Gintama-Either Hate It Or Love It, No Side is Wrong

Written by RenjiWu09 on August 13, 2013 at 5:55 PM

Gintama is a hard series to do a review for. You either really love the series or you really hate it. Both sides have good reasons for liking it or hating it and I respect that. I have personally been on both sides. I was introduced to Gintama when the manga was translated into English and after reading through volume one, I liked it. However, it didn't really appeal too much to me because the translated manga was too stiff to laugh at and a lot of cultural references were lost. When I tried to go through the anime at first, I didn't find it too funny. Plus I wasn't a big fan of toilet humor in the first place. So I ditched the series a good few years until one year I decided to give it a try again only because it got dubbed in Cantonese. I was hoping that since Chinese and Japanese share similarities in terms of language structure and some cultural references, maybe the translation would become a lot smoother. It turns out that I was right, the Chinese translation was much more easier to digest and new references were used in place of some old references to adapt to a new audience. It didn't take away original essence from the show itself.

In general, the story was meant to make its viewers laugh out loud with a lot of gags, puns, toilet humor etc. Today when I watch Gintama, I do laugh out loud at some episodes clutching my stomach because it really is that funny. Sometimes the jokes run on too long and become very senseless which I criticize about Gintama. Some gags are so meaningless that it is unnecessary to the show. Other than that, Sorachi Hideaki mangoes to ties gags with a larger picture. At many times, the episodes end with some sort of moral. All the characters in the story are very well developed and I think the main reason people love them so much is that they're so human. Each character, villain or hero, show multiple facets. Our protagonist, Gintoki, is lazy, cowardly, and rude but he cares about friends, honor, and living life to its fullest. Various antagonists like Takasugi Shinsuke for instance lust for destruction and power but it all stemmed from good will at first. I find it hard to dislike a character because they all have their good points and bad points.

Gintama is set in an alternate universe where Japan's history is rewritten. For history junkies like me, it's very fun to pick out historical references and political icons of Japan. Many characters in the series were based on people from the Tokugawa Shogunate such as the Shinsengumi or Sakamoto Ryoma from the Bakumatsu period. Sorachi-sensei often times uses these references loosely and add a twist to it. If you are familiar with kanji, their names are often rewritten to sound like the original. Sorachi likes to combine the traditional Japanese culture with new age technology so you have existence of samurai and robots in the same time period. The series is also very serious at time and very heart wrenching. Some story arcs concern life and death situations that the viewer can't help but shed a tear. Despite the gags, a lot of the morals throughout the story are like messages to the viewer, reminding us to live life to its fullest. Depending on the episodes, they're pretty deep even though the titles are absolutely bullshit sometimes.