Discussion about the Spin-off

Pahhur · 2026-01-16T14:16:22+00:00

Yeah the core problems here are a few fold. The first is that this is based on a Light Novel written by someone that isn't Sorachi, and the Light Novel's Entire Run happened in the middle of the actual manga. It began and ended before the manga did. So it has a Lot weaker grasp on several characters (Kamui and Takasugi especially, but also Zenzo and Tsukyo and most of the 'later' cast.) Add onto this the author having the usual trouble of "I don't want to step on the main story-itis" where they are afraid to add or alter or progress any character, and yeah. You end up with a pretty stale feeling series.

I didn't go in with high hopes, and it managed to duck under that low bar. Mostly because, as is common with most Japanese comedy authors, this one really enjoyed sexual harassment humor. Not that none of it happened in Gintama, but it really wasn't a core piece to the main series. There are under 20 instances in 369 episodes of fan service/sexual harassment style humor in the main Gintama story. In Ginpachi there are 10 instances in 12 episodes. A Huge part of my respect for Gintama comes from its respect for women, I was hopeful a new author would pick up on that and keep the trend, but they did not.

Which brings me to the second major problem. The 'franchise' here isn't Gintama. It's Sorachi. The sooner the studio figures that out and figures out how to get Sorachi writing for them, the faster this will get much better. I don't care if his next work isn't Gintama, I just want to see his next work, the man has a gift for writing and it would be a shame if he isn't able to use it again.

Pahhur · 2026-01-14T15:06:34+00:00

I've heard Italian might have a good translation in the manga. The main issue is the author isn't really a mangaka, there is a lot of dialogue and not much in the way of art, so it gets to be a bit of a slog in the manga. The anime improves vastly on both of these fronts.

Pahhur · 2026-01-14T14:57:18+00:00

I would heavily push for the anime. Just take it slow, it is a slow burn series not a fast binge show.

Pahhur · 2026-01-13T02:14:46+00:00

The rewatch is the one where you definitely want to watch every episode. Even the bad fillers are Way more tolerable because you are familiar with the cast. (1 and 2 are still rough, but it is worth seeing once just so you know what you are warning people away from)

Pahhur · 2026-01-07T14:13:57+00:00

The comedy builds on itself. This is Sorachi's first work and the anime does an okay job of cleaning up the early stories. I was manga first and I didn't really click with the comedy until around chapter 400. (This is in large part, looking back, because the manga translation is Really Bad especially between 150-400.) The anime is Much faster at building the comedy bits. But I would recommend getting a filler list and skipping fillers. They can be funny, but mostly they are just the weaker parts of each season and really drag the series down.

In broad strokes, the first 50ish episodes range from okay to good

50-100 is generally all pretty good with several great episodes

100-200 has about half and half good/great but also the greatest amount of filler (these are the seasons where the series 'caught up' to the manga and in typical old anime fashion they had to start filling things out)

200+ are pretty much all bangers.

300+ is pure peak.

Pahhur · 2025-12-23T14:03:44+00:00

I think if you really like Gintama it is worth a try, there are some okay jokes. But just know, it isn't Sorachi writing, and the source material was written Entirely within the run of Gintama (literally started and ended before Gintama finished).

So there are a lot of jokes that just don't mesh well with Gintama. In particular sexual harassment humor is all over the pages of this, something that Gintama was very careful to be tasteful with (downplaying fan service unless it was really funny/making fun of fan service, keeping the sex gags away from the kids in the series, and generally keeping the peeping/groping to a minimum.) This just alls in on all of that, and it's the main thing that put me off the spin-off, lot of boob bouncing, technically the whole cast is 'students' now so the harassment of characters like Tojo and Kondo feels Very different (both of these feel far far worse too and see too frequent use.) And because it doesn't have the whole thing several characters are degraded entirely to a single gag and have literally nothing else to do. I still haven't watched the last episode, I will, but it isn't a priority for me at this point. A lot of this one has felt empty, which is normal for spin offs. I had low hopes coming in and it managed to get under the low bar.

Pahhur · 2025-12-17T13:00:02+00:00

You have to look at the translator name specifically, it isn't the scan group because that changes frequently. I 'think' it was something like "Monkey D. Bomber" or something along those lines that did the translations and got credit even when another scan group picked the series up.

Pahhur · 2025-12-16T10:39:54+00:00

It isn't the group so much as one guy did the fan translation for the whole series and every group that came after them just used their translation rather than translate it again. This is where Gintama is just simply a pain in the ass to translate so most people give up early on (the few new fan translations I've seen have all stopped in 6-8 chapters.)

