"Gintama" uses jokes throughout, tampering with the Americans who invaded Edo in history as aliens, thus making modernization several times more advanced in that era. All the historical figures who were active in that era (from the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the Meiji Restoration) all appeared in the play, but their names were also tampered with. And due to the acceleration of modernization, in addition to retaining some elements of the Edo period when aliens invaded, the people in the play watch TV, read magazines, make airplanes, and listen to CDs, which are almost exactly the same as modern life, but historical events. But in this context, unbelievable things happened one by one.
Therefore, it is not only a joke about the Edo period but also a second joke about modern society. In fact, the entire play is full of references to or parodies of contemporary works. Thus, a subtle distance is created, which occurs through the confusion of time and space. Is the world of "Gintama" Japan at the end of the curtain? Or what about Japan now? The answer is obviously neither; it is an artificially imagined extra-dimensional space, and this fact is so obvious because it is constantly flying in the sky of Edo streets by flying saucers in the play, and aliens in samurai costumes. Besides passers-by, shooting stars stride past; these scenes completely violate the principle of time and space to remind readers. In addition, the various methods of "Gintama" KUSO spit out spoofs, etc., etc., and the ever-changing and best-in-class game methods pushed themselves to the supreme throne of nonsense.
Yet a certain solemnity is everywhere in such a work. That thing is called Bushido. Something that truly belongs to the Edo period. In "The Unrest of the Xinxuan Group", all kinds of bizarre postmodern techniques are used sparingly in a solemn story adapted from historical facts. But behind these means, what Gintama presents to us is not the absurdity that most people think postmodernism is bound to point to or the wasteland that modern people find themselves in after God leaves the field, as Camus said. The meaning has been re-imagined. On the one hand, Shirou Hijikata pulled out his sword with difficulty and announced to the enemy: "I am the last sword of the Shinsengumi." What he said at the time: "I have never fought to protect this cheap country." Whether the country is destroyed or the samurai are destroyed, it has nothing to do with Lao Tzu. I started before, no matter now or not. In the past, the only thing I wanted to protect was the same, and it never changed. The former sentence is an inheritance from Bushido, while the latter is a reinterpretation of Bushido. The essence of Bushido is the word "guardian," but what is guarding? Broadly speaking, it is dignity and justice, but from an actual historical point of view, the samurai are a class that has been eliminated by the times, and they guard the generals, the highest spokesperson for the interests of the class.
So when a samurai like Gintoki, the enemy who represents the trend of the times, is completely outdated, it is the entire modernity's questioning of Bushido. And Ah Yin's answer is very ingenious. His answer can be divided into two levels: 1. He negatively rejects the justice of specific classes ("There is no such thing as fighting to protect this cheap country at all. Whether the country perishes or the samurai perishes, it has nothing to do with Lao Tzu "); which is consistent with modern values; 2. He did not directly state what he was protecting, but only had a flashback in his mind for two seconds. The content of the flashback is that the audience is familiar with his daily life and that of his friends, relatives, neighbors, and so on. The two-second picture perfectly answers this deadly question, because he provides enough clues to ask the audience to actively participate in the answer to this question. This gives this answer a double modernity: on the one hand, it has transformed from Bushido, which specifically guards a certain institutional structure, into a Bushido that is "for oneself," a broad sense, and more essential, which can be fully developed in modern society; on the other hand, when the audience participates in the answer, through their own interpretation, they endow themselves with the inevitable modern connotation. At the same time, the sentence itself is wonderful: "No matter now or in the past, there is only one thing I want to protect, and it has never changed." "Before" is a vague concept of time. From which "before"?
The era of Shiroyasha, or the era of studying with Yoshida Shoin, or even earlier, all the way back to the era of the birth of the samurai? "Now" is a tricky concept of time; is it the fictional Edo period or the era we live in? In this double paradox of time, we ourselves are drawn into the question. We enter a certain "before" prophecy system as a historical insider, and at the same time, we participate in the rewriting of this "now". No deconstruction can escape its inevitable tendency to reconstruct, and even the most thorough one is at least a reconstruction of the postmodern value of worthlessness. And "Gintama" is well versed in this, so it constructs new solemnity in the endless dissolution of solemnity and reconstructs the ultimate value in the dissolution of meaning. This is my answer to the previous question: why add the absurd to a serious narrative? We can clearly see the answer through this passage of Yin Shi. If there is no negative aspect before, and the sentence "has nothing to do with Lao Tzu", how can this story really convince modern people?
