Gintama. Silver Soul Arc - Second Half War

The arc where everything makes sense! When someone who doesn't know Gintama asks me to tell the synopsis, I can't explain it. I'm sure you can't either. The intensity. But on the other hand I can describe my different states: one second I start laughing and crying, the next I cling to my chair, the next I hold my breath, the next second I scream, the next I applaud, the next I want to cry so much because the emotion is so intense. In short, Gintama is a manga that does not leave anyone indifferent. If Gintama has not lost her sense of humour, this season is barelyletting us breathe. When you think Gintama can't do better, a new twist appears! The arc where everything makes sense! Let's talk about this new arc. For me, it is the arc where everything makes sense. In 15 years, Hideaki Sorachi has introduced us to characters who are all more atypical and marginal than each other. This arc is an opportunity to see all of them again: the ones we love and the others we love a little less and where we always wondered what they could bring to the story (Prince Hata for example). A new approach to the main character. In a typical shōnen, we are used to the character being the one who fights the most fearsome antagonist of each arc. And yet! Gintoki may be charismatic and badass, but he will not solve every situation on his own. This arc is a good example of this as he faces the strongest antagonist of Gintama. EVERY character has a role to play and it is together with their strengths and weaknesses that they will succeed in overcoming the challenges. Friendship, common purpose, teamwork are the key words of this season. Verdict after 15 years: Gintama has proven over and over again that it belongs among the greatest mangas shōnen. The mangaka masters the art of intensity with sometimes short, very short arcs (less than 10 episodes). So I was afraid when I saw the manga lasted so many years (700 chapters) and embarked on much longer arches. Well, I have to say, I'm speechless. So many plot twists and all of this without pretension with a dose of humour that makes Gintama a unique shōnen. Bonus: an opening 21 full of emotion... I invite you to look at it.

*This review covers the entire Gintama* Let's start with the comedy because that's the main reason Gintama is so horrible. Gintama is often called "a comedy series without any comedy", and that's very accurate. The "comedy" in Gintama consists of colorful bunch of jokes... at least if our color vision is limited to two as practically every joke is either a) a penis joke or b) IT'S a PRank BrO. Be it a gorilla mistaking someone's dick for a banana or 7 feet long sword ending up inside someone's anal cavity, Gintama has it all. But don't worry. It's all made with self-awareness and 4th wallbreaking so it's very funneh even after 700 chapters and 360 episodes. The parody side is really either a) an excuse to write something absolutely terrible and then claim it was made as a joke, or b) references that are so inaccurate and irrelevant that they could be used in E3's pressconference. The banter on the other hand is almost as hideous as seen in the movie Deadpool 2, but thank God not as meta. The comedy is so bad and badly timed that even during the more serious and decent moments, it comes there and completely ruins everything the series accomplishes by inserting some dude there who farts or does something equally lame. The characters are something that could be decent -- to be frank, if the characters were a separate entity, they could all be said to be of respectable quality -- but the author practically never uses their personalities for their benefit. Almost every single reaction they show is ridiculously, even absurdly overreacted because the author doesn't trust that his characters' personalities alone could carry the content and the jokes he presents. The work is filled with moments where characters just yell some nonsense to each others because apparently, acting like overdramatic clowns is much better than actually creating comedy based to their characteristics. The sentence "it's so damn anime" is pretty much the perfect way to describe how Gintama's cast works. The only character who gets dealt with the respect they deserve, is Zura, and that's not enough. The art is very clever. At least if we consider edgy 10 year old kids who are vandalizing the town by drawing pictures of genitals on every damn thing they see, clever. When it comes to Gintama, I don't think I have ever seen anyone put so much effort into making every goddamn background object resemble the shape of a penis. Perhaps my favorite part of the art is how often it focuses on puking and blood and assholes and dicks, yet every time these are censored and pixelated so its readers/viewers won't form a trauma because let's face it, most of them are also like 10 years old. It's beyond me how the main content is penis, farts and in generally, dirty jokes, yet they are presented pseudo and aimed for little kids. At least series like South Park went all out with their content and remained loyal to the idea to the very end. Gintama is just censorship aimed for people whose sense of humor was formed in elementary school toilets but never developed it more mature and over the top direction. Gintama is like a person who ages, but never grows up or matures. As a conclusion: I laughed something like ~50 times during the entire run. Gintama is not a good series. It's characters are pretty much always used as comedy elements, the jokes get old in 50 episodes (starting from 80 because the first 80 don't even have any jokes), the writing is often ruined by stupid "gags" to a point that the good things become less good. Every cringe and downright awful piece of writing is justified by it being a parody. "So you're denying all the good things the show accomplished." Not really, I am just saying that even the worst of things have good sides in them and just like that, I won't be praising Gintama for its achievements.

Spoiler Free Review I know, I know, Gintama is one of those anime that just always impresses. Great humor, action, suspense . . . well, normally. First off, don't go thinking I disliked this second half of the Silver Soul arc. But it's not without its flaws, but we'll get there. The arc has a great story and some shocking scenes. There is truly some heart wrenching suspense that you haven't experienced before in Gintama. Passionate and emotional scenes are filled throughout. A fantastic final battle, but . . . things are cut short. Not to go into details, but there is an abrupt feel that changesthe mood entirely. It wasn't subtle and was disturbing. You're left thinking, "Wait . . . wait that was it?" Not at the end of the series of course, just part way through. The series begins to take a good turn, but where it tries to slide back into the humor zone--I don't know. Yes, Gintama is known for this. But this time, it just didn't feel right. Most of this part is great, but there's that abruptness that greatly bothers me. This was not a strong finish to the series at all and I'm sad in saying that.

