Books: Gin Tama Vol. #3

Sometimes you just can’t explain what makes you laugh. I’ve gone in circles trying to explain to people what it is about Gin Tama that kicks my funnybone harder than most anything else I’ve read lately, and in the end I’ve had to fall back on explanations that don’t really explain anything. Gin Tama makes me laugh because it’s like a piece of Japanese history (and a few of its modern-day dilemmas) as seen through a funhouse mirror, but I know I’m going to get a size-six blank stare if I tell that to most people. So I cop out and tell them that Gin Tama just makes me laugh, period, and who needs to explain this stuff when they can just be persuaded to experience it for themselves?

The third volume kicks off right where #2 had stopped, in the middle of an ongoing plotline about a bunch of aliens who’ve been hustling drugs to the natives. Shinpachi and Kagura ended up being kidnapped, but then Gin and Katsura show up — dressed in the least convincing pirate disguises ever created; even Luffy would laugh himself sick if he saw these two — and endeavor to save them. No prizes for guessing what happens, but the plot is never the main thing in this book — it’s the asides, the double-takes, the dippy deadpan shots that Hideaki Sorachi does so well.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.