and so i will go down with this ship
This is that one ship manifesto that I wrote last summer but never posted because I went all POAIDSJFSL;KDN;. I guess I'll share it now because it's Valentine's Day and... yeah. Ahem. Anyway, you should board this ship with me because I'm awesome and my ships are awesome and you want to follow me and be my minions we get to wear pirate cosplay.
MAKE FRIENDS YOU CAN CALL BY THEIR NICKNAMES EVEN WHEN YOU'RE AN OLD FART
Gintama is SPECTACULAR; a true TOUR DE FORCE of COMEDIC GENIUS. The New York Times gives it TWO THUMBS UP. A Gintama a day keeps the doctor away. Gintama Tested, Mother Approved. Leggo My Gintama! Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Gintama. Eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cats preferred Gintama.
But false testimonials aside, perhaps the most important question is, What Can Gintama Do For You? What the hell kind of crazy thing is this? Isn't there a plot? Where is this all leading? We're more than 300 chapters into the manga and nearly 200 episodes into the anime (which is on hiatus, by the way), and there still hasn't been a cliché action series goal declared, like "I'm going to be the King of the Pirates Samurai!"
And the answer to that would be... uh... Well. We're working on it.
For now, Gintama is an episodic comedy series about a fantasy/sci-fi version of Japan's Edo period. It's a country of samurai and aliens (of the extraterrestrial variety) called Amanto. The name of the series translates into Silver Soul, but it's also one little consonant voicing away from becoming "golden balls", AKA testicles. Because we're really good at keeping it classy like that.
Our hero, if he can be called such, is Sakata Gintoki. He's a slob who does odd jobs to get by. Gintoki is, to put it simply, a lovable tramp. Early on in the series, he also picks up two teenage sidekicks, Shinpachi and Kagura, and the three of them form the dysfunctional family at core of the series, the Odd Jobs trio. They meet many colorful personalities as they go about their daily lives, and sometimes wind up in the middle of political battles or other miscellaneous adventures.
Despite all the crack, however, this series has a lot of heart in it. By which I mean if the seedy underbelly of animanga were a shady street corner, Gintama would be the diseased, ten dollar toothless crack whore with a heart of silver. It's the master of the emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes you laugh and cry and then laugh while crying, all in the space of about five minutes. (Seriously. Have someone take pictures of your face while you're experiencing the Gintama and you'll see what I mean.)
The characters are very real in their desires to live good lives or to carve out a niche for themselves in a changing world. They are not so ambitious as to want to become the strongest fighters in the universe; they don't shout out the names of special attacks unless it's a thinly veiled reference to another series. No, their strength is the soul-deep kind.
In Kabukichō, the red light district, the Sleepless Town where the strays gather... This is the story of a group of deeply flawed people who proudly wear their scars and imperfections for all to see. Somewhere in that ugly cesspool of humanity, there is true beauty to be found. There are times when the story touches on very emotional themes, and times when we see just how much the characters care for each other.
This is about one of those bonds.
YOUR MOTHER TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM MEN LIKE THESE
Look at this beautiful man-creature. How could you not trust someone like this? He is the very face of sincerity.
Also hygiene.
Sakata Gintoki is many things. He's been called a stereotypical anti-hero by critics, but that's not quite it. At first, his personality may seem to fit that mold - coolly indifferent, devil-may-care, and having enough bad habits to make mothers everywhere shake their heads in dismay and hope their children never take this stupid natural perm guy as their role model. Seriously, the guy's a sugar addict, he never pays his rent on time, and then gambles and drinks away his meager income. But once you get to know him, he cares. Really.
Gintoki has his own way of doing things. Presently, he's a laid-back guy who still likes childish things such as strawberry milk and Jump magazine. Sometimes he slouches. Sometimes he nonchalantly swaggers like he owns the streets, which, by being the Odd Jobs guy with connections all over town, might not be too far from the truth.
When he was younger, he was a hero in the war against the Amanto. He joined up with the Jōi movement along with his former classmates Takasugi and Katsura. He lost his parents to the war at an early age, followed by his beloved sensei, and then many comrades who fought alongside him. This has profoundly shaped the way he looks at the world.
Above all, Gintoki values his friends. His aloof facade is possibly a reaction to having been hurt by the loss of many whom he held dear. He has no more family; nearly all of his old friends are gone. In some ways, he is afraid of opening himself up because he tends to care deeply for others, so he doesn't want to see any more of them pass away before his eyes. For the few who still manage to worm themselves in, however, he will do anything to protect them.
