Review of Gintama

Gintama is many things, but it sure is not the second coming of Jesus in shounen anime form. At the time of this writing, Gintama inexplicably has 6 spots in the top 20 here on MAL. It used to be 5 spots in the top 11 when I started watching it. After watching 201 episodes of it, I can promise you that at the very least, these 201 episodes do not deserve to be on any “top” lists. I am at a loss for words trying to explain how it got here in the first place. The one thing that makes Gintama any good, isthat it is satirical; its downfall is being exactly what it’s satirizing. Gintama is a comedy at heart that makes its home in the shounen genre while playfully dissecting shounen tropes. When you effectively use a trope you are satirizing, you not only validate that trope, but you defeat yourself in the process. Whatever point, or joke you're trying to make dissolves at a fundamental level.

If I despise Gintama on a philosophical level, why did I watch 201 episodes of it? Gintama is a lot of fun sometimes. Gintama is the funniest anime I’ve seen. A good 90% of it is jokes after jokes and there are also two or three arcs that have good drama. That is one thing that I’ll say about Gintama. The funniest parts are funnier than any other anime I’ve seen, and the best serious parts are better than any shounen anime I’ve seen. At its best, Gintama could probably score a 7 from me, maybe an 8. But, the fact that you have to put up with literally hundreds of mindless episodes to run across some good parts makes it hard to justify a higher score.

Gintama is a good “I want to turn my brain off and have some laughs” anime most of the time sprinkled with some decent drama here and there.

As much as I prefer to watch more meaningful anime, something tells me I’ll continue watching Gintama whenever I want to distract myself and have simple laughs.