I wonder how thinly they're stretching the budget if they can't make a proper opening animation. Could be that this there'll be a proper opening after the arc is over though.
It's kind of strange that they didn't make a proper opening for this arc when this is supposed to be a big one, instead of adding scenes to a new OP (although they're really good scenes) and reusing these scenes again to create a rehashed opening with some distracting effects.
At the same time, this arc is just the beginning to a string of arcs...so they might be saving the DOES song for the following arc.
Still this episode didn't seem that low budget even if half of it was flashbacks.
Moving on, as always the choreography of the fights was on point. The fight between Kagura and Kamui (what we saw of it so far) was good, but then Gintoki vs. Takasugi was amazing. Really cool attacks they pulled off and intense, bloody and brutal. Gintama has the best fights.
Was kind of funny to see (young) Katsura once being a voice of reason. Shoyo is awesome.
And dat Takasugi smile at the end. 10/10