"What's the point in standing up for beliefs that have been laid out for me? Looking forward to losing your precious friends? I don't want that anymore. If it's my own life on the line, I'll adhere to my own code. And I'll protect what I want to protect." That pretty much sums up his world view.
Zura Katsura Kotaro is Gintoki's childhood friend...of sorts. The two grew up together, attended the same school, and fought side by side in the war. Katsura, like Gintoki, is a war legend. He had a leadership role then, and continues to lead an anti-foreigner Jōi faction at present. Basically...
He's a terrorist. (But a moderate one!)
Katsura is now a wanted man. While he occasionally lands in jail, he and his duck/penguin/hairy-old-man alien pet Elizabeth can usually be found running away from the police or hiding out around town dressed in a variety of costumes. Monk. Beggar. Space pirate. Movie mascot. Woman.
He's a real cool vigilante, and totally the epitome of elegance.
Actually, Katsura's pretty much the screwiest character in this series, and that's saying something. He's serious to a fault, yet manages to say the weirdest things with a completely straight face. Honestly, he's not all there in the head. If there was ever a character who fit the trope of the Cloud Cuckoo Lander, it would be Katsura. He just marches to the beat of his own didgeridoo, and whatever the laws are in your universe, they stop applying the minute he joins the party.
On a more serious note, Katsura hasn't managed to put the past behind him. Unlike Gintoki, the war never ended for him, so he continues to fight for those old goals. He takes being a samurai very seriously and is a stickler for the bushido. Even as a terrorist, he is an honorable man, and with Gintoki's influence in his life again, he's since mellowed out. But Katsura still has his own struggles.
Sometimes it seems like the world is moving on without him - embracing the Amanto, embracing change - and Katsura's longing for the Edo of old is nothing but a dream. His ideals are just a relic of the past; he's constantly on the run from the police. At other times, he comes under attack from extremist Jōi factions, namely Takasugi's Kiheitai, the main bad guys in the series, for not being harsh enough in his methods.
There's something about Katsura that seems lonely. Even while surrounded by others, he keeps his distance. Besides his followers, Katsura has few allies, and perhaps none whom he would consider to be an equal or a friend in the way he thinks of Gintoki.
NEO ARMSTRONG CYCLONE JET ARMSTRONG CANON EVIDENCE
Raise your hands, kids. Who knew I was going to make this joke?
Gintoki is a pretty "macho" kind of guy. It's hilarious in how stereotypically over-the-top male he is sometimes, as if he's got some sort of complex. Through various conversations, we know he hasn't gotten laid in a long while. Katsura...lives in his own delusional world, so I'm not even gonna go there.
Let's just be honest, then. This pairing is not canon; it's not even remotely close. Jeez, the manga runs in Shonen Jump! You think they'd give the main character an openly homosexual relationship?! Both of them have potential (female) love interests, too, though there's been very little focus on developing that. The cold, hard, you're-gonna-die-a-virgin truth is that this is a fantasy cobbled together by slobbering fans who get their jollies by slashing hot guys together, and maybe also by sleeping with these bedsheets. God, what a bunch of losers!
...I am one of them. (Though I'm sad to say that I don't have the bedsheets.) And I'm one of the creepier ones at that, for I have compiled this sexxay load of subtext and disturbing innuendo, ribbed for your pleasure.
To start, Katsura's hated nickname, Zura, means "wig". Gintoki is often referred to as a "natural perm" due to his curly hair. OH YEAH, BABY. PERM AND WIG! They come as a set, bound together by those nasty clumps of hair that get stuck in the shower drain.
These two go through a lot together. They're Bash Brothers, getting into tons of trouble together and fighting back to back on numerous occasions.
At this point, we don't know a whole lot about Gintoki and Katsura's past, but from flashbacks and conversations, we know that they went to school together. They both greatly admired their teacher, who taught them the way of the samurai. From the way they interact, it's safe to assume that Gintoki has been calling his buddy "Zura" since way back in the day.
Then they fought in the war together. Once, the two were injured and surrounded by enemies. There seemed to be no hope for their survival, so Katsura suggested that they commit suicide together and die honorably as warriors. Gintoki, tired of watching his friends die, says, "If you have time to fantasize about a beautiful death, then why don't you just live your life beautifully until the end?"
