空知英秋

I read the whole book and am still not exactly how to classify it. Several times I asked myself "What on earth am I reading?" And quite a few times I laughed and reread a line and laughed again. This bizarre, mixed-up tale of samurai, aliens, and sisters in danger of being panties-less takes dark subjects and throws pure silliness at them until they put their hands up in surrender. I love the way the fourth wall is broken, but if you hate that sort of thing you might not want to read this show more manga. I'm already starting the next volume and am really glad I chose to read this almost at random. In a lot of ways, reading this at random is the perfect way to read it. I would give this 5 stars but it seemed to get a little lost in the last chapter or so. show less

Gin Tama is a great comedy. However I feel like the first part is not it's best so 3 stars for volume 1.

This first volume does a good job introducing the main characters and some of the important side characters. It also gives you that mix of comedy, drama and action that is so typical for this series.

I read the edition from 2017 (first printed in 2007) and it has Dandelion as a bonus chapter. Dandelion was Sorachi's first Manga. It's a one shot that already has much of the Gin Tama humour. show more

Note: a lot of Gin Tama jokes are parodies of other Anime and Manga. You'll appreciate it more when you've read/seen enough Manga and Anime to recognize some of the icons and popular tropes. show less

Another fairly average installment, though the sheer number of perfectly deadpan expressions was pretty impressive, even for this series ;-). The story about the ghost-filled onsen which comprised the major part of the volume was fairly funny, and the silliness and sheer inventiveness of some of the "possessions" was enjoyable. However, the more puerile humour in this volume just didn't do it for me, I'm afraid.

Overall Rating
One can say Gintama repackages the social issues of today (AI ethics, capitalist imperialism, terrorism, government vs. police corruption, stereotyping the Other, etc.) into 20 pages of metaphors and parodies involving pudgy aliens, virtual worlds, obsessive fans, and altogether WTF-ness that explodes onto the page.
Thus, one needs not really think too much to enjoy this series, though it can make you think if you let it. I do suggest cultivating a patience to go through show more mountians of text in every 20-page chapter since this is a very dialogue-heavy manga.
The punchlines are worth it though ;D

read a more in-depth review at my blog: http://angeltyuan.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-gintama-by-sorachi-hideaki.html show less