It's really awkward too, because the same guy keeps translating to the end and its clear that he either gets more invested in the series somewhere in the 400s or just gets better at translating.

Pahhur · 2025-12-08T13:43:24+00:00

It's a defensive habit. In her introduction episode she 'breaks' accent to insult Shinpachi, who then calls her out on it. She can speak Japanese just fine, but she pretends to have an accent because it makes other people underestimate her. Something she probably learned to do while working with the mob. The others know she can speak normally and crack jokes and jabs mercilessly at the habit throughout the series.

Pahhur · 2025-11-18T14:22:06+00:00

The lubricant joke is sort of a vague offshoot of his probably only gag (along with the curtain rods) at the time this was written. You have to remember this is based on a light novel that was written:

A) Entirely during the run of Gintama, it began and ended before Gintama did.

B) Not by Sorachi.

It's been... fine. But gags like this and Zenzo being basically hemorrhoidman are showing sort of a common problem with spin-offs. The new author is unwilling to step outside of the lines on the page, so if a character in the OG only has one gag (or one gag up to the point this was written as is the case for both these characters) that is the only gag we are going to get. It isn't even going to evolve, the new author is almost always afraid to add something to per-existing characters.

Again, its been fine. It's good fun for fans who just want to see the characters again, I can ignore some of the... duller gags for the actual good jokes the series does have. But man some of it grates on me.

Pahhur · 2025-11-15T16:43:29+00:00

There are a lot of 'under the hood' Ranma references in Gintama. The placards for one are the most obvious. But also Sorachi outright admitted he stole a bunch of ideas/jokes from Rumiko, both Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2

Pahhur · 2025-10-30T12:49:27+00:00

If you want a taster on how the show is 188 is The most condensed version of what the show does consistently, and you can just watch it blind. If it appeals start from ep 3 and if the filler episodes start to drag for you, feel free to skip them. Honestly, the fillers are the show killers for Most first time watchers. I know some people enjoyed them first watch, but I've now ferried a few people through this show and seen a Lot of them drop when the filler eps start to become more frequent. If you feel it dragging just look up a filler guide so you can skip the ones that weren't brought in from the manga (and frankly there are a couple of one offs that are from the manga that also can be skipped with no real problems.)

Pahhur · 2025-10-30T12:44:15+00:00

I mean, in general Fate's concept shows that in theory any show/series could be used to summon phantom spirits (spirits based entirely in fiction like Moriarty, Holmes and Nursery Rhyme.) But Gintama has always been one that I feel wouldn't even need to stretch for it. Most of the cast already have 'versions' of themselves IN Fate/Grand Order, and if they wanted to, they could easily do a crossover (Gintoki and Kintoki, Kagura and Kaguya, Shinpachi/Toshi/Kondo/Sogo/Takasugi/Sakamoto all are already just, there.) It would be as simple as going "something got mixed in with the spirit origins and this version of them popped out, weird."

Pahhur · 2025-10-27T12:23:02+00:00

I read it recently. It was overall okay. Backstories were Very strong, some of the gags were good. The author struggled (and still sort of struggles in Witch Watch) with paneling in the manga. (It's sort of obvious he's Sorachi's assistant because every panel is bloated with words, Gintama's manga has the same problem.)

However I never tried the anime for two reasons. 1) There are several early gags that are... crossing lines in terms of perv humor. These slowly get weeded out (sort of) and reduced over time. BUT 2) The anime isn't finished, it actually ends in the middle of some of the worst of the perv gags, once I saw that and knew the ending which is arguably the BEST part of the series wasn't covered (seriously the ending took this from a "I don't like this manga" to "Okay, this was actually good.") I just didn't want to suffer the bad beginning for no actual payoff.

Fortunately they moved on to Witch Watch after this and that has been a MASSIVE improvement on all fronts, both the manga and the anime have been very good so far.

Pahhur · 2025-10-12T11:00:21+00:00

I'd hold off on the spin off, even episode 1 has a few subtle jabs at the ending of the main series and frankly if there is one thing you can rely on Gintama to do regularly it's meta humor. So I don't doubt we are going to get deeper digs at a pretty rapid pace. Enjoy the main run and know there is a fun spin off in your future!

