Review of Gintama

[spoiler free] Short: It’s good but not that good. Long: I am not someone who has been following Gintama for an extended period of time, but rather I watched it in its entirety at a steady pace over the course of a few months. I also have not read the source material so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the adaptation. As you can probably tell from the synopsis, Gintama is mostly focussed on comedy. The comedy mostly involves a funny man – straight man routine and uses the traits from various characters in the show to set up jokes. Most of all though, Gintama is a parodyanime that uses references to real-life pop-culture, especially those that are relevant in Japan or are related to other manga series published by Jump or other similar publishers. Whether or not the comedy in Gintama is actually funny is an entirely different question. During my viewing of the show, I found the jokes to be pretty hit or miss depending on the situation. Sometimes this was the result of me not appreciating a niche reference to a Japanese celebrity that would likely only be funny to a Japanese viewer, but sometimes the jokes fell flat simply due to them not having much potential to be funny in the first place. The quality of the comedy in Gintama is subjective to say the least, with some people failing to enjoy even a single skit, and some enjoying every moment of it, but in most cases I think an average viewer would find some of it funny, and some of it not.

The art and animation in Gintama is fairly average. It accomplishes what it intends to do without being overly boring or exhaustive to the viewer, but by no means can I praise it for being a highlight of the anime. The characters, especially the main cast, have pretty good visual deigns and are very expressive. I can also give them credit for having some sakuga in the important fight scenes. That being said, the animation undoubtedly takes a turn for the worse during the newer parts.

In terms of the “story” of Gintama that exists alongside the comedic skits, I believe it to be in some cases both a highlight of the show, and also one of its biggest flaws. What I mean by this is that some of the arcs of the show were quite well written and were executed in a very satisfying way, where others were pretty lacklustre. What I believe to be the absolute peak of Gintama was a series of 3 “serious arcs” starting at around episode 300. When I was watching them, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the show took a turn for the better. That being said, by no means did I think the 300-episode supposed build-up was worth it. And to add to that, what follows these arcs is basically the worst part of Gintama. I do not know the story of why the figurative ball was dropped during the end of Gintama, but either way, it happened. The show could have, and should have, ended way earlier than it actually did. This is because the part of the story known as the Silver Soul arc (which includes the movie and specials ‘Gintama the semi-final’ and ‘Gintama: the Final’) was a wholly unsatisfying, anticlimactic, and mediocre ending. I don’t mean that as in “It didn’t end the way I wanted it to so I’m going to say it’s bad”, but rather the entire arc would have just been better off not existing in the first place. I can’t go into depth without spoiling it, so that’s all I can say about it.

The music in Gintama is pretty good. Most of the openings are memorable and I found enjoyment in listening to them after finishing the anime. The soundtrack is also good, and I didn’t feel like the background music was lacking or misused.

In terms of recommending Gintama, I’ll say it is definitely NOT a good choice if you are still getting into anime as you probably won’t find it very funny. I also wouldn’t recommend picking up this anime just to watch the supposedly legendary (once #1) ‘Gintama: The Final’ or even to see the much praised “serious” arcs. Since Gintama is fairly long, I feel like the best reason to pick it up is simply to watch a long running show. To address the unignorable high mean scores that Gintama has, I don’t think they are an accurate representation of the show’s quality. There is probably a multitude of reasons as to why they are so high, but either way, I would suggest not going into Gintama expecting it to be as good as these ratings would suggest.