MohsinMan99 (Level 21)

Overview

Welcome to the fourth Gintama(actually-it's the fifth!) report. It's been a long break since the last report but I was a bit busy with exams and this arc was 5 episodes long so this required lots of time. Further delayed because I lost the will to do this due to editing mistakes twice (but let's forget that for now).

I'm grateful to my team, especially AnnaBanana and Taka for still supporting me and helping me with the Gintama wiki. They worked on the wiki images when I was not able to due to lack of time. Thank you team!

This report covers Episodes 232-236 of the Gintama Anime, namely the Renho Invasion Arc. Now without any futher ado, let's start!

Plot (Episodes 232-236)

Elizabeth has ran away from home and Katsura takes the aid of the Yoruzuya to search for him. Katsura doesn't remember the circumstances but try to recollects it by looking for clues on Elizabeths signs. During one of his flashbacks, recollects everything. A mysterious woman however appears and tells that that Katsura was fooled all along-Elizabeth was the commander of a race of aliens, the Renho who were out to invade earth. Elizabeth was just deceiving Katsura and the others all along.

She introduces herself as Fumiko and tells them that the main reason Elizabeth ran away was to go back to Renho Leader & Supreme Commander, Dark Vader and prepare for the invasion of the earth. She tells them they don't stop the Renho now, the earth and it's people will be doomed forever. The Yoruzuya trio and Katsura are the only things standing between earth and it's imminent destruction.

Will Gintoki and the others manage to stop the invasion of the earth from the dreaded Dark Vader? Will Katsura have to face his dear friend Elizabeth and fight him? Will we be treated to some mecha action?

So what are you waiting for, go and watch the Renho Invasion Arc of Gintama!

Verdict

Renho Invasion Arc

Warning: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

THE GOOD

232

• While searching for clues, the team happens accross a room where all the signs Elizabeth used are stored. We are treated to some funny and not-so-funny flashbacks.
• Sakamoto and Mutsu are back. It's after a long while too.

233

• Gin and the others dressing as Elizabeth and the ensuing commotion. Hilarious!
• Katsura's scream when he sees Elizabeth again. "ELIZAAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHH!!!". It echoed through the whole planet!
• The people turning into Elizabeth sequence was also pretty funny. Sakamoto striking a deal with Vader even more.
• Vaderzabeth showing off his sword skills. Cool.
• The Shinpachi being only a pimple joke.
• And of course, Shinpachi's reaction to above joke.

234

• The part of Elizabeth being unable to recognize his own girlfriend when she changed her ribbon to another color. I get the strange feeling nobody could either.
• Soo many references to other anime and popular characters in this show by the Elizabeths that I found to be pretty funny, especially Narutozabeth.
• Leezabeth asks whether or not they can bring their PSP's into the battlefield and Katsura's reply to him. Also, the 3M part.
• Sakamoto: A planet is just a rock. It takes people to build a world.
• First time (after a long time) we hear Elizabeth speak.

235

• Elizabeth and Katsura moments. Couldn't help laughing at them.
• Flashy Mecha action. Depending on your tastes, you will enjoy or hate it.

236

• Hilarious method of dodging attacks. One of the high points of this episode.
• After defeating the boss, Eren leaves but not before modifying everyone's memories of the events. Hilarious moments ensue.

This episode marks the last appearance of Elizabeth and...the ending will make you laugh so hard you can almost share the same feeling as Gin and Shin aare feeling in this image:

THE BAD

...

232

• So many references to Japanese politicians and poking fun at them. Gintama got into trouble for this.
• Fumiko and the pointless "fan-service" (if you can call it that). Was really unnecessary IMO.

233

• More unnecessary Fumiko "fan-service". Just no good. And this was dragged out quite a bit.
• Sakamoto puking out each and every time because he gets airsick...overused joke IMO.

234

• Starting from this episode, it's MECHA... MECHA...MECHA!!! Of course, it's only limited to this arc so bear with it if you hate lots of Mecha action (like me).

235

• Mecha action unlimited.
• The main weapon of the combined "MegaZord" is a blast from it's crotch. Didn't find that funny though.

236

• Episode was nice and had a good buildup. No bad points.

THE BIZARRE

232

• This episode got into some trouble because of parodying the Japanese Government and a minister Renho. I heard they were contesting in elections that time and in this episode, they show Renho throwing food at an old lady.

233

• Apparently, everyone on Elizabeth's planet has game cartridges for food. The more popular the game, the more expensive and rare the food. "Food" such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc. is only served to the elites and any commoner found eating them is executed. LOL.
• Episode comments from the director: Speaking of mecha, will this anime be able to survive? When we first started Gintama, we figured there wouldn't be any mecha.

