Gintama

Gintama is a Weekly Shonen Jump series by Hideaki Sorachi that began serialization in 2003.

The title "Gintama" (officially rendered as "Gin Tama" in the West) literally means "silver soul." At first, it might sound like a standard cool title, but it also plays on a common vulgar Japanese slang when spelled slightly differently: "kintama", which literally means "golden balls"... another way of saying family jewels.

With that pun in plain sight, you know what you're signing up for!

The land of the samurai. There was a time, long ago, when our country was called by that name. Those dream-filled blue skies upon which the samurai once gazed are now filled with ships from strange worlds...

The series is set in an alternate Edo period where the country had been taken over by aliens called Amanto, an allegory to the real life event where the Black Ships of the Bakumatsu years forced open Japan's doors for trade. Technology advanced greatly as a result, creating a juxtaposition between the Edo period and the modern period where current trends and people (at the time of writing) could be a part of the story.

Gintama finished in 2019 with 704 chapters (plus 1 crossover chapter) collected in 77 volumes.