Review of Gintama Season 5

This season is the first time Gintama feels like a traditional shonen and completely embraces its space setting, delivering those paired off fights and large scale conflict with the character depth and heart Gintama is known for. The story is as top notch as ever: using personal stories of characters struggling with themselves to ground an interstellar conflict. The character stories also tie into the worldbuilding. A more fantastical element has now been firmly added (there's always been some supernatural stuff before, but this is the first time it feels important to the overarching storyline), and even those mystical things are explored through characterbackstories and choices. There isn't much I can praise that I haven't said before. Most notably, Kagura seems to reach the peak of her arc here, and all the development was worth it. The story and character quality is consistent (perhaps even consistently getting better), and it's always more than enough for an invested watch.

What stopped me from giving this season a 10/10 was a conglomerate of small things. The biggest is how the switches between past and present didn't feel as seamless as Gintama has done before. The sequences feel a little rushed and a little stitched together to fit the 12-episode runtime. There were also a few character reactions to recent reveals that softened the weight of the previous arc, but I think that was just personal preference. In the animation department, there were moments where I would be expecting weight to the movement, only for it to fall short. This season was just the first time little animation hiccups has interfered with the atmosphere of the story.

Still, an excellent season. I am looking forward to the next season of laughs because these three serious arcs have exhausted my tear ducts and emotional strength.

Also: badass Zura is one of my absolute favorite things.