234

• Zura: Earthlings treasure their three M's above all. Their money, their mothers and their manhood.
  We start by hitting them in their manhood and immobilizing them. Then we take their mothers hostage and seize their money!
• On seeing the Gunsams, Shinpachi comments that they are going to be sued. Fumiko says no as they are same company so they can get away with it.
  Fumiko: The earth won't last long against such an onsalught.
  Shinpachi: Uh, we won't last long against a copyright infringement lawsuit.
  Fumiko: Both were animated by Sunrise so a lawsuit would go nowhere.They planned ahead. *winks*

235

• The Renho planet was a huge mecha all along. It was originally known as Sagi and the D Vaders were just pawns.

236

• Final episode of this arc. They skipped the opening and started with the ending as the opening. Weird. Oh well, at least saves some time.
• The mecha''s main weapon is a blast from it's crotch. Which does nothing against the planet.
• Sagi: You thought you could use your limited knowledge from dirty magazines and porn to defeat me?

REFERENCES

232

• Katsura refers back to episode 230 of Gintama while trying to remember Elizabeth. (4th-wall break No:1)
• Reference to some Lionel Ritchie commercial (I guess this was Japan only?)
• Reference to famous singer Tokiko-kato as "Tokiko-gato."
• In one of the flashbacks, we see Elizabeth watching the Gintama movie and also reading Shonen Jump. (4th-wall break No:2)
• Star Wars template for the intro. Cool!

233

• Sakamoto talks about hurrying up because "Jin" is being released on DVD. Jin is a popular Japanese drama about a brain-surgeon who accidently travels to the past in Edo period Japan and must find a way to get back. Funny thing is, Gintama is Edo period Japan mixed with a modern setting with an alien invasion excuse. (4th-wall break No:3)
• Each one of the Elizabeth parodies certain well-known characters.
• The game cartridges are all popular games from the NES/SNES era. Including but not limited to Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Super Mario, etc.
• The 2 commanders of the Renho army are called as "Double Dragons". No points for guessing what that refers to.
• The "Gunsams" are actually the very famous RX-78 type Gundams. The Earth federation is now the Renho federation.

Identify the characters in these images and win a trip to Otakuland!

234

• Shinpachi says that stopping the Renho is even harder than finding Waldo. Waldo, is a popular character from the "Where's Wally?" series. Wally is known as Waldo in NA/JP region. The main media, a series of picture books in which the reader has to find Waldo in double-page spread illustrations depicting dozens of people doing something. Needless to say, that locating isn't easy at all.
• Reference to Bright Noa, a popular character from Mobile Suit Gundam.
• Fusion of the mecha and the spaceships into an even larger Mecha, Kaien. Seems to be a reference to the Gundam series.

235

• In typical Super Sentai/Power Rangers fashion, all the ships combine together into a very huge and powerful Mecha!With it's own theme song and With 5 pilots at rather...interesting locations. Shinpachi gets the...pimple.
• Clause 2 of Sakamoto: When Renho are visiting earth, let them play SNES games along with NES.
• (ActRaiser game in hand) On the earth, you can eat all the ActRaiser games you want!
• Shinpachi: Seriously, what's wrong with this planet? They beytrayed their leader for an ActRaiser! (ActRaiser is popular SNES game in Japan).
• Kaien is the name of the huge mecha. Reference to Remus Kaien of Gundam.

236

• The hospital scene is probably a reference to BlackJack series but I'm not sure.

RATING

My personal opinion on the various episodes (on a scale of 1 to 5):

• Episode 232: 2.5/5
• Episode 233: 3/5
• Episode 234: 2/5
• Episode 235: 3.5/5
• Episode 236: 5/5 (you get trolled at the end...isn't that nice?)

Thanks!

Thank you for taking your time to read this report. I hope you found it interesting and a bit knowledgeable (because Crunchyroll never explains any of the references) and you go and watch the episodes after reading it. I know I was a bit late with this report and there are more episodes waiting to be reported so you'll be seeing some more reports this week from me. Hopefully. :)

I'd also like to thank my team, W.I.K.I. Nation for bearing with my late reports :) and working on the Gintama pages while I was away. I'll try not to be slow next time.

For those who do not know our team, here are our members (in no particular order):

Team W.I.K.I. Nation

• Annabanana
• MohsinMan99
• KuroNekoXIII
• Hibaru
• Halberdierv2
• Piface314

My team is working on other series as well. Here are their latest blogs:

Special Blogs

• Share Your Favorite Guilty Crown Sound Tracks by KuroNekoXIII
• Beginner Guide to Rave Master by Takashichea

This Week's Blogs

• Sket Dance 42 by Taka Coming Soon
• Fairy Tail 114 by Taka Coming Soon
• Gintama 239-240 by MohsinMan99 Coming Soon
• Beelzebub 51 by Taka

Last Week's Blogs

• Beelzebub 50 by Taka
• Sket Dance 41 by Taka
• Fairy Tail 113 by Taka
• Guilty Crown 12 by Kuro

If you feel you can help us by working out on Gintama or any other series and would like to join our team, feel free message any of the members.

Help us out OR...

It feels good. :)

I had a hard time googling all that but in the end...it payed off!

