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Gintama's Spinoff TV Anime 3-Nen Z-Gumi Ginpachi-Sensei to Air in 2025
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Ōsaki's spinoff novel series is set in Gintama High School and follows the school teacher Ginpachi Sakata (despite not having the personality or appearance befitting a teacher) and his students. The story first debuted in 2006. Shueisha published the latest volume in the novel series in 2018. Sorachi is credited for the original work.
The 3-Nen Z-Gumi Ginpachi-Sensei concept was previously animated as a short at the end of several Gintama anime series episodes.
The event on Sunday also revealed a 20th anniversary exhibition for the franchise in Ikebukuro in winter 2024, and also revealed a new character popularity contest where original creator Sorachi will draw a new image featuring the top 20 characters.
Sorachi's original "science-fiction period-drama comedy" manga began in 2003 and ended in June 2019 with over 55 million copies in circulation. The manga has inspired several television anime series with 367 total episodes, as well as three previous anime films. The latest anime series premiered in July 2018. The manga has also inspired various original video anime (OVA), event anime, two live-action films, and two live-action net spinoffs. Viz Media published the manga's first 23 volumes in English.
Gintama THE VERY FINAL (Gintama: The Final), the third and last anime film based on the finale of the original manga, combined with new story elements, opened in Japan in January 2021.
Eleven Arts screened the film in Japanese with English subtitles and with an English dub in North American theaters in November 2021. Eleven Arts and Shout! Factory released the film digitally in January 2022, and on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in February 2022.
The manga also inspired a net anime special titled Gintama The Semi-Final with a story that served as a two-episode prequel to the film. The net anime premiered exclusively in Japan on the online dTV service in January 2021.
Most recently, the "Baragaki" (Thorny) arc of the anime had compilation screenings in a three-week screening in Japanese theaters starting on November 10.
Sources: Jump Festa '24 livestream, Gintama anime's Twitter account
