Gintama: Collection 1

I am not that much of an anime fan, but THIS anime is my favorite TV show of any kind, EVER. GinTama is pure genius from beginning to end; I can stream anime for free all day long if I want to, but GinTama I will spend money on just because it is THAT. FREAKING. GOOD. It deserves to be supported; that's why I spend money on it. GinTama is unlike most anime in that there is no central plot; there is no core goal toward which the whole series is driving. This is a purely, beautifully, wonderfully character-driven series. As an editor, I found this concept both dubious and daunting. As a fan, I cannot imagine this series being any other way than it is while retaining all its brilliance. For the most part, GinTama is known for its comedy. This is certainly deserved; it's the funniest mass-media entertainment of any kind that I have ever enjoyed, although I realize that cultural bias and squeamishness will damage the impact of the hilarity for a lot of Americans and possibly other Westerners. I doubt many of those types will be looking into anime anyway, though. GinTama is not all comedy, however; there are several serious arcs throughout the series which have powerful emotional impact, particularly for fans who have grown to love the characters. I actually have no idea if there would be any emotional impact at all for someone who is *not* a fan of the characters, because I cannot effectively put myself in that position at this point. I am a writer and an editor; I've always loved books, still do, and am building a library of hardbacks that gives me a lot of satisfaction. However, I have to say in all honesty that no book and no other form of media has ever been able to plumb the heights and depths of my emotions to the extent GinTama does. When it's funny, I laugh until my sides ache; when it's not funny, I cry like Paris Hilton finding a wrinkle on her plastic face. Even the second and third times, when I already know what's coming. People here have complained about the subtitles - I have no sympathy for anyone who gives bad reviews on that basis. If you have no capacity for cultural diversity, GTFO and go watch Jersey Shore. Dubbed anime is uniformly horrific, as far as I have seen, and the voice actors for GinTama in particular are - seriously - irreplaceable. Whatever it is, whether it's the actors themselves, the script, the material, all of it together, some mystical force, whatever - the characters drive the plot (if you can really even say there is a plot...?), and the voice actors have given life to those characters in ways no dubbing can duplicate. So yeah, learn to read faster. It's worth it. I've had no technical difficulties whatsoever with the DVDs themselves; I love GinTama, love this first collection, and intend to buy them all.

Gintama will parody anything and everything and every episode is hilarious. Gin and his two associates take on any job to try and keep from being eternally penny-less and make fun of both Japanese and Western culture while doing so. Some arcs have extremely good battles, up there or above any other shonen titles. The quality on these two DVDs is excellent. Subtitles seem accurate. Note, it only has Japanese audio track, but then again it'd be too hard for anything to really translate over. Another thing is that they have subtitles that explain some of the inside jokes and references, but those do seem to disappear too quickly, so you'll likely have to go back and pause it to read that. I highly recommend this series. Right now it's taking a break in Japan since it ran too close to the manga material, but it will take a while before these catch up and by then they'll be doing more episodes there.

By this point I would hope that no one would argue that if you really felt like reading every single line of dialogue for a series it would be easy enough to simply buy the manga, it's fairly easy to find, however if you're going to charge this much money for a series, have the courtesy and decency to spend the money and have it dubbed into the language of the country you're attempting to market the product in! I'm fairly sure this is the US Amazon site and until the wack jobs have their way, English is still the official language of this country. Bottom line is you buy video to WATCH the video, no matter how fast a reader you are, you will miss something every time you glance down to read the dialogue, the only way to avoid that is to pause the movie every time someone speaks. Which completely sucks if you are watching it with someone. To deny this is only an attempt to lie to yourself. I am not going to spend my money for any series not dubbed into English, I'm talking to you Sentai, get with the program. You've finally started releasing great new material, stop ruining the experience for us or let someone else release it who will properly dub it. Thank you, that is all. ** Ya know, I knew there was going to be some shallow individuals who feel the need to try and attack others with a view point that is different from their own. For those people, so there is no misunderstandings, let me spell it out: If you are going to charge this much money for a series, spend the money on dub'ing it! That's all I have to say about the matter. Deal with it, and trying to say that only slow readers would have issue with original score's + subs is like saying everyone who rides in taxis must suck at driving. Get a clue.

Gintama is one of my favorite series that was taken to the states, not only did they not dub this series, but charge as much as it would cost to buy a dub, but only add 13 episodes with some of the worst subtitles I've ever seen. Yellow Subtitles? Seriously? That's hard on the eyes and makes it even less fun to watch. This is the first product I bought from Sentai Filmworks, and I will say, I am severely angry how they portrayed this awesome anime.

With all the praise I've been hearing, I expected more from this anime, but I found that it's just mediocre. There's just so much better anime out there, that my expectations might be a bit high. I'd give 2.5 stars for average, but I can't really do that, so I'll round up to 3.