Violence lands on Gin’s doorstep once again when a beautifully cute and violent young woman arrives.
What They Say:
Pirako Chin is looking for the strongest man in the Kabuki District. Now Gintoki has an underling who wants to turn Kabuki District into a garden of bright red flowers.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Gintama goes for introducing a new character this time around that seems like a strange mixture of some parts of Kagura with her personality, but one that’s gone to a very cutely violent realm whereas Kagura is just violent and not at all cute about it. Shinpachi finds himself dealing with a young woman named Pirako who he thought was a sleeping drunk when he first encountered her, but it turns out that she’s intent on finding the strongest man in the Kabuki district with the plan to turn all of that district into a garden of red flowers. It’s poetic, but it’s also just a poetic way of saying she wants to turn it into a sea of blood. At least that’s what both Gin and Shinpachi think as they realize they’ve acquired a very dangerous woman into their group for the duration.
While they walk about, Gin tries to get her to be a bit more feminine but it doesn’t work out that well as she has such an edge of violence to her even when she’s looking all adorable that it just leads to more and more trouble. The wordplay comes into effect easily when Gin tries to rename her to help, but that only seems to make things worse and Shinpachi gets over the top in frustration over it. There’s so much anxiety going on just from Shinpachi that it would fill an entire series of almost any other show, but it’s completely understandable when you see how Pirako gets caught up in scams that could lead to incredible amounts of violence should she decide to not react like a normal person would. Of course, Gin doesn’t help much as it goes on either which just makes Shinpachi want to cry. Add in Kagura and it’s the usual kinds of gags and reactions overall, but with a new fourth party to be the catalyst.
There’s a bit of background material and related subplot material that comes up, which helps to slow things down in the middle from the wackiness, but it’s pretty uninteresting overall. When it shifts back to Gin and the gang, with Gin and Pirako hiding in a trash can no less, it starts to reveal more about what Pirako is really after as it shows that their interpretation of events wasn’t quite what they thought. It actually goes into a pretty amusing direction and it shows just how weird Pirako is in a way but also shows that Gin and the others have a very specific world view. One that’s certainly understandable considering what their lives have been like so it’s no surprise that they go to the extreme they do and Pirako makes it very easily believable and she carries off her role quite well.
In Summary:
Gintama certainly has its fun here with Pirako as she’s quite the personality and has a fun way of messing with the group a bit. Outside of her, watching Shinpachi’s reactions to everything and seeing how freaked out he gets, and how Gin gets freaked out at times as well, over what Pirako can actually do makes it a good bit of fun. But the episode lacks something to really make it stand out and work as a whole. It has plenty of funny bits, but it’s not a connective piece that really comes together. When it slows down to deal with one of the subplots involving the four great forces of the town, it just turns into a very uninteresting show and makes it go all the slower. There are things to like here, but it’s a pick and choose kind of thing where you may not feel like you’re getting a good whole episode.
Grade: B-
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.
