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◎ Name: Jelle
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Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Shinpachi Nagakura
◎ Character's Canon: Hakuouki
◎ Character's Age: 28
◎ Canon Point: After chapter 3.
◎ Background/History: The wiki sucks so whatever here I go.
Shinpachi Nagakura was born into a middle-class samurai family who served the Matsumae clan in Edo, which is now present day Tokyo. He therefore also gained more or less a classical samurai's education as he was raised and already entered the dojo at the young age of eight, and already earned his menkyo kaiden certification (a sign that you've learned every possible thing at a dojo) at eighteen. From that point on he decided to leave his family and the Matsumae clan's service to instead travel across Japan to learn even more about swordfighting, considering he wanted to become even stronger and didn't just want to be stuck serving some lord he didn't even choose for all his life like what would have happened if he had stayed. This is how he eventually learned the Shinto Munen Ryu technique of swordfighting, which he's stuck with for the rest of his life ever since. (It's visible since his fighting sprite in the game has the very same posture as Kamo Serizawa's, who has studied the same technique as he does.) Along his travels he also meets Kai Shimada, who'll later serve under him and occasionally as a spy for the Shinsengumi, but that's getting ahead of myself.
Eventually after all his travelling Shinpachi ended up at the Shieikan dojo where he started training and taking meals too, along with a lot of the other men who'd later make up the Shinsengumi. It's also there that he meets his best friends who he sticks with from that point on - Sanosuke Harada and Heisuke Toudou, otherwise known as the baka/idiot trio for all their mischief and general loudness.
Eventually the Roshigumi is founded, a group of warriors who fight for the shogunate is founded. Isami Kondou, the leader of the Shieikan, is one of the leaders and the reason why most of the men who trained at Shieikan join as well, Shinpachi among them. The other boss thanks to the fact he's funding the Roshigumi (because Kondou wasn't born into a real samurai family with money to begin with someone else had to) is Kamo Serizawa, a guy whose name means duck but it's probably just a misspelling for dick since that's what he is. He causes a lot of trouble for the group, considering he acts like a prick to everyone he meets, bullies maiko when he's drunk, kills a bunch of sumo wrestlers when provoked just a little bit and even orders places to be burnt down. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Serizawa is a definite factor for the group's reputation to go down the drain, if not just the main cause. Shinpachi ends up often having to go out and drink with him though (reluctantly, considering the kind of person Serizawa is, and he often drags someone else along so he doesn't have to suffer by himself) since they both studied the same sword fighting technique, which was a big deal back in those days. And though everyone - and understandably so - just hates Serizawa's guts and wants to see him die in a dark alleyway, it's Shinpachi who admits that despite the fact that Serizawa is the biggest jerkass to have walked the Earth, he still can't exactly hate the guy that much since he also has to acknowledge the good he has done. After all, without Serizawa's funding, the Roshigumi wouldn't even have been able to get off the ground. It's because of the fact that Shinpachi is a little too morally good in that sense that he's left out of the fact that Hijikata - along with a lot of the other captains - plots to assassinate Serizawa. Shinpachi doesn't find out about it until it's already going on and immediately throws a fit that they would assassinate him that cowardly and saying they should have challenged him to a fair fight for it instead. He rushes over to somehow try to stop it all, but along the way he's stopped by Saitou, who won't let him interfere so Shinpachi won't get killed in all of it as well. Saitou managed to win the fight, but his Shinpachi with the back of he wouldn't die, but does effectively stop him from interfering with Serizawa's assassination all the same.
They continue on as the Shinsengumi after that, with just Kondou and Hijikata as respectively their commander and vice-commander. But things are shaken up again soon enough when a girl is confined to their headquarters because she saw a little too much of their secrets - and the girl turns out to be the daughter of Kodo Yukimura, the doctor who developed the ochimizu for the shogunate, a red
But even so, the usual battles still go on - during one of their biggest battles, a raid on the Ikedaya Inn, where a lot of people conspiring against the shogunate gathered, Shinpachi fights along as well. He doesn't encounter a mysteriously powerful warrior who they find out are demons later like some of the other captains, but he does manage to injure his hand pretty badly but manages to play it down and just suck it up. During the battle of the incident at Hamaguri Gate Shinpachi does run into one of the demons (Kazama) along with Hijikata, but doesn't fight him directly since Hijikata tells him to take the men and go on, leaving it to him.
