THEY STILL GOT IT! – Gintama Slip Arc 3-Episode Test

Apologies for the delay, this damn episode didn’t load up on Crunchyroll like it normally does yesterday. For those of you who know me or have been following us for a bit, you know I love me some Gintama. Between the amazing balance of comedy and serious plot development, coupled with great action and world building it is no surprise that Gintama and all its seasons are constantly ranked in the top spots for anime lists. I managed to catch up to the 328 episodes the show was currently at as of Winter this year. One would think after that many episodes the show might get stale or repetitive but damn if they don’t still got it (title drop!).

So the intro if this season is the kind of classic Gintama gag comedy we all know and love. Or at least you know now that I’ve said it is. Our lovely cast of misfits explain that due to the fact that Gintama is in its final arc and the anime caught up to the show, they had to jump to the Slip Arc in order to allow it to build a buffer. This Arc will consist of a few mini arcs that were skipped and chronologically take place before the last couple seasons where shit got real. Beyond that we had a number of hilarious spoof references where their “recap” involves them discussing a number of rip offs including but not limited to Dragonball, Dragonball Z, One Piece, Toriko, HunterxHunter, and Toriko all in 80 seconds. This intro gave back the light and happy air that the show had before the recent seasons which have been considerably more heavy than the show’s original form.

But the first two episodes are quite interesting as the focal point of our story is Kagura and her growth as a person. Contrary to how we have her portrayed, she is a teenage girl and her father, Umibozo (the greatest monster hunter in the universe) comes to visit and just as he gets over some paranoid thoughts about her getting pregnant and becoming a drug addicted woman of the night, he sees a boy offering a love letter to her. Cue some comical moments where Gintoki and Umibozo have a drunken bender to decide to “act like grown-ups” when they meet said boyfriend. While expecting the boyfriend they literally make themselves about 9 feet tall and act physically “grown-up.” In true fashion however, they are greeted not by the boy who provided Kagura the love letter, but this guy and his entourage.

Yup, turns out Kagura’s new boyfriend is a Titan. Specifically, he’s a prince from planet Titan. Awkward conversation later, turns out he is actually a real scumbag who ends up stealing Kagura for her genes as she is the only person he’s met that beats him in combat. Which given Kagura literally being the creme de la creme of a race of violent aliens, isn’t hard to believe. In a serious tone, he kidnaps her and it is revealed his race has a process to monopolize the bride of a prince’s genes by destroying her home planet. Again, she’s a Yato so kind of not applicable here but its all good. We of course have her Bald Dad and Light-Haired Dad go on the warpath to get her back and this leads to the expected result of beaten titans and the Gintama staff going HAM on these puns.

Episode 3 kicks us into another arc with Ikumatsu, the ramen shop owner that Katsura seems infatuated with. Gin of course mocks and pokes fun at him about this and makes a considerably excessive amount of dirty puns about Zura’s intent with the rather attractive widow. Zura then spews some very dirty words back that make me wonder if he kisses his mother with that mouth, and we learn more about Zura than I thought I’d ever want to learn. The gang then goes on a quest to identify a strange old homeless man who would frequent Ikumatsu’s shop at New Years but stopped coming after her husband passed. Gin and Zura go undercover in a homeless park finding the “Lawd” or leader of these homeless who turns out to be the crazy hobo they show every now and then, and of course, Madao. Kagura and Shinpachi find out that the old man was likely Ikumatsu’s father and Ikumatsu is actually heiress to a very well off textile group. An old villain re-appears threatening Ikumatsu if Gin and Zura don’t provide him the head of Ikumatsu’s father and we leave the mini arc off in a sewer with the crew half drowning every five seconds.

With this we wrap up my admittedly biased 3-episode test of Gintama Slip Arc/Season 6. It’s been a great and refreshing moment right here where we jump back before very serious and depressing moments canonically kick in and its back to the basics of Gintama where its 80% funny and 20% feels give or take, opposed to the inverse we’ve been seeing. The show is still the number one way I find out about Japanese culture, such as the importance of Red Rice in celebrations. All in all I’m looking forward to this single cour season to get me by until the inevitable end begins. Did you look into this new arc of Gintama? Don’t be daunted by the 331 episodes, go out and give it a shot I guarantee a good time or your money back! So leave a like, subscribe, and comment about what you thought, otherwise you might get haunted by some very “grown-up” individuals.