Review of Gintama
Well, this is my first review (Hi~) and i'm going to write it in a language that's not my mother tongue so sorry if some parts are wrong. ⭐️Story (8): I have to say that was a great surprise to find myself laughing so hard with a comedy/parody anime that doesn't even have a concise storyline or even a promising plot but short arcs that are not necessarily in a senseful order, and most of time it's completely absurd and bizarre and incredibly full of dirty jokes. But I fiercely enjoyed almost every episode. Basically the story is settled down in Edo, the old land ofsamurais that has been dominated by foreign intruders called ''amantos''. In the middle of all the ruins of the lost land, we meet two of the three main characters in the first episode: Shinpachi Shimura, a young samurai who doesn't know what to do with his life after his dad's death and the multiple debts he left. And Gintoki, the main protagonist, the laziest samurai on earth. Somehow they end up standing together in the Gin's Yorozuya, where they do whatever people wants for money. Then it joins Kagura, a ''china'' girl from the Yato Clan who has super strenght and surprises everybody with her accent-aru and her personality. Finally the girl comes to complete the three members of Yorozuya and they can finally start to work... or at least they try... (Oh, and I forgot Sadaharu, the super dog!).
⭐️Characters (9):
We have samurais (being the most important Gintoki, Shinpachi, Katsura and the Shinsengumi), ninjas, Yato members, a giant silver-haired dog, an unknown thing called Elizabeth, aliens, weird parody characters, gorillas, cats, old women and men, sadists, masochists...
I have to focus myself in my favorite ones, which in this case are Kagura, Gintoki and Katsura.
🔶Kagura is the only girl in the whole serie that I truly loved and enjoyed. She captured my attention since her very first appearence and my interest in her was just increasing everytime. She is this vermillion haired, blue eyes, pale skin girl with the purple umbrella who has an amazing strenght, adorable accent, with no satiety sense / limitless appetite, addicted to sukonbu, really bad-mannering but truly sweet, endearing, and kind when she wants to. And she is awesome, one of the funniest/promising characters in the whole series.
🔶Gintoki (better known as Gin-san / Gin-chan) is this silver-haired man who is supposed to be in the 20's (more like 25-26 y.o) but he's more like a child, amazingly lazy, bad-mannered, funny, sassy, kinda coward, but with a inmense sense of honor and justice. He is capable to die for protecting the ones he loves, or even care about people he doesn't know much.
🔶Katsura was one of the comrades of Gin in a horrible battle they were involved and marked their lifes forever. But Katsura didn't gave up in his fight of deliver Edo from the foreign invaders and started an antigovernment organization to expel Amantos from the power, so the samurais could freely walk on streets again. That's still in progress... but he is doing his best. Also, Zura -I mean- Katsura- is accompanied by Elizabeth, a strange living thing who is like a big white penguin, not really sure, and it's like his best friend (even though she doesn't speak). He is a very dumb, really funny, lovely, kind and great support character. I would love to see more of his crazy adventures and sword techniques in the closer future.
Besides, I need to mention the main Shinsengumi (policemen) members: Hijikata, Kondo & Sougo. The three of them are different but all of them have their own merits to become great characters too, and they definitely deserve more protagonism because the arcs where they are in are kind of the best.
⭐️Art (10):
I love that the studio in charge is Sunrise (InuYasha, Cowboy Bebop, Mobile Suit Gundam ...). I liked the drawing, the costumes of the characters, the dead-fish eyes of Gin-san, the color palette and the different scenaries. The facial expressions are epic, too!
⭐️Sound (9):
I think the voice actors were PERFECTLY accurate to their respective characters, i'm trying to pick a few to mention but they were all great. Daisuke Sakaguchi (Shinpachi)'s screams were fantastic though x'D 🎼 Tomokazu Sugita, Suzumura Kenichi, Kazuya Nakai and Kugimiya Rie are absolutely fantasic playing their roles.
The OST was pretty variated and accurate too, with amazing atmospheric songs and very enjoyable OPs as ''Donten'' by DOES, ''Pray'' by Tommy Heavenly6, and ''Tooi Nioi'' by Yo-King (this last really matches the comical part of the series lol). And very enjoyable EDs like ''Yuki no Tsubasa'' by Red Balloon, ''Shura'' by DOES and ''Speed of flow'' by The Rodeo Carburettor.🎵
⭐️Enjoyment (9.5)
I think that says it all. 💘
⭐️Overall (9/10)
Gintama will surprise you even if your hopes are high before watching the episodes. There is a strange but brilliant humor*, emotional background stories, many crazy adventures starred by idiots samurais and even ''common'' people. Highly recommended if you want to laugh, smile like a fool, cry or simply have a great day. WARNING: Addictive anime.
*I admit the humor is not that brilliant, they use A LOT of references and recur way so much to dirty jokes like the names game with Gintama and Kintama, or the Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon, but if you can deal with that you sure will enjoy it.
(That's all, if something it's wrong written please feel free to correct me)