Back to _alpha-q_'s Profile _alpha-q_'s Profile

This is my second full review on this site.


I want a life for Christmas.


Let me first address the minority among you, the ones actually wanting to know whether Gintama is worth watching - the ones looking for a proper review. Everybody knows the type - every time a season begins or concludes, a few of these pop out of the woodwork looking to "get into Gintama" or "catch up with Gintama" or whatever. I've had a number of them irl as well.
I understand your confusion. For every 10/10 review claiming Gintama is the best thing since frozen bread, there are probably 5 users ... with it being dropped, a score of 1/10, and an incredibly helpful tag of "overrated". Every time you decide to take the plunge, a voice in your head asks you - is it truly going to be worth it? In that 300+ episode runtime, you could be doing something useful (or watching other anime, I don't really care) - are you going to invest that time on poop jokes?

Truth is, I can't help you, and I don't think anyone can.

I will say this - when Gintama peaks, it is going to be one of the best anime you've ever seen. It will fully deserve that overblown 9+ score, which ranks it above other hot favorites and makes people salty. It's when it peaks that causes all the polarization, in my opinion.

Say you don't like toilet humor. Then for you, the show might peak during its parody bits.

I also know some who consider references to be the lowest form of comedy. Maybe the self-deprecating gags or the ones parodying tropes instead of other media are more your cup of tea.

"I don't really like anime comedy but I'm checking Gintama out coz of its high score" - the action arcs might be where the show peaks for you. (Seriously though the score doesn't make it less of a comedy)

These are only a few examples but the point I'm trying to make is Gintama is mixed bag of goodies which aren't limited to a single style or genre. The more among them you like, the more you are inclined to like the show as a whole, and vice versa.
Consequently, there is no teaser for Gintama - X episodes you can watch that will tell you exactly what the show is. People might say the show gets good after a certain episode - I think that's more of them finding the first instance where the show peaked for them. I dare say your experience would be different.

This isn't to say don't watch Gintama. But barreling through the show expecting 9+ quality right from the start will more often that not turn you away.
One possible way to watch is to get to know the main cast (~10 episodes) then check out some of the top comedy episodes (there probably are a few threads listing them here and there) - if you like them, great, the show has a definite peak for you, and you can decide to keep watching or not. If you don't, well, 300 episodes is honestly a lot, and most of it is comedy of the same or lower quality.

Onto this season then.

Honestly, this season was just regular Gintama. There were good episodes and bad episodes, similar to the previous seasons. Bad episodes, however, seem much more prominent when the season is 13 episodes, compared to 50 or 200. Variances in quality have been present throughout Gintama's run, and I don't necessarily feel this season is weak at least in terms of source material.

The biggest negative for me is the existence of a "Slip Arc" when it could have been adapted in order, with perhaps a break before SA began. I also expected the characters to make a lot more fun of the honestly moronic decision to skip stuff. Whatever. I've made my peace with BNP. Getting a complete adaptation is not something very common, and I suppose I should count my blessings.

The lack of budget saving background shots still irks me, though. It probably is fucking weird to want fillers, but the self parody segments were one of the biggest positives of Gintama comedy. The humor itself is great, but the love the staff felt for the show really shines through in the bonus segments, like Gintoki getting sleep paralysis for example. I just don't get that from any of the BNP seasons, not just this one. The switch from Sunrise to BNP makes me feel like overseeing an employee who went from giving 110% to 100%. I can't really complain, but I'm still disappointed.

In any case, whatever my feelings about BNP are, with the multi-colored poop segment of the Excalibur arc I can finally say unironically that I lost brain cells while watching Gintama. I appreciate the fact that they were trying to stick to the manga, which didn't have mosaics. But I can't believe that no one looked at the final product and went, "hey, this is unbelievably fucking stupid!" Or they did, and the staff just ran with it anyway. Lampshade stupid things, for god's sake. Make a character say that rainbow poop is shitty, no pun intended. It's moments like these where BNP refuses to utilize the reputation Gintama has built up over the years which make me hate them. Combine this with the ever-present janky zoomed out scenes - or scenes where the camera focuses on the background instead of the characters - to save budget instead of just airing the fucking static BG, and there's no love lost between me and BNP.

