Gintama finds the one thing more dangerous than a kid with a dream: a kid with a mother to save. The Yoshiwara arc is where the show stops joking around just long enough to break you, then immediately makes you laugh at your own heartbreak. Housen is not a villain you defeat, he is a wall you have to choose to charge at anyway, and Gintoki has never been better at making that choice look casual.

A chance meeting with a street urchin named Haruta sets Gintoki on an unexpected path into Yoshiwara. The boy picks pockets because he longs to see his mother, Hiwa, who has been lost to him for years and is now the district's top courtesan. Gintoki and his friends head into Yoshiwara to make that wish come true, but Housen, the Night King who rules the district, stands between them and the reunion. This theatrical remake of the Yoshiwara Enjou arc adapts volumes 25 and 26 of the manga, material the TV anime covered in episodes 139 to 146, and blends action, comedy and science fiction.