These words have a profound effect on Katsura. They change his life, as he becomes a man who's not afraid of running away in order to live and fight another day. This continues into the present day where he is constantly on the run. He has abandoned the notion of suicide in favor of living. In a way, this was the major turning point in their lives that helped shape the present-day Katsura.
But hey! Two guys out at war, sexy swordfighting, possibly patching up each other's wounds... Yeah, there's subtext here.
Their first meeting in the series goes like this:
That's love, man. Nasty shower-drain-hair-clump love.
Then Katsura tries to recruit Gintoki into his terrorist group...
...and they proceed to get all up in each other's faces and bicker like an old married couple.
This is pretty much their standard interaction. The seasoned slasher will know that all this figurative playground hair-pulling is grounds for making stuff up about how proof that they like like each other. It's just that they both have the maturity level of eight year olds, that's all.
Besides engaging in their own brand of teasing banter and slapstick antics, Gintoki always seems to wind up stuck with Katsura during his most embarrassing moments. It doesn't work the other way around because Katsura has no shame. See:
Hey, you said something about taking a dump here, right?
I'd make a joke about being buried in deep shit, but it might be too literal here.
For another example, when a baby is left at his door, Gintoki is accused by everyone of fathering an illegitimate child. Many of the characters take turns having "family time" with Gintoki and the baby, and Katsura is no exception.
This is totally what they would look like as a family unit.
And when Gintoki carelessly insults Mademoiselle Saigou, the buff owner of the local okama club, he's "recruited" as a new member and forced to cross-dress in order to work off his penance. Katsura also happens to be there, and that's how we get these two smokin' hot ladies, Paako and Zurako:
These smokin' hot ladies who work in tandem to spit nasty backwashed homo-juice at unsuspecting children. (I think this illustrates how they're on the same wavelength, don't you?)
None of the subtext is very sexual in nature... Except this next piece, though it's also quite distubing. When Gintoki switches bodies with his dog, Sadaharu, he's accosted by the the animal-loving Katsura.
The sad thing is... I... I think that's the most blatantly sexual the series has gotten...
Anyway!
Perhaps the strongest evidence for this pairing comes from the Benizakura arc (episodes 58-61, chapters 89-97) and the Ryugujo arc (episodes 115-118, chapters 174-182). This is where things get really slashable.
The Benizakura arc is one of the most intense arcs in the series, and gave us the first real glimpse of the main bad guys, Gintoki and Katsura's former comrade Takasugi Shinsuke and his group, the Kiheitai.
Nizo, one of Takasugi's men, ambushes Katsura one night. The Odd Jobs trio hears of this, as well as word that there's a serial killer loose on the streets, and they mount an investigation. When Gintoki and Nizo first cross paths, Nizo taunts Gintoki with how he's killed the legendary war hero Katsura.
Gintoki refuses to believe him. He's got faith in Katsura, who is a damn good swordsman. And he wouldn't dare to die on Gintoki like everyone else did; not Zura, the only person who's managed to stick with Gintoki all this time! But Nizo is a pervy bastard and decides to taunt Gintoki some more.
"I cut it off of him as a trophy, but I'm sure he'd want you to have it. But is Katsura really a man? This smooth hair is silky and soft as a woman's."
It takes a lot for Gintoki to get really serious, but Nizo's comments drive him into a rage and he charges into the fight. No one is allowed to insult Zura's hair except Gintoki, you hear that, bastard?!
Screencaps don't do justice to the raw emotional intensity of the scene. Gintoki's faith in Katsura is unshakable, and so very, very slashable. Nizo is also obviously insinuating something about Katsura's masculinity, if not his sexuality, and the fact that he is using this to taunt Gintoki could also be taken as a hint toward romantic involvement if one chose to see it that way.
Of course, it turns out that Gintoki was right, and Katsura is alive. Cue back-to-back badasses and heartfelt conversation.
Katsura: Gintoki! Don't change, okay. It would take a lot of mettle to kill you. I wouldn't take the job.
Gintoki: Zura, the day you change, I'll be the first there to take you out.
Ohoho! I don't think it gets more poignant than "don't change". They love each other just the way they are. Bask in their epic friendshippy-ness! Bask, I say! And if you need even more BFF-ery, look no further than the Ryugujo arc.
