Gin Tama - Reception

Reception

The Gin Tama manga has sold 29 million units in Japan as of December 2009. In March 2007, Shueisha announced that sales of the first volume had passed one million copies. Following volumes from the manga have also had good sales, having appeared various times in the Japanese comic ranking. The 17th volume from the manga ranked as the 10th bestseller volume from Japan during 2007. During 2008, the manga ranked as the 10th bestseller series with over 2.3 million copies sold. It also hit number 5 in Japan in the most sold manga in the first half of 2009 list, selling over 2.7 million volumes from November 17, 2008 to May 17, 2009. In 2008 Gin Tama was featured in two Oricon surveys; it ranked at the top as "funniest manga" and 5th in "most interesting manga". In another survey from 2009, it was listed as the sixth choice for what manga could adapted into a live-action film. In a poll from Zassosha's Puff Japanese manga magazine, Gin Tama was second in the category "Best Long Stories". Fuji News Network has cited Gin Tama as one of the responsibles for the wooden swords' popularity during 2008 as Hokkaido's retailers have experienced brisk sales in wooden swords to foreigners. In North America, Gin Tama has ranked as the best new shōnen manga from 2007 in About.com's 2007 Readers Poll: Best New Shonen Manga. In the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Award from 2008, Gin Tama was nominated for the category "Best Manga - Comedy", losing to Negima! Magister Negi Magi. English sales from the manga volumes have also been good with some of them having appeared in Diamond Comic Distributors's Top 300 Graphic Novels.

The first Gin Tama light novel became the top selling novel from Japan during 2006. The same achievement was made by the third novel during 2008. The anime adaptation has also been featured several times in the Japanese TV ranking, with the first two episodes having a rating of 5.6. DVD sales of the series have also been featured in the Japanese anime DVD ranking various times, while the third DVD of season 3 ranked ninth in the Japanese Amazon.com Top Ten of best sellers DVDs during 2008. In August 2008, TV Tokyo announced that Gin Tama and Naruto "contributed to robust sales of overseas rights in the last fiscal year which ended in March." In a poll from Puff, Gin Tama won in the category "Best Animation". In April 2010, it was listed as the 13th best anime between April 2009 and March 2010 by Animage. The DVD from the Gin Tama OVAs became the top-selling OVA in Japan during 2009, having sold 61,226 units after two weeks of being released. In the Oricon survey "2009's Top-Selling DVDs in Japan", the same DVD ranked at the top of the category "Animation/Special Effects DVDs" with a total of 76,000 units sold. The CD soundtrack Gintama The Best received the "Animation Album of the Year award" from the Kinema Junpo's DVD Navigator Japanese magazine.

Critical response to the Gin Tama manga has generally been positive. Carlo Santos from Anime News Network found the manga to be a "one-of-a-kind comedy" praising the characters' personalities and gags. On the other hand, the artwork was criticized for being "hard to follow" when there are fast scenes. Jokes regarding clichés from other shōnen series were also positively received by About.com writer Deb Aoki, who, like Santos, found the artwork to be "the only thing that distracts from the otherwise considerable pleasures of this loveable, goofy manga". However, characters' designs were praised for its variations including the ones from the aliens appearing in the series by Katherine Dacey from Pop Culture Shock who remarked that "These characters add visual interest and life to every panel, keeping the reader invested when the stories stall." Other negative comments regarding the manga have the few number of aliens appearing in the series as well as how some chapters are focused in fights such as Hijikata's fight against Gintoki. Michael Aronson from Manga Life concluded his review of the manga by saying that "The potential is there, but the execution is struggling" as still he liked the comedy from the story. Comics Village's Alex Hoffman mentioned that Gin Tama "can't truly be compared to those comics because of one thing: the jokes." He found the context from the series hilarious and like how there are new jokes in every chapter. Like other reviewers, Hoffman also disliked Sorachi's artwork, but still found the manga to be "a great comedy, or a great read." Comic Book Bin writer Leroy Douresseaux found that the large number of characters with different appearances in the series allow the reader to remain entertained with the series as "at least every few pages or so present some unusual and interesting visual."

The anime adaptation of Gin Tama has received positive and mixed responses. The humor was noted to be improved after the series' introduction although some jokes were hard to understand due to the fact some of them are references to Japanese culture and other series. The notes on the DVD releases were criticized for lacking explanation of cultural jokes. Additionally, the humor's quality was found to be inconsistent within the first episodes due to the depth some bring, to the point that some viewers may abandon the series. The quality from the series was found to improve as the series continues as people would not be intimidated by its large amount of episodes. The characters' action were praised due to their knowledge that they are in a TV series, while the female characters were found appealing, something noted to be unusual for some other anime.