Back to joegonzalez722's Profile joegonzalez722's Profile

So Wikipedia lists this as a 'sex comedy' which is pretty accurate.
After watching the first 3 minute episode, I instantly recognized the voice actor from gintama's Sakata Gintoki.

I also checked out the manga which this was adapted from, and I think they did a really good job on that.
A manga chapter for this series generally takes up a couple panels on a page.
There's always some girl and our Main character who we don't see, but it more feels like the comic author himself is commentating.
In the manga, they stretched it out, put alot of emphasis on the comedy and added another character ... to commentate on how ridiculous the main character, Doge Suwaru, is being.

Now again 'sex comedy' but part of the reason why I'm rating this high is because I came in expecting it to be fanservice but just came out dying laughing

This review is foccussing on the series as a whole- seasons 1, 2, and 3.

Season 1 introduced the antisocial hikigaya hachiman. It was relatable but started to get annoying about how he complained about everything.

Season 2 improved on the art and is my favorite of the three.

And Season 3 was just kind of depressing for the pink haired yui, as she's stuck in a state of not being rejected by her love interested but pained by not being able to ask him out either.

For the series' weak parts, it's somewhat of a love triangle, yet you'll never hear the word "love' leave the characters mouths. ... To be honest I kind of just skipped through Season 3 because it was either yui depression or the characters preparing for the school ball.

The good parts though, are things like the soundtrack. Plus there are alot of little jokes thrown in to Hachimans monologues, like where he starts mentally making a haiku to calm him self down because he's attracted to the girly silver haired boy (forgot his name).

Things gintama does well:

Closure in stories.

You can watch episode 50 and not need to know what happens in episode 1. It's structured in 1/2 episode, 1 episode or about 3ish episode story arcs. There aren't really cliffhangers because it doesn't need that to hook interest and you can rewatch the same episode over and over again, because what makes it good is feeling.

Feeling.

From watching it, there where times where I literally had to pause the episode because it was just that funny. It's comedy is a bit similar to other shounen jump series, but it's still very good. Often times, the touching stories ... bring me to tears. The episodes are very rarely depressing. And there is action sprinkled in.

Things done poorly:

Art/Sound

The newer series of gintama have good artwork, and that's to be expected when watching anime in general. But, the older series of gintama really don't look that great. The soundtracks are kind of cheap and reused. They do get the job done, but if you're binge watching, this can take away enjoyment, because the episodes start to have the same formula.

story

Please note, that the voice acting and story is the number one reason to watch gintama. It is very well done, and is what makes it stand out from so many other series.

However, no anime is perfectly written. For instance, gintama is very funny and includes parody in about every episode. It does parody other anime/manga and games, but it also parodys stuff in modern japanese culture like celebrities/people on tv/politicians, so you'd have to search it up to get these references.

Also, it doesn't really have foreshadowing (hints of something that's going to happen later), so it doesn't have a mystery element and if you rewatch an episode you don't get the "oh it was in my face the entire time", sort of feeling. The show does make up for it with comedy and touching stories though.

It's aimed at boys and tries to keep things pg, so if I had to show any anime to family/friends/people from work/school, I'd choose this or something like it. However it's not like it's 100% pg, it just doesn't need to use cheap hooks to get people to watch it. At times, it felt like the author was desperate to make one of the female leads unnappealing, rather than making her interesting with her personality.


In short, if you want to laugh and cry (from touching moments, without getting depressed) I'd reccommend gintama (ぎんたま/銀魂)