© 空知英秋･大崎知仁／集英社･「3年Z組銀八先生」製作委員会

With how unfunny a lot of last week’s material was, I was scared that this spin-off had already run out of steam, but it looks like I may have spoken too soon. This episode is an improvement in every respect and somehow manages to address just about every complaint I’ve had about the show up to now. From its setup to the way it uses the characters to deliver punchlines, this one is firing on all cylinders when it comes to comedic timing and makes this episode feel like a proper return to form for what I expect out of Gintama.

Similar to last week’s episode, this one is operating on an extremely simple premise. This time, it involves a trio of thieves who have managed to hide out at the school, and the teachers are all ordered to hunt them down in exchange for a million yen bounty. For the most part, this setup reintroduces some characters within this new school setting. Unlike the last couple of episodes, where most characters only appear long enough to perform their core gimmick, this one gives the “teachers” more screentime, and unsurprisingly, this makes the jokes a lot funnier. Take Zenzo’s appearance here, for instance. Last week, he only showed up long enough to establish that he’s one of the teachers and suffers from hemorrhoids, but this time, we get to see him lean into his skills as a ninja in his attempt to capture the thieves. Of course, since he’s stuck playing at being a teacher, he can only throw chalk instead of knives, so seeing him try to show off only to accidentally trip on a suspiciously sharp object that stabs him in the butt was a near-perfect punchline and gave me the hardest laugh I’ve gotten out of this show since the premiere.

It was also nice to see Matsudaira appear in this show as one of the teachers, even if just because it provides an excuse for Norio Wakamoto to show off how cool his voice is. I realize this sounds a bit hypocritical, given how much I’ve complained about seeing the characters limited to a single gimmick, but in my defense, you could listen to Norio Wakamoto read a dictionary and it would still be hilarious, so if the joke here is largely centered around his voice, it’s certainly not a bad one. Plus, it’s hard not to laugh at Matsudaira not even bothering to keep in line with the “canon” of this spin-off and whip out a bazooka to shoot at the thieves, so it feels like the show got a good amount of use out of his screentime. My favorite bit was seeing Tsukuyo filling the role of the school nurse, and trying to distract the thieves by playing up her femme fatale routine, only to get flustered and start whacking Ginpachi over the head with a bazooka for accidentally tripping into her boobs, which tells you basically everything you need to know about her personality in just a couple of minutes.

It was also nice to see how well this episode made use of Ginpachi in general. He hasn’t suffered as much flanderization as the rest of the cast by virtue of having the most screentime, but it doesn’t really feel like previous episodes have gotten across what normally makes Gintoki such a funny protagonist outside of his general disregard for the fourth wall. In comparison, I think this one does a much better job of showing off the full range of his personality, and nowhere is that more evident than in seeing that he somehow ends up being the teacher who is the least motivated by greed, purely because trying to catch the thieves feels like too much effort for him. It’s only when his job is threatened that Ginpachi can be bothered to do anything, and this lazy attitude also puts him in the position to play the straight man of this episode. While he’s not quite as adept in that role as Shinpachi is, it’s still hilarious watching him bounce off the antics of the other teachers, and his interactions with characters like Tsukuyo do a good job of getting across his general dynamic with them very quickly. With all that in mind, it’s only fitting that Ginpachi ends up being the one to save the day when the thieves try to hold the students hostage, but that just makes the final punchline funnier, as he goes through all that unwanted effort only for the principal to spend the reward for catching the thieves on furnishing his office. This is the kind of energy I normally expect from Gintama’s crude sense of humor, and while I am unsure if this makes up for how weak last week’s episode was, this certainly feels like a step in the right direction.

**Rating: **

• GINTAMA - Mr. Ginpachi’s Zany Class is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. *