Review of Gintama

First of all, forgive my English, it's not my native language and I'm not fluent. Gintama is a Story published in Weekly Shounen Jump around 2003 and ending in 2019. The work received an anime adaptation from 2006, managing to adapt all the content in 2021. This review will be mostly based on the adaptation, covering all the seasons and canonical films. Plot: The plot is great and works perfectly with the whole proposal of the manga, it has a balanced progression, not being rushed, much less slow. Furthermore, The Author (Hideaki Sorachi) makes each chapter/episode important for manga, for example: dialogues between characters that show theirviews on something; foreshadowings; chapters/episodes that theoretically would be just for comedy, have character construction. His script unpredictability also helps a lot, we as viewers don't know how the arcs will end, and until the end of the series, nothing was predictable.

Structure: This dynamic between comedy with drama and gore creates a familiar atmosphere for the viewer, as we see up close the characters' moments of happiness and despair.

Characters: Simply the best cast in all of Jump.All have an unbreakable charisma and have layers, not just empty characters with just one personality trait. Gintama's characters clearly have personalities; preferences; personal defects; relationships with people be it loving or friendship and etc. Putting it in a nutshell: The characters in Gintama seem human in our reality, and that's an extreme quality, where the characters break through the fictional barrier and affect us positively, and that's an important factor for the next topic.

Messages and Philosophies: They weigh in, and that's great. Sorachi-sensei manages to give enormous weight even to simple things, however, without pushing the limits of the purposeless super dramatic. All these messages are passed on by the characters, and come along with a beautiful learning experience, both for the characters themselves and for us spectators, an example to be followed in character development. Of course, it's good to remember that each of the messages passed to viewers in the arcs is very personal, maybe someone doesn't feel so moved by the whole philosophy of the Jirochou character for example, this is normal, but one thing is a fact, it's beautifully written, without holes and well polished.

Comedy: Here is a very personal point of each person, each individual has their own sense of humor, so what might be funny to me, it's not necessarily for you, BUT, again it's undeniable that Sorachi knows how to make comedy. The jokes have comedic timing and your look helps the joke work, so yes, the comedy is very well done, it's only up to you if it's your sense of humor.

Soundtrack: There are several animes that your tracks are iconic: One Piece; Dragon Ball; Diamond on Ace and etc. And with Gintama it's no different, both his comic soundtrack and his serious soundtracks are amazing, they give you a mix of emotion throughout the whole work and help make the viewer more immersed than he already was. I'll take the opportunity to recommend some OST's from the anime for you to understand: : Madao OST; Yorozuya Blues; Shinsengumi Theme; Takasugi Theme; Take Care Buddy; Mukashi no Yuujin ga Kawarazu ni iru Toiu no mo Waruku nai Mono da na and etc.

Openings and Endings: Why Openings and Endings are Here? Simple, they complement with more character characterization and leaving Foreshadowings as well. I can take, for example, Ending 14, which shows us the vision of one of the characters about that world, or even Ending 17, which symbolically shows the city crying. Not only to use the Endings, since the 1st Opening we have a Foreshadow, or in the famous Opening 13, where the protagonist's psychological and feelings are exposed.

Critics and parodies: It is not unknown to anyone that Gintama parodied several things, not only other manga, as even Japanese series; television industry in general; artists like musicians and idols and so on. Furthermore, Gintama is one of the few who closely criticizes the situation of the anime and manga industry, exposing the situation of the staff and the whole creation of a manga and anime, even at OVA Gintama': Futon ni Haitte kara Buki Nokoshi ni Kizuite Neru ni Nerenai Toki mo Aru, who is canonical by the way, they criticize their own sponsors and their own production company; in Gintamaº in its 1st episode, they already expose what Sunrise Studio did with the Gintama anime, and the classic final episode of season 8, where they expose Sorachi-sensei; its editor and Shounen Jump herself, having full merit and to be recognized for her extreme courage.

Identity: Gintama is one of the mangas with greater identity on Jump, its unique way of creating comedy, combined with its extremely solid drama, makes it very unique and very impossible to be replicated.

The end of the series: It may not seem like it, but the ending is one of the important points for the work, and we see quite often, especially in Shounen Jump, bad endings. And with Gintama luckily it doesn't repeat itself, and I say it out loud: Gintama has the best ending ever created for a Weekly Shounen Jump work. The end has no plotholes; all your characters have already been developed and had their conclusions; it doesn't break its own main message; their final showdown is unlike any other work, with Sorachi-sensei being brave again in his choice.

Conclusion: Gintama is perfect, everything he does is perceptive of love and how careful Sorachi made the story is worthy of respect. At a time when he competed with the Big Three, it's really something to applaud, unfortunately the community doesn't give the value that Sorachi and his work deserve. I'm not afraid to say that Gintama is different from what we in the West have already seen, and we should be more attentive with works like this. There is not a single undeveloped character in the work; everything presented has been explored; Worldbuilding is great and well done; his epic moments are truly epic, the same goes for the sad/tense and happy scenes.

Being totally impartial, my score is: 10/10.