(Sigh) Unbelievable. If someone told me back in mid-2015 that in some three years I'd be watching the (supposedly) last arc of Gintama—easily one of my favorite series of all time—all blank-faced, thinking, "please let it end already", I'd be confused and probably laugh it off as some idiocy. Boy oh boy, I sure wish that was the case... This needs to be said: Hideaki Sorachi is not a good writer. It's certainly true that he can write some outstanding comedy that could rival the world's best in terms of both creativity and gag density (remember the Character Poll arc? Brilliant concept AND execution!), and Gintama worksperfectly well when it doesn't take itself seriously. But it all falls apart the moment Sorachi tries to introduce some drama into the plot; the more of it, the more obnoxious it becomes. The characters, all conveniently stuffed together for the occasion, immediately arm themselves with their corniest lines, so cringe-worthy that even the typical Shonen Jump series about a self-unaware spiky-haired underdog would consider them a faux pas. The plot armor surrounding the regular cast dispels all the dramatic tension, because we know for a fact: characters would only die when the author decides they should, circumstances and common sense be damned. Battles are won not with skill and strategy but with sheer determination and (now more often than not) various forms of deus ex machinae. Battle choreography is neither realistic nor aesthetically pleasing. Antagonists are all limp, incredibly conflicted, and would constantly waver between their sociopathic ambitions and attempts at a hamfisted redemption arc meant to trick the audience into thinking better of them. They would often have this sudden change of heart at the end (after a couple dozen flashbacks doing a very poor job at making us care)—only to be immediately killed by somebody even badder right afterwards, or they would proactively sacrifice themselves, succumbing to the injuries that should've killed them many times over by that point. But most importantly, none of them really warrant sympathy—their cause is never relatable nor exciting enough to even consider them important. Even Utsuro owes his status quo to the Joi Four's past history with him: whatever he is doing in the present is blown up to such immense scale that confrontation becomes inevitable, but otherwise it's completely irrelevant and uninteresting. The fact that Utsuro's alter ego was a teacher to Gintoki and the others is the only thing separating him from being a random last-boss bad guy. Frankly, the way Sorachi shoves the drama up your throat is insulting to intelligence. And the worst part is that the series has mostly been focusing on this mess of a drama ever since the Shogun Assassination arc, constantly upping the ante of cringe-worthiness and exercises in literary impotence. One pointless epic battle after another, one entire-cour-spanning flashback after another. This is what anime at its worst looks like. And I'm not saying this to put down the anime production team—god knows they've been doing their darnedest to elevate the material. But they can't fix what is fundamentally wrong with the writing. Thus, despite my affection towards the series as a whole, I won't sugarcoat the truth nor try to delude myself: *Gintama sucks when it stops being funny.* It gets dragged down by bad storytelling, poor pacing, braindead dialogues, stunted characterization, and all sorts of melodramatic emotional manipulation the very moment it takes a break from the jokes. If it hadn't established a deeply invested audience through a long and fruitful history of mostly high-quality comedy, nobody would watch it for the plot—let alone put it on so high a pedestal. Considering that, I resigned myself to see the series through at what I considered its lowest point, because I'd already invested so much in it and wanted to have at least some closure, however poor, along with the other 36,191 hopeless idiots—but what did I get there? In the last 1/3 of the arc the series does a 180° on me and goes back to being a (mostly) light-hearted comedy once again... ...And then, instead of giving me said closure, it kind of reboots itself and just ends midways. Nani the fuck?! I mean, sure, subversion of expectations and all that, but let's be real. No matter how you lampshade it by doing that 4th-wall-breaking commentary at the end, it goes beyond poor planning. And I'm one hundred percent on board with the anime production team: Sorachi (and his editor) should take responsibility for the disaster his series has become. That is, either end it already and provide a worthy payoff for all the stupid drama, or pretend that crap never happened and let it remain the episodic comedy it once was for a while longer (but then still end it before it outstays its welcome). But for the love of all that is holy, don't engage in this ridiculous "oh, but I want to conclude the story—oh, but I kinda don't want it to end—oh, but I want it to be serious—oh, but I also want more jokes in there" back-and-forth bullshit. It doesn't work and it leaves more than a few people with quite the bad aftertaste. It's the entertainment industry equivalent of an abusive family member whom you love not *because* they are a wonderful person but *despite* the wretched scum they are—simply because the bonds were formed back when your relationship was more wholesome. And we all (hopefully) know that the biggest mistake one can make when dealing with an abusive person is thinking that it'll go back to being wholesome if we remain patient and forgiving. Don't be stupid; vote with your feet and your wallet—that's the only thing that works against somebody trying to give you shit. In summary, if I were fair and were judging this season for the travesty it was, I'd have given it a 4 it just barely deserved. But since I have a lingering affection towards some of the characters, and a lot of the gags in the last 1/3 genuinely made me laugh—and very nearly made it worth slogging through the first 2/3—I thought I'd bump it up a little. But make no mistake, this is nowhere near Gintama's finest, and I wouldn't recommend anyone to watch up until this point. Gintama° was fine, Porori-hen was a good break, but do yourself a favor and leave it all at that. The whole Utsuro thing isn't worth the time.