Review of Gintama

"Long ago, this nation was known as the land of the samurai. The dream-filled Edo skies, upon which the samurai once gazed, are now filled with the ships of the Amanto, beings-" WHAAAATTTT?! Why the HELL are we reusing this same intro?! Well...it is because Gintama is the epitome of reusing and recycling. That's right...even after all these years, we still repeat the same gags, and recycle themes from other series. Gomensai (Kaoru Hana reference), we will take this opportunity to thoroughly apologize for being a horrible anime for so long as we go through all the shortcomings and flaws of this waste of trees made bya Dragon Quest-obsessed gorilla.

STORY:
Let's start off with the basic premise, ok? Well that shouldn't be so hard, the first words in this review was basically the synopis....
SIKE!

This show barely even touches upon the setting and conflicts of the above quoted paragraph. You want to know what they DO spend time on? POOP JOKES AND DICK JOKES!

The only people who will find this funny are people who are not even old enough to use social media, however since kids are not watching this, this means no one will find it funny. What kind of Battle Shounen spends 80% of the time on poop jokes and baseless parodies instead of world building and serious tension and fights? Could never be One Piece. At least our movie made 25% of the money that One Piece's movie did, that means we are still a quarter as good...take all the small victories you can.

Plot points are always conveniently forgotten about or only come up once in a blue moon, it takes ages to get to important things and it's not like in One Piece and Naruto where the length is used for constant set up and progression. When do Shinpachi and Tae restore their dojo? When does Takasugi become a consistent relevant antagonist? I've spent approximately 4 days of my life watching this and I still don't know.

There are some serious arcs but the tonal whiplash makes my neck hurt (just like how a certain person's neck was hurting on September 10th, 2025.) . How do we go from episodes where someone's penis is a screwdriver to an arc about underground prostitution? No tact at all and infact they do make some shitty jokes IN these arcs. I would recommend looking up serious arc guides to get the full gist of the show and do not watch the comedy episodes.

CHARACTERS:
Well, even if the story is non-existent, if it is a comedy the characters can redeem (saar) this series.

Let's start with the main character...Gintoki Sakata.

Gintama's a cool guy, eh beats up aliens (every 50 episodes) and doesn't afraid of anything. Luffy Quarter over here though....HE'S TOO OLD! (I prefer them younger) The usual Shounen anime protagonist is supposed to be a kid around 12 to 17 years old for maximum relatability points but here we have an ojisan who is broke and struggles to pay rent? PUKEEEE. Kirito is a proper example of a relatable anime main character, not him.

He also learns no unique moves or transformations which is unheard of for a Shounen protagonist, this basically means he has no aura unlike my GOAT and his fights therefore are sleep inducing, like visual nyquil. Bleach is an example of a good Battle Shounen done right,

The other characters are a mix of random ideas that do not blend well. Let's start with my favorite.

Kagura is cute and funny 😭😭😭 and hot

Shinpachi fucking pisses me off. You see, a good comedy anime does not require a character to always react to every stupid joke or things that the others do and explain the joke. For example, in Konosuba all of the main leads are insane in their own ways, or even in Saiki K. where the main character is a normal guy compared to his peers, he offers hilarious dry and dismissive commentary on the idiots surrounding him.

HOWEVER SHINPACHI ALWAYS SCREAMS AND EXPLAINS THE JOKE MAKING IT COMPLETELY UNFUNNY HE SHOULD JUST DIE HE HAS NO PURPOSE TO EVEN BE IN THIS SHOW! It could've just been about this 30 year old guy and his qt 3.14 chinese immigrant child labourer doing funny shit and it would still be about as good.

We have Okita Sougo, a very inappropriate character for the child audience (i think this is for children?) with his sadism and BDSM play, and Kondo Isao who is a creepy stalker. These characters are a mockery of the respectable historical figures they are based off of. Madao is a depressing character for kids, he always wants to kill himself and it makes me cry. Elizabeth....they try to justify his existence in some Gundam ripoff arc but it just fell flat in every way.

The female characters unlike in others are not subservient and instead GO AGAINST THE MAN by beating them up for NO reason (Tae, Tsukuyo) or otherwise being filthy and impure (Sacchan) unlike the pure angels they should be. I guess since the author is a Gorilla he just write what he knows?
(Example of a good female character = Hinata Hyuga from Naruto)

Other characters stick to their repetitive gimmicks (Zura janai, Katsura da! Mayonnaise addict Hijikata) and barely develop and when they do, it feels comical because they will just go back to being an inane lunatic that you cannot take seriously so investment is at a 0% It is like applying serious backstory to characters in SpongeBob Squarepants.

These inappropriate characters contributed to it losing it's prime time timeslot, suggesting that you should always keep your characters as role model for children, like Sung Jin Woo for example.

OVERALL:
Gintama is a series that just makes toilet jokes (Skibidi), barely has a plot and is compromised of 80% filler which is worse than Bleach filler ratio. The serious arcs are full of plot armor and generic NAKAMA bullshit and it repeats the same message (Frieren reference?) about protecting what's in front of you which is not as profound or deep as you may think. This show was made on a shoe string budget and I respect Gorilla Mangaka for being an indie artist who managed to stay afloat but this is Clearly a very overrated work.