Warning: Some mildly adult content.
To celebrate
Gintama’s sixth season—which began last week Thursday—here are six reasons why I love this awesome anime series.
1. Strong Female Characters
I realized something about
Gintama recently and it surprised me that I hadn’t recognized it before, but—there are no weak female characters in
Gintama. As in none—
none at all.
Every female character—from Kagura, the tiny but enormously strong alien girl to Shinpachi’s sister Tae Shimura, who heads the family dojo; Kyubei, the future leader of the Yagyu clan; Sachan, the ninja assassin; Tama, the robot maid; Tsukuyo, head of the Yoshiwara female enforcement squad; and on and on—all are empowered fighting women who more than hold their own against any male opponent they meet.
I love this. Any male character who dares encroach on any of these females will get more than he bargained for.
For example, here’s how Kagura handles Okita when he gets out of line:
Strong female characters in
Gintama have an interesting corollary…
2. Male Nudity and Sex Humor
There’s a fair amount of nudity in
Gintama. Here, nudity crops up more than you might expect in an anime made from a Shonen Jump manga, and all of it is male.
Yes, there is some sex humor focused on women, but the ratio of penis to boob jokes is ten to one—seriously. It’s not even a contest. Look at Kondo in the illustration at the top of this post. He’s the one who’s surrounded by his men, and completely nude.
I’m not sure if the focus on male nudity has something to do with Hideaki Sorachi’s sexuality or just that he finds naked men really funny, but it’s certainly more fun for us girls that are watching. ;)
Sex humor in general abounds in
Gintama, from grade school pee-pee jokes to more sophisticated tastes like bondage and sadomasochism. It’s a running joke that Okita is an “S” (sadist) and Sachan is an “M” (masochist), one who longs to be dominated by Gintoki. It’s shown in not just one but two episodes that Gintoki is into spanking (giving – not receiving ;)), and at one point Sachan wonders if Gintoki wants to engage in watersports (look it up if you don’t know what this is).
I find it refreshing to have the adult perspective intrude into what otherwise looks like a model Shonen Jump anime for teenage boys. It’s one of the things that makes
Gintama unique (and I would say – more for adults than young pre-teenage children).
3. Breaking the Fourth Wall
“Breaking the fourth wall” is an old theatre term. The three walls are the ones bounded by the back of the stage and the two sides; the “fourth wall,” the one that must not be broken by the actor referring to it in any way, is the audience.
Gintama breaks this wall all the time when they discuss the complaint letters the station receives from parents and the PTA, or how certain supporting characters are asking for more screen time, and of course in the hilarious “Popularity Poll Arc” where the characters take on another dimension, still as themselves, but outside of the main
Gintama story framework.
It adds the element of surprise when a show can get away with self-references at any moment.
4. Sadaharu
I can usually hold out against the appeal of cute mascots, but Sadaharu has found his way into my heart. :)
It’s only the second time I’ve fallen in love with an animal mascot in anime, the first being
Tinkle, Marukawa Publishing’s rabbit mascot in
Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi.
Sadaharu isn’t just a huge dog, but an
inugami (dog god) from another planet. Despite his enormous size he has a high little bark, like a poodle or chihuahua. His round face and shiny button eyes make him look like a puppy… a ten-foot long, four-foot tall puppy. ;)
There are four or five episodes where Sadaharu is the featured character and it’s simply not enough. I must have more Sadaharu! (Perhaps I should write a letter of complaint to the station…)
5. Tomokazu Sugita as Gintoki
I’m going to say something a little surprising here. Although I’ve come to love Sugita-san as the main character in
Gintama, I had an issue with the casting at first.
Because actually, I think he was somewhat miscast in the role.
Think for a moment about the cast choices in your favorite anime series. Virtually 100 percent of the time, the director chooses exactly the right seiyuu for the role or you would notice it—right?
Gintoki Sakata is a Shonen Jump hero. He’s physical, and while fairly smart is not intellectual or focused on clever remarks or wordplay. He picks his nose, engages in toilet humor (well actually, most everyone does in
Gintama, not just him XD) and usually silently assesses situations before taking action.
The only anime I’d experienced Tomokazu Sugita in before
Gintama was
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. His Kyon in that series was sarcastic and intelligent and so I had this first impression of Sugita as excelling at playing dialogue-heavy intellectual types. Also, his voice is deep and mellifluous; he reads complex words and sentences easily and with flow and has a smooth delivery. In other words, he doesn’t have a rough or crude shonen hero voice.
Even now, after 253 episodes, sometimes Sugita’s refined voice takes me out of seeing him as Gintoki; I’ll be jarred momentarily by the dissonance between what I see on the screen (Gintoki being physical or macho in some way) and the sound of Sugita’s voice saying the lines.
Again, I love him now in the role or I wouldn’t be listing him as one of the reasons why I love
Gintama, but I did have to get used to hearing him as Gintoki and it took a while.
6. The Big Picture – What Is Gintama About, Anyway?
This is a little esoteric, but I think I’ve figured out what
Gintama is really about.
Gintama has no continuing plot line and no heroic quest. It’s the comedic story of an odd jobs man, a former samurai, who fought alongside his countrymen against the invading alien Amanto races but lost the war.
The first two letters of “Amanto” are “am” as in “American,” and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. It was the Americans after all who “opened” isolationist Japan to the rest of the world in 1853. The Japan of
Gintama shows Gintoki and the Japanese coping and adjusting to this new world from the very first episode, when we see Gintoki and Shinpachi being chased through a typical late-Edo neighborhood of machiya buildings and people in kimonos. They run through an alley, and suddenly emerge onto a modern street with skyscrapers and automobile traffic.
Gintama is set in a fantasy Meiji-Era Japan that encapsulates the best of both samurai Japan and Western modern life. It’s fun, but underneath lurks a sense of melancholy. Japan both gained and lost much in the years following 1853, and it’s this that we see in Gintoki’s eyes as he stares at the Edo cityscape at night.
In
Gintama, though we’ve never seen the entire story (only tantalizing glimpses here and there), Gintoki’s samurai past is clearly what defined him then and what still defines him in the series. The best moments in
Gintama have Gintoki protecting the people who are dear to him, as he puts it, “those within the shelter of my sword are my country now.”
Gintama is about the contradictions inherent in bridging east and west, and how to rise from defeat and still protect the people, culture and traditions that are the most important to you.
Gintama is about Japan itself.
