often occur. It is rare to find a character who remains loyal to his master. Even the fact that Krillin addresses Yamcha with respect, despite the fact that he is an older and better student of martial arts, shows that he is held in high regard. (By the way, Yamcha frankly addresses Tenshinhan, who seems to be the same age as him, asking him, for example, “Don’t you have any money?”). Also regarding the separation from Bulma she was actually jilted by Yamcha. It’s not possible for women to dump such a man, but he chose to become a clown so Bulma wouldn’t lose face. There’s a tendency in Dragon Ball to judge characters’ worth based on strength alone, but I think it’s Yamcha who’s great from a human standpoint.
ANSWER:
I FEEL THE SAME WAY.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 100
QUESTION FROM MR. CYBORG NO. 77 OF AKITA PROVINCE
Good morning, Sorachi sensei! What does the existence of Yamcha mean to you? Tell me!
ANSWER:
Well, Yamcha is often cited as an example of weakness, but you shouldn’t judge his worth from that standpoint alone. First of all, he enjoys everyone’s trust. You only have to see Puar to understand that. Dragon Ball is famous as a manga in which revolts of the inferiors and the subversion of the hierarchical order often occur. It is rare to find a character who remains loyal to his master. Even the fact that Krillin addresses Yamcha with respect, despite the fact that he is an older and better student of martial arts, shows that he is held in high regard. (By the way, Yamcha frankly addresses Tenshinhan, who seems to be the same age as him, asking him, for example, “Don’t you have any money?”). Also regarding the separation from Bulma, she was actually jilted by Yamcha. There’s no way women would dump such a man, but he chose to become a clown so Bulma wouldn’t lose face. In Dragon Ball we tend to judge the value of characters based on strength alone, but I think it’s Yamcha who’s great from a human standpoint.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 101
QUESTION FROM MR. GORILLA WHO LOVES YAMCHA, TOKYO METROPOLITAN AREA
Good morning, Sorachi sensei! Question: How did Yamcha get the scars on his face?
ANSWER:
Well, I guess during training. But Yamcha probably… Hey, you need to write to the Dragon Ball department!
A WILD HOOLIGAN PASSING BY
This is the self-contained work I drew for the project I wrote about in the previous volume. When I decided to tell you about the ringleaders, I thought that you young people wouldn’t be able to understand them well, because maybe they look like the ogres that appear in fairy tales. So by talking about the ringleaders, the punks, and the onyanko as if they were characters in a fantasy, it made for a really absurd manga. The work schedule I had to follow was hellish, but while I was drawing I was having fun and kept working at full speed. Then the plot of the work expanded more and more and I ended up touching on a tremendous amount of ideas, which I had a hard time summarizing. This work amounts to one of about a hundred pages, so it is very difficult to read. Maybe enjoy it by dividing it into three parts… But if I tell you that in the afterword, it’s a bit pointless…
Having said that, volume 38, that is, the special on Yamcha, ends here. But how many postcards about Yamcha have come in? Well, the third one is a fake, I wrote it. I wanted the last one to be a funny ending, so I wrote it myself as a joke.
Listen up, everybody! From now on, when you send such postcards, write three different questions. No matter how hard I looked, I could only find two postcards related to Yamcha, so I had no choice but to make the last one myself. Try to understand the atmosphere, and don’t let Sorachi sensei commit such a shameful act ever again! I know very well that if you work hard, you will succeed! I believe in you!
New topic: “When writing three types of postcards, don’t forget to make it look like they were sent by different people, using different P.N.’s.”
Yorozuya Shinigami 