Don’t Use Berserk’s Intro To Announce Your Regrets! – Gintama Slip Arc Midseason
The rest of the season has been just as I left off before with a return to old form before the end of the beauty that is Gintama, scheduled for Winter 2018. It’s been a fun ride from episodes 332-336 with a combination of the end of a 2 part arc, a split episode then a long arc. This will be a shorter article than usual so lets kick it off!
Wrapping up the arc we left off at the end of the 3 episode test, we find Gintoki, Hasegawa, Ikumatsu’s father (Musashi) and Zura hanging out surrounded by cardboard armored hobos. Hasegawa and Gin hold off said hobos in a glorious fight while Shinpachi and Kagura likewise decimate the hobos near Ikumatsu. More revelations come to light and we find out that Ikumatsu’s father forgot his old life after a near fatal drowning while saving a boy. Even better, we have Ikumatsu’s husband, Daigo , be said boy in question who finds and insists that Musashi come spend New Years eating ramen with them, parodying his time with Ikumatsu and her mother. Diving into the river to save Ikumatsu, Musashi drifts away into the river but is returned by the Odd Jobs team for a very sappy, yet sweet ending.
Onto a purely funny episode, we have 333 which is a split episode with nothing to do with the main Odd Jobs crew. First up we have dear Hasegawa ready to end his life and jump off a skyscraper. He’s then interrupted by a man telling him how precious life is as said man takes aim with a rifle and is obviously a sniper, who is called the One and Done Synshen, mostly because of his habit in bed. Opposite him is a counter sniper named Quickdraw Synron, aiming for Synshen’s life. Interesting as fate jumps around and we find Synron is Synshen’s sister and Hasegawa helps the two out, but still remains alive. The second half of the episode brings back our favorite police officers, the Shinsengumi and the Mimawarigumi as they train and undergo some antics befitting them, before the seriousness of last season occurred. I still find myself loving Sogo and Nobume for moments like those below.
The last three episodes here link up to an interesting arc about living sword aliens named Excaliberlings, with the main one Kusanagi being embedded Parasyte style in Gintoki’s asshole. Also, I’ve remembered how Gintama has taught me interesting Japanese phrases such as “ketsu no ana” or “butthole. The show also gets rather funny with the header imaged Berserk reference and a subsequent FF reference and a subsequent subsequent Berserk/FF reference. It turns out that another daemonic Excaliberling named Maganagi has found its way in Sogo’s hands after roaming around as a manslayer killing ronin and eating their swords. Being Gintama, this otherwise epic showdown is filled with literal poop jokes. After the show gets really weird, then really sad, then really weird again we have a nice enough if tragic ending. Lesson of the story, Sogo was the monster all along. All in all I found the season to be progressing well and I look forward to this happy interlude before things get all serious. Do you enjoy the Slip Arc so far? Let me know in a comment and don’t forget to like and/or subscribe!