It's summer vacation, and through a series of unfortunate events, the cast are brought to the legendary Ryugu Palace. Much to everyone's dismay, Gintoki and Katsura breathe in a strange gas and are turned into useless old men, severely limiting the group's fighting power.
Surprisingly, they're completely in sync this way. And while this arc doesn't offer much in the way of relationship development, it does give us a tantalizing glimpse of a possible future. Because of this, I believe it's a canon-supported possibility that if they get out of all this crazy stuff alive, they'll continue to stick together, and grow old together, and annoy the ever-loving shit out of each other until the very end.
They've come a long way, from idiot kids to senile old people, but always, always friends.
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE DIARRHEA BECAUSE I JUST CAN'T KEEP IT IN
I'm inherently a multi-shipper, sniffing out the crack and following it where ever it leads. Every once in a while, a pairing really captures my attention and I fangirl it like mad. Few manage to rope me in like this, but when they do, the obsession will be obvious because I will write ship manifestos for them.
I discovered Gintama through a recommendation and instantly fell in love with the cracky-quirky atmosphere. I'm more for The Crack than serious romance, but there are still tons of possible pairings here. From het to slash to femslash, nearly all combinations are possible and I could find evidence for them all. When I took my first tentative peeks into fandom, I saw that the most popular slash pairing was Gintoki/Hijikata and sort of assumed that I would end up with that as my main pairing. I should have known better since I've assumed things like that for other series only to end up massively obsessing over something else.
Gintoki/Katsura kept creeping up on me like some sort of shambling zombie, not content until it had devoured my braaaaiiiinnnssss~
At first, upon discovering that they had a past together, I thought there was slash potential for some sort of hot and heavy desperate battle-sex. (Hells yeah!) I still couldn't settle on any pairings, but I started shipping them in the Paako/Zurako form, if only because the thought of two full-grown men eating lipstick off each other's faces was too hilarious to ignore. Eventually, it usurped all the other pairings and claimed its cosplaying self as king of the hill (or, more accurately, drag queen of the shipping pile).
One day I was watching the Ryugujo arc, and the next thing I knew, it was like waking up in an ice bath with a kidney missing. "I ship these two bags of wrinkles hardcore," I thought to myself. It was like an epiphany. My inner stupid weeaboo yaoi fangirl was like, "Dude. Now this is my version of happily ever after! Dentures and senility, iyaa~n! Age spots, kawaii~! So romantikku, desu ne? ♥" Then it only took one quick search for LJ comms to push me into the spiral of insanity you see here.
Bromance is my drug of choice, and preferably heavily laced with crack. I'm probably the world's biggest sucker for friendship pairings based on trust and mutual respect and all that good stuff. And if the pairing isn't versatile enough to encompass both angst and humor - hell, the whole spectrum of human emotion, then I usually lose interest after the initial thrill. I don't like perfection, either. Sparkling bishounen and delicate wilting flowers? No thanks, Bub. Love's just not love unless you know and accept your lover's flaws, be they physical or otherwise. In this way, GinZura fulfills all my raging OTP requirements.
If I didn't ship these guys together, I would at least say that they were "heterosexual life partners". They're both the closest that the other has to a "best friend". They're not the type of friends who just greet each other on the street and go drinking once in a while, though. Nah, they're the type of friends who have known each other so long that they've grown utterly sick of the other guy's ugly mug, and yet they can never get rid of each other. It's like having gum superglued to the bottom of your shoe, except gum doesn't show affection by insulting you on a regular basis. Gum can't punch the shit out of you and be forgiven two seconds later.
See that? That's the beauty of true friendship. Real friends are the ones who would stick with you even after you purposely ran them over with a car.
One-sided abuse doesn't sit well with me, though, so if we take it the other way, real friends are the ones who would stick with you even after you tried to alter their memories when they had amnesia...
...and then kicked them when they were down. Figuratively speaking, of course. Katsura only beat Gintoki's ass with a heavy signboard, that's all. Ha ha ha! No kicking involved!
These two guys will never be able to get rid of each other. Ever. And that right there is extremely important to Gintoki. For Gintoki, who's lost so many loved ones, Katsura is like a godsend. He's a tough bastard; Gintoki knows this. In fact, he's counting on it. Katsura has always been there, and he always will be. I'm sure there's no one else he'd rather trust to have his back in a battle, and I'm sure it's the same for Katsura, too.
