The thing that breaks its back however is also one of the show's biggest virtues:
its transparency.
Let me explain.
Gintama introduces itself as a show about an alternative timeline Meiji era where aliens have taken over and modernized Japan's culture so that it almost resembles our present time. We meet Shinpachi, Gintoki, Kagura and the gang who have to deal with all kinds of problems in this unnatural society with its alien oppressors etc. Gintoki apparently has a tragic past in the war while Shinpachi is concerned with keeping his sister's doujo going. Blah. Anybody seen Rurouni Kenshin?
Not that it matters, though, since after a short while you realize that this is not at all what Gintama is about. It's more or less about a shounen series trying to keep itself from being cancelled. It's as meta as it can get. And that's great! Gintama puts its characters in the weirdest situations taking apart all kinds of shounen antics along the way. Having a showdown between your heroes and your villains? Why not let it take place on the public toilet where it's all about the last piece of toilet paper?! That kind of thing. The meta transparency goes as far as to allow the characters a short visit at Sunrise Studios to look over their animators shoulders (not even talking about Gintoki himself taking over the Gintama manga as a Jump editor assistant).
This is one side of Gintama. Besides some rather repulsive poop jokes and some inappropriately rude remarks on real life people, it's 10/10 ++ material so far. But there is another part of Gintama which poses as a counterpart to the silly parody nonsense. And that part irritates me everytime it shows up. Because from time to time, the quirky clever anti-shounen parody show turns into exactly the thing it is making fun of all the rest of the time:
a generic shounen show.
And generic it is. Here is how a serious Gintama arc usually works: A new character appears who is in one way or the other tragically bound to a member of the main cast. Said main cast person turns from a silly parody character to a tragic plot device with a traumatic past. The dull plot unfolds. In the end they fight. Gintoki does the final strike and says something righteous. The new character goes away again and nothing changes. After a ton of episodes of that apparently significant stuff nothing changes and we go back to the usual silliness.
Were it for a normal shounen type show I couldn't care less. It's the blatant obviousness of it all that perplexes me. In the comedy parts of Gintama the characters make fun of their own serious story arcs and explain how ridiculous the whole thing actually was, just to turn to another serious arc that repeats the pattern. I simply don't understand how to relate to any of this. How can I buy any shounen life lesson from a guy who in the rest of the show is depicted as the laziest and most unambitious person in the world? And coming back to Gintama's transparency: They are just characters in a show and they know it. Why should I care about any of their tragic pasts? I often enough found myself relating more to Gintoki's voice actor than to the character himself. It is a mystery to me why so many people highlight the emotional value of Gintama when the show itself depicts these drama moments as the generic shounen antics they are in the aftermath. That's like Son Goku going Super Saiyajin on Freezer after K****n's death, just to turn to the camera afterwards saying: "he's going to come back anyway, it's a shounen!". That concept doesn't work. If there is no emotional attachment to a drama moment, the drama does not work. Which is why in the later parts of Gintama I just found myself skipping through the serious arcs to soon come back to the comedy bits. Because they are not generic. Because they are worth watching.
Gintama is really two shows in one. Unfortunately enough, however, one is the parody of the other, drawing every bit of gravitas from it. That is by far the weirdest concept of a show I have ever seen.