And how can that last sentence be effective? This is This is the profound meaning of "Gintama": its reconstruction of the value system is accomplished through a series of postmodern techniques, such as parodying history. Bushido's new development in modernity unfolds in an astonishingly smooth way, with values seamlessly embedded in the lighthearted and non-demonstrative narrative that moderns are most comfortable with, and for which most viewers are unsuspecting and barely able to fight back. It's a miraculously effective refactoring, and the secret to its success is the masterful use of deconstruction. All the means of "Gintama" are modern or postmodern, and it is itself embedded in the structure of the very modern mass media. But it preaches an ancient value, at least the modern descendant of an ancient value. It made me suspicious of the Frankfurt School's critique of modernity. Of course, there is no error in judgment in the predecessors' criticism, but they belonged to more than a half-century ago. And now we seem to be standing here, standing in irreversible time and space. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge what we have and then look for the parts that can be continued with the tradition, remove the parts that have to be removed, and reconstruct the parts that have to be rebuilt. We have no choice but to move forward. At least it's always been that way for me.
The core values of a culture, or all the really solid values in this culture, have infinite vitality, and they will re-develop in every era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart. It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang, and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin.
The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us? It unfolds in a way that, in the light-hearted and non-demonstrative narrative to which modern humans are most accustomed, values are embedded so seamlessly that most viewers are defenseless and barely able to fight back. It's a miraculously effective refactoring, and the secret to its success is the masterful use of deconstruction. All the means of "Gintama" are modern or postmodern, and it is itself embedded in the structure of the very modern mass media. But it preaches an ancient value, at least the modern descendant of an ancient value. It made me suspicious of the Frankfurt School's critique of modernity. Of course, there is no error in judgment in the predecessors' criticism, but they belonged to more than a half-century ago. And now we seem to be standing here, standing in irreversible time and space. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge what we have and then look for the parts that can be continued with the tradition, remove the parts that have to be removed, and reconstruct the parts that have to be rebuilt. We have no choice but to move forward. At least it's always been that way for me. The core values of a culture, or all the really solid values in this culture, have infinite vitality, and they will re-develop in every era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry.
A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart. It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us?
It unfolds in a way that, in the light-hearted and non-demonstrative narrative to which modern humans are most accustomed, values are embedded so seamlessly that most viewers are defenseless and barely able to fight back. It's a miraculously effective refactoring, and the secret to its success is the masterful use of deconstruction. All the means of "Gintama" are modern or postmodern, and it is itself embedded in the structure of the very modern mass media. But it preaches an ancient value, at least the modern descendant of an ancient value. It made me suspicious of the Frankfurt School's critique of modernity. Of course, there is no error in judgment in the predecessors' criticism, but they belonged to more than a half-century ago. And now we seem to be standing here, standing in irreversible time and space. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge what we have and then look for the parts that can be continued with the tradition, remove the parts that have to be removed, and reconstruct the parts that have to be rebuilt. We have no choice but to move forward. At least it's always been that way for me. The core values of a culture, or all the really solid values in this culture, have infinite vitality, and they will re-develop in every era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart.
It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang, and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us? It is also embedded in the very modern structure of the mass media. But it preaches an ancient value, at least the modern descendant of an ancient value. It made me suspicious of the Frankfurt School's critique of modernity. Of course, there is no error in judgment in the predecessors' criticism, but they belonged to more than a half-century ago. And now we seem to be standing here, standing in irreversible time and space. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge what we have and then look for the parts that can be continued with the tradition, remove the parts that have to be removed, and reconstruct the parts that have to be rebuilt. We have no choice but to move forward. At least it's always been that way for me. The core values of a culture, or all the really solid values in this culture, have infinite vitality, and they will re-develop in every era.
It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart. It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us?
It is also embedded in the very modern structure of the mass media. But it preaches an ancient value, at least the modern descendant of an ancient value. It made me suspicious of the Frankfurt School's critique of modernity. Of course, there is no error in judgment in the predecessors' criticism, but they belonged to more than a half-century ago. And now we seem to be standing here, standing in irreversible time and space. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge what we have and then look for the parts that can be continued with the tradition, remove the parts that have to be removed, and reconstruct the parts that have to be rebuilt. We have no choice but to move forward. At least it's always been that way for me. The core values of a culture, or all the really solid values in this culture, have infinite vitality, and they will re-develop in every era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart. It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story.
For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us? They are re-opened in each era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart. It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang, and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us? They are re-opened in each era. It's something I believe in and something I think I have to carry. A friend of mine once said that if I had only one choice, it would give me some deadly rock music instead of the soul-warming Mozart.
It's as if Nirvana's lead singer wrote in his suicide note: "It's better to burn calmly than to survive." An era is a kind of fate, and life has no other gestures than burning calmly. Either in an absurd way or in a decisive way. Finally, I remembered a passage from the Analects of Confucius: Zi was afraid of Yu Kuang, and said: "Since King Wen is gone, the text does not matter." When the sky is about to die, the deceased can't be with Yu Siwen; what to do? " The end credits of the first four episodes of "The Unrest Chapter" depict an imaginary scene: the young Katsura Kogoro, Takasugi Shinsaku, and other anti-foreign patriots are teaching in the school, and the teacher who teaches is Yoshida Shoin. The weight of time thickens the connotation to be expressed by the story. For "Gintama", the sky has not lost "Sven", so "Heaven and Man" can't do anything about it. So what about us?
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