Would romance in Gintama really spoil the show?

If done well and not excessively, I think a romance would be a nice touch.

Not sure if people are still actively participating in this discussion, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I am a Gintama fan who reads and watches in Japanese, and lives in Japan. (And female)

I have seen some episodes with subtitles, as well as read some translations, and despite being accurate, sometimes a particular translation can be interpreted as something different as what was intended. In my experience, this tends to happen with Gintama quite a lot, because of it's difficult-to-translate-gintama-ness.

I have found that the majority of Japanese fans have interpreted female-male relationships in Gintama as completely un-romantic, and mainly trust in one another, which I find myself agreeing with. Of course, there are definitely shippers in the Japanese fandom, don't get me wrong. (Although I would have to say most of them are BL shippers)

There are many Japanese threads that I've read through with similar questions; particularly ones asking something like, 'So, who is the heroine of Gintama anyway?' (with heroine in this context meaning Gin-san's love interest) and literally all the answers were something like, 'Sorachi-sensei doesn't intend to make romance, since all relationships are based on trust and companionship.'

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is...

Gintama is a gag manga.

The Japanese fandom apparently acknowledges it as such.

Meaning = probably no romance.

Personally, I'm thinking to myself that Gintama is so popular as it is, that making a major change would actually make it less popular. After all, Gintama is a JUMP manga. Shounen JUMP is aimed at elementary and middle-school aged boys, despite females and other age groups reading it. The most popular manga in JUMP are things like ONE PIECE, Bleach, NARUTO, etc. These manga are action-comedy manga, meaning THIS is what appeals to the target audience. Logically speaking, that is also what Gintama is trying to achieve. (Although this is debatable, >< Sorachi, you bastard)

So anyway, hope it gave a new perspective to this subject.

Spring forum cleaning! To keep the forums neat and tidy we only keep 6 months worth of threads since its May 20, 2013 [5/20/13] we will keep only keep posts open from December 20, 2012 [12/20/12]. Please feel free to recreate any thread closed, as long as someone else didn't open another similar one before you.