ABS-CBN Airs Gintama Out of Order, Angers Fans
January 24th, 2010 | Published in Anime and Manga | 6 Comments

Surreal slapstick comedy anime Gintama has started airing on terrestrial channel ABS-CBN to the delight of local fans.
However, much to their disappointment, the episodes were shown out of numeric order, in an attempt by the channel to make the storytelling of the show “more linear”.
After comments decrying the apparent butchering of the series were left by Gintama fans on the channel’s Facebook account, ABS-CBN has released an official statement regarding the issue.
Initial Focus Group Discussion results showed that with the original order of the episodes, majority of our mass viewers couldn’t understand how the storytelling unfolded due to its non-linear storytelling and format. … A compromise had to be done on the first week just to get the show on air.
With that statement, the show is still currently running out-of-order. Fans have left even more acidic comments on the aforementioned Facebook account, including barbs about their main rival on the local anime scene, recently reformatted TV5.






March 8th, 2010at 17:49(#)
yeah but even if it’s not in order it’s fun to watch it!!!
April 3rd, 2010at 15:45(#)
i don’t agree that gintama should be translated with other languages like filipino, because the translation makes the anime lose the essence of its jokes…
April 3rd, 2010at 23:18(#)
ooooookay. tell me gintoki — do you speak japanese well enough to understand the jokes without any translations (english subtitles included) whatsoever?
April 30th, 2010at 20:45(#)
well, I guess “gintoki-san” is right, the essence of the japanese jokes are made for the japanese people. such as using two or more different words that have the same (or sound alike) or even reading a kanji can be used for the comedic essence of the anime (like in YAKITATE!! JAPAN). even though a viewer is not very fluent in japanese, translation notes help a lot! :]
but then, getting them translated in Filipino still leaves a hilarious impact on the Filipino viewers.
April 30th, 2010at 21:09(#)
yes, i know that the series was created with the japanese audience in mind so no matter how hard you try not all the jokes will come across perfectly. what i am leery off with the previous comment was the seemingly wholesale banning of foreign language translations of gintama without any valid reason whatsoever.
if he were a native japanese speaker then that in itself would count as a reason, but from what i gather (since he refused to elaborate further after his comment) is that he himself relies on the english subtitled version, and if so he has no right to demand that the filipino version be halted just because he said so.
lastly — you said so yourself that “translation notes help a lot”, and yet you agree with “gintoki” that gintama should not be translated at all. that doesn’t make a lot of sense since you are rooting for both sides of the arguement at the same time. try to sort out your comments first and then let’s hold a discussion.
May 17th, 2010at 17:01(#)
[...] Thier lack of reaction is in contrast to the behaviour of their chief rivals ABS-CBN 2, who quickly responded to fan complaints after their airing of the Gintama tv anime series ran into trouble. AKPC_IDS += [...]