Review of Gintama

Story: 9/10 Art: 9/10 Sound: 10/10 Character: 7/10 Enjoyment: 7/10 Overall: 7.5/10 At the time I'm writing this review, I had just got finished watching the first season of Gintama, but before I express my thoughts on the first half of this show, I'd like to share my little history I had with this show before I began watching it about 3-4 months ago. I was first exposed to Gintama during the time Jujutsu Kaisen was airing, because I saw someone mention the show in the comment section of a video where Itadori was watching LOTR, and so I was surprised that after 2 and a half years of watching animeat the time, only NOW was this show finally getting recommended to me. It's like this show is Rated #15 on myanimelist, and only NOW am I finally hearing others mention this anime. But regardless, I'm kind of happy that it took me forever to discover this show, because this show is flooded with references that I'm sure I would have no damn clue about if I saw this show in my early freshmen weeaboo days. When it comes to story, this show kicks off the first couple 100 episodes as episodic, which to anyone who's read my Ranma review, you will know that rare episodic anime is something I enjoy, so that was a win win in my eyes. Sure, the show did eventually transfer to arc episodes, but those arcs were only around like 5 episodes. So in that case, this show is very good at pacing. One thing that I thought was kind of poorly executed about this show was the fact that the drama felt forced af half the time using the same damn piece of soundtrack, and it was rare when the dramatic moments actually worked. Another thing that I do find very hit or miss about this show is it's sense of humor. The references to other anime, and the goofy dialogue were my favorite humorous moments about this show, but the rest of the humor in this anime falls kind of flat in my opinion. Now I understand that humor is very suggestive, but using the same feces jokes, piss jokes, and exposed men in public is simply not funny to me; it gets repetitive super fast, and even the show admitted that themselves, which is another thing I really wanna point out. By far my favorite part about this show that debates me on changing my score from a 7.5 to an 8 is the fact that this show is very aware of how ridiculous it is, and how despite the fact that this first season lasted from 2006 to 2010, the episodes from 2008 to 2010 were still stick in the 4:3 sized tv screen, which I thought was weird and unusual, but very interesting at the same time. 2008 was the year that 16:9 sized screens started to become a hell of a lot more common on tv, but there's a good chance that this show decided to catch up to that 3 years late on purpose. I mean this show was animated by sunrise studios; the same studios that animated both code geass and inuyasha final act, and both of those shows were in 16:9 sized screens while while airing during 2006 and 2009. But despite the mystery behind the screen size of this show, the character designs and art are very weird, but unique, much like Eiichiro Oda's art style. Some of the designs are a lil weird to me, but the color scheme of this show is by far the best part of this show; I just absolutely love the color choices and range in colors that they chose, which makes this show very pleasant to look at. The sound really couldn't be any better than it already is, because literally all the opening theme songs of this show are slapz af with not a single disappointment; literally some of the best anime OP's of all time. The EDs are pretty damn good too with the notable exception of the 2nd ED. When it comes to voice acting, it is so easy to tell that all the seiyuus were having a lot of fun recording this in the studio, cause there characters are always talking faster than all hell. I believe that everyone in the cast gave this show their absolute all, especially Tomozaku Sugita; there really wasn't any other more perfect choice for Gintoki that him. It was only natural for someone like Sugita-sama to land the roll of Gintoki. This show has an absolute big ass crusade of characters, and I'm very happy to say that most of them last least were very likable and enjoyable. Gintoki runs the show the whole way through, and he's always such a blast to watch. Shinpachi is always pointing shit out that doesn't look like good news, and I forreal wish they didn't make him such a punching bag. Kagura is absolutely adorable; I love her high pitched ass voice, her relationship with Sadaharu, and her (at least most of the time) adorable attitude. Toshi is also pretty good; episode 119 where he's desperate to smoke is by far my favorite episode starring him, but what I didn't understand at all was why the hell they decided to have Sougo Okita betray him, and leave him to fall to his death only for Toshi to come back less than 10 episodes later as if nothing happened. Maybe the jigsaw arc was a filler arc, but as far as I know, that's just not very good writing killing a character, and then bringing him back like nothing happened. Tae Shimura is alright, but she doesn't really have much to offer on the table, and she can get a lil irritating sometimes. But by far my favorite supporting character in this show has to go to Katsura Kotarou and Elizabeth, not only because Elizabeth is a mysterious adorable Duck thing, but because Katsura is very rarely see hanging with others in the show, because he's his own man. He's a very chill dude who goes about his own beeswax, and in general he's just an extremely likable character who honestly deserved more screen time than he actually got. If I'm being dead ass here, the only character that I really couldn't give less of a damn about is Ayame Sarutobi. Not only because she teases the ever-living dog shit outa me, but because she really doesn't have anything to offer on the table. All she stands out for is being a horny slutty lil simp bitch for Gintoki, and Gintoki being the thot slaying chad that he is, couldn't care less about her, and is always throwing that bitch aside which is another thing that I like about Gintoki is that he doesn't tolerate simping thots. When it comes to enjoyment, I generally did enjoy this shows goofy, yet unique storytelling and wacky ideas. And well yes, its true that this show does have a few bad episodes that make me reconsider whether it was a good idea to start this anime or not, it was fun nonetheless. Overall, I will admit that I am a tad bit disappointed with this show, and I do believe that it's overrated. But I can't help but say that its easy to understand why people love this anime, and even I have to admit that I liked it; I just didn't love it like everyone else did. But regardless, Gintama is a good decent anime. And although yes, it does have its flaws and its a very generic shounen, its not afraid to admit that. And I'm looking forward to the later seasons expecting them to be even better. So if your looking for something simple to laugh at if your into parody, goofy, witty, or bathroom type of humor, than this is the show for you that I recommend giving a go. But with all that being said, thank you so much if you found this Gintama Review helpful. This is R.S.Soria signing out, and you have a good night, because I'm about to go to bed right now after writing down this long ass review for 2 hours.