Gekijouban Gintama Kanketsuhen: Yorozuya yo Ein Nare, or in a more pronounceable way, Gintama: The Final Chapter: Be Forever Yorozuya, is the second Gintama movie released at this time, though with a subtitle being "The Final Chapter" it is widely presumed this is the ending to the Gintama anime. Is this right, or is the gorilla author trolling us again? Well, I'll get back to that later.
Story
The story of Be Forever Yorozuya is a typical plot that you'd expect from Gintama. It starts off with the Movie Thief (a walking robot with a camera for a head) about to film something playing in the cinema. Our hero Gintoki SAKATA stops this thief from filming the movie by smacking it a couple of times with a rolled up piece of paper. Unfortunately, this robot's dream is to become the best movie thief in the world, but due to Gintoki's persistant smacking, the robot's camera head is broken. Feeling bad, Gintoki goes into a theatre playing a porno and begins to film it alongside Movie Thief
When Yorozuya members Kagura and Shinpachi SHIMURA stop the two thieves, a short scene plays where the fourth wall is broken (or rather pulled) before the crowd starts booing the Yorozuya and throwing bottles at them to stop wasting time and start with the movie.
The Yorozuya trio and Movie Thief walk out the theatre and, after another short scene is played, Gintoki realises that Move Thief has recorded the porno and brings the robot (as well as a box of tissues) to the toilet to "apprehend" the theif. When Gintoki presses play on the robot's head...that's when the movie truly starts.
Gintoki is transported five years into the future, where not only Edo but the entire world has fallen apart, due to this new "white plague". Gintoki then sets out to try and fix the future, but to do that...he's going to need some help from some old friends.
Now, the story to this movie is very good and it's definitely one that grabs your attention. Transporting five years into the future, where everyone has changed and the world has gone to ruins, it's interesting to see how much has changed since Gintoki vanished from the world.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention this...Gintoki has to place snot on his head, so no-one will recongise him. If Gintoki reappeared five years after disappearing, it would freak everyone out, so throughout most of the film, the other characters see Gintoki as this, to put it bluntly, essentially a walking penis.
Animation
As you'd come to expect from Sunrise's Gintama, the animation is very smooth and solid in the movie. The character's facial expressions and movements are top notch and are an absolute pleasure for the eye. The action scenes are so incredibly well animated, it's impossible to look away.
Sound
The music for this movie is also top notch, as you'd expect from Audio Highs. There are pieces of music that suit every scene and they do a very good job at conveying the mood and tone of each scene. There are emotional songs, actiony songs and silly songs to name a few. But no sound section is complete without mentioning SPYAIR's excellent song, "Genjou Destruction!" that plays twice during the movie; once being the credits. It is such an amazing song, it's hard not to smile from ear to ear when it plays. Also, Tommyheavenly6's "Pray" is also played at the end of the credits, which honestly is a little tearjerking. The very first opening is also the very last song that plays while screencaps of every single episode roll by the screen on some film reel...it's bittersweet.
As expected, the voice acting is to the excellent standard that the TV series set. Tomokazu SUGITA is as brilliant as ever, delivering his lines with pure class and comedy timing. Rie KUGIMIYA plays Kagura so brilliantly, as does Daisuke SAKAGUCHI playing Shinpachi, considering how different their characters are in the movie than they are in the TV series they deserve a lot of credit.
Characters
The true highlight of the TV series, was the sheer number of awesome characters it had and the movie takes these lovable characters and throws them five years into the future. Kagura is no longer the child bottomless pit that says "aru" at the end of every sentence, but rather a beautiful big breasted woman. Shinpachi went from being known only as "glasses" to being an absolute badass who is almost as good as Gintoki with a sword.
Of course, it wouldn't be Gintama without the hilarious cast of side characters. Many of the main side characters return for the movie and most of them are incredibly well done after the timeskip. Now, I won't spoil how some of the character's change, but I will say this; Taizo HASEGAWA is still a Madao, Tama is now an ubercleaningrobot, Kotarou KATSURA should be renamed to Kotarou Katsuki, Elizabeth is a scary, steroid induced monster and Isao KONDO is very much still a gorilla-stalker. Obviously, a lot of other characters appear, but just seeing the characters five years later, it's a real treat that I don't wish to spoil.
Overall
The Final Chapter is so close to perfect, it's unbeliveable. For me though, there's just one thing holding it back: the lack of screentime given to the other characters five years later. Of course, Kagura and Shinpachi are given a lot of screentime, but it would've been nice to see more of the others. The Shinsengumi are no longer together, but there is no hint at why. They've disbanded for disbanded's sake. No explaintion is giving for why Katsura is now a Shinsuke TAKASUGI wannabe, while Kyuubei YAGYU and Tsukuyo appear so briefly, there's no time for them to fully explain what happened to them.
However, needless to say, apart from this minor setback, Gintama: The Final Chapter: Be Forever Yorozuya is one of the best anime movies to ever come out. It's got everything that the TV series had but cranked up to eleven!
In the end, I give Gintama a 9.5 out of 10. It's by no means perfect, but it is damn well close!
Now then, the point about this being the end of the Gintama anime. Is this true or not? Well...truth be told, the answer is yes and maybe. The maybe comes from the fact that, well, we don't know if the anime will be coming back. A lot of people want it to, but at the end of the day, it's all up to Sunrise.
Now, the yes part of the answer. Be Forever Yorozuya is the "canon" ending to Gintama. Yes, the manga is still going on with no end in sight, but the creator, Hideaki SORACHI wrote this movie with the intention that it was the ending to Gintama. So truthfully speaking, Be Forever Yorozuya is the real ending to Gintama. The journey is still going on, but we know what the ending is. It's a very weird way of marketing things, but then again, this is the Gintama staff we are talking about. The whole "Final Chapter" thing is probably just a marketing campaign so they could boost sales and whatnot. Only time will tell if the anime comes back! In the meantime...
Be Forever Yorozuya!
Screenshots
