Toshiro Hijikata
From Gintama
Toshiro Hijikata is a main character of Gintama, the vice commander of the Shinsengumi. He is voiced by Kazuya Nakai in Japanese and, in the partial English dubs, by Michael Adamthwaite (Crunchyroll's episodes 266 to 316 and The Very Final) and Travis Roig (the Hulu dub of the early seasons).
About Toshiro Hijikata
Toshiro Hijikata is a main character of Gintama, the vice commander of the Shinsengumi police force. Feared as the Demonic Vice Commander, he is a chain smoking, mayonnaise obsessed disciplinarian whose strict code hides the most loyal man in Edo. Hijikata spends the series hunting rebels, sparring verbally with Gintoki, surviving Okita's assassination attempts disguised as pranks, and holding his force together through every disgrace the shogunate throws at it.
Appearance
Hijikata is a tall, sharp featured man with dark blue black hair and steel blue eyes, almost always seen in the black and gold Shinsengumi uniform with a cigarette or, in later episodes after a memorable smoking ban story, a bottle of mayonnaise within reach. He wears his vice commander's authority in his posture: straight backed, sharp, and visibly annoyed at all times. His sword is at his hip and his glare does most of his talking. The design is the classic Shinsengumi look from history and drama, modernised just enough to fit a world with spaceships parked over Edo.
Personality
Hijikata is stern, proud, short tempered and absolutely incorruptible about the things he has decided matter. He enforces rules he wrote himself with suicidal seriousness, then breaks character completely over mayonnaise, cigarettes or an embarrassing otaku hobby he hides badly. He is the straight man of the Shinsengumi, which, given the force contains Okita, makes him the straightest man in Edo after Shinpachi. Underneath: a farmer's son who believes loyalty is the only wealth a man like him can earn, and spends his life proving it to Kondo and to himself.
Background & Story
Hijikata was born in the countryside, the youngest son of a farming family, and clawed his way up from nothing to the dojo of Kondo Isao, where his talent and ferocity made him Kondo's right hand. When Kondo founded the Shinsengumi in Edo, Hijikata built its code, its discipline and its terrifying reputation, and wrote the rules that members die for breaking. He shares the force's duties with guarding the shogunate, hunting rebels like Katsura, and managing Sougo Okita, who wants his job and possibly his life. The Farewell Shinsengumi arc, where the force is disbanded and branded traitor, gives Hijikata the series' most praised dramatic material.
Powers & Abilities
- Swordsmanship: Hijikata is a top tier swordsman, trained at Kondo's dojo and hardened on Edo's streets, capable of fighting elite assassins and holding front lines in the war arcs.
- Vice Commander's Authority: He runs the Shinsengumi's operations, discipline and intelligence, and the force's fearsome efficiency is largely his design. Men follow his orders even when his orders are insane, which is often.
- Mayonnaise Endurance: Not a combat skill, but a defining one: Hijikata consumes mayonnaise on everything, in quantities the cast treats as a health emergency, and has fought duels over the honour of the condiment.
Key Relationships
- Kondo Isao: His commander and the man he chose to follow for life. Hijikata's loyalty to Kondo is total and occasionally unreasonable, and the force exists because Kondo's warmth and Hijikata's discipline complete each other.
- Sougo Okita: His subordinate, rival and would be assassin. Okita's plots against him range from pranks to genuinely dangerous, and Hijikata returns the favour with paperwork and punishment duties. They would die for each other and both would deny it under torture.
- Gintoki Sakata: His mirror and his headache. A police commander and a former rebel should be simple enemies; instead they drink in the same bars, owe each other money and keep saving each other's lives.
- Mitsuba Okita: Sougo's older sister, whom Hijikata loved and left behind to follow Kondo to Edo, judging himself unworthy. Her story is the wound under his discipline, and the reason Okita's hatred has a real root.
Quick Answers
Who voices Toshiro Hijikata?
Hijikata is voiced by Kazuya Nakai in Japanese. In the partial English dubs he is voiced by Michael Adamthwaite in the Crunchyroll dub of episodes 266 to 316 and The Very Final, and by Travis Roig in the Hulu dub of the early seasons.
Why is Hijikata obsessed with mayonnaise?
It begins as a running joke about his food tastes (he covers everything he eats in mayonnaise and buys it in bulk) and becomes a genuine part of his character: cheap comforts, rigidly defended, for a man whose life is discipline and violence. Later stories even weaponise it in comedy and, once, in a duel fought over condiments.
Both. He is modelled on Hijikata Toshizo, the real vice commander of the historical Shinsengumi, down to the strict code. The mayonnaise, cigarettes and otaku curse storylines are Sorachi's additions, which is Gintama's method with all its historical figures.
Why do the Shinsengumi fear Hijikata's rules?
Because he wrote the force's internal code with death as the penalty for breaking it, and he enforces it without exceptions, including on himself. The code turned a band of rowdy swordsmen into the shogunate's most disciplined unit, and Hijikata's willingness to carry its weight is why the men follow him.