I don't mean for this to turn into another rant - I've accepted that this is the best we're going to get. This season is still weak, but for me it's more due to these small shortcomings that add up instead of the comedy being weaker or stale. I just hope this reduced budget goes to animating the multitude of fights in the SS arc in gloriously high quality. I want Gintama to go out with a bang, not fizzle towards its end.

tl;dr - same Gintama comedy, weaker execution, basically another BNP season 8/10

Mild spoilers ahead. More troublingly, it's lengthy as fuck.
EDIT: If you take the time to read, I've explicitly mentioned I'll be scoring this a 9 like the disgusting fanboy I am. But make no mistake, 6 is what I think it deserves. I say this beforehand, since otherwise you might waste *our* time going directly to my profile on seeing the score and flaming me for 'fishing'.


I wonder when it became natural for Gintama to have a score of 9 or above.
Every time a new season is announced, a few one-liners of "X being displaced from the top 10", or some acerbic remarks about how ... ridiculous one franchise having so many entries in the top list is are made, and then the matter is dropped.
I'm perfectly aware that ratings on this site are dogshit, with trolls and boosters running rampant in equal measure. Still, Erased and Re;Zero received significant backlash on their sudden rise. Gintama was just...ignored.

Maybe it's due to the non-confrontational fanbase. They just view haters as just being pitiable; more of a "your loss" viewpoint rather than a "fuck you" one. Trolls need triggered people to feed on, after all.
Said fanbase is also loyal as fuck. Fierce doesn't even begin to cover it. Most of the current reviews are 10/10s claiming Gintama to be the best thing since sliced bread.
And I agree completely. Gintama was my first 10, my only 10, and my absolute no 1 when it comes to anime currently. But the reviews don't address the elephant in the room, a point which I'm coming to.

This season is shit.

Which is harsh, admittedly. It stands head-and-shoulders above other battle series (shounen isn't really a genre, nor is it the only one utilizing plot armour). But Gintama's standard of comparison is itself, and this season pales in comparison to the others.

Shifting tones from comedic to tension-filled is hard for any creator. Period. Forcing an audience to believe that characters surviving comic explosions can die at the hands of random mooks is a massive leap. And it is especially hard in a universe without any flashy techniques to aid the transition, like Negima or KHR.
Hayate (the manga) has gone to shit in its final arc. Konosuba, the current comedy favourite can't really function without its comedy at all.
And yet Sorachi pulled it off with aplomb. He ratcheted the intensity higher and higher with each chapter, a near-miraculous feat. Until he perhaps took it too far.
See, the SA arc was morbid. Alongside the Shogun, it was the death of Gintama's comedy, a death more hard-hitting than most characters'. Gintama basically sacrificed a part of itself to set up the drama.
FS was oppressive in its atmosphere. One bleak event after the another, culminating in the introduction of Utsuro, shown to be the strongest antagonist till date.

Rakuyo gave us mid-bosses.

In all fairness, Rakuyo is more a transition to the final arc. Plot threads involving Utsuro's identity, origin and abilities had to be resolved. Altana (foreshadowed in the Inugami arc) had to be formally introduced.
Gintama was always short on true antagonists, and defeating Utsuro in the penultimate arc would be stupidly anticlimatic (in true Gintama fashion, but that part is dead now rip). So I understand the need to have new villains.

The problem is, they were given the same serious treatment reserved for Takasugi and Utsuro. I know individual fights have a lot of potential in any battle series. Each character can show the results of their training, new special moves, new deus ex machinas (Erza cough cough) etc.

What they don't have any potential for is tension.

A monkey, a mechanical tentacle monster, and a 1/3 functioning triclops with a wildly inconsistent lightsaber could have been a heap of laughs.
But cheesy dialogues (not that cheesy, to my pleasant surprise, they were fairly unique) were to be had instead. It was more a case of 'could have been better' instead of 'bad'. Even with all concessions made for hype and one-liners and sword fights and whatever, when the bumbling trio blasted off the arc picked up significantly. Gintama is one of the rare SJ series I have read that has the ability to actually impart some tension to its battles, tension that prominently arrived parallel to Utsuro's arrival.
Forced to be honest, a score of 7.5-8 would have been behind that 10.

Then BNP came and fucked things up.

