Gintama – Current Grade 8/10Gintama is legitimately one of the best comedy series anime has to offer, topped only by the likes of Cromartie High School, Detroit Metal City and Daily Lives of High School Boys when it comes to satire, and Sexy Commando regarding sheer and utter insanity. It’s not perfect however, and as all things it has its strengths and weaknesses.
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Not featuring in this picture: Cars' weakness
My main issue with Gintama is the inconsistency in quality between the episodes, especially after episode 99. While the first few episodes certainly were mildly amusing, the show didn’t really grab me until episode 25/the Death Note parody episode.
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I really think that this episode was great in that the parody actually was a parody, and not just simple referencing, which people tend to mistake for parody. It showed how ridiculous the overdramatic direction, facial expressions, etc. of (in particular the anime) Death Note is out of context. Though those things were quite ridiculous in context as well. This can be contrasted* with Hijikata reading To LOVE-Ru in the Shinsengumi arc, which I guess is supposed to be funny since he is acting out of character, but meh. On the other hand I always cracked a smile every time any character said something along the lines of ‘I’ll write your name in my Death Note’, so I suppose I’m just a big old hypocrite, since Death Note happens to be my favourite anime.
From episode 25 up to and including episode 99 this show is pretty damn great and remains relatively solid, the absolute best episodes apart from episode 25 being episodes 34-35, 64, 98-99. One of the main strengths of the show is that most episodes are self-contained, which helps keep the jokes fresh. If a particular joke wasn’t funny it doesn’t really matter since there are new ones coming in rapid progression. In addition to the stand-alone episodes Gintama also have a number so called ‘serious arcs, which focuses more on action & drama instead of comedy. The thing is, I don’t really care much for the drama and action, since Gintama’s strong suit is the comedy, and there better drama and actions shows out there: for drama there is shows like Gankutsuou, Berserk, Utena and Rose of Versailles
and for action there is Black Lagoon, Darker than Black, Fullmetal Alchemist and Samurai Champloo/Cowboy Bebop. On the whole though the longer arcs in between episode 1-100 were tolerable and sometimes contained some solid comedy as well, a certain super serious toilet scene springs to mind (literally toilet humour har har)
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As I mentioned before one of Gintama’s strengths is that most of its episodes are self-contained, though this is actually only true for the first 99 episodes. After this comes a 6 episode (mostly) serious business arc co-directed by Fujita Yoichi (previously only on storyboard and episode director). Turns out it was Takamatsu Shinji, the main director for the first 99 episodes who was co-directing, since he stepped down afterwards and Yoichi became the head director for the show. The change in quality after the director-change was rather noticeable, but I kept watching nonetheless, even though it lost a bit of the charm it used to have. The arcs, both serious and comedic in nature were too drawn out for my tastes, jokes that previously might have been the focus of half an episode here becomes a multi-episode affair. I was seriously ready to drop this show at many times after the director change, but a string of very good episodes (135-138) has convinced me that this show still has something going for it. I can’t quite put my finger on why I liked these last few episodes, but I think it might be down to the ‘new’ director getting a better grasp on comedic timing. Of course this might just all be a fluke, especially considering the length of the show allowing for a lot of opportunities to screw up. Regardless one can at this point clearly see that Gintama is more in the absurdist camp of Sexy Commando rather than focusing on satire like the aforementioned Cromartie, DMC and Nichibros. Thankfully I’m quite capable of enjoy both of these types of comedy, and so I look forward to watching more of Gintama in the future.
Not featuring in this picture: Cars' weakness
My main issue with Gintama is the inconsistency in quality between the episodes, especially after episode 99. While the first few episodes certainly were mildly amusing, the show didn’t really grab me until episode 25/the Death Note parody episode.
I really think that this episode was great in that the parody actually was a parody, and not just simple referencing, which people tend to mistake for parody. It showed how ridiculous the overdramatic direction, facial expressions, etc. of (in particular the anime) Death Note is out of context. Though those things were quite ridiculous in context as well. This can be contrasted* with Hijikata reading To LOVE-Ru in the Shinsengumi arc, which I guess is supposed to be funny since he is acting out of character, but meh. On the other hand I always cracked a smile every time any character said something along the lines of ‘I’ll write your name in my Death Note’, so I suppose I’m just a big old hypocrite, since Death Note happens to be my favourite anime.
From episode 25 up to and including episode 99 this show is pretty damn great and remains relatively solid, the absolute best episodes apart from episode 25 being episodes 34-35, 64, 98-99. One of the main strengths of the show is that most episodes are self-contained, which helps keep the jokes fresh. If a particular joke wasn’t funny it doesn’t really matter since there are new ones coming in rapid progression. In addition to the stand-alone episodes Gintama also have a number so called ‘serious arcs, which focuses more on action & drama instead of comedy. The thing is, I don’t really care much for the drama and action, since Gintama’s strong suit is the comedy, and there better drama and actions shows out there: for drama there is shows like Gankutsuou, Berserk, Utena and Rose of Versailles
and for action there is Black Lagoon, Darker than Black, Fullmetal Alchemist and Samurai Champloo/Cowboy Bebop. On the whole though the longer arcs in between episode 1-100 were tolerable and sometimes contained some solid comedy as well, a certain super serious toilet scene springs to mind (literally toilet humour har har)
As I mentioned before one of Gintama’s strengths is that most of its episodes are self-contained, though this is actually only true for the first 99 episodes. After this comes a 6 episode (mostly) serious business arc co-directed by Fujita Yoichi (previously only on storyboard and episode director). Turns out it was Takamatsu Shinji, the main director for the first 99 episodes who was co-directing, since he stepped down afterwards and Yoichi became the head director for the show. The change in quality after the director-change was rather noticeable, but I kept watching nonetheless, even though it lost a bit of the charm it used to have. The arcs, both serious and comedic in nature were too drawn out for my tastes, jokes that previously might have been the focus of half an episode here becomes a multi-episode affair. I was seriously ready to drop this show at many times after the director change, but a string of very good episodes (135-138) has convinced me that this show still has something going for it. I can’t quite put my finger on why I liked these last few episodes, but I think it might be down to the ‘new’ director getting a better grasp on comedic timing. Of course this might just all be a fluke, especially considering the length of the show allowing for a lot of opportunities to screw up. Regardless one can at this point clearly see that Gintama is more in the absurdist camp of Sexy Commando rather than focusing on satire like the aforementioned Cromartie, DMC and Nichibros. Thankfully I’m quite capable of enjoy both of these types of comedy, and so I look forward to watching more of Gintama in the future.