I’m sure by this point I sound like a broken record when I talk about Gintoki being forced to kill Shouyo - but as it is one of the only major events in Gintama set in Gintoki’s past that gets detailed, it is the event I keep returning to when facing questions of Gintoki’s growth. So, I will focus this entry on Takasugi and his reaction to the same event, both at the time and ten years later, to avoid repeating myself many times over.
Takasugi, unlike Gintoki, was not given a choice on that mountain. While Gintoki’s choice was not much of a choice at all, Takasugi quite literally had none. He was tied up and tossed on the ground, and forced to watch Gintoki be presented with the choice between them and their teacher, and forced to bear witness to the decision Gintoki ultimately made. He had, in every sense of the word, a complete loss of control in the situation. The most he could do was scream, which he did, and lunge forward, which he did (and which lost him his left eye).
Takasugi’s attributions of blame are quite complex and difficult to lay out, as they are revealed over many episodes of references and statements and layered between emotionless lines of dialogue, but one thing he does make quite clear is his hatred for the world that forced this situation to occur in the first place. And although he knew at the time that Gintoki made the same choice he would have (as evidenced by Gintoki, in a quote in my last entry), Takasugi is still unable to move past it. And there his relationship with Gintoki (and the rest) falls apart.
In the immediate aftermath of Shouyo dying and the war ending, he leaves Earth entirely, unable to live somewhere run by a government run by those who caused his suffering or live anywhere near Gintoki, who represents everything he lost and everything he hates himself for. He maintains the militant force he ran during the Joui War - the Kiheitai - and grows its strength and force out in space, where he develops relationships with the dark underbelly of various societies until he gained the power to commit violent and drastic acts of terrorist violence on Earth.
Takasugi blames anyone and everything for Shouyo’s death. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) Gintoki, who dealt the final blow. Even if Takasugi doesn’t hate him for killing Shouyo - moreso for what killing Shouyo represented - he still puts blame on Gintoki and is motivated by a strong desire to kill him.
Of course, ten years is a long time to dwell on pain and an even longer time to dwell on a particular traumatic event.
Although no less sad and angry, when Takausgi finally has his fight with Gintoki, he clearly has a much more well-rounded understanding of Shouyo’s death. He’s still determined to kill Gintoki and take down Edo afterwards (with no sense of self-preservation, as he expects to die in either event - arguably he wants it), but he’s far more understanding of Gintoki.
As quoted in my last entry, Gintoki knows Takasugi would have done the same thing he had in that situation. But, if anything, that makes Takasugi hurt more. And once Takasugi understood that, it made him want to kill Gintoki more, because it would be like killing that part of himself.
Astonishingly enough, Takasugi tells Gintoki:
“The last thing I saw with my left eye was your face. If it had been the Bakufu burned into it, everything would be much easier.”
What we see here is ten years of endlessly replaying everything that happened that day, of thinking and thinking until it didn’t even matter who was to blame. And this fight forces him to come to terms with the reality of that statement: what is to blame? Who is he trying to fight?
Gintoki tells Takasugi that he’s going to kill him if it means saving Takasugi Shinsuke, student of Shouyo. And something about that sentiment and dedication, something about the emotional release of the fight, of seeing Shouyo’s face again (Utsuro), something about identifying himself once more as a student of Yoshida Shouyo, is what forces him to change. He doesn’t want to kill Gintoki anymore, just beat him. At everything. Like when they were kids, like when they were teenagers, like when they were young adults. He wants to work with Gintoki to destroy the systems that killed their teacher, not kill Gintoki and go after the world at large.
When Yoshida Shouyo died, Takasugi blamed everyone and everything. Ten years later, he understands his feelings and the situation in greater depth, and gets to decide what to do with it.
In the past he had no control. Nothing but rage. And later he resigns to the same things because he’s stuck in the path he’s forged for himself - until Gintoki helps him see that he can make different choices, and that those choices would matter.
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