Gin Tōdō (藤堂 吟 Tōdō Gin) is one of the co-founders of the Antarctic Challenge Foundation. She leads the Antarctic Challenge Foundation's most recent expedition to Antarctica in A Place Further Than the Universe, and had led the previous one that occurred three years before the events of the story.
Personality
Gin comes across as a strict authoritarian, as first noted by Mari Tamaki and Yuzuki Shiraishi during the girls' summer training sessions. She appears to like the part of the expedition in which the icebreaker ship breaks the ice.
She is a skilled pitcher at baseball. She also taught Shirase Kobuchizawa how to skip rope when she was younger.
Biography
Twenty years prior to the events of A Place Further Than the Universe, Gin and her best friend Takako Kobuchizawa were high-schoolers at Tatara Nishi High School. A few years after this, Takako gave birth to a daughter, and often tasked Gin to look after her daughter. Some time afterwards, Gin became friends with Kanae Maekawa, a woman with a business background who also aspired to go to Antarctica. Four years prior to the events of the story, Gin, Takako and Kanae launched the Antarctic Challenge Foundation and successfully bid for the soon-to-be-decommissioned Shirase icebreaker ship and Showa Station from the Japanese government. They were then able to fund Japan's first civilian expedition to Antarctica with the help of sponsors, which Gin led. Due to an unfortunate incident, the expeditioners returned from Antarctica without Takako, and caused sponsors to withdraw their funding for the next planned expedition. Takako's daughter has been at odds with Gin ever since.
Gin first appears in episode 2 in a flashback. She does not appear in person until the end of episode 3, and does not meet the main characters until episode 4 when they go to the mountains for their summer training, and Gin becomes their instructor. Just before dawn, Gin stood near the tent where the girls were camped in, and when Kimari woke up earlier than her friends, Gin told her more about Takako.
Although Shirase manages to talk to Gin (without looking at her) during episode 7, just before they depart, it is not until episode 9, well into their voyage, that they come clean over what happened to Takako.
During the trip to the inland station in episode 12, Kanae and Gin supervise the four girls in snowcat 112 and assign them with tasks related to the restoration of the Kobuchizawa Observatory. During one of the nights in, Gin reveals more about what happened to Takako. In the final episode, Gin organises a baseball game with the four girls on the day before they leave. On the day the girls leave, Gin delivers an address to the crew. Just before Shirase boards the helicopter back to Penguin Manju Go, she is given Takako's laptop which the girls had found inside the inland station. When Gin opens the laptop herself and checks the emails, she notices an unsent email destined for Shirase, and decides to send it herself on behalf of Takako.
Etymology
- The name Gin means "versify, singing, recital" (吟).
- Gin's surname Tōdō means "wisteria" (藤) (tō) and "temple" (堂) (dō).
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