GINTAMA - Mr. Ginpachi's Zany Class

Episode 11

Mr. Ginpachi's Zany Class is quickly coming to a close, and what better way for a school-related spin-off to go out than with a good old-fashioned delinquent gang war between rival schools? Or…at least that's what I was expecting to say coming into this. While there is certainly some quality delinquent violence here, what seemed to be building up to a dramatic season finale ends up being resolved this week in a somewhat anticlimactic fashion. Had this been the entire episode, I might have clocked it as a massive disappointment. Yet somehow, the show managed to take this shift in expectations, and so something I'm not sure anyone could have predicted: ponder the very nature of its own existence.

Before all that, I suppose I should at least discuss the main plot, which more or less follows up on last week's events. Following another scuffle between some delinquents from both schools, Yato and Gintama High are about to go to war, with the Yato High students rallying 100 fighters together, while Gintama High is armed with Takasugi's handful of misfits. Being the angsty loner that he is, everyone assumes that Takasugi would rather settle this conflict by sticking with his main crew, and the principal is more than happy to let him do it since it gives him both an excuse to expel Takatsugi if he causes another incident, as well as one to fire Mr. Ginpachi, should he choose to get himself involved. When this comes to the attention of the rest of Class 3-Z, they decide that the best solution is to help bolster Takasugi's forces by dressing up as 80's delinquents, and given he hasn't had a whole lot of interaction with some of these characters (even in the main series), it's pretty funny watching them all come up with their own individual reasons for seeing him as a comrade before eventually dropping any pretense as they admit they're just here out of contractual obligation. The school brawl itself is pretty cool, and while the animation here isn't anything too stellar, it's hard not to get a little pumped up seeing all these characters duke it out while of the classic Gintama OPs is blaring in background, and I got a good kick of the subtle joke of having everyone suddenly gaining a few extra muscles out of nowhere since it really added to the classic delinquent anime vibe this whole sequence was going for. Fun as it is, I wish this fight had some stronger emotional stakes since it's a little weird hearing everyone talk about Takasugi as a friend when he's barely appeared in this show, and even Kagura's connection with her brother Kamui is just limited to a joke about how trying to convince him not to fight would be like trying to convince TMZ not to report on celebrities (which nearly had me rolling).

It probably wouldn't have mattered if there were better stakes here, because the real point of this whole affair comes when Mr. Ginpachi finally decides to step up. Turns out the easiest way to stop a bunch of school kids from punching each other is to tell the teacher on them, and when one of the teachers at Yato High shows up to yell at his students (which was a good way to bring Kagura and Kamui's dad into this show), they all back off, averting this entire crisis. It's the most anticlimactic way this plot could have been resolved, and Takasugi is none too happy about it. However, Takasugi isn't mad about getting deprived of a good fight. He's mad about having to play up this whole delinquent shtick to begin with. As far as he's concerned, his story ended with the original Gintama, and if his fate is to be paraded around so some executives can continue to milk the franchise for more money, he'd rather burn this entire spin-off to the ground than continue the whole farce.

Now this certainly isn't the first time this show has made fun of itself, but it's a whole other matter entirely to hear a character literally complaining about it being a shameless cash grab. Given how much of Takasugi's ramblings here have matched my own issues with this spin-off, it's hard to tell how much of this is some tongue-in-cheek commentary from the writers versus pre-emptively shielding themselves from criticism about its quality. That line is blurred even further when Gintoki drops the whole Mr. Ginpachi persona to agree that this whole show is simply riding on the goodwill that the original Gintama had built up, and probably to the detriment of both, but he sees that as okay because it's the way of the world for stuff to get built up and destroyed over and over again, so we should all just let things be. It's a statement that I guess is meant to be an extremely roundabout way of saying this spin-off should be judged completely on its own merits, and is one that I do generally agree with. However, given this is a sequel of sorts, it's a little hard to separate from its mother series when passing judgment on it, especially when half the jokes rely on the audience's knowledge of it. Maybe the writers know this, too, because Takasugi's reaction to Gintoki's whole speech is to attack him anyway, with Gintoki only being spared. After all, he happened to have a copy of Shonen Jump in his breast pocket. This was a good enough bit that I'm not too bothered by this whole affair ending with Takasugi deciding to humor Gintoki and play along being a student, despite him being right about basically everything he said. I'm not quite sure if I'd say all this meta commentary was enough to justify everything this show has done up to now, or even meshes with the rest of this episode, but I do respect that the writers were willing to go for it, and it certainly made this episode memorable if nothing else. Now that we're past this whole delinquent storyline, I'm curious to see what the show could be cooking up for its finale, and I'm almost a little nervous to find out.

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GINTAMA - Mr. Ginpachi's Zany Class is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.