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Gintama Manga Creator Hideaki Sorachi Remakes Gintoki's 1st Appearance

In early December 2003, a cheeky mix of science fiction, historical fiction, and comedy graced the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in Hideaki Sorachi's manga Gintama. The misadventures of Gintoki Sakata take place in a reimagined Meiji Restoration Japan, after aliens arrived in their “black ships” and the island nation opened to the rest of the world. Now, just over 20 years since the series debuted, Sorachi remade the first appearance of Gintoki in preparation for the Gintama 20th Anniversary Exhibition.

The exhibition's X (formerly Twitter) account revealed the remake on August 28:

Sorachi redrew Gintoki's appearance in his current style, with a little more shading and slight recomposition to the page and panel layout. He also altered some of the text, so the redrawn page serves as a promotion for the exhibition. Thus, when comparing the page as it appears in the first volume of Gintama and in the new piece, we can see the development in the creator's art style, plus the likely additional time put into the new version.

The Gintama 20th Anniversary Exhibition is set to open on December 14 and run until January 17 at Exhibition Hall A of the Ikebukuro Sunshine City World Import Mart Building's fourth floor. Information regarding ticket pricing is not available as of the writing of this article. Hopefully Sorachi will remake more Gintama pages before the exhibition opens, especially since the exhibition's website will release original art of the top 20 Gintama characters in the next few months.

Sources: Gintama 20th Anniversary Exhibition's X/Twitter account, Gintama 20th Anniversary Exhibition's website, Jump+