Gintama Primer

[ipsius]

I first wrote this a few months ago in an email to a friend, because she wanted a primer for Gintama, which is a wildly funny and brilliant series, but extremely difficult to describe. I've emailed it to enough people now that I figured I should just make it into a post.

Note: This is not a complete guide to all of Gintama. This is basically

Comments

[ext_1666163]

I agree with everything, BUT, I think you've misrepresented Shinpachi. If I were reading this for the first time I would think that he was an important character, and I might even make the mistake of thinking he was interesting, which just...isn't true. I don't think he fills any particularly important role in the series. I mean, do you really need a straight man? Even if you cut out all of Shinpachi's dialogue, the story would not change. All the funny things would happen, and they would still be funny; we just wouldn't have a guy explaining every single thing that happens in all caps afterwards.

Some semi-randomly selected examples:
c420. Kagura's dad builds an altar. Shinpachi: Heeey!! What are you doing, building creepy altars in other people's houses?!!
c383. A black hole is born in a kotatsu. Shinpachi: What is this?! How was a black hole born inside a kotatsu?!
c187: Gintoki makes some weirdly shaped kappa-maki. Shinpachi: The shape is all wrong!

GEE, THANKS SHINPACHI. That was soooo helpful.

The only time Shinpachi is funny in his own right was the very first time the glasses joke was made (but not the billion times it was repeated afterwards) and all the scenes with Pandemonium.

Besides not being funny or helpful, Shinpachi is also not important to the story. Gintoki has basically the same type of brother/sister relationship with Shinpachi and Kagura, except it's more visibly fleshed out with Kagura. All the emotional benefits of their camaraderie would still be there if it was just Kagura. Neither is Shinpachi necessary for the plot, which obviously centers around Gintoki. Kagura has a backstory with her brother, who shows up as an antagonist and is set up for a confrontation with her. Each character brings their own backstory and relationships to the table. There is the arc about Shinpachi and Otae's older brother figure, which could have been accomplished with Otae alone. Literally the only thing that Shinpachi has brought us is a billion repetitive glasses jokes and the Otsu arc, which was neither very funny nor very dramatic..

Okay. I know this turned into a screed about how much I hate Shinpachi, but you asked me to write it *_* I think in the next version, you should include the true members of the Yoruzuya: Gintoki, Kagura, glasses, and Sadaharu.

[ipsius]

ilu lucy. ♥♥♥♥♥

[ipsius]

One day there's going to be another arc focusing on Shinpachi, and you're going to flip out so hard, and I want to be there when it happens hahahahaha.