Gintama

Episode 288

In the second week of the Soul Switch arc, Gengai's Egg-on-Rice Maker fails to swap Gintoki and Hijikata's souls back into their proper bodies. (It does, however, manage to remove the contents of their stomachs and then their balls for some reason.) Gintoki comes to a stark realization: Hijikata mentioned that after the collision with the truck, part of Gintoki's soul broke away and entered the anus of a dead cat before the other half settled into Hijikata's body. As a result, the cat may have come back to life. Without the missing half of Gintoki's soul, there's apparently no hope of reversing the swap.

With their mission made clear, the duo set off to locate a reanimated feline carcass. However, the reformed and ever-expanding staff of Odd Jobs Gin-chan and the Shinsengumi, who have devolved into a Hokuto no Ken-inspired biker gang, get in their way at every turn. Katsura's appearance is one of the episode's highlights, but Sa-chan's cameo is disappointingly brief and unfunny. (If anyone should notice that Gintoki isn't acting like himself, it would be her, yet she seems to have fallen in line with Odd Jobs Gin-chan's new kunoichi division.)

Amidst rampant chaos, Gintoki and Hijikata finally manage to locate their target, and it isn't at all what they expected. As it turns out, Gintoki's soul transformed the nondescript stray kitty into a towering, muscle-bound humanoid cat with pixelated privates and an adorably grotesque face. According to Gintoki, the portion of his soul that went into the cat was corrupted by the bloody battles he fought during the Joi War and the accumulated disappointment from years of unsuccessful trips to the pachinko parlor. As such, the amnesia-stricken feline is incredibly strong and prone to fits of violence. Further complicating matters, Otae has adopted the cat as a pet (and sort-of boyfriend), making it difficult for Gintoki and Hijikata to snatch him up and take him to Gengai.

Since the story never stops to take a breather, the episode is over before you know it. The pacing is top notch, the gags all hit their mark, and the surprises never seem to end. With only one episode left in this nutty arc, viewers are left to wonder how the countless problems created by this body swap will be resolved—especially considering Gengai may have swapped some of the other characters' bodies in an effort to give them a clearer understanding of the situation.

If there's one fault to be found in this episode, it's that it's even harder to tell Hijikata and Gintoki apart than it was last week. The bodies retaining their original voices is only part of the problem. The two act similarly, especially when caught up in a crisis, and the current situation doesn't allow many opportunities for them to display their individual quirks. On one hand, we know they've switched bodies since it's the focal point of the arc. On the other hand, watching both characters alternate between getting angry and cowering as events unfold makes it hard to keep the premise together. To be fair, this is often how the two of them act when paired up on a misadventure, but the swap isn't quite as convincing as it was likely intended to be.

Episode 288 ups the stakes just enough to drive the action and comedy into the final act, making it an ideal middle entry in a three-part arc. The grotesqueness of the reanimated man-cat, abundance of madcap comic violence, and emphasis on a cat's anus is so perfectly Gintama that no fan will walk away disappointed.

Rating: A-

Gintama is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Amy is a YA fantasy author who has loved anime for two decades.