If you’re not convinced to watch Gintama, or you’re burned out from hearing it so much on Twitter, here’s a thread to get you motivated to watch it.

What is the main selling point of Gintama? Good question:

(no spoilers so don’t worry)

Gintama is a shonen series which started airing in 2006. When you think of shonen, most of the time something like Naruto or Dragon Ball would come to your head first. Battle shonen have always reigned supreme as the biggest genre in Jump with dominating series like-

One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Dragon Ball, My Hero Academia, Black Clover, etc etc etc...

Of course battle series aren’t the only genres in Jump. There’s Promised Neverland which is a fantasy thriller, Food wars which is an ecchi. Another one of the biggest genres in Jump-

is comedy. Comedy would include series like Saiki K, Sket Dance, and of course: Gintama.

Gintama is one of the most critically acclaimed series on Jump (in fact on MAL - currently - it is the HIGHEST rated series and is 3rd only to Fmab and Steins Gate)

Although most of the time, comedy series are seen as some kind of a “lesser form of content” kinda like horror. Most people think of watching comedy when they just want to turn their brains off. If they want a higher form of entertainment, people will look towards crimes or-

thrillers or psychological series as examples.
I’d say this sentiment is COMPLETELY wrong though. If you have this mindset, please widen your brain and realize that series that seem surface level may have more going on underneath.

Now how does all of this relate to Gintama?

I think the BIGGEST selling point of Gintama is how it uses comedy to STRENGTHEN its serious moments. When people talk about Gintama’s serious arcs being a masterpiece on Twitter, it’s because they’ve experienced these more serious moments with the pretext of the comedy.

You can’t skip Gintama episodes. Gintama doesn’t get good. It’s writing with buildup and payoff is EXCELLENT from the very beginning (even tho comedy wise and production wise especially it does improve the farther you get in) Aleczandxr has a video on what I’m about to-

discuss called “the soul of gintama” which you should totally check out AFTER you watch SA and FS. (because it includes spoilers) But i’ll highlight what makes gintama so special without spoiling.

What Gintama does with its comedy is MAKE YOU CARE DEEPLY about its characters.-

Lots of it’s comedy (i’d say about 67%) is made up of CHARACTER INTERACTIONS. this gives Sorachi a lotta time to develop his characters and make you care about them. You’ve seen all these characters have their silly situations, their wonderful days, so when life-gintama

threatening situations arise, you care for them. You realize why they’re working so hard to protect what they want to protect. You completely understand why they’d sacrifice EVERYTHING to save their glorious days with the people they care about.

Why should you watch Gintama?

Because Sorachi was able to completely and masterfully execute a story with a duality between comedy and seriousness. where the comedy strengthens your relationships with his characters. the seriousness brings drama which is almost unmatched in storytelling.

Thanks for reading!