Gintama just don’t give a damn – A Brief Look at Gintama’s Voice Actors

One night, I couldn’t sleep (refer to above video which was pretty much me at the time) so I opened youtube and watched some random seiyuu videos. I didn’t even know why I suddenly had the urge to watch them, though it may have to do with the fact that at the time, I just don’t feel like watching anime nor playing games, and just staring at my twitter to pass the night don’t seem exactly productive either. In doing so though, I ended up discovering something interesting.

When voice actors are being interviewed and they are asked about their roles and the anime they are starring in, I always thought that they should be selling the show and putting it over as much as possible, after all, they themselves are starring roles in the anime too. But Gintama in this case, is kind of in an unique spot.

For those who might not be familiar with Gintama, it’s an incredibly hilarious show where a lot of the jokes are reliant on meta and fourth-wall breaking. One of their running joke which had been going on occasionally for the entire series, is trolling their viewers by falsely claiming their show is ending. Very teasing tactics, and until this day, still gets to some other people, yet it’s so effective that you just couldn’t be angry with them and just had to laugh.

Anyway, the latest “version” of this joke was when Gintama released a movie called “Gintama: The Final Chapter – Be Forever Yorozuya.” The video above, was when a new season was greenlit (which for the record, is the current ongoing Gintama season), not long after the movie was released. It was hilarious, because the movie very EXPLICITLY stated “Final Chapter”, and with zero fucks given, a new season was greenlit after that without a damn care in the world.

And when the franchise is like that, how would the voice actors sell their own show? By making self-depreciation jokes on the show itself.

All in good humor, of course. It’s very interesting too, because with their responses, it’s almost a mirror-copy of their own characters. I would assume the production company never really intend to have such a transitioning effect in the first place, but it’s a really cool effect to see. I think how fitting the voice actors are to their own characters play a major part in this too. It seems like the production company already has an extremely good idea on just who would fit which character. In the later part of this video when the Shinsegumi’s voice actors were interviewed, they blatantly stated that they were just picked and never even went for an audition.

Gintama is one of those odd franchise where within and outside of the show, everyone just simply do not give a damn. Characters and their respective seiyuu would just diss their own anime and production company, and because it’s Gintama, it’s able to get away with it and pass it off as good humor. It’s an interesting effect culminated from the original manga consisting of various meta and fourth-wall breaking jokes, and voice actors’ personalities who fit their own characters like two peas in a pod.