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

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Hi I just wanted to say this was very valuable for a conversation I just had with my wife about Gintama AND I realized you made this icon I’m using so hi and thanks for almost two decades of icon greatness.

[ipsius]

I'm so glad this post was helpful (despite the age of the post and how janky this entry now looks)!

I can't even express how nostalgic it feels to reply to a comment on LJ again. Were you a Gintama AND Ulquiorra fan too? I'm glad to have made some contributions to your fandom experiences way back in the day haha

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I desperately wanted to be a Gintama fan, but I really wanted the physical totems of the Gintama tankobon. So while I was able to buy whatever volumes were out in English, they discontinued it pretty quickly and then I felt bereft. And the anime just didn't feel the same to me! My wife, on the other hand, was a huge fan. Hence me needing a primer to keep up with the conversation hahaha ...

Bleach, on the other hand, I kept up with all the way till the end, and did sooo much RPing trying to convince myself that the last few arcs were good l o l. Clinging to Ulquiorra for dear life as Yhwach & Co came in, wishing someone as cool would show up again.

Anyway, this is also my first time responding to an LJ comment in a very long time. What a wild, weird, great feeling.

[ipsius]

Ahh I see. I only read the manga fan translations and watched the anime fansubs, but Gintama was not an easy series to translate. The mangaka made a lot of convoluted references to Japanese pop culture and current events. Maybe that was part of the reason why the official translations were discontinued. If your wife was a huge fan, then I'm sure she's mentioned it, but I feel that manga and anime were both done supremely well if you're at all considering giving the series a try again. The voice-acting in the anime is phenomenal and the animation quality only gets better with the later episodes.

We're sort of opposites with our Bleach and Gintama experiences then, haha. I actually rage-quit Bleach after Ulquiorra died. Not that he was the most nuanced character or anything, but I haven't since encountered another character that seemed grown in a lab to hit all my buttons.

It's been literal years since I talked with anyone on LJ, which is a shame. Really miss when this space was the fandom epicenter...