'Gintama's Live-Action Show is a Big Hit

With the release of the live-action Gintama sequel, Gintama 2: The Law is Surely There to be Broken, the series went above and beyond and started the release of a short drama series featuring some of the cast.

The drama has been so popular, in fact, that the first episode of this mini-drama has received over four million views in a little under a week since its release.

As reported by Mantan Web in Japan, the first episode of the tie-in mini-series has received over 4 million views since its release on August 18. Currently available on Docomo's dTV streaming service in Japan, Gintama 2: Yo ni mo Kimyo na Gintama-chan has three episodes available.

There's "I Can't Sleep," which follows Kanna Hashimoto's Kagura as she has trouble getting to sleep, "Hijikata Smoking Ban," which follows Yuuya Yagira's Toushirou Hijikata as he tries to buy cigarettes, and "No Matter How Old You Are You Hate Going to the Dentist," which features a hilarious dentist outing.

The short web series is written and directed by Yuichi Fukuda, who had previously handled both of the live-action films and previous web series tie-in for the first film. It stars the returning Shun Oguri as Gintoki Sakata, Kankuro Nakamura as Isao Kondou, Yuuya Yagira as Toushirou Hijikata, Ryo Yoshizawa as Sougo Okita, and Kanna Hashimoto as Kagura. The series also features the theme song "one more purple funk" by Tsuyoshi Doumoto's band project Endrecheri (and Doumoto plays Takasugi Shinsuke in the sequel).

The live-action Gintama sequel features much of the same returning cast as well as several new additions too. Gintama 2: The Law is Surely There to be Broken officially released in Japan on August 17, and you can check out the trailer for the film here.

The sequel's cast includes Shun Oguri as Gintoki Sakata, Masaki Suda as Shinpachi Shimura, Kanna Hashimoto as Kagura, Kankuro Nakamura as Isao Kondou, Yuuya Yagira as Toushirou Hijikata, Ryo Yoshizawa as Sougo Okita, Masami Nagasawa as Tae Shimura, Tsuyoshi Muro as Gengai Hiraga, Midoriko Kimura as Otose, Masaki Okada as Kotaro Katsura, Masataka Kubota as Bansai Kawakami, Haruma Miura as Kamotaro Ito, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi as Katakuriko Matsudaira, Ryo Katsuji as Shige Shige Tokugawa, Natsuna as Ayame Sarutobi, and Jiro Sato in a role different than he had in the first film.

via Mantan Web, Anime News Network