By Hideaki Sorachi. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

There are series that it’s very easy to define in a sentence or two. There are series where you find yourself taking days to try to tell everyone the huge plot twists within. And then there’s series like Gin Tama, where you try to describe it and then constantly backtrack to clarify.

“So Gin Tama is about swordsmen in the Edo period. With aliens.” “Are the swordsmen handsome bishies?” “Yes, yes they are.” “Awesome! I love serious badass swordsmen!” “Well, they *can* be serious. When they aren’t sitting on a toilet trying to find a way to get toilet paper.” “Wait, what?” “Over half the series, you see, is gag comedy. With swordsmen.” “Oh, so it’s like Bobobobo-bobobo?” “Not quite that much gag comedy. Also, it has serious bits that are very serious.” “So, it’s a gag comedy with serious bits set in Samurai Edo with aliens.” “And the lead obsesses about reading Weekly Shonen Jump.” “What the hell do you call that?” “I call it Gin Tama.”

I’m a big Gin Tama fan, and the more I read it the more impressed I am. The newest volume to come out here in North American is a good case in point. The first two chapters wrap up the Mitsuba arc from Volume 15, and are a very good example of how serious and dark this series can get. When focused on the backstory and baggage that the leads have, it doesn’t stint on showing the trauma. There’s awesome fights with swords and guns, and a car is cut in half and explodes, mostly through sheer willpower. The ending, with one of the more deadpan characters of the series sobbing in grief, will leave a tear in your eye.

The next two chapters are about the town growing eyebrows exactly like Ryotsu from KochiKame and becoming “down and out old men”. It has Gintoki and Katsura arguing about whether to call the possessed people “Zombrows” or “Ka-Fool-As”, the climax takes place in a pachinko parlor, and the chief of police says “KochiKame’s 30th anniversary? This will be completely out of date when the graphic novel comes out!”.

You can sort of see what I’m getting at.

The thing is, the author skillfully handles the comedy and drama. The Shinsengumi get the majority of the trauma in the early arc, and so are not seen again for the rest of the volume. It would jar to have them recover so quickly from a tragedy, and Gin Tama certainly has enough characters to carry things along. (And yes, some characters do die in this series, making it different from, say, Bleach or One Piece.)

More to the point, the comedy is FUNNY. Not funny in a typical Jump gag series way, where you throw zany things at the wall and see what people laugh at. The characters don’t necessarily have designated funny roles like many comedies. Gintoki, Shinpachi, and Kagura can all play the straight man, sarcastic bastard, or incredibly stupid overreactor alternately as the situation permits. This enables a very broad range. Likewise, it’s not just crass humor, or puns, or shout-out references to other manga, or character-based humor, it’s a mix of all of those.

For another example, later in Volume 16 they run up against a parody of a “hard-boiled” detective. Who speaks only in narration. After slicing his head open with his own narration text bubble (Gin Tama pretty much uses the 4th wall for kindling), they go with him to help him try to capture “The Fox”. The Fox used to be a gentleman thief, but lately has been killing people left and right. The resolution of this comprises genuine serious revelations about what actually happened and many manly “You are the only one I will allow to defeat me” moments. It also has Kagura on a Harley (pardon me, an “Arley”) smashing through walls randomly, a death trap that tries to trick our heroes by sending elderly relatives and babies to their doom with them, and of course a staircase that turns into a slide of oil and hot burning grease.

And I still haven’t mentioned the most hysterical gag in the volume, which is in the “speed dating” arc and involves Katsura and the Joi Movement.

Now, as for weaknesses… well, each volume tends to end in the middle of a story (and begin where the last left off), so it can be very hard to pick up mid-series. And it’s up to 32 volumes in Japan, so you know you’re in for a heavy investment. Also, you need to be able to accept that the humor can be crass. Very crass. A few volumes ago, Kagura ate some bad curry and much was made of the fact that she’d be the only Jump heroine to have diarrhea in its weekly pages. The author’s ‘side notes’ can also get pretty gross. And if you can’t accept the Mood Whiplash of going from broad comedy to gripping drama at the whim of the author, this series might irritate you.

The author once noted that he set the series in the Edo period, and then added aliens and “modern” things, so that he essentially had the license to do anything. He’s pretty much achieved that. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised at anything that would happen here, as nothing by now jars and makes you say “Hey, that doesn’t make any sense!”. The preview for Volume 17 seems to imply we’ll be seeing a bunch of robot maids on the rampage. Can’t wait.