"Are you that afraid of me?"
Despite Gintama being a comedy manga and anime series, the genre doesn't stop it having some nightmarish moments, especially in serious arcs and certain antagonists who have no comedic traits and are serious threats.
Beware of unmarked spoilers.
- Utsuro. He is without a doubt one of the most terrifying villains in the entire series of Gintama. Of all the darker villains the series threw at us, Utsuro is the one person who could make the entire series go even more darker and serious than ever. And that's the simple truth since he's played deadly serious and has no comedic traits on him whatsoever. When it comes to nightmare fuel in Gintama, He's the pure living embodiment of it.
- Chapter 13 shows Gintoki having a nightmare related to his past: while carrying a wounded comrade on a mountain of corpses, the corpses speak to him that he can't protect anyone. The nightmare ends with the one he was carrying turning out to be a skeleton, who screams that he can't protect anyone.
- Nizo's gradual possession by the Benizakura until he gets fully consumed, turning him into a monstrous mix of man and machine, something that could be even pulled from AKIRA.
- In the Fuyo Arc, the workers send the maid robots to destruction by being smashed, only for Number 502 to appear. He then orders the maid robots to subject the workers to being crushed the very same way the robots were.
- In the Shinsengumi Rebellion arc, Itou thinks that he survived the train explosion without any injuries, but then he looks up and discovers his arm is missing and screams.
- In the Flames on Yoshiwara arc, Kagura's descent into an Unstoppable Rage against Abuto is simply unnerving. The sweet but brash main heroine we know is suddenly reduced to delivering a brutal beatdown on Abuto with a constant Slasher Smile on her face, due to her Yato blood. And all because Abuto beat down poor Shinpachi almost to death.
- Jiraiya revealing his burned off face to Tsukuyo and Gintoki. He even plans to disfigure Tsukuyo to make her similar to him, not by burning her face off, but by flaying off the skin of her face.
- Chapter 527: Having just become Shogun, Nobunobu begins to exercise his power to kill whoever he likes, such as ordering two innocent hostesses killed for reminding him Shigeshige enjoyed their cabaret club. When Otae calls him out on his actions, he has restrained by his guards and then pulls out a sword to slowly cut through Tae's throat with a freakish smile on his face.
- Chapter 531: When the Shinsengumi and the Joui Alliance are traveling on the sea to the island where Kondo, Matsudaira and Katsura are being prisoners, they spot a ship that is filled with dead people, when suddenly they get ambushed by the Naraku.
- Chapter 539's flashback shows Sasaki seeing the gruesome remains of his murdered family (his wife and newborn child) and bodyguards, with Nobume standing on top of their corpses. It's revealed that the Naraku were the ones to murder them, all in revenge for Sasaki acting against them, and Nobume was traumatised enough from failing to save his family that she was willing to let him kill her.
- Hankei's able to infect people with nanomachines, which allows him to control them like puppets. Said nanomachines can spread from the infected to others as well, just like zombies. With these abilities, he takes over the Kaientai's ships and crew. The way he (seemingly) controls Mutsu and takes over Nobunobu is horrifying.
- In Chapter 583, we are given false hopes that Umibouzu might have managed to defeat Utsuro... until he regenerates from the arm that Umibouzu cut off moments before in the fight. He reveals his survival by appearing behind him with a freaky smile before grabbing the sword stuck in Umibouzu's chest and ripping it through his body and his remaining arm, cutting it off.
- Kamui's descent into madness during his fight with the Yorozuya is just plain horrifying. His eyes become wide and unfocused, and he gets a creepy smile on his face, just like Kagura did during her fight with Abuto.
- Chapter 602 treats us to the lovely image of the members of the Tendoshu having been chopped into pieces by Utsuro, found by the Altana Liberation Army and currently stored in tanks of liquid. And because of Utsuro's immortal blood, they're all technically alive.
- Chapter 630 shows how Enshou has gone off the deep end with his revenge as he is willing to blow up Earth while their men are still on it and he's killing his own men who wanted to stop him from doing so.
- Chapter 660: After Gintoki manages to blind Utsuro, the latter delivers the following phrase: "Am I really that scary?" while opening his eyes.... without his eyeballs and then killing nearly ALL his attackers without problems. Then he gets near Yamazaki and without hesitation brutally cuts his throat and almost kills him.
