The story opens up with the Yorozuya three and Sadaharu in a movie theatre working part-time to grab some cash. Through a series of surprisingly refreshing and funny fourth-wall jokes, Gin and a new and hilarious character, the Movie Thief, end up travelling forward in time by five years. Here Gin learns the true identity of the Movie Thief and discovers that the world has been drastically altered and many people on Earth have died. To make matters worse, Yorozuya has disbanded and in this world Gin is missing and the Gin from five years ago must try and restore the world.
The story, which renews the most popular theme in contemporary anime, is about time traveling. If you've seen one anime about time traveling, whether it be Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya or Steins;Gate, you've seen them all. What these stories have in common is using time-travel as a plot-device to provoke a sense of regret and gratefulness out of our otherwise complacent main characters. This concept strings pretty far back in the medium and unless the story is presented in an innovative manner the plot device of time travel is incredibly predictable. Time travel can no longer exist as the sole concept in a work. In Steins;Gate it was a character study on the stress of an individual undergoing intense trauma, and in Disappearance it was the deliberation between being safe or being in love. In both stories the main characters support the work. Here time travel is sadly used as a way to advance a very generic story in a setting that was created to provide the Gintama fanbase with some fun character designs.
While the story is predictable it still is entertaining to any shounen fan. All our favorite Gintama characters appear, and the jokes ultimately keep flowing. But we don't get to see the characters from the main series develop into their new character designs, we just see how they've changed in five years. It's a bit disappointing coming from a series that often pays meticulous care to even the most trivial character's background. For a movie marketed as game-changing for the franchise, I can't help but to feel a little swindled. It's mostly just the same Gintama jokes from the show with less attention to story.
The ill-explained time travel really hurts the bombastic finale of the film and everything about the story felt simply too convenient. While the movie is presented as a mystery Gin does almost none of the footwork to figure out about the world around him or how to fix it. The events of the movie occur jarringly fast. Plot points simply keep forcing themselves into scenes until finally you arrive at the final battle. It's frustrating that the film is so linear and there is almost no despair to be felt in a world that was supposedly ravaged. Even as far as a Gintama arc would go, it is safe to say that this would be a very weak one. The story suffers from cliches, linearity, and unbelievable explanations to the point of boredom. The main Gintama series can do better than this story and it's upsetting to see such little thought put into it.
The cast remains the same if not caricatured. Ultimately we learn nothing new about the cast of the entire series other than that Kagura five years in the future is stacked. There is no character development in this film, which you can expect from a side story, but there is also no new character relationships. The films characters are very static.
The soundtrack lifts nearly all songs from the main anime series and is of course very fitting because of this. Despite the contempt for innovation here the score still feels right. The animation looks vastly improved from the main series, though! Simply put, it is more fluid and provides a greater range of facial expression. The fight scenes are also animated very well, and provide for some exciting hack-and-slash entertainment. The character designs are great and should be lauded as well. The movie does a great job poking fun at some characters with the astute redesigns and pays attention to detail here with wardrobe subtleties. A fun example is Shinpachi is wearing Gin's shirt and Kagura is wearing his robe as a skirt. If there's an reason to see this movie it's to see the older counterparts of each character.
Gintama Yorozuya yo Eien Nare is typical Gintama. It's more Gintama. If you want more Gintama then watch this film. It's nothing innovative, and it's nothing you haven't seen before. Some of the jokes are really funny, but mostly the films struggles with a convincing plot and frequently devolves into artificial sentimentality. I liked the film but was disappointed in it's simplistic design, but I humbly hope Gintama returns to form with some more hotpot and Christmas episodes in April.
