'Gintama' Gets New Anime Special in Early 2021

The official Twitter account of the Gintama anime series announced a new anime special on Saturday. The special episode will debut exclusively on NTT Docomo's dTV streaming platform in early 2021.

The announcement commemorates one year anniversary of the manga's final chapter. The special will be related to the third anime film (teaser visual pictured right), which is also scheduled for an early 2021 release.

Hideaki Sorachi began serializing the adventure comedy manga in 2003 and ended it in Weekly Shounen Jump in September 2018. The manga subsequently switched to Jump GIGA for three consecutive issues before making another transfer to the official Gintama application and concluding on June 20 last year. Shueisha shipped the 77th and final volume last August.

Sunrise produced a special episode that was featured at the Jump Festa Anime Tour in September 2005. The first anime season debuted in Spring 2006 and ran for 201 episodes until Winter 2010, which was followed by six more seasons between 2011 and 2018. The manga also received two anime films that premiered in 2010 and 2013, among several original video anime episodes.

A live-action film produced by Warner Bros. Pictures screened in Japan in July 2017, grossing over 4.6 billion yen. A sequel film premiered in August 2018. The first film screened in the United States and Canada in January 2018, and was subsequently released on Blu-ray and DVD in March of the same year.

Sentai Filmworks distributed the first 49 episodes and the first anime film from 2010 to 2012 on DVD and Blu-ray, respectively. Crunchyroll re-licensed the anime series and released episodes 266–291 through Funimation in March 2018. The second part of the release containing episodes 292–316 shipped in September 2018.

VIZ Media began publishing the series in English through its Shounen Jump Advanced imprint in 2007 before the release was discontinued with the 23rd volume in 2011. The manga has also been localized in multiple foreign languages.

Source: Comic Natalie

Gintama: The Semi-Final on MAL