GINTAMA - Mr. Ginpachi's Zany Class

Episode 9

It's probably just because I got used to the main Gintama anime running for dozens of episodes at a time, but I was a little shocked when this one opened with a joke about how the show should probably start setting up for a season finale. Even with this being a spin-off, I figured the Gintama name alone would have ensured this would run for a solid 24-26 episodes, and despite my mixed reactions, I do think there is enough to the premise that would have allowed it to go that long. Alas, I suppose even Gintama isn't immune to the current norm of single-cour shows, and knowing we're close to the end just makes me a bit more bummed out to get another episode that kind of came and went.

There's not too much to say about this one. The general theme this time is a school festival, which sounds like a good setup for some crazy hijinks, but the episode doesn't do too much with it. We do get a solid cold open where Class 3-Z does auditions for a class film, and several of the girls try out for it, only to lose out on the role to Tama because they find Shinpachi disgusting. The episode peaks there. To be fair, its hard to top a joke where Mr. Ginpachi brings up that using a robot would be cheaper than real actors and the others all complain about getting replaced with AI and taking this up with the SAG (which even for Gintama, is a gag so audacious that I couldn't help but laugh even as I hated myself for doing so) but when the episode opens with something that good, it's hard not to be disappointed when the rest is kind of a shrug.

Most of the episode consists of Yamazaki trying to stop a random misanthrope from ruining the school festival, and it didn't really grab me. A lot of it felt unfocused, as it cuts between this and some of the characters doing random school festival activities. There are also shockingly few big gags here, and the ones we do get don't really land, with the closest being turning one of the club booths into a cabaret club (which was let down by the fact that the episode didn't do much with it besides briefly putting Katsura and Elizabeth in drag, though it at least felt less mean-spirited than last week's attempt at that). The Yamazaki side of the episode was also slow since, by his own admission, he's a bit of a dull guy, and any time he wasn't spending going after the culprit went to complaining how he'll never get a girlfriend, which got old very quickly. I also didn't get much out of the resolution for this plot either. The culprit, being motivated by getting rejected by a girl in high school, certainly feels on point for this kind of plot, but having this motivate Yamazaki to try confessing to Tama, only to get randomly interrupted by Katsura filming a movie is a punchline that felt more obnoxious than it was funny. I did at least like that the visuals for the ED song followed up on this with a bunch of random movie and anime references, but that was more of a novelty than anything else. For all these nitpicks, I wouldn't say I actively disliked this episode, but it's another one that didn't grab me. If this were a longer show, I wouldn't be too bothered by that, but given that we're pretty close to the finale here, I'm a little disappointed. Still, I'd rather be enjoying this show than not, so I'm hoping that the show will go all out on the comedy for its last couple of episodes so it can end with a bang rather than a whimper.

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