Tomokazu Sugita voices both Gintoki and the Leukocyte King (as Tama modeled him after the strongest person she knows, aka Gintoki).
Rie Kugimiya voices both Kagura and her mother Kouka, as the former is said to look and sound like the latter a lot.
Episode 227 (Gintama' Episode 26) pokes fun at the overlapping voice actors between the series and Sket Dance when the Yorozuya gang meet the Sket Dan, such as Tomokazu Sugita voicing both Gintoki and Switch from the latter group. It's well pointed out in their correspondent crossover anime episodes, where everyone (with the exception of Kagura) talks to themselves. Yes, even Ryōko Shiraishi who plays both Himeko from Sket Dance and the gag minor character and Kyuubei's monkey Jugem.
The live-action version consists of a mix between widely-known names in the Japanese film and TV industry like Shun Oguri, Yuya Yagira, Masaki Okada and Masami Nagasawa and new-rising actors in the same industry like Masaki Suda, Kanna Hashimoto, Masataka Kubota, Haruna Miura, and Ryo Yoshizawa.
Cash-Cow Franchise: For Sunrise (and BNPictures), Gintama is one of their best sold anime series on DVD in Japan; it has multiple movies, OVAs and crossovers on top of the main anime, and merchandise comes and goes because of the franchise's popularity. During its run, people were in doubt whenever they said they were "stopping" or "finishing" the animated adaptation once a while.
Channel Hop: The manga ran in Weekly Shounen Jump for all of its allotted run, but moved to Jump GIGA to wrap up the story, and then again into a web serialization.
Mikako Takahashi (female) plays the Team Pet Sadaharu (a male dog). She still plays him even in instances when Sadaharu speaks.
During the Dekobokko arc, the only characters who retain their male voices when they are genderflipped are Hijikata (Kazuya Nakai) and Yamazaki (Tetsuharu Ohta). Conversely, Otose (Kujira) and Catherine (Yuu Sugimoto) keep their female voices when flipped to males.
Gintoki, Katsura, and Takasugi as young boys in their flashbacks are voiced by women — Asami Yaguchi, Yuki Kaida, and Houko Kuwashima, respectively. Similarly, Chika Anzai and Aoi Yūki voice Kamui and Oboro as young boys during their respective flashbacks.
Any time the Odd Jobs gang is referred to as "Yoruzuya Gin-chan", especially when Gintoki namedrops his group as such in the Rakuyo arc. The name was intended to be the series' title.
The original design for a female member of the Shinsengumi (who was later split into Okita and Kagura) in the initial draft was eventually reused for Okita's genderflipped form in the Dekobokko arc.
Dueling Dubs: Due to licensing issues, Gintama had three completely different English casts. Firstly, the movie got a dub by Sentai set in the company's location. Later, the fourth season got a dub by Crunchyroll, but set in Vancouver under The Ocean Group. And in late 2019, the first season was released on Hulu with a cast set in Miami by Universal Cinergia. To further compound this, a new dub for the final movie was announced by Sentai, mixing in both pre-existing cast members (with Michael Daingerfield, Cole Howard and Jocelyne Loewen returning from the Ocean dub, and Luci Christian, David Wald and Andrew Love from Sentai's earlier dub of the first movie) with new ones also based out of the Austin area.
Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Brazilian voice actor Alexandre "Alex" Alvarez voiced Katsura in the Portuguese dub and later Sakamoto in the English dub of the first season. Justified as both dubs were produced by the same studio in Florida (Universal Cinergia).
Network to the Rescue: Initially Sentai Filmworks rather infamously only ever dubbed the first Gintama movie, to rather mixed results. The remainder of the franchise would be left undubbed until a few years later, when Crunchyroll commissioned a brand new dub for Gintama to stream on their platform, starting with Gintama°. This dub was provided by The Ocean Group.
No Dub for You: Gintama as a whole currently has a really tricky licensing issue. There are four officialGintama series note Gintama, Gintama' (including Enchousen), Gintama°, and Gintama. (including Gintama.: Porori Arc, and Gintama.: Silver Soul Arc) and three animated movies note Benizakura Arc, Be Forever Yorozuya and The Final. Sentai Filmworks officially holds the licenses for the first series and the Benizakura Arc movie and has only dubbed the movie, while Crunchyroll has only licensed and dubbed Gintama°, and the first season was dubbed and released on Hulu. The remaining content has yet to see an official dub.
No Export for You: Although the anime or manga has been released in some places, it has seen a lack of English releases.
Prior to Crunchyroll releasing the dub of Gintama° in February 2017, the only dub release was the Benizakura movie done by Sentai Filmworks. Additionally, outside of Crunchyroll streaming, the only home releases with English subtitles were done by Sentai Filmworks and only for the first season, meaning the rest of the episodes are yet to be available in home release form. (Crunchyroll has announced their intention to release Gintama on DVD and Bluray, however, and the The Final was released by Shout! Factory through licensor Eleven Arts.)