Overview

Welcome to the second weekly Gintama article! I'm MohsinMan99 (sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?) and I'll be most likely doing the weekly Gintama articles from now on. The first weekly report, covering Episodes 228 & 229 was brought to you by fellow teammate, Takashichea, who finally convinced me to get up and do something for the wiki and especially Gintama, a series of which I recently became a fan of and for which I've always wanted to contribute to. Thank you, Taka.

Since this is my first report, expect to find some faults here but I shall try my hardest to keep errors out of this. If anybody is willing to help me with these reports or something related to the Gintama pages, feel free to drop by a PM.

This report covers episode 230 : It would take too much effort to make this title sound like a text message subject.

Plot

I bet you never got your phone as I did!

Kagura's friends all own a cellphone and they message each other daily. Kagura starts feeling left out and decides to ask Gintoki to buy her one. However, Gintoki refuses saying they can't afford one. In an eccentric twist, Sadaharu does an act of nature in which Shinpachi finds three cellphones, which, he assumes Sadaharu swallowed due to his habit of eating anything smaller than him. The phones don't work at first so Gintoki gets it repaired by Gengai who only fixes the messaging function of the phone and gives one phone to each of them. After getting a phone, Kagura suddenly begins acting weird, avoiding them and only conversing with them through texting and going so far as to sending them pointless updates every five minutes. On being confronted, Kagura runs away from home making Gintoki and Shinpachi to start searching for her. Morever, they get a message from the man who owns their phones that he is looking for them and will kill them for taking his cellphones.

This guy is looking for his phones and he is not HAPPY!

Will Gintoki and Shinpachi find Kagura before the man finds her or will they themselves become a target of the man?

Verdict

NOTE: Possible spoilers

• Kagura's reactions are definitely the high points in this episode. Her tantrums when being refused to own a cellphone, becoming overjoyed after getting a phone, texting while hiding and her cutesy smiles exhibit a certain kind of childlike innocence.

• As you might know if you've seen some of Shinpachi's reactions before, they never fail to bring a smile to your face. Especially the part where he gets a message from Kagura while in the toilet.

• Gintoki (on the topic of phones that were covered in poop): I don't want to carry around a phone that was covered in poop.Kagura: Humans are always carrying around poop. Only difference is that it will be in your hand instead of your body.

• Catherine's suggestion to Gintoki (saying what it is would ruin it). And also, her comment on Shinpachi's wallpaper.

• Katsura's marketing gimmick was hilarious.

The various ways in which you can misuse your cellphones

BAD

• Death Cancer had a nice entry and had potential to be a really interesting character but sadly didn't live upto my expectations.

• His backstory also seemed kinda forced and not really something natural.

Cancer and his past

• Kagura (as to why she should own a cellphone) : "These days, even babies are born with cell phones dangling from their umblical cords!"
• Shinpachi listening to Otsuu's songs while having a bad day in the toilet. And Kagura's comments on it.
• The sneak peek at Catherine's school life.

Gintoki reading Naruto

• The manga which Gintoki is reading in Shonen Jump is Naruto Shippuden.

• The cover of the Shonen Jump magazine has Dragon Quest and Umibouzo (Kagura's father) images on them.

• Kagura says Gintoki can provide her with a cellphone as he only needs to check his four-dimensional pouch for that.(Doraemon)

• Kagura asking Sadaharu to drag Gintoki into his four-dimensional pocket. (Doraemon)

Thanks

Thank you for reading this. It's my first time writing a report here and formatting this was a real pain as well so go easy on me. It seems HTML code isn't accepted for blogs so after posting this, some things looked out of order but I'm working on it. I'll take it easy on the "Thanks" section for now and fill it with the usual stuff. Taka influenced me to write this so here it is. I may not do one for the next week depending on how things go but I'll try my hardest!

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Team's Weekly Articles This Week

• Beelzebub 38: The Sibling Rivalry by Taka
• Guilty Crown by KuroNekoXIII
• Gintama 230 by Mohsinman99

Last Week's Reports

• Beelzebub 37: That Man Was a Teacher by Taka
• Sket Dance 28: Shinba Michiru's Elegant Cooking by KuroNekoXIII
• Gintama Ep. 228 and 229: Bizarre Sim Tournament by Taka

Team's Misc Blogs from last Week

• Natsu and Zeref's relationship by Sreenivas
• Time Skips on Anime by Sreenivas

MohsinMan99

Gintama fan and an anime obsessed guy

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    Omnipotent= All powerful/Infinite Power (this is the actual definition and other synonymous definitions like "able to do everything" are implications of this)
    Omniscience= All Knowing/ Infinite Knowledge, wisdom, experience 

To give a simple example, a true omniscience should know what value to use for "x" to make this algebraic equation true: 5x = 6x. Even though this is impossible, one could make the argument that "if the character doesn't know what value to use for x to make the equation true, then the character doesn't truly know everything, and is therefore not omniscience".