Gintama 578

[Gintama 578 Translation by Kewl0210]
Page 1:
Title: 'Gintama'
Insert: Some time ago in space...
Someone: The strongest in all the universe.
People that call me things like that
are frogs at the bottoms of wells.
T/N: A 'frog at the bottom of a well' is an idiom for a person ignorant of the real world.
People act like what they can see is all there is to the world,
but space is vast and deep. A planet is nothing more than one of countless grains of sand in all of that.
And the world we see in our own lives is just a single point within that grain of sand.
Mutsu: So you're saying there are still lots of other strong guys out there?
Of the world my father saw at least, you were the strongest apparently.
Otherwise
I don't think the head of the space pirates Chidori would leave his precious daughter in protection.

Page 2:
Mutsu: Umibouzu,
or should I say, my father's old friend, Kankou?
T/N: The kanji for Kankou (神晃) mean God and Clear/Bright/Dazzling.
Mutsu: You do not need to say anything. Allow me, Mutsu, to withdraw the request.
You being my master is just too much.
But if you feel like it,
once in a while, would you just come talk
to this bird locked here in this cage, knowing nothing of the rest of the world?
I would like to hear about the countless grains of sand
those eyes of yours have seen traveling all over the universe.

Page 3:
Top Insert: The power to change a planet, to change the universe----
Bottom Insert: ☆Jump Comics Volume 63 is now on sale with great fanfare!!
☆Every Wednesday at 6PM on TV Tokyo and Affiliates, the 'Farewell Shinsengumi Arc' is airing with a great response from the fans!!
Title: Lesson 578 Frog in a Well
Author: Sorachi Hideaki

Page 4:
Utsuro: The first time we met
I felt it.
I thought that someday
I might be up against you like this.

Page 5:
Utsuro: I had a feeling that I would find my answer when I met you.
Why is it that while we are able to build for ourselves advanced civilizations that span across planets,
yet we are still divided into friends and foes and are unable to stop fighting?
It is that the positions of enemies and allies
has nothing to do with gains or losses, convictions or creeds.
It is a fundamental part of the nature of living creatures.
In other words, no matter how far we organisms progress,
we may have a quality that forces us to always
choose predators and prey.
If that also applies to the organisms that stand at the pinnacle of of an ecosystem...
it may have been decided that we would oppose each other like this from the beginning.
Umi: ......Strongest in the universe?
Even you say such absurd things?

Page 6:
Umi: Sorry,
but I'm not interested in titles like that.
SFX: BAH
Umi: Get lost.
I don't need the title of the strongest.
And I couldn't care less about what happens to the world.
Call me a frog if you want,
but I'll die to protect the bottom of my well.
I'm fine with being just a frog.

Page 7:
Utsuro: You are
no frog in a well.
I have seen the rise and fall of a multitude of creatures with my own eyes.
So I feel I can say I'm a bit of an authority on the subject.
But it is because of that,
I know the even if you are a stalwart fighter defying human intellect the likes of which is only born once every several thousand years,
you cannot escape the natural law of all organisms.
Yes,
all creatures someday fall.

Page 8:
Utsuro: Because you stood in front me,
the one who escaped the law of organisms.
SFX: DODOON
Saka: Mutsu!! Hurryyy!!

Page 9:
Umi: Someone stronger than me?
Mutsu: Mhm.
If the universe is so vast that even you can't be called the strongest,
then have you personally ever come across someone like that?
When I was young, there was a pretty strong one I went toe-to-toe with named Housen,
but that was a creature on the same standard as me.
As a hunter, I have no means of comparing our strengths of anyone I've gone up against.
Like can you compare a beast that devours a castle or a swarm of bugs that destroy a city
with the strength of a typhoon or a tsunami?
Mutsu: There's no need to compare.
There is no one else that can stop disasters on their own.
From what I have heard, the reason you gained the title of 'strongest'
and the reason are praised as a hero of the Yato,
is because of the battle where Umibouzu recaptured our home planet.

Page 10:
Mutsu: When the Yato homeworld, 'Kouan', was in a great war, it was at the receiving end of an all-out attack by the League of Planets. [quote white]
T/N: Kouan (徨安) = Wandering Low/Quiet/Peaceful
And it was destroyed along with many Yato.
From that utterly devastated world
Altana started gushing forth.
And as the result of not people, but the Altana, that withered planet became a nest of creatures with strange mutations.
Among them, the thing that made Kouan the 'planet of death'
was the planet parasite known as the 'Master of Kouan',
the Orochi.
T/N: An Orochi is a mythical serpent creature often depicted with 8 heads.
It spread its roots to the center of the planet and devoured the Altana. And wherever you were on the planet, its 108 heads would sprout out, removing everything that got close to its 'nest', the planet.
Everyone abandoned it and for centuries, no one tried to approach that 'nest'.

Page 11:
Muts: But then one person plunged in alone
and freed the Yato homeworld from that thing.
Umibouzu,
that was you, was it not?
Umi: ......Take back a homeworld?
All that happened was I lost a bed with a pal of mine.
I lost a drinking contest so I had to go pick up chicks at a home town where there wasn't a soul around.
And I ended up going toe-to-toe with a real unruly girl.
That was the first time I had an experience like that.
The moment I saw that one.

Page 12:
Umi: Oh, it stood up.
Mutsu: Stood up?
What did?
Umi: It might be too soon to tell you that, kid.
Well, it's an instinct thing.
The top priority etched into the genes of every organism is 'continuation of the species'.
Things that are connected with leaving your genes in the world.
When I saw that guy, my genes made an instant decision.

Page 13:
SFX: DOGOOO
Utsuro: You will die.
Umi: It said I'd better make some kids, quick.
SFX: DOON
SFX: GAOON

Page 14:
SFX: DOH DON
Umi: No matter how I tried to attack,
I didn't feel any reaction.
It felt like I was beating on the ground I was standing on.

Page 15:
Umi: Yup.
Like a single bug floundering on a planet.
Mutsu: ......
So you're saying that your genes were admitting defeat before you did?
Umi: To put it plainly, it was the first time since birth that I had been scared.
But... even if my genes were crying out,
a man
cannot cry until the fight is over.
SFX: MUNZU

Page 16:
Umi: To my right ball, I said...
quit rattling around, it's so noisy.
SFX: BUCHIN
Umi: And lefty,
you shut up and watch, too.
My seeds
were spread long ago.

Page 17:
Umi: The best ones I had.
So let me fight!
Let me protect
my species, my family!
SFX: GAGAH

Page 18:
SFX: DOFUUU
SFX: GAH
SFX: BUSHIII
Mutsu: .........I am astonished.
You suppressed your instincts by force?
Umi: It was thanks to that that I was able to rid myself of any wicked thoughts and put the moves on the woman with brand new emotions.
Mutsu: Woman? What is it you are talking about? The Orochi was a male, wasn't it?
Umi: What're you talking about?
You think a ball would get busted over an opponent like that?
I told you, didn't I? I went to that planet of death to pick up chicks.

Page 19:
SFX: SHUUU
Umi: Is that regenerating?
I see. So you really do...
have the same Altana as that person...
Both: Who are you talking about?
Umi: I'm talking about the woman I risked my life to get with.
My wife.
Insert: The one he met on that 'star of death'-----
Bottom: Gintama
...Lesson 578
/ End