Gintama, Anime Recommendation of the Week!
Article at a glance:
- Gintama excels in comedy with wild 4th wall breaks, absurd settings, and clever pop culture references.
- The anime features a large, quirky cast with well-developed focus arcs for all important characters.
- Despite some dated visuals in early seasons, the animation remains strong, with iconic opening and ending themes.
Gintama is one of my favorite animes of all time, period. It is very clear that the people working on this show had a lot of fun making it. And I don’t say this kind of stuff often but in this case, the anime is inarguably better than the manga. Because you get everything from the manga but the anime has its own original gags too. The anime will comment on everything from airing time slot changes to breaks between seasons. Heck, they had a whole segment when the anime moved from the old 4:3 ratio to the modern 16:9 widescreen ratio.
Fillers? Even the fillers in Gintama are entertaining as hell. This anime does start off slow but once it picks up, there are only a few shows that can match its comedy. So welcome back to another edition of our anime recommendation series. You know what we’re talking about, let’s get started.
Introduction
Gintama is based on the manga of the same name by Sorachi Hideaki. The manga was serialized in the weekly shounen jump from December 2003 to June 2019. The manga is 77 volumes or 709 chapters long. As for the anime, it is made by Sunrise or Bandai Namco Pictures depending on the season. But those two are pretty much the same studio anyway lol. The anime has around 320-ish episodes with 3 canon movies you should watch.
Plot
Where do I even start with this one? Well, the setting of this anime is completely wild. It is set in an alternative version of the Edo period where aliens have invaded the Earth. The rights of the Samurai are stripped away and they’re forbidden from carrying swords after the Shogunate surrenders to the invaders. Sakata Gintoki, a former samurai with nothing else to do now runs an odd jobs shop. And the jobs he gets really are odd,
That’s all you need to know about the plot lol. Because when you’re watching an anime like this, you just stop thinking and enjoy the absurdity, You will soon realize how important this absurd setting is to this show’s humor. And man, is the humor good. The 4th wall does not exist. Gintoki is often seen reading the Jump magazine lol. And characters refer to other works of media ranging from anime/manga to stuff like Terminator and Rocky like it is nothing.
Characters
This show has a very large cast of characters and all the important characters get their own focus arcs. It is impressive how well it handles such a large cast while still having so many memorable characters. Every single character in this show is quirky as hell and no matter how serious they may initially come off as they fit seamlessly into the comedic aspect without breaking their character. The main trio of GIntoki, Kagura, and Shinpachi is goated as is but we also have a whole bunch of memorable side characters along with them.
Animations and Soundtracks
As I said Sunrise had a lot of fun making this anime. The animations of the older seasons may feel a little dated now but the animations in general are really good. Most of the opening and ending themes are damn awesome too.
Summing Up
Here’s why you should watch Gintama:
- Whacky plot
- Crazy 4th wall breaks
- Funny as hell
- Iconic characters
Well, that is all for now. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Again, this anime starts a little slow but once it gets going, it is unbeatable in its comedy. With that said, I will take my leave here. See ya!
Check out my thoughts on Slime Season 3 here!
