Gintama’s Final Volume Releasing this Summer

Hideaki Sorachi’s Gintama has been a masterclass of parody and flipping expectations throughout its run, and the series has been setting up its finale in a way only it can do. It’s been preparing to end for quite a while with both final manga and anime runs being promoted, only for fans to later find out that the series was not ending at all. In a real “boy who cried wolf” situation, the more the series says it’s going to churn out its final pages the more fans have a hard time believing it.

This makes the announcement of its final volume’s release all the more hard to accept. As spotted by @Spytrue on Twitter, a new promo revealed that Gintama’s final volume and a special fan book are scheduled for a release this Summer in Japan. You can check it out below!

While Gintama has trouble getting fans to believe that it’s actually ending, the more “final” gets pushed around the more it sinks in. Until it’s confirmed otherwise, fans might have to really brace themselves for the series’ potential ending. Now that Gintama has launched on its official app, Shonen Jump is promoting its final run a “[moving] toward its true and true final chapter…!”

Gintama released its 702nd chapter, and first chapter of its new “The further side of the final chapter (continue)” series, on its official digital app in Japan. It’s titled “Destiny,” and while original reports stated that this chapter will be 100 pages, it now seems likely that fans will see 100 pages in total before it hits its planned finale. But with a wacky series like this, fans will be anxious to see what comes next. And even if it does end, it probably won’t sink in with fans until long after new releases actually stop coming.

Gintama was originally created by Hideaki Sorachi for Weekly Shonen Jump in 2003. The series is set in an Edo period Japan that’s been invaded by aliens known as Amanto. After the shogun surrenders, humans then are forced to live alongside these invaders. The series follows a samurai Gintoki Sakata, who picks up odd jobs with his friends Shinpachi and Kagura to pay the rent for their Yorozuya home base. After ending its run in Weekly Shonen Jump (and had fans thinking the series would end forever), the series will be continuing in Jump GIGA magazine.