Gintama°

Have you ever wanted to laugh so hard that it feels like you're dying? Well, then this season is no different from any of its predecessors. The season dives straight into its main focus which is comedy and gives us all sorts of parodies and laughs that viewers can relate to other shows, which is what makes it so great. However, this season is not all laughs. As with this season, the show moves into some of the more serious arcs—a must see for any fan of Gintama.

Besides starting out with heavy action, comedy is one of the best ways to make people continue watching ... a show. To hook the viewers into the first few episodes is what the producers try to do each season. If you don’t start off with something funny in a show that is so well-known for its way of doing parodies and comedy, then there’s no way the viewers are going to continue watching. I mean, who doesn’t like a good ol’ DBZ parody to start itself off? I know I do.

If there’s one thing I didn’t like about how the season went is the skipping of some of the smaller arcs. Gintama has always been faithful at adapting all its arcs, but this season was quite different. This may be due to pushing it for OVAs to sell, or maybe they just didn’t have the time slots available. That or something came up within the studio to make them adapt the bigger arcs earlier.

With that, I guess we should talk about the highly anticipated arcs that a lot of people have been waiting for since the announcement of the season. Without trying to spoil, these arcs provide a lot to the watchers as to what’s happening to some of the most known groups/people in the Gintama franchise. The first arc is the Shogun arc which obviously focuses on the Shogun himself but also his enemies. Compared to the other big arcs, I’d say this was a pretty good arc and rivaled some of the other ones from the past seasons. If you thought that was all for the big arcs, then think again! Not only do we get one major roller coaster arc this season, but two. The other being the Shinsengumi arc which focuses on the Police force of Edo and two other “prominent” groups—the Joui rebels and the Mimawarigumi. Unlike the previous arc, this arc is more about emotion than it is about action. While this arc does have action, I wouldn’t put it ahead of the arc before it in that sense. I still enjoyed this arc though because it shows us some backstory of some of the Shinsengumi, the Mimawarigumi, and even Gintoki. These two arcs go hand-in-hand as the former leads into the latter. Just what is in store for our beloved characters?

Visually speaking, it has been up and down here and there. Mostly a hit though. Like most shows, or at least ones that want to stand out in scenes, the visuals will go above and beyond then the usual to look when it needs to. The comedy arcs were also pretty good in terms of its animation, but there were times when the animation took a turn down and looked pretty bad. Expect the animation budget to be really good during the action arcs, especially for the final two arcs. Thankfully it wasn’t bad when it needed to be so there’s nothing major I would note down.

As for the soundtrack, it has been really good. The OST was done pretty well and matches the overall mood of what the scene is trying to portray to the viewer—whether its during comedy or action. The OP/ED songs I have mixed feelings for because I’m mainly a fan of catchy songs, but they sounded good and is no different from past season. I’ve been mainly a fan of Gintama’s OP, but this season there was a few EDs I quite enjoyed more so than its OP counterpart, so props to the singers for that.

And just like that another season of Gintama ends. The waiting once again begins as per regular tradition. If you haven’t enjoyed this season, then the season to come, which will most likely be the finale, is definitely not for you.

Gintama hasn’t changed one bit; it will continue being its same old self until it finally brings a closure to all the characters we love and find so hilarious.

Sigh... Gintama. I remember back when this used to be my nr. 1 favorite anime as well as being the funniest. I remember starting it right before summer vacation and just binging the hell out of it, laughing at the hilarious moments and being kinda touched by some of the serious stuff too. It became something very special for me and it was just constantly getting better and better the further I got into it. When I finished the first 201 episodes of Gintama I was so excited to start season 2 or Gintama' right afterwards. I was about a quarter way into it and ... that's where I started to question myself if I was even enjoying what I was watching. I think I said "Oh maybe it's because I've watched too many episodes", so I took a bit of a break from it. Then I came back and finished it and didn't really know what to think. I mean, I did enjoy it but at the same time I didn't. None of the "serious" arcs didn't really hit me as much as they did in season 1 nor did the comedy. After that I just continued to watch and at some points were kinda forcing myself through some of it, I kept making up excuses in my head as to why I wasn't enjoying it and now I've realized that I was just lying to myself.

Now were here with Gintama°, this was the highest rated season of them all so I had a lot of hopes that it would rekindle my love for the show. I only watched 17 eps of it but honestly I think I had just already given up at that point tbh.

First of all I have to say that I personally think it's absolutely ridiculous that this season is the second highest rated anime on MAL. How this is even possible is honestly beyond me, it's not even the best season of Gintama like everyone seems to think so. There are so many better shows out there that I would rank higher than this but MAL's rating system pretty shit to begin with though so maybe that's not too surprising.
I think the biggest problem I started having with the show after season 1 was that the arcs didn't have enough built up. Every single arc after episode 201 feels so short and underdeveloped in my opinion. Arcs felt like they had so much more built up to them before, they really benefited from that, or maybe it's just me who got tired of the Gintama formula, I don't know tbh.
Gintama in of it self is also way too long for it's own good, it feels like the Sorachi didn't know how the hell to even end the series. If from 201 it had gone up to 270 eps, then maybe I wouldn't be making this review at all.

All in all Gintama is still special to me, it sure ain't my nr. 1 and may not even be in my top 10 for that matter but I will still remember it as being something dear to me. It's just sad that I couldn't be there till the end.

Spoiler free review

There's no simple way to begin dissecting a show as directionless as this, so I’ll start by addressing the comedy. You think it would try to be more innovative and varied with its selection as the show goes on, but the same juvenile gags keep on getting repeated each season. I mean, there is a reason why I haven't laughed in over 100 episodes. If the show fails to make me laugh, it can at least do something by changing up the style to prevent me from getting bored. With each passing episode, the show starts to feel more like watching a slide ... show presentation seeing the same repetitive style used constantly.

In the first season, it made hard attempts to balance a decent amount of comedy and drama, even if I personally thought those attempts weren’t really successful. Everything after that feels completely half assed That’s the problem: noting in this show can be taken seriously. This was always first and foremost a comedy (as much as it wants to be).

Why should I ever feel sympathy for a characters that just scream in my ear 90% of the time just because they have some tearjerking backstory? What’s the point in getting worked up over a character's death if they're just going to turn out to be perfectly fine the next episode? What’s the point in putting the slightest bit of investment into that one guy if I know he’s just going to be running around naked once this arc is done taking him seriously?
Every arc just turns out to be

The arcs themselves are mediocre at best, and I'm only talking about the serious arcs. Even though they are a huge improvement in terms of pure entertainment compared to the episodic parts, they're still feel very underwhelming.

I have to admit, I really did want to like this show. From an aesthetic point of view it has remarkably high production values compared to other long running shounen that improve with each season. It was stupid enough to believe the writing would improve along with it let alone completing 4 seasons of this crap.