Pirako’s master plan comes to light and Gin finds out just how badly he read the situation.
What They Say:
Pirako has double crossed Gin! Her real plan is to help Jirocho, her father, take over the town. Can Gin stop a war?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the story of Pirako brought in over the previous episode as she had Gin become her strongest man in the area to help her in her quest, primarily with him making sure she didn’t go crazy, the truth came out about the sunflowers and gardening aspects of what was going on with those that were abused by those in power. Pirako’s dialogue continues to be amusing as she says everything in a flowery way, which makes people like Gin translate as though blood will be shed, but she’s really being rather straightforward about it. But at the same time, she’s made a move to push Gin into becoming the big power of the city in her attempts to take down the big four that have turned things into a stalemate of sorts, an uneasy to be acceptable overall calm, so she can have her revenge.
Her push to get Gin going up against the others has been amusing as it built up steam in the last episode, but it actually turns a bit deadly here with her stabbing people in order to get her point across. While she did want to literally cover someone with flowers of red, she also has no qualms about using her weapon to accomplish her goals. It’s an amusing balance and it helps to make Pirako rather unpredictable in a way. What she ends up doing through all of this and her encounters with others of the big four is to sow some seeds of dissent and to highlight that not all is as it seems. The idea of her getting these people to go against each other is a tried and true one, and you can see the manipulations in their base form here working to some degree, but you have to wonder at the ease that she can goad them. Otose at least manages to keep her composure throughout much of it and simply observes much of it while feeling that things are progressing in an inevitable direction.
Though there is some humor to be had in this episode, particularly the amusing scene about Kagura wanting to get ice cream and others suggesting they just go to the gas station as a compromise, the majority of the episode is focused on the moody atmosphere and the older characters as they deal with the progression of events. Gin’s in the position of being someone that can try and stop things from going too far but he has to deal with the idea that he can’t actually save everyone and keep things as they are. Gin’s largely about the status quo as things really change very rarely in this series, but sometimes events do move in interesting ways and the show allows him to get very serious here, which is interesting to watch and already reminiscent of that movie sequence that was shown in-series recently.
In Summary:
Gintama continues to be a series that I find myself having very mixed reactions to because of the way it moves all over the map. This episode plays up the serious side for the vast majority of it and it has its appeal, though that comes more from the characters and how they act rather than the story itself which feels overly forced and out of place. Gintama tends to survive better with the outlandish comedy and wacky moments, but when they turn serious they can really create a good bit of atmosphere and action with strong animation. There are a few such moments here, particularly in the final act of the episode, that really shine. With the ties that Gin has had with Otose, seeing the story progress in this direction certainly offers a lot of potential that leaves you curious as to how it will really all be resolved.
Grade: C+
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.