Shinpachi Shimura

Shinpachi Shimura
Information
Japanese Name:	志村 新八
Romanized Name:	Shimura Shinpachi
Official English Name:	Shinpachi Shimura
Date of Birth:	12 Aug/Leo
Age:	16+
Titles:	Megane (Glasses) Shin-chan Patsuan Pachie
Physical Features
Height:	166 cm (5' 5½")
Weight:	55 kg (121 lb)
Status:	Alive
Professional Status
Affiliation(s):	Terakado Tsuu's Imperial Guards
Occupation(s):	Yorozuya
Strong Point(s):	Glasses
Voice Actors
Japanese VA:	Sakaguchi Daisuke
English VA:	Mark X. Laskowski (movie)

Once a Samurai decides to protect something, he protects it to the very end!

Shinpachi Shimura

Shimura Shinpachi ( 志村 新八 Shimura Shinpachi ) is a member of the Yorozuya, a samurai in training and one of the three main protagonists of Gintama. He is the more serious character of the series, delivering the requisite reality-checks or punchlines against other characters farcical antics. Other than working at the Yorozuya, Shinpachi is also the leader of Terakado Tsuu's fanclub: Terakado Tsuu's Imperial Guards, and is very serious about it.

Background

Shimura Shinpachi grew up with his sister Shimura Tae and his father in their family dojou Koudoukan. Their father died when they were young, leaving them to take care of the dojou, and also in debt.

Shinpachi befriended Takachin in his local temple school. When Takachin bullied by other childrens, Shinpachi tried to help but ended getting beaten up as well until Otae saved them. They were close friends until Takachin accidently soiled himself while Shinpachi pretended sleeping to avoid helping Takachin.

Shinpachi would later acquainted with Yagyuu Kyuubei due to his sister friendship with her. When the debt collectors tried to harm Tae and her brother, Shinpachi was knocked out as Kyuubei tried to rescue them, though it cost her her left eye.

Shinpachi mentioned that he ate his sister's cooking when he was young, which made his eyesight go bad.

While working at café and being beaten by the manager behind the shop, Shinpachi encountered Terakado Tsuu street performance. Although he didn't understood her singing but he was emotionally moved. Given encouragement and motivation, Shinpachi would create Terakado Tsuu fanclub: Terakado Tsuu's Imperial Guards.

Appearance

Shinpachi has black hair and brown eyes. He wears a light blue keikogi with blue linings and a blue hakama. Bespectacled, many other characters have pointed out that Shinpachi's glasses are his charm point. Sakata Gintoki even went as far as to say that Shinpachi's glasses make out 95% of him and that they are more Shinpachi than Shinpachi himself, with the rest being 3% water and 2% garbage.

Throughout the series he is seen wearing various disguises and has been shown in different styles for gags.

More images at Shimura Shinpachi's gallery

Shimura Shinpachi's Gallery Shinpachi Standard Shinpachi during childhood Shinpachi as Otsuu Fan-club Leader Shinpachi as Male Host

Personality

Frequently teased by Sakata Gintoki, supposedly his employer and later on, by Yagyuu Kyuubei for having a 'sister-complex' for being overly attached to his sister. Because he does not have as much physical strength as Kagura, he is often bullied by her, who often tend to literally give him a thrashing. He takes charge of all the household chores in the Yorozuya due to his 'inclination to care for other people ( as he explained during the Goukon in Episode 88 ).He also likes to save leftovers. All of the above, combined with his plain bespectacled look has made him the archetypical downtrodden nerdy character. Shinpachi is also a rabid fan of fictional pop-idol Terakado Tsuu, and often gets so moved by her songs that he starts crying listening to them. He is the strict leader of the Terakado Tsuu's Imperial Guards,a fan club with deep admiration and devotion to her, and has made 99 regulations that he makes sure the members loyally follow. Whenever someone breaks one of the rules and regulations of the fanclub, he personally issues their punishment with a flying nose-hook. Most of the time, the Sergeant is on the receiving end.
Shinpachi also likes to sing, and has been seen singing karaoke-versions of various songs by Tsuu, but is completely tone-deaf.

Strength & Abilities

He has limited dojo training, but inherited a dojo together with his older sister Shimura Tae called Koudoukan (恒道館), specialising in the Tendoumushin sword-fighting style (天堂無心流 - Tendou Mushin Ryuu).

Although Shinpachi's fighting abilities are not as powerful as that of his two friends (Kagura with her monstrous Yato strength and Gintoki with his sword mastery), and his combat ability was merely 1Kelp above normal human, he has been shown to be able to fight with not only his sword, but using hand-to-hand combat in a boxing match, and also using his intelligence; as seen when he was able to knock back Kyuubei and beat her grandfather, winning the game against the Yagyuu clan, when he figured out a way to get past Tosshi's human wall, and when he fought with Tosshi in a boxing match.

In episode 213, he defeated Chin Pirako in two blows, proving he is now a skilled swordsman. And defeated Obi Hajime in a match, causing Hajime to say Shinpachi is strong.

In addition to his skill with the sword, he has also been seen using the powerful nose hook technique used by several characters in the series, and possibly even invented it.

His combat ability durastically changes when he puts on/take off his glasses

Relationships

Family

• Shimura Tae : Shinpachi's older sister, they care about each other very much to the point that Gintoki says Shinpachi has a sister complex.
• Shimura Ken : Shinpachi's father.

Mentor

• Obi Hajime: He was the former chief coach of the Koudoukan. He was like an older brother to Shinpachi and Otae. He went missing before Shinpachi met Gintoki travelling around the Galaxy.

