
Gintama and the Nobility of Comedy
Perhaps it’s their commitment to making people roll in laughter, or the sheer profoundness about friends, family, happiness, purpose and life in general that it manages to sneak between the crude jokes — whatever it is, it got me.
It was during the summers of my childhood, sixth grade specifically. I would go every afternoon to my grandma’s (may her soul rest in peace) house to watch a horrific dub of Gintama, with an electric fan straight to my face, as I hear my hysteric laughter become robotic from being so close to the fan, successfully cooling me down from the heat, but not my laughters. Never my laughters. I would never get the Japanese cultural references, as the dub often excluded some as to make the show better digested and understood, but it was the perfect kind of dumb, witty and surprisingly heart-warming that my 14 year old self could relate to. Amongst all other shows that I went through my disgusting weaboo phase, it was that show that, rather than me understanding, understood me. It knew what my lungs were to die for — be it out of laughter or choking back tears of devastation. It understood that I never took myself seriously, but as tragic as it sounds, I never really had a problem with that. And it’s not that serious serious, it’s just that, I’m not really bothered by most things, and whether that’s genuine numbness or teenage Nihilism, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what made me come back to watching this show again after 5 years, and eventually make it a mission to finish it by watching an episode or two every after school, which then turned to binging arcs, and now I’m here, having finished everything until the Rakuyo arc in the confines of my bed during Semestral break, a time I could’ve spent to hang out with my friends, go outside and photosynthesize, but it’s not like I could have anyway, considering the money I have isn’t enough for gallavanting for two weeks straight. If I had my way, that would have been the case. Maybe, like the plot of this goat-ass tv series, nothing really ever goes the way we want it, when we want it.
I don’t even know why I’m trying to write this in the first place. To even rationalize this show is futile, as the absurdity it displays would be enough to send Albert Camus to a headache. Everything is possible in this show — Aliens, modern technology in the Edo period, people turning into screw drivers, a middle-aged man with silver hair that actually has friends — all for the sake of the joke. Gintama’s absurdity comes hand-in-hand with it’s comedy, constantly incorporating Japanese pop culture references, wordplay, puns, slapstick, parodies, dark humor, fourth-wall breaking, and almost every known form of comedy there is, and they’re not afraid of going so far with it that it strays away from the plot sometimes, and even create a separate arc for the sake of it. Often, this is what makes people hesitant to watch it, and I honestly don’t blame them, but once you’ve gotten into the serious, more emotionally tolling, plot-heavy parts, you’re gonna wish you didn’t take the sitcom-esque episodes for granted. The way it transitions from funny to serious (and vice-versa — yes, they do that, a lot) can really catch you off guard, too. The dynamic of the show changes completely, as if it wasn’t throwing poop jokes and sexual innuendos in the last episode. Considering that the creator of Gintama, Hideaki Sorachi, intended it to be a gag show, and that’s exactly what it is — you can’t just ask to where it “gets good”. But whether you’re not watching the “good” parts yet, or think that the show in itself is not that good, you can’t deny that it doesn’t fail to give you a good time. The absurdity of the Gintama universe allows so much possibilities for comedy, whether the jokes are by the characters or are the characters itself, any person is bound to wheeze and chuckle at the show’s jokes whatever their sense of humor is, and it definitely got mine. I’m no connoisieur of comedy, but judging from this and my previous blogpost, you can already tell that I can get real weird and nerdy about it. The art of making people laugh is such a noble act and it just touches my heart, in a way I can’t explain. It’s so hard to make yourself happy, much less making others happy too, and I find it fascinating that there are people that find happiness in making others happy, in the form of belly-aching laughter, even just for a little while. Even if they do it to flaunt their wit or find genuine pleasure in making others have a good time, nevertheless, these are things I admire so much and somehow slowly incorporate in my life too.
And as cheesy as it may sound (I’m squirming and cringing in my seat as I type this, please), Gintama didn’t just touch my laugh box, but my heart as well. Perhaps it’s their commitment to making people roll in laughter, or the sheer profoundness about friends, family, happiness, purpose and life in general that it manages to sneak between the crude jokes — whatever it is, it got me. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. I would say it is famous in the community and has definitely made a name for itself for it’s Deadpool-like style of narrative, but it’s not mainstream. It doesn’t have a set target audience either, and fans could be of any age, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a series for everybody, which contradicts what I said about it catering to anybody’s sense of humor. The plot of Gintama doesn’t actually start until episode 300 — the earlier episodes being more of a weekly comedy sitcom in nature with small bits of plot sprinkled on top, making it hard to binge-watch. Okay, so maybe it really isn’t for everybody. But if the show has been going for 13 years, with a movie and, if I’m not mistaken, another season to be released next year, then it must have been doing well locally. That’s a no-brainer considering that it’s humor and ideas is entirely catered to it’s Japanese audience, and if it managed to touch me, a person of entirely different culture, therefore it should be just as precious to the people that the show shares it’s culture with. Often times, I find myself jealous even, that maybe if we shared the same culture I would finally understand Gintama’s jokes. But I laugh anyway. My brain just somehow intuitively understands the joke, and that honestly scares me sometimes.
Aside from being a person who isn’t really bothered by most things, I’m painfully aware that I have non-committal tendencies, or in other words, I don’t like things long enough for it to be an obsession. If we were to go by the degree of how I like it to be the definition of an obsession, it doesn’t last long enough to be one. Even though I returned to watching and liking this series, that doesn’t mean I’ll stay for long, which I don’t think I do that on purpose. I’ll eventually find something else to emotionally attach myself to, but for now, even if the manga has ended and there’s yet an announcement for the new movie, I hope that somehow I managed to quell my annoyance of not having contributed to fandom yet through a messy blogpost, with no rationalizing at all. I honestly just wanted to leave a memento on how special this show is to me and to other people, so when I look back to what I did maybe 5 years later through this blogpost, I can remind myself of the pain of doing nothing but watch this goat-ass show, in my bed, for the entire two weeks of semestral break and realize, that indeed it was me, who was the goat.
