The joke timing doesn't pause for the arc's actual stakes. A five-episode run about a nation's future gets the same comedic brutality as a hot pot episode, except now someone's actually dying. You go in laughing at the absurdity and leave genuinely gutted because Gintama never separates the funny from the tragic, it treats them as the same material. This is what the show has always been; the theater release just makes you watch it all at once and refuse to look away.

Gintama on Theater 2D: Ikkoku Keisei-hen is a 2024 theatrical cut that re-edits the Courtesan of a Nation Arc for the big screen. It gathers episodes 257 through 261 of the TV series, which are episodes 5 to 9 of the third season, and adds new footage to the compilation. The film belongs to the Gintama 20th Anniversary Project and mixes action, comedy, drama and science fiction.