Gintama Season 3

Gintama° (often said as "Gintama Degree") is the fourth TV season of the Gintama anime. It aired on TV Tokyo from April 8, 2015, to March 30, 2016, with 51 episodes of about 24 minutes each. In the full series count, these are episodes 266 to 316. This was the first season made by the studio Bandai Namco Pictures, and it was directed by Chizuru Miyawaki. Like every Gintama season, it is based on the manga by Hideaki Sorachi.

If you are new: Gintama is set in a funny, mixed-up version of old Japan. Aliens called the Amanto landed in the Edo period and took over. The government now does what the aliens want, and samurai can no longer carry swords. So you see wooden houses next to flying spaceships, and samurai who use cell phones. The hero, Gintoki Sakata, is a lazy samurai with silver hair and a love of sweets. He runs the Yorozuya, a business that will do any odd job. His team is Shinpachi Shimura, a serious boy with glasses, and Kagura, a very strong alien girl who is always hungry.

The season starts with a light, silly story. One night, a hurt alien gives Gintoki a special device shaped like a clock and asks him to keep it safe. Gintoki is not paying attention and treats it like his own alarm clock, and he breaks it. Soon, time stops moving outside his home. Now the three of them must find a way to get the device fixed. This first arc shows the classic Gintama style: a big, strange problem that comes from a small, dumb mistake.

As the season goes on, it gets much more serious. Gintama° is famous among fans for some of the strongest drama arcs in the whole series. One is the Shogun Assassination arc, where the leader of the country is in danger and Gintoki and his friends are dragged into a deadly political fight. Another is the Farewell Shinsengumi arc, which focuses on the Shinsengumi police force and its leaders, Isao Kondo and Toshiro Hijikata. These stories have big sword fights, painful choices, and moments that hit hard. They also start to show more of the bigger, darker story behind the whole series.

Even with all that drama, the show never stops being funny. Between the serious arcs, there are many wild comedy episodes. The characters break the "fourth wall," which means they talk to the viewer or joke about being in an anime. They make fun of other famous series and play with crude jokes and slapstick. Gintama is known for changing from laughing to crying in a single episode, and this season does that very well.

Gintama° is one of the highest-rated anime of all time. On MyAnimeList it has a score of about 9.05 from more than 270,000 users. It was licensed in the West by Funimation and Crunchyroll. For many fans, this season is where Gintama becomes more than a comedy and shows how deep its characters really are.