Gintama/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Ito, Housen, and Jiraiya.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: When there was an official announcement for a movie, and when said movie was going to be a retelling of the fan favorite Benizakura arc.
    • And some more rejoicing when it was announced that Gintama would be returning in Summer 2011.
  • Asexual: About half the fans insist that Gintoki is asexual. However, he does have a big crush on Hana Ketsuno and did try to hit on her but she was already married. He resists most sexual & romantic advances from women and is comfortable in his bachelorhood.
    • Except for nosebleeding on the beach spying on women when he was supposed to be playing lifeguard, and spying on women in the pool when he was, you guessed it, supposed to be playing lifeguard. He doesn't pursue a relationship with women though.
    • Of course he has bent Hasegawa over. And that's canon (episode 240).
  • Awesome Music: Most of the series' opening and ending themes.
  • Ear Worm: Katsura's rap Which also brings in a funny moment that goes with the above trope.
    • Mr. Raindrop, falling away from me now~
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: There's Takasugi, Kamui, Yamazaki, and Tsukuyo who are 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th place respectively despite their limited appearances. Then there's also Sorachi Hideaki himself who's at NUMBER 15!
  • Evil Is Sexy: Takasugi and Bansai...oh, come on I can't be the only one thinking it.
  • Foe Yay:
    • Just count how many Hijikata/Gintoki or Hijikata/Okita shippers there are, seriously! The former ship actually got lampshaded in episode 92 with Gintoki holding a mock manga cover with them in a... erm, suggestive pose.
    • Kamui got just a little too excited at watching Gintoki fight. Cue Kamui's unhealthy interest in him. Umibouzu even said Yoshiwara doesn't interest Kamui, he only became its ruler solely to prevent anyone from getting close to Gintoki, who he's staked his claim on as future prey.
    • Okita and Kagura have this in spades.
    • Nizou and Katsura, with Nizou cutting his hair off and caressing it against his face, talking about how it was soft like a woman's. If he meant to piss off Gintoki, it worked.
    • Recently Kamui and Takasugi.
  • Freud Was Right: Isn't that the Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon?
  • Growing the Beard: While Gintama got fans in the beginning, it was the Benizakura Arc that got people hooked.
  • Holy Shit Quotient: [[spoiler: In chapter 303 Shinpachi and Kagura hand their opponents their asses.
  • Ho Yay: It has its own page!
  • Les Yay: Otae and Kyuubei.
  • Memetic Mutation: The "strawberry milk speech" and "evil grin" picture are recognisable even to people who have never heard of the series.
  • Moe: Subverted as hard as the author can muster at every opportunity.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Sacchan and Okita's ideas on how to improve the series in episode 50.
  • Periphery Demographic: The series is technically shonen, but thanks to its avoidance of most pitfalls of the shonen fighting genre (they don't even have named techniques, much less new ones every arc), deviation from "fight progressively stronger enemies" formula, and an older-than-average protagonist, it's attracted a lot of older fans who otherwise find JUMP comics juvenile. The presence of attractive guys who aren't entirely effeminate has earned it a healthy-sized Estrogen Brigade as well, in addition to a quite large cast of proactive and useful female characters who can fight (and be successful at it) and who aren't the usual flat and ineffectual Fan Service on legs..
  • Shallow Parody: In their Pretty Cure parody, they seem to believe that Saki and Mai are powered-up forms of Nagisa and Honoka, rather than different people.
    • The Owee arc displays very little knowledge of even the most well-known Wii gimmicks, and one of the launch titles is a dating sim involving groping, which doesn't really gel with Nintendo's famously kid-friendly image.
      • To be fair, the arc appeared was around the time of the launch of the Wii and it was making fun of the hype around getting one before lampooning video games in general (thus you have Tetris, a dating-sim and an RPG). It wasn't really meant to satirize Nintendo itself.
  • Take That: What does the author do when the campaign against Ecchi appears? Give us an Unwanted Harem Arc of course!
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: It's basically Rurouni Kenshin on pot, salt LSD's, reefer, and any other drug you can think of, mixed with pop culture references, parody and Lupin III thinking it's in the future.
    • or they just snorted the fourth wall.
    • Technically the time frame syncs better with Peacemaker Kurogane - and just try watching Peacemaker and then Gintama and watch your beautiful image of the Shinsengumi get shattered to pieces.
  • Woolseyism: The manga version pulls these out here and there. One particular instance involved a character shocked by how terrible a pun was. Rather than come up with an ill-fitting translation, they pointed out that the character made a Japanese pun, and was shocked that someone would do untranslatable humor--"That's the worst kind!"
  • Writer on Board: Rather subtle and sprinkled reasonably among all the fun and gags, you wil find an Aesop about life in general and about what's truly important. In other word, it's Sorachi speaking through the characters but it's done well.

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