The manga was initially translated by Viz Media, but it was cancelled after Volume 23 for both low sales and because there were some translation difficulties (killing also the possible adquisition of licenses for similar comedy series that rely mostly in the wordly dialogue and Japanese jokes such as Sket Dance, Beelzebub and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.).
Official Fan-Submitted Content: The first half of Episode 67 was based on the winning submission for a contest to create an Amanto character.
The Other Darrin: Characters have had their voice actors replaced for various reasons.
Takeshi Aono used to voiced Gengai up until his death in 2012. Bin Shimada started voicing him from Enchousen.
In Prince Enshou's case, Yuichiro Umehara was replaced by Tomoaki Maeno during the Silver Soul Arc's anime run due to the former's illness.
After Tomo Sakurai (briefly) retired from voice acting, Kikuko Inoue became the voice of Hinowa.
Zenzou's voice actor Keiji Fujiwara passed away in between the anime's final season and the final movie. Toshiyuki Morikawa (the voice actor for Isaburo Sasaki who is dead at this point and has no more lines) filled in as Zenzou for the movie.
The Italian dub replaced the entire cast from episode 50 onwards, as those episodes were dubbed by a different company after a 14-years long hiatus.
Playing Against Type: For Show Hayami, his character Umibouzu is one of his few roles where he is not evil or a Manipulative Bastard, even though Umibouzu's morals as a space hunter are usually in the grey zone (with the obvious exception of the love for his family).
Production Posse: The Brazilian Portuguese dubnote done in Miami, Florida by Universal Cinergia (the same who later did the English dub of the first season), but with Brazilian actors is known for carrying the same cast who works in South Park. But while fitting for the series' genre, most of the secondary voice actors hired there didn't seem to have a good experience in voice acting in comparison to the South Park dubs.
Real-Life Relative: In the Mexican Spanish dub, Gintoki and Catherine's voice actors (Jesús Barrero and Banny Barrero respectively) are married in Real Life, and the latter is also the voice director of that dub.
Though the actor is different, the voiceover for Shouyou in the first live-action movie is done by his anime voice-actor Kōichi Yamadera (the actor's face is never shown so it works out).
The anime voice-actor for Hasegawa, Fumihiko Tachiki, also acts for him in in the second live-action webseries.
Throw It In!: When the initial title of "Yorozuya Gin-san" was rejected by Hideaki Sorachi's editor, another one was urgently needed. Expecting that his other ideas would be shot down too, Sorachi decided to play a little joke and submitted a random title his dad had made up: "Gintama".
As Gintoki explains a little too honestly (and in hilarious fashion) in the final episode of the Silver Soul anime adaptation, Gintama゜ was created because the anime staff were told by the manga team that the series was ending. Originally intended to be the final anime series that would end at the same time as the manga, things went downhill when it became clear Sorachi was most definitely not finishing the manga any time soon thanks to continuously expanding the plot; therefore, the anime staff made many adjustments to be able to keep the anime adaptation going, and the cycle continued. Cue a nine-month break after Gintama゜, Gintama. (intended final anime 2.0), another break (with the Yorinuke reruns taking its place), Gintama.: Porori Arc (intended to be a buffer while the the rest of the anime adaptation was planned/produced), and finally Gintama.: Silver Soul Arc (split cours, intended final anime 3.0)... which still didn't get round to finishing the series off thanks to the manga being unfinished at the time.
Hideaki Sorachi once wanted to do the series based on the Shinsengumi, and he is a declared fan of them. In fact, Shinpachi and Gintoki were once conceived as police units of the group. Hasegawa would eventually lead them (he was replaced by Kondo), and a girl who ended up being split into Okita and Kagura (her weapon was an umbrella, which became the defacto weapon for the Yato clan).
The title of the manga was originally going to be "Yorozuya Gin-san", reflecting the nature of Gintoki's odd-jobs shop, but the editors of the magazine didn't like it, so it ended up being "Gintama".
The "Be Forever Yorozuya" movie was originally stated for a release in Spring 2013, just after Gintama': Enchousen ended. However, as provened in the anime previews, the script seemed to have suffered many changes in the process, making it postponed to a more proper release in Summer.
On one of the Gintama segments during Animemashite special, when the seiyuus talked about their first time recording, it was mentioned that Sugita thought Suzumura was planning on giving Okita a cutesy voice based on his appearance. Suzumura was later told to go for a lazy voice instead.
during Animemashite special, when the seiyuus talked about their first time recording, it was mentioned that Sugita thought Suzumura was planning on giving Okita a cutesy voice based on his appearance. Suzumura was later told to go for a lazy voice instead.