Gintama anime to end on March 26, (tomorrow!)

Oh, God. The end of Gintamonday.

The last issue of Weekly Shonen Jump reported that the Gintama television anime series is drawing to a close on TV Tokyo after five years.

The original TV series adaptation of Hideaki Sorachi sci-fi historical comedy premiered on April 4, 2006 and aired until March 25, 2010.

The 252nd episode is titled "Gomen Nasai" (We're Sorry), although the previous week's next-episode preview listed the title as "Mitei" ("To Be Determined").

Starting on April 2, the animated television series Gon will air on TV Tokyo at 6:00 p.m. on Mondays — Gintamas current timeslot.

More on the controversy of the banned Gintama episode 232: TV Tokyo Decided to Pull Gintama' Episode on Its Own

For a moment I panicked, because it looked that things got so nasty that they were going to cancel the series???!

Gintama' supervisor Shinji Takamatsu returned to his Twitter account on Friday to clarify that TV Tokyo acted on its own when the broadcaster asked the anime channel AT-X to not show Gintama' episode 232. He emphasized that several individuals and organizations did not complain or protest to TV Tokyo.

 He added that the decision on whether to release the episode on DVD has yet to be made. AT-X announced last Friday that its showings of Gintama' episode 232 were cancelled at the request of TV Tokyo. The episode had already aired on TV Tokyo on October 31, and the episode is still streaming overseas on the Crunchyroll service.

 Among other items, the episode had parodies of the public service announcements from the Advertising Council Japan (AC Japan) and a politician named "Renhō." Renhō Murata, the current Minister for Government Revitalisation, goes simply by her given name "Renhō" when campaigning. However, Takamatsu stated on Friday that AC Japan, outspoken Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, and singer Tokiko Kato (Porco Rosso) all did not complain about the episode.

 He also noted that Minister Renhō's representative said, "It is not true that we objected." Takamatsu added, "So, please do not attack specific individuals with your presumptions. Please. Excuse me for Tweeting 'more than necessary.'" He continued, "I believe that I am not telling a 'lie,' so, please think over 'the meaning of the sentences.'"

According to Takamatsu, whether or not episode 232 will be released on DVD with parts edited, or "sealed" away entirely, depends on what develops in the future. Takamatsu had posted on October 26 that the episode was initially rejected and indicated that it was because of its jokes. He said that if the time came that the anime could not do material in the spirit of Gintama, then he thinks the television anime should stop — rather than airing "something that isn't Gintama."

However, he added that he thinks that day will not come. On November 14, he announced that he is taking a break from Twitter. The TV Tokyo representative in charge of Gintama' had cited "various circumstances" for why the station requested AT-X to cancel its reruns of episode 232. The representative explained that the station made the request "because there were depictions reminiscent of specific individual(s)." When asked if the individual was Minister Renhō, the representative repeatedly responded, "We cannot answer that." 

The controversy on Crunchyroll and TV Tokyo suing youtube anime uploaders

Considering how Crunchyroll started O_O, this news was surprising and ironic to say the least:

Crunchyroll and TV Tokyo have issued a lawsuit against 13 YouTube uploaders for allegedly illegal distribution of anime episodes, according to a copyright infringement complaint filed on May 11 and served between July and September. Crunchyroll and TV Tokyo are seeking reparation for "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money" because of the defendants' allegedly unauthorized copying, uploading, and distributing via YouTube of multiple Naruto, Naruto Shippūden, and Bleach episodes.

Based on their YouTube subscriber information, the defendants reside in the United States, Japan, Canada, Denmark, and Hungary. Crunchyroll maintains its main offices in California (as does YouTube), so the suit was filed as a U.S. copyright violation in the Northern District Court of California. For the purposes of the lawsuit, TV Tokyo is giving Crunchyroll legal permission to act on its behalf in order to "permanently remove the illegal uploads of infringing parties from file-sharing services and to obtain legal relief against infringers."

Crunchyroll also issued a statement in which they seem to back down, given that they don't support or endorse legal actions against anime fans and viewers. For them, "they have identified a few specific accounts on YouTube which were responsible for over 200 million unauthorized streams of our licensed content. These accounts were owned by repeat uploaders who continued to illegally distribute licensed shows despite receiving multiple DMCA takedown notices. In compliance with YouTube's TOS, filing a formal legal complaint was a necessary step in order to keep these illegal streams off of YouTube."

However, is Youtube the place to watch streamed anime episodes anymore?