Hideaki Sorachiโs Gintama began in Weekly Shonen Jump on 8 December 2003 and ended on 20 June 2019 at chapter 709, collected in 77 volumes. Its Edo has been taken over by aliens from the sky and swords have been banned, a setup that mostly exists to let period drama and completely unrelated jokes share a page.
Gintoki Sakata runs a shop that takes any job going. Most chapters run on topical satire, parody and toilet humour, and the characters regularly point out that they are in a manga. Then, every few volumes, the story turns to the war Gintoki fought as a young man and the people he failed to protect, and those arcs proceed with the jokes switched off entirely. Holding that gap open for fifteen years is what the series is known for.
Because the variance is wide, people often ask where to start: the comedy chapters work from anywhere, the long arcs are better read in order. Seventy-seven volumes, complete, with animated series and live-action films.
