An anime that has proven to be the most meta show ever by killing its creator. Gintama is an anime series based on the manga by Hideaki Sorachi. The show featured its creator as a commentator on anime production elements, but its Popularity Poll round took things to the next level.
Gintama’s absurd and experimental nature is what has helped the film get this far. On the surface, the show seems a bit simplistic, following the central trio Gintoki, Shinpachi, and Kagura as they help various people in a sci-fi version of historical Japan. But that simple premise is more than just the starting point for the film to delve into both absurdly surreal humor and painful drama, balancing the two in the way that many of its successors like the Witch Watch would describe. burn. This is especially true during its episodic arcs, which often allow the show to go to new and unexpected places.
Episodes #182-184 of Gintama include the beloved Poll, which has to be the most meta in anime history. The story is based on the results of an actual Shonen Jump popularity poll, in which fans voted for their favorite characters. The lower ranked characters weren’t happy with their low scores and so tried to kill and humiliate the more popular characters to get the 1st place. Sorachi was also listed as a character. in this poll, as he appeared earlier in the series as a lazy gorilla. So, in order to raise his own ranking, one of the more violent characters, Otae, decided to kill Sorachi, not his anime version but the real one. I
Otae actually jumped off the screen to kill Sorachi in the real world. Although Gintama didn’t actually show the murder on screen, it was later mentioned that Otae succeeded. Super humor has recently become much more popular in all forms of media, especially in the West. Characters like Deadpool, She-Hulk, and Rick Sanchez all mock their fictional nature to varying degrees of success. But when it comes to killing their creator, the characters in Gintama don’t merely comment on their fictional nature. This makes their meta jokes funnier and more refreshing than other jokes about the concept.
Meta Humor isn’t the most common form of humor in anime but as Gintama shows when it’s done well, it can be shocking as well as funny. Gintama’s brand of comedic meta has gone on to influence many other comedy anime such as Sket Dance and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Even so, no other anime has been able to achieve such a meta. GintamaArc’s popularity poll did when it killed off the anime’s creator, which cemented the show’s position as a comedy classic.
Gintama available for viewing on Crunchyroll.