Their battles are fairly succesful in that period, but things are starting to take a turn for the worse when Itou and his men join the Shinsengumi. None of the captains particularly like him
The trio's usual cheerfulness seems to suffer a blow from the whole incident though, if not just since Heisuke is often staying with the rasetsu instead since they all have to pretend he's dead so no one will figure out the secret of the rasetsu. But it makes tensions run higher with Shinpachi as well, who thought the rasetsu where a stupid concept to begin with - even if they were ordered to use the ochimizu by the shogunate, they never should have done it, being a rasetsu is an unnatural and inhumane existence. So of course one of his best friends becoming one makes him a lot more mopey and easily angered, and the last memory Shinpachi has before ending up in Zelien (and then after that Cerealia) is a fight with Sano over the rasetsu.
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? nope.
◎ Personality: It's easy to mistake Shinpachi at first as a complete brawn over brains type. And you might not be entirely wrong. After all, he does have quite a lot of muscles even compared to the other guys from the Shinsengumi and he just loves showing them off, even wearing his usual attitude that hardly covers a bit of his chest in the middle of winter. When it's pointed out to him he just laughs and says it would practically be a crime to cover muscles this beautiful just because it's cold. And it's not like it's an isolated incident either, since at various (less serious) points during the story the guy is just going on about his muscles. I think this cg sums it up better than I could ever put it into words - during that scene a doctor is giving them a physical check up and Shinpachi is literally holding up the line for minutes on end, not since he's sick or there's something wrong with him but just since he wants to show off his muscles to the doctor so badly and brag about them loudly. (The faces the others are making in the background say a lot about the way everyone else feels about Shinpachi's actions, basically.)
It's therefore easy to see that he isn't exactly the most mature individual. Despite his actual age, he seems to act more like a little kid quite a few times. He sulks and whines like one when things don't go his way and is often messing around with Harada and especially Heisuke, who have practically dubbed themselves the idiot trio (a name that sums up most of their interactions). He steals food from others (although all in a good-hearted way) right in front of their noses, whines to Harada about how it's incredibly unfair that he gets all the girls and Shinpachi himself never does, he tries to mooch drinks off others, especially Harada, as much as he can and even gets into snowball fights only to run off and leave Heisuke to deal with Hijikata when it seems like they're going to get into trouble. He'll also take literally any excuse that comes along to get out of a situation he doesn't like. Oh, someone needs to go check stuff outside instead of sitting inside and waiting around which is really boring?! He's going to go right away! Oh, it was just decided that he had to pay for drinks today?! Look, Chizuru is saying they shouldn't go out to drink, so let's not go out, okay! Unfortunately despite his many attempts, he still ends up being unable to escape having to deal with those situations since nobody lets him get off that easily - especially since he's terrible at being convincing since he's a pretty bad liar. Harada can usually already tell by the way he's smiling that he has ulterior reasons to invite him out to drink and declines, for example. It usually only works when someone is a doormat and he can easily drag them along - sometimes quite literally.
Despite all of this, or maybe exactly because all of this, Shinpachi is a really cheerful and lively person though. He's so enthusiastic and often happy that it's practically contagious, and people are sulking around, he'll often be the one to just say they're going out to drink instead. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have moments where he gets upset or discouraged, since he gets like that plenty too, but he's obviously the kind of person who just wants to enjoy life despite whatever circumstances there might be - and sometimes it's obvious he wants to go out drinking because he's feeling down, something even Harada notes at one point in the story, so it's probably a way for him to cope with things too. But mostly he's just a guy who loves a good fight, a good drink, messing around with his friends, those kind of things, and they easily make a huge grin appear on his face. It's also apparent though that he's not the kind of person who's very uptight or who sticks to the rules, having fun is more of a priority than that. When he goes out drinking with Harada he often stays out until after curfew despite the punishment for that being very bad (and that's still an understatement) just since it'd be boring to go home in the middle of having fun. And they sure do have fun when they go to drink, judging by how ridiculous the scenes with them drunk are that we can see, like Shinpachi drawing a face on Harada's scar of a failed suicide (very tasteful, aren't they) and saying that if Harada treats the scar well, it might give him a lot of baby scars. And that's not even starting about the time Shinpachi proclaims he's going to show a trick that involves him breaking chopsticks with his ass. He's overly confident about fights and easily gets excited about them too, sometimes even displaying an attitude about it that exactly makes him look so simple (evidence piece A), although it has to be said that it's not like he's naively optimistic and does know a lost cause when he sees one.