Friends and Allies

• Sakata Gintoki: Shinpachi follows Gintoki with admiration for him in order to learn the way of the samurai, which leads him to workin Yorozuya. He quite regrets following him because of Gintoki's irresponsibility for everything, but at the same time they started to have adventures which leads Shinpachi to start considering him as mentor and brother. He even got mad at Gintoki when he didn't consider him as a brother when Gintoki told Umibouzu about not having a family. Gintoki is the only person he would listen to whenever he refuses to listen to his sister.

• Kagura : Kagura is like a sister to Shinpachi even when she beats him or offends him.

• Yagyuu Kyuubei:

• Kondou Isao: Shinpachi views him as a annoying stalker and most of the times he would prefer having Gintoki as a brother-in-law Rather than Kondou. He the least person Shinpachi would pay attention to.

• Katsura Kotaro: They are very respectful to each other, but at times Shinpachi wonders about Katsura's lack of common sense.

• Taka-Chin: Taka-chin is Shinpachi's childhood friend from temple school. They managed to reconcile after Shinpachi saved him from his old biker gang.

• Yamazaki Sagaru : They both basically share the same personality and are both considered plain by their companions. They are often opponents to each other when the Yorozuya goes against the Shinsengumi.

Love Interest

• Otsu: Otsu was girl meet on the streets performing that he met during the times he was looking for a job before meeting with Gintoki. He started to like her songs as far to create a fan club for her.

• Kirara : They became penpals after Shinpachi found her message in a bottle near the beach.

• Pandemonium: Pandemonium larvae are snacks for Shikigami. Shinpachi fell in love with one of the crotesque creatures after their lips accidentally met. He sees only a beautiful face of a lady on the disgusting larva. Pandemonium was chomped by a Shirino Clan's Shikigami. Pandemonium was later seen in Satan Festival where Shinpachi once again fell in love with the larva. This time Pandemonium was crushed by Gedoumaru who was irritated by Shinpachi's idiotic behavior.

• Anigasaki Momo: A game character from Love Choris, Shinpachi chose her due to his taste of older sister type.

Enemies

• Takechi Henpeita :for underestimating Shinpachi's swords skill during the benizakura arc.

• Abuto: When Kagura was defeated by Abuto, Shinpachi tried to help Kagura but was easily defeated. Later, he and Kagura were saved by Abuto from falling.

• Eromes: for tricking him into a love date by trying to rob from him.

Story

Shinpachi would soon start working at the register in a café, but only having known the way of the sword, he made alot of mistakes. Some Amanto who were there as customers, tripped him over so he spilt Sakata Gintoki's chocolate parfait. Enraged by this, Gintoki attacked the Amanto and fled the scene, leaving his wooden sword and the blame with Shinpachi. Shinpachi followed him and they would soon encounter Tae, who brought them back to the dojou. Debt collectors then came along and took Tae with them so she could start working in an illegal flying nightclub. However, after a series of events, the nightclub crashed into the ocean, Tae was rescued by Shinpachi with help from Gintoki and the debt collectors went to jail, as stated by Gintoki in episode 3. This led Tae to give her "permission" for Shinpachi to join the Yorozuya, after which he would become a regular member, share many exploits and do various jobs with Sakata Gintoki and Kagura.

Love Choriss Arc

Shinpachi gets addicted to a dating sim game called Love Chroiss, his character is Anigasaki Momo which he choose due to his taste of older sister type. Shinpachi later introduce her to his sister Shimura Tae

Trivia

• When the characters of Gintama were being made, Shinpachi was originally going to be a part of the Shinsengumi as Nagakura Shinpachi 永倉新八, who was the captain of the Shinsengumi's second unit. Instead, he was given glasses and became the one to throw the punch lines, receiving his last name from Shimura Ken 志村けん, a Japanese comedian.
• Whenever Makoto, the 'Centaur' character/mascot played by Gintoki with Kagura as a corpse makes an appearance, Shinpachi is the hind quarters of the horse (for example Episode 124).
• The name of his okama counterpart and his genderbend version is Pachie.
• The name of his magical girl counterpart in his own version of the Gintama ending  is Magical Yun Yun Pachina.
• In Episode 106 of the Gintama anime he was portrayed as a horse with eye-glasses while the others were shown as warriors on horses.
• Shinpachi's name contains "Hachi" which means 8, which also means infinite or glasses (he wore glasses). He also placed on 8th rank in 3 Gintama character polls.
• Until now fans created 'Shinsengumi' version of him along with Hijikata Toushirou, Kondou Isao, and Okita Sougo.
• Shinpach is similar to Gintoki that they both are in love with their idols and got upset when their idols were engaged.
• In the popularity poll result, Shinpachi has been placed 8th place 3 times in a row.

Battles

Fight	Outcome	Time it Occurred
Yorozuya and Shimura Tae vs. Eromes	Win	Episode 30
Shimura Shinpachi vs. Takechi Henpeita	Interrupted	Episode 61
Sakata Gintoki and Shimura Shinpachi vs. Yagyuu Kyuubei and Yagyuu Binbokusai	Win
Kagura and Shimura Shinpachi vs. Abuto	Win	Episode 142
Shimura Shinpachi vs. Hijikata Toushiro (Tosshi)	Win
Kagura and Shimura Shinpachi vs. Chin Pirako and Saigou Tokumori	Win
Yorozuya, Kaientai, Katsura Kotarou and Elizabeth vs. Dark Vader	Win
Shimura Shinpachi vs. Obi Hajime	Win

References

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