Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

A different kind of Looney Tunes.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 9, 2012

Despite its impressive market share and worldwide reach, anime is in its own way a niche product, one that appeals to a select class of fan. That niche is further narrowed when one considers any given anime franchise (and as anime lovers know, anime is full of franchises), so that there are, for example, aficionados of Ghost in the Shell may not care one whit for Full Metal Alchemist, and so on. That tends to be an issue when a franchise tries to build its own market share by reaching out to prospective new viewers, something that has been addressed over the years in many reviews here at Blu-ray.com, including quite recently in a number of projects including cross-platform entries like Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker or a film corollary to a series like Fate / Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Gin Tama falls into that second category, but it’s to this film’s credit that it treats the whole niche aspect of anime with a knowing wink, deriving humor from it. (It should be noted that Sentai Filmworks prefers the spelling GinTama, though it’s also seen as either Gintama or Gin Tama, but most sites spell it as Gin Tama so we will defer to them in this review.) Gin Tama might be thought of as a Japanese version of Cowboys & Aliens with the Eastern version of the cowboy, the samurai, replacing the hero of the Wild West. Based on a successful manga, Gin Tama matriculated to anime and became equally successful there, depicting a patently goofy story where Edo (the shogunate name for Tokyo) has been invaded by aliens and a small group of resistance fighters is all that stands between the invaders and Mankind’s imminent demise (or at least enslavement). The series was marked by its self-knowing humor, something that carries over in spades to Gin Tama: The Movie. In fact the first several minutes of the film play almost like a Monty Python’s Flying Circus episode or even a Mystery Science Theater 3000 skewering, as the voice actors decry any attempt to “cash in” on a franchise whose anime series has already ended (years previously). That leads to not one but three iterations of the opening Warner Brothers logo, replete with Warner fanfare, along with two attempts to catch newcomers up on the basic outlines of the story. It’s a fittingly silly opening that helps set the tone of a film that never takes itself very seriously.

If you were to take only the opening few minutes of Gin Tama: The Movie and the final coda, which lasts about ten minutes, you might think that this was some sort of Mad Magazine parody come to life. The opening several minutes play out to a still frame of the Odd Jobs Emporium that hero Gintoki works at, as the various voice actors lament the fact that the film is doomed to failure. A number of attempts at recaps come and go (replete with Warner Brothers logos) until finally—finally—the actual film begins. Then at the end, after the main plot arc has come to a more or less fitting conclusion, all hell breaks loose as virtually every supporting character in the Gin Tama universe suddenly bursts through the doors and insists that a planned Gin Tama sequel feature them. That evolves into total mayhem (including all four walls of the “set” falling over to reveal a soundstage) which then gets stopped when the supposed “Warner Brothers”, two faceless animated figures, one named War, the other Ner, show up to say that they’ll have nothing to do with such a “vulgar anime”.

Sandwiched in between these two patently silly bookends is a slightly more serious outing which finds Gintoki battling Nizo, a sort of serial killer who has become bionically linked to a katana that is imbued with artificial intelligence. The sword is literally taking over Nizo’s body (and mind), making him a relentless killing machine. The sword is known as Cherry Blossom, and it seems to be impervious to traditional defensive weapons, leading to a really bloody showdown between Gintoki and Nizo, where both men are seriously wounded. Gintoki’s lovable if somewhat dunderheaded apprentice Shinpachi shows up to save the day (as he does later in the film with regard to another character in major peril).

This is fairly basic action fare with a few character beats thrown in here and there, along with some effective humor along the way. A lot of the funny bits come courtesy of one of the odder characters in any anime franchise, the giant pet duck of Katsura’s named Elizabeth, a character who goes around communicating by holding up little placards (in Japanese, with English translations provided via subtitles), many of which are either non sequiturs or just outlandish. It is indeed a kind of Monty Python-esque addition to a piece that’s somewhat bizarre to begin with. It’s also hilarious to see Elizabeth in various disguises as she (it?) helps various groups “strategize” on how to wage battles.

Gin Tama: The Movie might have played a little better had some of the over the top “meta” humor of its opening and closing segments made its way into the main story. As it stands, the film starts and ends with uproarious self consciousness, but gets bogged down in its central arc with a fairly standard, but well done, battle storyline. Overall Gin Tama: The Movie retains a fresh enough approach to sustain interest, and some viewers, whether new to the franchise or longtime fans, may be mock incensed when War and Ner insist there will be no more sequels. Gintoki obviously has other plans.

Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gin Tama: The Movie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a very bright, colorful and well detailed anime that looks sharp and defined in this high definition presentation. There are some sequences that are intentionally done in a sort of quasi-soft focus (including some flashbacks), but overall line detail is very solid and colors are extremely robust and well saturated. Some effective CGI is blended with the traditionally animated elements and there is some very cool looking dimensionality added to several sequences courtesy of a multi-plane approach. Character design is very strong and variegated (take a look at some of the aliens in the final sequence, one of whom looks like he (it?) could have wandered out of a Dragon Ball Z episode).

Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gin Tama: The Movie has two lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes, one in the original Japanese language and the other an English dub. Toggling between these two mixes reveals a really kind of surprising fact: the Japanese effects track is mixed much more aggressively than the English track, despite both tracks having the same basic sound effects. The difference in amplitude alone is rather staggering, but it also seems like the English track has not utilized the surrounds as effectively as the Japanese track. (This frankly may simply be due to the much lower volume which makes discerning channelization of some of the effects a little harder.) Dialogue in both tracks is clear, but there's simply no way I can recommend the English track after having heard the Japanese. The effects are so much more immersive and convincing in the Japanese track that there's really no comparison. Aside from the amplitude issues, though, fidelity is very strong in both tracks and dynamic range is very good (English) to exceptional (Japanese).

Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only so-called supplements on this disc are trailers for other Sentai Filmworks releases as well as a page featuring the disc credits.

Gin Tama: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Gin Tama: The Movie is a little schizophrenic and might have benefited from some tonal consistency which kept the outré humor of the opening and closing more intact in the main storyline. That said, the bulk of the movie does have some very effective humor, and chances are if you've never "met" Elizabeth before, you're probably never going to forget her (it?) after having seen her in this film. The basic battle scenario between Gintoki and Nizo is nothing new, but Gin Tama wraps it all up in such general insouciance that it's easy to forgive some of the clichés. This Blu-ray doesn't offer any supplements, but its video and audio (at least with regard to the Japanese language track) are both excellent. Recommended.