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more silly Gintama nerdery, putting it here now, might repost to Tumblr later...
I've seen some neat fanart and some meta thoughts on which Hogwarts house to put Gintama characters in, and I wanted to join in. But then I maybe started to consider it too seriously, thinking of what we know (some spoilers ahead behind the cut, if vague ones) of what Gintoki, Katsura and Takasugi were like when they were 11 in canonverse. Also what we might extrapolate about Sakamoto, Shinpachi and Kagura. Also I needed to figure out if this was Harry Potter-verse, Harry Potter-influenced AU-verse, or if they characters had just been plucked from the canonverse like a portal crossover AU (or a jamjar RP!), transporting them directly from sort-of feudal Japan to Hogwarts proper or some Hogwarts-ified "Mahotokoro" placed in Japan but with Hogwarts Houses. (The Japanese magic school should really have some silly parody name to fit with Gintama...)
I went with "Hogwarts is now in Japan, okay, and Gintama-style feudal Japan always had secret wizards in it, who now need to adapt to the new futuristic world with aliens just like everyone else".
( implied spoilers up to episode 305/chapter 519 )
Now for Shinpachi and Kagura. Here I don't have any detailed background thoughts. I guess Kagura just happens to make the decision to go to Earth three years earlier -- maybe a good opening came up in a passing spaceship -- and once she's there she gets the Hogwarts letter, shrugs and turns up, chewing sukonbu. (Maybe Gintoki is even a teacher there by now...)
Shinpachi is easy. Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff. Yes, he wants to be stronger and more reliable than he starts out as: he wants to be able to protect more people, which might look Gryffindory. But I think of that more as "Gintama samurai values" than solely Gryffindory values, and Gintama teaches that you can be your own kind of samurai in any case. Shinpachi is very aware of his Hufflepuff-y personality and that's what he bases himself on, even as his values might be a little bit more Gryffindor than is Hufflepuff standard.
Kagura is more tricky, because if you look at her core values (family, belonging, not being lonely) they're more Hufflepuffy than anything else. But her personality in general might well overshadow that. I'm thinking the Sorting Hat might not be able to see all the way to those values but be overwhelmed by her bright shining forthright Kaguraness and the best thing it could do would be HOUSE OF HEROES, that is to say Gryffindor.
However, would Kagura listen or not? She might take his word for it because whatever. Or she might instead turn a deaf ear and insist on some House because of a flip association that has nothing to do with reality. "I heard Slytherin is good for cool heroines!" or "I saw a fat kid who's a Ravenclaw, so I bet Ravenclaws get the most food and I want that!!" or "I want whichever House is most likely to give me a big magical creature I can play with without hurting it!!" All up in the air, really.
addendum: thinking about it more, I actually kinda like the idea that Kagura meets Shinpachi before getting Sorted and even though at first she's acting all superior and dismissive towards him, in fact - not that she ever admits this - she asks the Sorting Hat to put her in Hufflepuff because she does want to go to the same House as her new friend.
I've seen some neat fanart and some meta thoughts on which Hogwarts house to put Gintama characters in, and I wanted to join in. But then I maybe started to consider it too seriously, thinking of what we know (some spoilers ahead behind the cut, if vague ones) of what Gintoki, Katsura and Takasugi were like when they were 11 in canonverse. Also what we might extrapolate about Sakamoto, Shinpachi and Kagura. Also I needed to figure out if this was Harry Potter-verse, Harry Potter-influenced AU-verse, or if they characters had just been plucked from the canonverse like a portal crossover AU (or a jamjar RP!), transporting them directly from sort-of feudal Japan to Hogwarts proper or some Hogwarts-ified "Mahotokoro" placed in Japan but with Hogwarts Houses. (The Japanese magic school should really have some silly parody name to fit with Gintama...)
I went with "Hogwarts is now in Japan, okay, and Gintama-style feudal Japan always had secret wizards in it, who now need to adapt to the new futuristic world with aliens just like everyone else".
( implied spoilers up to episode 305/chapter 519 )
Now for Shinpachi and Kagura. Here I don't have any detailed background thoughts. I guess Kagura just happens to make the decision to go to Earth three years earlier -- maybe a good opening came up in a passing spaceship -- and once she's there she gets the Hogwarts letter, shrugs and turns up, chewing sukonbu. (Maybe Gintoki is even a teacher there by now...)
Shinpachi is easy. Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff. Yes, he wants to be stronger and more reliable than he starts out as: he wants to be able to protect more people, which might look Gryffindory. But I think of that more as "Gintama samurai values" than solely Gryffindory values, and Gintama teaches that you can be your own kind of samurai in any case. Shinpachi is very aware of his Hufflepuff-y personality and that's what he bases himself on, even as his values might be a little bit more Gryffindor than is Hufflepuff standard.
Kagura is more tricky, because if you look at her core values (family, belonging, not being lonely) they're more Hufflepuffy than anything else. But her personality in general might well overshadow that. I'm thinking the Sorting Hat might not be able to see all the way to those values but be overwhelmed by her bright shining forthright Kaguraness and the best thing it could do would be HOUSE OF HEROES, that is to say Gryffindor.
However, would Kagura listen or not? She might take his word for it because whatever. Or she might instead turn a deaf ear and insist on some House because of a flip association that has nothing to do with reality. "I heard Slytherin is good for cool heroines!" or "I saw a fat kid who's a Ravenclaw, so I bet Ravenclaws get the most food and I want that!!" or "I want whichever House is most likely to give me a big magical creature I can play with without hurting it!!" All up in the air, really.
addendum: thinking about it more, I actually kinda like the idea that Kagura meets Shinpachi before getting Sorted and even though at first she's acting all superior and dismissive towards him, in fact - not that she ever admits this - she asks the Sorting Hat to put her in Hufflepuff because she does want to go to the same House as her new friend.