Done with Gintama S1
Honestly I had low to medium expectations for S1 and the series did a great job of atleast matching and surpassing them
The show grew a lot on me as it progressed, This will be a thread summarizing a few thoughts, arc and character rankings and final rating

Firstly the best aspect imo till now has been the cast, Gintama's story structure allows it to give a lot of time fleshing out characters and making them feel organic and
its done well and has resulted in several interesting character dynamics in the show, personally if a show

has sold me on its cast its very likely that I will keep loving it, esp when its a episodic show and Gintama has delivered on this front, Female cast is nice too
Honestly I can pick almost any dynamic in the show and its gonna be great or atleast interesting to watch

Another fav aspect of the show for me is the SOL kind of episodes (Eg. Kagura Umbrella, Hasegawa blooms etc) I think that's where Sorachi really shines in evoking various kinds of emotions from the viewer/reader, These are the parts that I feel hit 100% with me

I also like the creativity in comedy aspects of the show, it doesnt feel like its afraid to try anything new and even if its a hit and miss aspect many times I appreciate the creativity in humor, even the anime staff itself comes up with several creative ideas even if evidently

its just to save the production costs many times lol they are always trying to be innovative atleast and the fact they dont try to hide it by using the cast making 4th breaking jokes makes it funnier lol

Overall the comedy was pretty much Hit/Miss with me, the ratio did improve later on it went like 6-7/10 by the end and I believe it will improve even more, The serious arcs were pretty good too
My rankings for them are:
YIF 8
Red Spider 7.5
Benizakura 7
Yagyu 6.5
SC 6

My Top 10 characters in the show rn are:
0:Sadaharu
1-Gintoki
2-Kagura
3-Hijikata
4-Katsura
5-Sougo
6-Hasegawa
7-Tsukuyo
8-Kamui
9-Matsudaira
10-Kondo
Think I am forgetting someone? Maybe lol

Overall a very good show glad that I watched it now, was initially putting it off for several reasons but my friends both IRL and online pushed me and I thankfully watched it
The overall score for S1 is a strong 7.5
Excited to get into the best parts