Best of its kind.

Written by thenightwanderer on March 28, 2012 at 10:32 AM

First of all, put aside your prejudices about Gintama. If you are looking for a purely shounen series in the conventional sense, Gintama is not for you. Someone whose expectations from a shounen anime are molded by watching Naruto/One Piece/Bleach/etc will not immediately fall for this anime.

Gintama is not about constant power ups, is not about saving the world from an almighty villain, is not about a specific goal that shapes up its main character.

Gintama is about the life of an adult samurai where samurai aren't needed/even looked down upon. Gintoki is around his twenties but he is stuck somewhere in his teens. He has the spirit of a teen, he hates taking responsibilities, he hates working, he is a useless adult. And this is what makes him precious, believe it or not, because most of us can easily empathize with him and his outlook on life.

He is a useless adult on the surface but he has such a unique code of honor and way of living that you come to respect him and love him for that as much as you laugh at how much of a useless bum he is.

His past is a broken one, his loyalties only lie with his precious friends, he embraces his shortcomings, he is snarky yet a total sweetheart at the same instant. He seems irresponsible and even merciless, but he can fight to death for the sake of a child, for an old woman, for his supposedly rival, for what he believes to be right and just. And the things he can teach you about life... He really speaks like a sage at times.

His goons Kagura and Shinpachi are equally amusing, snarky, good to a fault kids and badass fighters you could ever come across in an anime. The supporting cast are such well developed and lovable characters that each of them engraves a part of themselves to the show.

Gintama doesn't have any fillers, on the contrary, every episode is in the manga. Even the silliest episodes are there for a reason, unlike other shounen anime that try to fill time until more manga chapters could be written. Gintama is primarily a gag manga/anime, not an action anime. But the action arcs will take your breath away and the gag episodes will serve as a cooling down time.

People say that it is hard to catch the jokes since they use Japanese culture related gags, but there are few instances of them, such as some TV show personalities/singers, etc you may not know. But other culture related gags are understandable if you've watched several other anime before staring to this one. Other jokes are mostly universal ones. So don't let this deter you from watching it.

But for me, what is so unique about this anime is its ability to break the 4th wall constantly, the way it can ridicule itself, its own characters, its own mangaka and studio and even the popular culture and other well know media. This anime has the mindset of a petulant child who refuses to grow up and take life seriously. Instead, it carves its own path, being unique in every sense, simply obeying its own rules in a world made up of joy, action, happiness, sadness, sacrifice, friendship and sharing all these with you like a real shounen anime should be able to convey. Friendship, effort and victory! Oh, how Gintama simply takes these to the next level...

And yes, this is an essay, because Gintama deserves it :)