Speaking of fights though - fighting is something Shinpachi does greatly enjoy, although that's fairly obvious since he wouldn't be with the Shinsengumi otherwise. Fighting does mean a lot to him though considering by how he thinks most things can just be settled with a fight (although it's part of the more general mindset of that time too, I suppose) like when Harada wants to leave with Chizuru and instead of talking it out, the two have a fight instead to decide it. Another important part of fighting and everything around it for Shinpachi is comaderie, the sense of being "brothers in arms" or something of the sort. He's visibly upset when he's left out of the whole plot to kill Serizawa in Reimeiroku since he says he wanted to fight alongside them as brothers in arms, that that's why they shouldn't keep that kind of thing a secret from each other. Despite the fact that he actually didn't mind Serizawa as much as the others, he's just as upset about the fact that they kept the plot a secret from him as he's about the man's death and is even shown whining (although in a more usual childish way) about it way later. The whole deal with Harada that I just mentioned is a clear example of it too - Harada is practically the person closest to Shinpachi, he himself says he wouldn't want anyone else to have his back more than Harada. And from the beginning until the end Shinpachi is clearly convinced they'll keep fighting together until the very end, but then Harada expresses his desire to actually leave together with Chizuru and Shinpachi literally can't even understand why he would rather go off with a girl rather than keep fighting with him, it's something his mindset can't even understand. Although he does smile cheerfully as usual and wishes Harada and Chizuru good luck when they do leave, he has the biggest kicked abandoned puppy moment before it and is incredibly openly upset - for his standards - that Harada is leaving. Even though he and Harada were the ones who left the Shinsengumi, it's pretty obvious once Shinpachi starts being a little more loose lipped when he's drunk that he actually does miss everyone and even has a dream about Kondou. He's a guy with a big heart and cares a lot for the people he fights alongside, to a point where he sometimes even gets annoyed over some things for other people's sakes even though it doesn't necessarily involve him.
As shown above, Shinpachi isn't constantly all grins and sunshine. He gets upset too at certain things and he certainly gets angry at some things too - whereas Harada's temper is unpredictable and sometimes seems to come out of nowhere, Shinpachi's temper is a lot more predictable to a point where a lot of people can see it coming from miles away. His temper tantrums might sometimes seem a little childish too (like the one he throws around the time when he's leaving where he keeps yelling that nobody can convince him anymore and he's going away for sure and he repeats it a few times as if it wouldn't be clear right off the bat) but it's just mostly since he's a pretty emotional guy and, unlike most or some of the others, very open about his emotions, no matter whether it's consciously or that he's just easy to read in general.
All of these things could indeed be taken as him being a complete brawns over brain kind of guy, but when it comes down to it, he can be surprisingly thoughtful at times. He does have his own opinion when it comes to matters of politics or other serious things, although since he does give across such a childish or maybe simple impression of himself it surprises even Chizuru when he starts talking about politics in a pretty thought out kind of way. Sure, Shinpachi might not always be the smartest person around and he can be incredibly slow to catch onto things (whereas most of the guys realise Chizuru is a girl right away, Shinpachi's one of them who doesn't even realise it until it's said by someone else even though it's fairly obvious to begin with) but he does put thought into serious matters and always has an opinion of his own ready. Granted, this is not always a good thing since the guy is stubborn as hell and will make sure that when he does have an opnion, everyone gets to hear it. This is also exactly why he leaves the Shinsengumi later on in canon. Some of the opinions he has start to clash with Kondou's over time, and more and more pile up until Shinpachi really just can't take it anymore and goes to give Kondou a piece of his mind, which, thanks to his temper playing up, ends up in Shinpachi just coming out of the room they were talking in yelling and saying angrily that he's going to leave.
The clashing opinions thing touches a last important part of Shinpachi, namely that he's an incredibly good (and stubborn to a fault in clinging to the opinions he has because of that) person. Harada literally says in canon that Shinpachi just is that good of a person, which is saying a lot since it's not like Harada himself is a bad person to begin with. The difference between them is just that Shinpachi absolutely can't stay quiet when he sees something happen that's wrong according to him. At one point he even says he'd rather die than walk down a path that he believes is wrong. And since he has a very strong sense of right and wrong it eventually escalates into the conflict that makes him leave the group along with Harada - and said wrong thing that causes it is the whole idea of the rasetsu, which Shinpachi thinks is wrong to the very core. He gets so passionate about it that he even yells to Harada, his best friend, about it when the guy doesn't entirely agree with him before stomping off and feels bad that Heisuke had to take the ochimizu to begin with. Shinpachi just thinks that making people "live" like that is so wrong and not even living to begin with that he gets incredibly worked up about it once he starts talking about it. It's also shown in how he says he likes Serizawa despite all the horrible actions the man carries out and despite the fact that most of them just dislike him. But Shinpachi says that (aside from being from the same school of fighting techniques) Serizawa has done a lot for them and gets done what has to be done like getting funding, so he can't bring himself to hate the guy like most of the others. When the other then plot to kill Serizawa, Shinpachi get really worked up about it since his morals just can't accept something that cowardly. ("Isn't this foul play?! If you can't accept how Serizawa-san does things, challenge him for a duel or something! Face him fair and square!") This shows that Shinpachi is even so good that he probably can't even bring himself to hate anyone unless said person is just through and through horrible without a single redeeming quality. Even when he gets mad at Kondou, he never hates the guy and even dreams about him later, implying that he misses him, and during a conversation with Ryunosuke he tells him to not misunderstand and therefore not hate or dislike Saitou.
