Gintama Season 4

銀魂° (Gintama°)

9.1(273,978)
MAL Score
Ranked #8
Popularity #349
  • Action
  • Comedy
  • Sci-Fi
  • Gag Humor
  • Historical
  • Parody
  • Samurai
Episodes
51
Duration
24 min per ep
Aired
Apr 8, 2015 to Mar 30, 2016
Status
Finished Airing

Synopsis

Gintoki Sakata, Shinpachi Shimura, and Kagura return as the perpetually broke Yorozuya odd-jobs trio, scraping by in an alternate Edo where swords are outlawed and Japan lives under alien rule. Between taking any job that pays and bickering over unpaid wages, Shinpachi and Kagura can’t help wondering where their earnings keep disappearing—especially when Gin-chan’s habits come into question.

One night, a drunken Gintoki stumbles into trouble when a nearby alien ship crashes and a dying crew member entrusts him with a mysterious, clock-like device, insisting it’s dangerously powerful and must be protected. Treating it like an ordinary alarm clock, Gintoki breaks it the next morning—only to step outside and find the world frozen in place. With Shinpachi and Kagura alongside him, he sets out to get the device repaired, but the path forward is anything but straightforward for the Yorozuya.

Otaku Consensus

Gintama° earns its elite reputation by turning a long-running gag anime into a precision machine: Chizuru Miyawaki’s direction and Youichi Fujita’s supervision keep the meta-comedy sharp while letting the Shogun Assassination and Farewell Shinsengumi material land with full shounen weight. Critics and fans consistently single out the season’s whiplash control of parody, action, and character development, with Bandai Namco Pictures delivering far stronger set pieces than the show’s own budget jokes would suggest. The real barrier is commitment: this season rewards deep familiarity with hundreds of prior episodes, making its 51-episode run less welcoming as a standalone entry.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Gintama° if you want shounen payoff without the usual training-arc grind: a series where slapstick, political upheaval, sword fights, fourth-wall jokes, and found-family loyalty all occupy the same bloodstream. It scratches the ensemble itch of One Piece and the genre-savvy parody instinct of Sket Dance, but with a more adult cast and a sharper taste for undercutting its own heroics. This is the season where Gintama’s reputation for “comedy that suddenly becomes top-tier action” is easiest to understand: goofy one-off chaos can pivot into serious arcs with real consequences, and the cast has enough history for those pivots to hurt. If you like anime that can mock shounen formulas while still outperforming them, this is prime Gintama.

Key Characters

  • K
    Kagura(VA: Rie Kugimiya)

    Kagura is loved for turning the cute heroine slot into a feral comic weapon, balancing deadpan selfishness, explosive violence, and disarming loyalty without sanding off her edges.

  • G
    Gintoki Sakata(VA: Tomokazu Sugita)

    Gintoki remains one of anime’s great anti-heroes because his laziness, vulgarity, and genre-awareness never erase the sense that he is carrying old wounds under every joke.

  • S
    Shinpachi Shimura(VA: Daisuke Sakaguchi)

    Shinpachi is the show’s straight man by design, but fans value how his exasperated commentary becomes the rhythm section that lets Gintama’s absurdity escalate without collapsing.

What Makes It Stand Out

  • 1

    Gintama° is a 51-episode Bandai Namco Pictures production, marking the franchise’s mid-2010s TV return with a season long enough to house both episodic gag material and major serialized arcs.

  • 2

    Chizuru Miyawaki directs with longtime Gintama figure Youichi Fujita credited as supervisor, a staffing combination that helps the season preserve the franchise’s rapid comic timing while shifting into heavier dramatic pacing when needed.

  • 3

    The season is especially associated with the Shogun Assassination and Farewell Shinsengumi arcs, two late-series storylines frequently cited by fans as proof that Gintama’s comedy groundwork can pay off as serious action drama.

  • 4

    Its genre mix is unusually dense even by shounen standards: AniList tags it heavily for Samurai, Meta, Swordplay, Parody, Philosophy, Politics, Aliens, Anachronism, Space, and Ninja, reflecting how often the show changes lanes without changing identity.

  • 5

    The sound package pairs Shinji Takamatsu’s sound direction with music by Audio Highs, while Aqua Timez performs both the third opening and second ending for the season.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1
Gintama° aired from April 8, 2015 to March 30, 2016, giving it a full four-cour broadcast run rather than a short revival season.
Fun fact 2
Its audience scores remain unusually high for a long-running comedy-action sequel: the research data lists a 9.05/10 MyAnimeList score from 273,978 votes, a MAL rank of #8, and an AniList score of 90/100.
Fun fact 3
The season has 6,637 AniList favourites, a strong signal that it is not merely respected as part of the franchise but singled out by viewers as a personal favorite entry.
Fun fact 4
Hideaki Sorachi’s original manga foundation is preserved through an adaptation team that includes character designer Shinji Takeuchi, art directors Nami Maniwa and Takayoshi Fukushima, and director of photography Yuuki Teramoto.
Fun fact 5
A recurring critical talking point is that Gintama jokes about weak ratings and cost-cutting while still producing action scenes that reviewers compare favorably against more conventionally serious battle anime.

Studios

  • Bandai Namco Pictures

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