Gintama is a comedy manga series written by Hideaki Sorachi and published in Weekly Shonen Jump between the years 2003 to 2018. It follows the adventures of Gintoki Sakata, a former Joi patriot fighting against the alien Amanto invasion, now living as a broke freelancer doing odd-jobs with his friends and co-workers Shinpachi Shimura and Kagura. The three of them live in a version of 19th-century Edo, which has become abnormally technologically advanced thanks to the occupation of the Amanto. As they perform work as odd-jobbers, they come into contact with a variety of colorful characters and become involved in a number of outlandish events.
Gintama has gained a reputation for being one of the funniest manga and anime series in recent history, with tons of raunchy gags, gross humor, and blatant parody. However, that hasn’t stopped it from also having its heartwarming, tear-jerking, and tragic moments as well. Gintama is a rare show that can combine laugh-out-loud comedy with dramatic tragedy, and it does it extremely well. So how does it accomplish that?
Many writers and authors are often afraid of making their characters look like fools. They want them to be considered cool and inspiring, and they want their audience to look up to them. By contrast, Gintama seems to be an example of the complete opposite. Sorachi seems to relish in putting his massive cast of characters in unfortunate and embarrassing positions, and even main characters like Gintoki and cool action hero types like Hijikata and Okita can’t avoid being the butt of the joke. Furthermore, each and every member of the cast has one or two bizarre personality traits that often help to escalate these absurd circumstances to unbelievable lengths, such as Kondo’s stalker tendencies or Sacchan’s flagrant masochism. The end result is a side-splitting segment that spirals out of control due to the nonsensical actions of the main cast.
While these scenes are obviously very hilarious, they also have a very important purpose, especially when it comes to introducing and defining these characters. These segments reveal a lot about each character, whether it be their weird fetishes or their bizarre idiosyncrasies, and makes them clear to the audience. This leads viewers to create an image of the character in their minds based on what they’ve seen (i. e. Katsura is scatterbrained or Otae has a short temper). These comedy sequences serve to define the massive cast of characters for the audience in a way that puts their main personality traits on display.
If Gintama was just about goofy characters getting into compromising situations, it would most likely never be as popular as it currently is. However, Sorachi seems to have a knack for taking these goofy characters and giving them intensely emotional and often tragic backstories or placing them in serious stories where they can show off their more admirable aspects. Since many of these characters are often introduced and established in comedic situations, the audience is often unprepared for such an unexpected show of sincere emotion. This contrast between the two sides of each character leads the audience to hidden depths in each and every cast member in the series.
This treatment isn’t just limited to main characters; even side characters or even characters that have only appeared in the background can turn out to have sincere motivations or tragic backstories that change the audience’s perspective of them. Many arcs and even standalone episodes can revolve around an initially comical character who turns out to have sympathetic circumstances. This habit has allowed Gintama to engender a massive cast of characters with both comedic and tragic attributes.
Gintama uses comedic storylines to show each character’s goofy sides, then transitions to serious mode to show their heroic aspects. This allows Gintama to show the audience multiple sides to each of its characters, creating a large cast of multifaceted personalities. Many of the major characters like Gintoki and Shinpachi have an abundance of character traits that could outnumber those of other series’ main characters, and even side characters like Yamazaki and the Shogun are more interesting than their appearance rate might suggest.
But swapping between comedy and drama is harder than it sounds. Doing so recklessly can cause the tone to vary wildly, which can put off viewers if it’s not done elegantly. Thankfully, Gintama makes these transitions back and forth perfectly. The shift from comedy to a more dramatic tone is always gradual; the viewer is never suddenly confronted by a starkly serious tone after previously enjoying a lighthearted moment of comedy.
Most importantly, whenever these moments do happen, they are always executed as sincerely as possible. There’s not a hint of irony or comedy in these dramatic, emotional moments; the viewers are given the time to soak in the sadness of a tragic death or the happiness of a warm reunion. This sincerity is the most important part because if the audience ever felt that these serious, dramatic moments were disingenuous, there’s no way any of this would ever work out. In the end, Gintama manages to balance its comedic moments and dramatic moments by being sincere in both of them, as well as being smart enough to know when to transition from one mood to the next.