Where to begin with BNP? They're my favourite bunch of fuckwits, for starters. They are giving it their all, clearly. Which is why they're my favourite. But it cannot be denied they are fuckwits and I hate them.
It started with a mild dislike of the new glossy artstyle. Which intensified when I realised the jokes weren't really as funny as in the manga or in previous seasons (and I wasn't any less immature--comic timing is a bitch). Skipping chapters was a fine mess slightly alleviated by the execution of the SA and FS arcs.
Maybe I'm just an idiotic hardhead unwilling to adapt to change. But the 2017 season has imbibed a fervent prayer in me wishing Silver Soul is not adapted by BNP.

See, I firmly believe Gintama is a cash cow. And the fact that a well-established cash cow is not being given sufficient budget for 12 decent quality episodes is mind-boggling. It seems the executives are going for profit margins rather than profit. "They'll buy no matter what I try" is a mentality I despise whole-heartedly in creators, no matter what medium.

I'll admit that I know nothing about businesses or the anime industry. It is entirely possible I'm barking up the wrong tree. But take one look at the after battle scenes between Gintoki and Sith Lord, note the amount of flashbacks in Gintoki v Kamui and then try to tell me with a straight face that they had enough budget. Scratch enough. It felt like they had the bare minimum amount of capital required to produce 10 episodes which they stretched into 12. The fight scenes seemed surgically pruned in length. While I'm no supporter of 50-episode battles...previous seasons man, previous seasons. Even the fight scenes seem a step down from the 2011-2013 seasons, and it took a heavy toll on enjoyment, something which no other Gintama is lacking in.

Here, I'll take a minute to question why they did not utilize any static backgrounds or other filler-type shit to conserve budget. Perhaps they felt it wouldn't fit the mood, but honestly, purely serious Gintama will never ever work after SA. A fact that Sorachi realized, seeing as the SS arc is a bucketload of laughs.
Even then, the Four Devas arc had a filler prior to its first episode which consisted of redubbed OVA footage. Redubbed OVA footage, which was still heavily enjoyable. Gintama is basically shit, the least they could do is use the reputation it has built up over ten years and air some planet backgrounds to ensure better quality. Eh, if they would go so far as to skip material I'm the fool for expecting stuff like that.

All said and done, this will probably be a 9 in my list. Rating is shit anyway, bite me. But for my true, impartial thoughts on the matter, 6 is the most suited.

Tl;dr- I spent a long time writing this, the least you could do is read it. There is no obligation, but plss.
k thx bai

Recently, I read a manga about a geezer becoming young again through "magic". It was essentially a pseudo-reincarnation. Easiest way to spot a power fantasy.

Anyway, geezer decides to drown us in nostalgia by setting up and ruling a dungeon like in RPGs of old. He summons a hot demon to oversee the construction. The hero (female) arriving to stop him is won over within a chapter. "Ugly" slave girl given to him as tribute is made beautiful in one fricking panel. Sounds typical? It is. Except he bangs all the girls.

And boom, best harem MC ever. This turd is essentially Kirito in every form, ... but that one is bland writing, while here we have 'nothing but respect for this MC'. That is honestly the top comment on a chapter on Kissmanga. With 200+ upvotes. Just because, sex.

This just shows the mentality regarding bland MC's. If you want to check out the manga, I don't blame you, honestly.

So, Seiren. I could say it is a sweet romance. I could say 4 episodes is just right, without pointless rivals and irritating love shapes. I could say the art is decent, and the girls cute.
On the other hand, I could say it is nothing new. The girls all fall neatly into tropes we've seen before. I could say the characters are inconsistent wrt personality. I could say there is no romance or drama for a lot of the runtime, potentially making this a snoozefest.
I can say a lot of things, but most of them would be invalidated by the herbivore of a MC.

Dull, self insert MC's are the cancer of today's anime for many. Not the self-insert part, mind you. Onii-sama has 4k favorites. No, having a dull MC is the death knell of a show nowadays. Seiren is no different. Hard to care about his romance when the character is the definition of 'boring'.

Apparently, this sells in Japan. So we'll get more of such shows. There's nothing we can do. Or is there?
You got me, this is not a review, but a petition for everyone to buy 10 copies of Inferno Coppu. If it succeeds, studios take notice of it and we get more MC's on the level of Inferno Coppu. If it doesn't, you have 10 copies of the greatest thing to ever come out of the anime medium.
It's a win-win honestly.
Till this revolution occurs, the only winners will be the studios making money of average titles like Seiren.

Say no to mediocrity. Buy Inferno Cop today.