Summary
The long-running manga and anime series gets its first live-action adaptation, and few cows are sacred. Most of those cows are also men in suits.
If you are starting to feel like Hollywood is on an endless treadmill of comic book adaptations and remakes, it ain’t got nothing on Japan. GINTAMA is typical of the multiple animated series and films that spawn out of popular manga, but few do it with such gleeful fourth-wall breaking abandon as Hideaki Sorachi’s creation.
As with the earlier version, the film takes place following an alien invasion of Edo Period Japan, where megacities and automobiles are now the norm. Gintoki Sakata (Shun Oguri) is an outlaw samurai, and together with Shinpachi (Masaki Suda) and the beautiful Kaguya (Kanna Hashimoto), they have a series of encounters and fight people. It’s not that complex.
The anime series and manga is notorious for acknowledging the fourth wall, and poking regular fun at the tropes of shōnen series. So it’s no surprise that GINTAMA‘s cheesy 80s karaoke opening sequence is interrupted by an animated explanatory cutaway, because “some viewers won’t know the original manga.” From this point on, it’s impossible to take the film seriously, which is a mixed blessing.
Deliberately shonky costumes and sets immediately let us know that everyone is in on the joke, including the giant duck Elizabeth. “It’s not weird when he’s a manga or anime character,” the others muse. “But in real life, I just sense a guy in a suit.” It’s a form of narrative removal that may inhibit immersion for some viewers, while for others it will completely replicate the non sequitur beats of a modern manga or anime series.
The constant stream of gags mostly take the low-brow road, with a running joke about Gintoki picking his nose. At its sharpest, Jiro Sato appears as a villain with a “Lolita complex” but insists “I’m a feminist.” It’s mostly visual humour, but the barrage of references leave nothing off the table, from the obvious Dragonball, Lupin III and One Piece nods to the less obvious shout-outs to Ken Takakura films. There’s a brief Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind cameo that Gintoki comments is “taking it to the limit of legality.”
Director Yūichi Fukuda (HK2: The Abnormal Crisis) matches the over-the-top tone with some insane visuals as well. During the climax, as an abnormal sword takes over the big bad, some impressive special effects mitigate the body horror we are witnessing. The actual swordplay and action sequences are satisfyingly fluid as well, although it would be a mistake to think of this as being interested in that action.
Whether or not you are a fan of the original, how much you enjoy GINTAMA will depend entirely on your willingness to embrace silliness. A portion of the audience will be immediately turned off, but there is a wicked amount of fun to be had it you just go with it.