Another part of the reason he left though is because of something also related to his strong sense of what's right - Shinpachi was born into a family with a very good status but left them behind since he personally didn't care about status at all and didn't want to serve some lord who just thought everything could've been solved with money, instead he joined the Shinsengumi exactly because they didn't care about status to begin with. But when Kondou becomes a daimyo and gets ahead of himself in the excitement of finally having attained that title, it really ticks Shinpachi off because it means everything is heading exactly in the direction that he left his family for to begin with. This, combined with his moral problems about the rasetsu, is why he eventually stomps off and leaves the Shinsengumi - showing that when it comes to (moral) beliefs, Shinpachi will just butt heads over it and not easily change his mind. Technically he probably didn't want to leave the Shinsengumi since he liked it there and only keeps talking about the fond stories of his time there with Harada once they've left, and it shows in how they easily help out Saitou in Saitou's route when they suddenly find him like comrades do. Even in a conversation he has with Saitou in Reimeiroku it shows: "What about you? I heard you already ranked Menkyo Kaiden in Shindō Munen-ryū. Why does someone like you stay in Shieikan?" "Um... Why? It's because hanging out with everyone here is so enjoyable." "Enjoyable?" "Yep. Kondou-san of course, and Hijikata-san and Sannan-san too. Although they're idiosyncratic, they're nice guys, aren't they? And we came here for different reasons, but they don't dig into our past. More importantly, everyone in Shieikan is strong. If you want to sharpen your sword skills, you gotta stay in a dojo where strong people gather, right?" It's just that he gets so heated up in the moment thanks to his temper when it comes to defending his beliefs that he forgets everything else for a few moments - just as shown in his conversation with Saitou over the others wanting to kill Serizawa when he's gotten really angry: "Shut up!! Whatever Shinsengumi, Hijikata-san, Sannan-san, or Aizu thinks... I DON'T GIVE A DAMN!! I simply draw my sword at who I think is unforgivable!!"
So despite seeming very simple, there is more to Shinpachi than meets the eye immediately. But even so, a large part of him is just about having fun in life and messing around to have said fun no matter what it makes him seem like to others.
◎ Powers/Abilities: Shinpachi is pretty muscular compared to most people and therefore he's probably physically stronger than most regular humans, and that's even aside from being one of the captains of the Shinsengumi which shows that his swordplay must be really great as well. But it has to be said that even if he's stronger and fights better than most people, this only counts for humans - after all, Shinpachi himself is entirely human without any supernatural abilities or anything, so people with special powers could probably easily overpower him. He's also lost some spars (and battles) with fellow Shinsengumi captains, so it's not like he's infallible, just pretty darn good.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory: His clothes, his two swords would be on him. If it's possible, I'd also like him to keep his plushies from Zelien instead of leaving them in the abyss there.. If so, could a plush teddybear that manages to find its way to his bed every morning no matter where it might be left by the end of the day tHANKS ZELIEN and a life-sized crocodile plushie be waiting in his room upon arrival?
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: Earth
◎ Sense: Sight, mostly because of his honed swordsmanship skills and the fact that Shinpachi's the honorable fighting kind of type so before the Shinsengumi he wasn't really used to relying on sound to know where someone's attacking from since they'd just be right in front of him.
◎ Seven Character Traits: ( strengths: strong-willed, positive, informed ) + ( weaknesses: immature, trusting, good ) + neutral: boisterous
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample: Here's a bunch of test drive meme links! .. A whole bunch of them, just take your pick: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
◎ Third-Person Sample:
It was almost a miracle just how quickly worries from daily life could be forgotten like this. Now he was out drinking with Sano once more all the stuff about rasetsu and demons seemed so far away from this room. Like something he was worried about in a really, really distant past instead of right now. Then again, maybe the sake he had already consumed had a lot to do with that fact as well, clearing his head from most things.
