CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 241
QUESTION FROM MR. “OF VOLUME ONE I HAVE A COPY OF THE FIFTH REPRINT, BUT FROM VOLUME TWO ONWARDS ALWAYS THE FIRST ISSUE”, FROM FUKUOKA PROVINCE
I have a question for you, Sorachi sensei: how did Mountain Zaki, with that eccentric hairdo, become spy agent Sagaru Yamazaki (Jimmy)? I would love to know the evolution of his hair!
ANSWER:
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 242
QUESTION FROM MR. SHOE BEAK AND GOKIJET, KANAGAWA PROVINCE
I am writing to you regarding a matter that goes back some time, Sorachi sensei. In the 593rd lesson, there is a scene in which you see a child who looks like Utsuro tied to some kind of pole. Utsuro is immortal and enjoys eternal youth, right? If he doesn’t age or die, then logically he shouldn’t have had a childhood, right?
Let me know!
ANSWER:
To be precise, Utsuro is not exactly immortal nor eternally young, but he is a human being who preserves himself prodigiously well thanks to a very powerful petrol, the altana. It’s not that he can’t die, but he has an exceptional capacity for recovery. It is not that he has eternal youth, but he ages at an extraordinarily slow rate. Therefore, when his body was not yet mature, he grew like any other person, whereas after the age of development his cellular ageing slowed down radically. So, to the eyes of ordinary mortals it seems that he does not age at all, but in reality this is not the case.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 243
QUESTION FROM MR SHO NAKANISHI, HYOGO PROVINCE
Good morning, Sorachi sensei. I am an aspiring history, geography and civics teacher, although I admit I am not the ideal candidate because I am a bit ignorant about geopolitics. I wanted to ask if you could please explain the Brexit issue to me, perhaps by making a comparison with your work, so maybe I can understand it better. I would be infinitely grateful!
ANSWER:
The situation is this.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS. QUESTION CORNER 244
QUESTION FROM MR. “I VISITED THE GINTAMA EXHIBITION” OF THE PROVINCE OF MIE
I have a big dream, but I tend to always put myself down and feel inferior to others, so I often find myself thinking that I’ll never achieve it. How do I gain confidence in myself? Can you tell me how you do it, Sorachi sensei?
ANSWER:
I think the key to fulfilling your dream is not to gain self-confidence, but to develop great tenacity and never give up on your idea, no matter how feasible it is. That’s how I think. For example, in the manga world it works that the more popular an author is, the more sensitive he is to reader surveys and comments, and therefore the more fearful he is. This pushes him to never spare himself, and sometimes he brags about it, but that’s not the point. The important thing is to get involved, regardless of your level of self-esteem, because if you don’t act, you can’t achieve anything. Even jealousy or envy of those who perform better, as well as anxiety or fear for the future, can provide a great boost. In fact, these kinds of feelings that you would normally be ashamed of can become a very powerful fuel, so try to learn to convert any thought into energy, no matter how negative it seems. Once it has started to burn, fire is still fire. Whether it is lit with wood or an erotic magazine, the important thing is to get a good blaze.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 245
QUESTION FROM MR. “I’M NOT ZURA BUT KATSURAAA!”, FROM YAMANASHI PROVINCE
Hello, Sorachi sensei, I have something to ask you that I’ve always wondered about: why do the names of the characters in Gintama always differ, even by just one letter, from the names of the historical characters they’re based on?
ANSWER.
Well, frankly, this has two advantages: on the one hand it allows me to exploit the positive halo of those characters who have gone down in history as heroes, and on the other it allows me to make them do anything, even the most reprehensible, bypassing people’s disapproval, because “After all, they’re other people”. Anyway, my idea is to draw a Japan that has taken another road, parallel to ours, following the arrival of the extraterrestrials. That’s why the names differ from the real ones, just as the story differs from the real one, despite the many references.
CONTACT WITH THE READERS: QUESTION CORNER 246
QUESTION FROM MR. NORIO, OSAKA PROVINCE
Good morning, sensei. What do you think about putting cornflakes in the parfait? I’m not convinced by the idea of increasing the volume of the parfait, but I can’t accept that it makes a crunch! This noise leaves a sort of empty feeling, doesn’t it? If we really have to enrich a parfait, let’s do it with something creamy, no?! Tell me if I’m not right!
ANSWER:
Actually, what makes creaminess interesting is precisely the crunchiness. That is, if we like it so much it is precisely because there are cornflakes that disturb it by making it “crunch”. If the parfait were only creamy, it would be so blatantly cheesy that we’d get bored of it immediately. Parfait is like theatre: to animate a play, you need both the cream and the ice cream – the protagonists – and the cornflakes – the antagonists. If the latter were not there to highlight the former, we would fall asleep before the finale. Rather, it is important to get the order in which the actors enter the scene right. If the cornflakes were at the bottom, it would be like letting the bad guys win and we would be left with a bad taste in our mouths. The ideal would be to put them in the middle, after the main characters have appeared. It wouldn’t be so bad either if one of the two, the cream or the ice-cream, switched sides, or if they defeated them by allying themselves with other characters, such as the chocolate and the fruit. In short, the best thing is to make a big mix. In the meantime, the cornflakes get soft and this is the most moving moment of all, because they who before were proudly shouting “Crunch” at the end die whispering with a thread of voice “Avenge the death of the Saiyans”! So it comes down to the Super Saiyans defeating Frieza and it all ends happily. That said, I always think Dragon Ball doesn’t need Vegeta, because Piccolo is enough. I mean, he even screwed Bulma over from Yamcha!
Having said that, the volume 69 special “Despite the fact that the live action is coming out, I didn’t mention it at all because I only remembered it now” ends here. I’ve tried to fill these pages by touching on the most disparate topics, such as parfait etc. etc., but perhaps it was better to write something about the film, even something negative. In any case, if it is destined to fail, it will fail. I mean, if you’re used to drunk driving, you’ll keep doing it, it’ll never change. The only thing I can hope for is that Oguri’s lower body doesn’t make trouble. Seriously, there’s nothing I could do to stop him from doing that, but it wouldn’t be bad if he was curving around sighing “Shun*” right now. Anyway, knowing that many of you don’t like live action, I’m not going to harp on it here, but I wish you’d at least watch Jiro Sato in this movie. I mean, you absolutely must. To everyone else: you are allowed to bring them to us by force. It’s a great movie in which everyone did their best to play idiots, so I’d be very happy if you’d go and watch it of your own free will. Well, until the next volume!
New topic: “SHUN, SII SHUN!”
*In addition to being Oguri’s name, “Shun” is the Japanese onomatopoeia that expresses melancholy.
Yorozuya Shinigami 