Rating recaps always feels a bit conflicting. Should I rate based on all of its content, ignoring that most of it Is completely reused from previous work? Should I only rate the extra parts as rating of the reused content is already covered by rating of the title it’s being reused from? Or should I rate it based on how the cuts and shortening makes sense? I usually lean towards the 2nd option with a bit of the 3rd one.
Are Shinsengumi Crisis and Kabukichou Four Devas one of the best Gintama arcs? Yes. Does this recap actually add anything of value? No, I don’t think it does. At least, I certainly haven’t noticed any difference. Someone might compare those frame by frame to the original airing and please, do prove me wrong as I’d like to see what the extra content actually is, but currently I’m pretty sure nothing worth of noting was added. Should this get high rating just because the content it’s copypasting is great? I don’t think so – just the original version should. In fact, I would argue that watching this recap movies is the worse experience than just plainly watching the original episodes. Thankfully the arcs are short so the content didn’t have to be cut down drastically, so you’re not losing much there. But there’s one small but major detail – those recap movie are only available in SD, as the only physical media it was released on were DVDs. So unlike the series which is available on bluray, you can see this only in 480p. And why would you want to watch the great arcs pixelated? And if you’ve already seen them, why would you want to see them pixelated instead of the available HD regular episodes?
Plainly said, it’s a worthless recap that brings nothing of value. So an average recap. Well, it’s still Gintama and the arcs are still great so I can’t bring myself to give it 5/10, but you get the point.