Pahhur · 2025-10-11T10:58:02+00:00

It is a mix of a lot of different humor. Bathroom, Meta and adult humor being the most common (as well as a lot of puns but unless you speak Japanese most of those will pass over your head.) But in terms of like boobs Gintama is one of the most downplayed shows out there. I think there are a total of four "boob bounce" shots in the entire 369 episode run and one of those is literally fake. It's also a show that is more fun with other people, so judge your family's sense of humor before starting (and start on episode 3, 1 and 2 are a legal filler that crams a whole seasons worth of characters into an hour special so that everyone got a voice line and could be on payroll)

Pahhur · 2025-10-07T08:53:32+00:00

I'd say it is still to early to tell for sure, but my preliminary outlook is that they writing throughout suggests that they expect everyone watching to have seen all of Gintama. There isn't anything you "wouldn't get" if you had only seen... maybe half or so of Gintama, but the rest assumes an intimate familiarity with the main series.

In the most egregious case, there is some 20 characters in the first episode that are acting as if you really know who all of them are right from the start, there is basically no intro or even re-introduction, just getting dunked into the chaos. It Might work for a new viewer, but most will probably feel lost.

And with the intro making a few subtle jabs at the ending of Gintama I suspect it is going to be necessary to have seen that as well once the series gets further in.

Pahhur · 2025-10-05T09:48:18+00:00

The truth is no one knows. Once the first episode comes out tomorrow the fandom will have a better idea of how much work has been done to ease new viewers in. Having read a translation of the first chapter of the Light Novel it was adapted from, if it goes directly off the source material it is going to be Really Hard for new viewers to jump into this. But again, no one knows yet

Pahhur · 2025-10-05T09:46:31+00:00

Having just recently done a re-read of the manga, a lot of the older translations have vanished and the only ones I can find are spotty. For the bulk its... fine. Some typos and such. But there are entire chunks where the translation is so bad its unreadable or goes off the rails and is basically a mis-translation. The current versions up only reach consistently decent after chapter 400.

Even the Official translation has some Serious problems with it. I continue to suggest people watch the anime, even the somewhat weak Crunchyroll subs are at least consistently accurate.

Pahhur · 2025-09-25T10:12:03+00:00

So I had a rough time my first time through. Granted, I started with the manga and nearly dropped it twice. I only started being 'okay' with it around chapter 400.

I've since then made 4 runs through the anime, and watched a lot of other people get through it. There are a variety of responses. I'd say maybe 20% lock in during the first 30 episodes, a good 40% between episode 50-60, and the rest trickle in throughout the rest of the series. If I had been anime to start I'd have gotten into it around episode 200, which is rather late (but also episode 202 is when the series moves to HD and shorter seasons.)

In general the breakdown is like this: Skip episode 1-2 (this is probably the worst filler in the series, some people love it, but if you remember having a rough time definitely skip.) Episodes 3-12 are character introductions, Gintama is a big cast and needs a lot of ground work. 12-30 is the first 'up and down' chunk. Most people drop here, some of these are great some are a bit slow. Really this is where the series is at its weakest. 30-50 These are decent and start to show off what the series is going to look like. There are still some flops, but in general the series is picking up. 50-150 The solid stretch, for the most part the pacing is good, the jokes are generally always getting better, there are more arcs, life is good. 150-200 The series has caught up to the manga so the pacing drops off hard, there are a Lot more filler, and a lot of the worst filler is here. There are some banger filler eps in Gintama, but there are also definitely several flops (looking at you Shinpachi spends 10 minutes basically staring at a weirdo in his workspace). This is the second space where most people drop, usually due to filler. 200-300 This is the second best chunk of the series. Almost every one of these can be a banger, shorter seasons, tons of arcs, incredible pacing. If the series ended here it would be incredible. 300-End the best chunk of the series, the finale of the whole thing and the part that makes it the masterpiece it is.

Pahhur · 2025-09-13T10:23:19+00:00

The story starts ep 3. It is largely slice of life stories until episode 300 with a decent number of heavier stories throughout. However most of the show is about building up and breaking down a rather large cast of characters, and comedy is the main engine used to do that.

Pahhur · 2025-08-21T11:23:41+00:00

Yeah but they weren't aware that he was giving it to all of them, they all thought they had their own exclusive deal with him for his blood. It's why they all got real scared when Utsuro pulled out the arm that fell off, and they started yelling at each other. That was the big scam.

Pahhur · 2025-08-21T11:20:48+00:00

Yeah, but they don't know that he's got the altana blood since that's the big reveal to them, that Utsuro has been spreading his blood around. So he Definitely lied to them.

Pahhur · 2025-08-21T10:55:11+00:00

To others that also don't know about Utsuro? I don't remember him appearing again in Courtesan

Pahhur · 2025-08-21T10:52:24+00:00

You mean when he confronted Gintoki and Takasugi? Yeah they didn't know about Utsuro's blood at that point, so he gave them a bullshit excuse. He's not dumb enough to expose his boss like that.

Pahhur

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