It made him feel a lot lighter though, and he laughed loudly (the entire building was probably able to enjoy his hearty laughter with how loud it was, honestly) at a joke the other man made about something that had happened in the past, probably even years ago, but something the two of them had never forgotten. Like a private joke between just the two of them that nobody else would probably find as funny as they did right now.
"Yeah, no way I'll ever forget that!" With another laugh, Shinpachi took another sip from his sake, as if he hadn't had enough yet. "And then there was that time when they dared that one guy-- remember that?" With enough alcohol already having been consumed, the jokes got less and less understandable to anyone in general, either way. But the two of them seemed to exactly understand what the other was talking about, and the laughter didn't stop.
Then again, it wasn't like Shinpachi ever wanted it to stop. This was the ideal way to live life, wasn't it? Having good friends, being able to drink with them and laugh with them, messing around even back in the headquarters whenever Hijikata wasn't looking, being able to enjoy a good fight with strong people and with people he absolutely trusts covering his back.. if there was one wish he could make, it would be for these days to never end. To keep living in this enjoyable way, the kind of life he had left his family for a long time ago. If not just to see Souji steal Hijikata's haiku book one more time and all laugh about it, if not just to have just another tug of war over a simple piece of food for fun...
But after a while, when you've just drunk too much, the good mood can also just simply flip around. And that was exactly what was happening now, when Shinpachi suddenly heard the other guy speak up. "Shinpachi.. if things continue like this, then what will you do?"
The worries came back. The idea that the ideal life he had been reminiscing about was actually already a little in the past, wasn't it? Somehow it was like things were slowly starting to deteriorate, not even a constantly grinning guy like Shinpachi could deny that - he and Sano had already shared their complaints enough times with each other for that.
"Che... when you put it like that, it's almost like the only answer left for me's that I gotta scram. But even if there's the thing with this or that or whatever, 's not like I wanna leave.." His words were already becoming more slurred with how many drinks he had, not to mention his thoughts were a lot less coherent in the way they came out. At least he was still enough in his right mind to not speak of secrets in public during a serious moment, apparently. "I mean, it's still fun, I guess, and everyone's.."
His words just trailed off. Maybe he was thinking of what happened to Heisuke, or maybe thinking about this complicated stuff in general was impossible while drunk.
"... Whatever, it doesn't matter, right? Even if it ends up that way, we're gonna go together." Although it wasn't like anything they agreed on - maybe Shinpachi was just assuming it would be the way after all this time. "So it's nothing, Sano. Besides, I don't wanna think 'bout this stuff right now, I just wanna drink.. if you're gonna bring up this stuff, I'll make ya pay for the drinks..!"
When Shinpachi was promptly in turn confronted that today was, in fact, his turn to pay for the drinks, the entire building was once more forced to deal with loud sounds - except this time they were sounds of arguing over who had to pay up rather than laughter.
◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories?
Yup, Shinpachi will be keeping his memories of his time in Zelien in
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exitvoid! The most significant growth that came out of it is that things went a lot more south than they had so far back home for him - Chizuru and Heisuke got locked up into a cage for a while and then skinned right in front of everyone else and there was nothing the rest of the Shinsengumi could do about it, even if they (Shinpachi too) tried to break through the barrier that seperated them from the two, some of the members of the Shinsengumi got sort of possessed to go batshit during an event based on the Stephen King books which ended up in a mass murder chain where eventually Shinpachi had to put down Kondou just to prevent the guy from killing Souji and after having been drinking booze with mind-altering drugs mixed in, Shinpachi got a little stab-happy and ended up most notably stabbing Sano because of it.He's mostly still his usual self, since he's never the type to linger on something and just sit down and do nothing else, he's the type who always keeps on going, but the memories do linger in his mind with a heavy sense of regret and guilt about all of them that he just can't shake off, which means he's mostly just acquired a lot more trauma.
Another significant change is that Shinpachi learned in Zelien from someone from their future that he, along with another member (he didn't want to ask who back then, so he only knows it's someone else), is the only surviving captain of the Shinsengumi. It's what makes him feel bad even moreso than all those other traumatic events when it comes down to it, since all those things were things that were fixed in the end - people who died came back, wounds healed - but this is something that's still going to happen and can't be changed. He already knows that all his friends who he's happily spending time with now are all just going to be dead sooner or later and it really eats away at him even if he doesn't bring it up (other than one conversation he had with Hijikata in Zelien, who already more or less has experienced everyone dying) since he's hardly going to tell anyone they'll die. Survivor's guilt all over the board, really.
.. He punched a few reptiles though.
That was pretty cool.