Gintama.

It is genuinely insane how gintama managed to keep the quality up going from the absolutely bonkers back to back arcs it had in the previous season but it some how just goes - the rakuyo arc is only slightly behind the shogun and farewell arcs for me - the whole time I was waiting for the Yato family arc and my god it didnt disappoint at all - I absolutely loved the different aesthetic of this season being on an outer planet in space - the fight between gintoki and kamui was literally an all timer and then also having the joui 4 reunion ... within the same season is mental - the last half of this season is just bonkers learning the backstory of umibozu and his family - overall absolutely incredible once again - the only dip that this season has personally was the animation other than that the rest was flawless again

I am a die-hard Gintama fan. I have watched it until now, and all of the previous seasons were 9-10/10's. They were just really good and nothing was like it.


Then Gintama. rolls into my watchlist. I was expecting more of the same, and for Gintama that is a very very very good thing.

All I find is Shonen battles, plot vomit, more shonen battles, plot vomit, and a lot of stories basically just handed to us. WHY?!??! Can you not take it slow?

The First 200 episodes took it very very slow, with almost no plot, and it was one of the best seasons of any anime ... ever. I loved the first season. For one reason...

The Comedy!!!!

This season has almost NO comedy. Now I am sure people LOVE shonen battles and drawn-out sequences, I do not. I am a fan of Slice of Life, so I enjoy comedy and everyday life more than drawn-out battles. This season was almost unwatchable for me. Like every single episode in this season is just so so so many battles. It is almost like a 12-episode Arc which almost no animes do. At least the other shonen animes I watched (Hunter x Hunter, Naruto) had some filler or breaks in between. I know Naruto filler is not good, I skipped it, but like even between the Naruto battles there is some comedy and tension-relievers if you know what I mean.

Here there is nothing. Oh? one battle done? Well, heres another one. I got quite lost following through it hurt my brain

If not a drawn out battle, guess what else we have?

Thats right, 10 minutes of backstory!! Yayyyyy!!!!!

I was so so looking forward to this season just to bring it down like this.

If the other seasons are like this, I might have to DROP Gintama which is a sentence I never expected I would type out. It is just beyond wild they took this severe of a turn with this season. Season 4 was really good too with some of the best comedy! Why?!??!?!?


*sigh*

With a filled chest, I regretfully have to give Gintama season 5 a 5/10. I enjoyed *some* of the battle sequences and there was a couple one liners I laughed at but other than that my god Gintama get yo act together

Thanks!
-CyanCheetah

The fall of Gintama, by a fan of the series.

Back in winter 2016, Gintama° was pulling out the two greatest arcs of the series. And, one of the best action-drama sequences ever seen in the shounen genre. The amateur studio BN Pictures was in a pinch with the production. Yet Sorachi's writing was shining at its brightest, pushing the series to a whole new level. After the end of the Farewell Shinsengumi arc, Sorachi had two options. He could keep pushing higher, to scale up the series' finale with the power of the previous arcs. Or he could go through the lazy writing route. Sad ... thing he did choose the latter.

It is important to note that this is the same old Gintama, at least on a surface level. The comedy, now less frequent, is still on point. The basic plotline of the "story arcs" still the same. Lack of comedy might turn off some fans, but it's not a problem at all. What was not done right then? Why one of my favorite titles felt so mediocre in this particular season?

Emotional stakes. Not the lack of them, but the distance of them from the plot stakes. Picture this: A beloved one of yours turns into a evil monster. He wants to end his own misery but he can't do it himself. Then he realises the only way he could do this is to destroy planet earth. And the way he finds to achieve his goal is to provoke a universal-scale war. Now you see yourself going to a foreign planet far from home to... Do you see the problem here? We are going too many places and too far away only to get to a single point: The clash between Gintoki and Utsuro. All these light-years made plot and emotional stakes too apart from each other. Now the story is involving a lot of people, parties, places and actions. And all these have little to nothing to do with the emotional conflict. Tying emotional and plot stakes together is no easy task. Creating big ass events to see the action roll and nothing else sounds far easier, right?

Besides, the visuals looks the same from the last cour of Gintama°. Nothing impressive, as expected from a low-budget production. One of the most disappointing aspects though, is the lack of new OSTs. Sure, they added some new sound, but they for the most reused tracks from previous seasons. Almost every major arc from the 2015 season had their own OSTs, so what happened?

Most fans of the series will still love to their hearts this season. Shounen genre addicts can still find a good deal of enjoyment here. But, if you are one of the few people that loved Gintama for the writing gems it pulled out (aside the comedy), for poetic arcs like Mitsuba or Red Spider, for heartbreaking drama from Shogun Assassination and Farewell Shinsengumi arcs... Better stop. The next arc, Silver Soul, is by far only a bigger fest of the same meals compared to Rakuyo arc. Stop here, and save yourself from watching the fall of Gintama.