That kind of support is what I find romantic in this pairing. No matter how stupid they act around each other, there will always be trust and grudging affection underneath that. And who knows? Maybe when they grow old together - and there is nothing more romantic than growing old together - they'll be just like how we see them in the Ryugujo arc, Sega Mega Drive and all.
Past - Present - Future. Even within Gintama's large cast of characters, I don't think there's another combination that has this much going on for it in terms of time and possibilities. And as corny as it sounds, there is just this intangible something in the way they can act so silly around each other and still find acceptance that really tugs on the heartstrings.
VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE, SO WATCH OUT FOR HEARTBURN
Gentle Readers, you might be asking yourselves, "Why should I ship this pairing? Besides all the bajillion and two reasons you've given me so far? I'm still skeptical."
Because it's awesomeness incarnate, that's why.
We've also got your fetishes covered. Cosplay/roleplay. Crossdressing. Teacher-student if we're going with the 3Z universe... Oh yeah, all the kinks! Even best...iality... Let's not play this game anymore.
Ah, what the hell? I'm done preaching to you guys! Kids these days... You youngsters shouldn't be sitting in front of the computer all day reading crappy essays about the fictional love of fictional characters. Lurking around the edges of fandom and not even participating? Pah! When I was your age, I sat in front of the computer all day and wrote crappy essays about the fictional love of fictional characters! Go forth and make fanworks! Class dismissed!
In case you'd like to follow the examples of your wonderful sempai, here's where the goods can be found:
General Gintama Stuff for n00bs
gintama
gintama_yaoi
gintama_route18 - Gigantorhugenormous collection of doujinshi scanlations for nearly every conceivable pairing...and some inconceivable ones that will have you clawing at your eyes while snorting in laughter. (Ah~ This is why I love Gintama fandom~)
Stuff Pertaining to Perms and Wigs
ginzura - For all your Perm + Wig needs. This is the LJ home base of the strange alien creatures known as GinZura fans. Time to break out the tin-foil hats, because I'm mind-controlling you to go here.
The Masterlist Of All GinZura Fic That’s Been Written As Of Now, Hopefully To Be Expanded In The Future - 'Nuff said. We're a smaller fandom, so we can do cool things like this.
Gintoki-x-Katsura on deviantART
Japanese fanart sites - Pixiv and Tegaki
银桂吧 [GinZura Bar] - For all your Perm + Wig needs...in Chinese, ohoho!
MAKE FRIENDS YOU CAN CALL BY THEIR NICKNAMES EVEN WHEN YOU'RE AN OLD FART
Gintama is SPECTACULAR; a true TOUR DE FORCE of COMEDIC GENIUS. The New York Times gives it TWO THUMBS UP. A Gintama a day keeps the doctor away. Gintama Tested, Mother Approved. Leggo My Gintama! Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Gintama. Eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cats preferred Gintama.
But false testimonials aside, perhaps the most important question is, What Can Gintama Do For You? What the hell kind of crazy thing is this? Isn't there a plot? Where is this all leading? We're more than 300 chapters into the manga and nearly 200 episodes into the anime (which is on hiatus, by the way), and there still hasn't been a cliché action series goal declared, like "I'm going to be the King of the Pirates Samurai!"
And the answer to that would be... uh... Well. We're working on it.
For now, Gintama is an episodic comedy series about a fantasy/sci-fi version of Japan's Edo period. It's a country of samurai and aliens (of the extraterrestrial variety) called Amanto. The name of the series translates into Silver Soul, but it's also one little consonant voicing away from becoming "golden balls", AKA testicles. Because we're really good at keeping it classy like that.
Our hero, if he can be called such, is Sakata Gintoki. He's a slob who does odd jobs to get by. Gintoki is, to put it simply, a lovable tramp. Early on in the series, he also picks up two teenage sidekicks, Shinpachi and Kagura, and the three of them form the dysfunctional family at core of the series, the Odd Jobs trio. They meet many colorful personalities as they go about their daily lives, and sometimes wind up in the middle of political battles or other miscellaneous adventures.
Despite all the crack, however, this series has a lot of heart in it. By which I mean if the seedy underbelly of animanga were a shady street corner, Gintama would be the diseased, ten dollar toothless crack whore with a heart of silver. It's the master of the emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes you laugh and cry and then laugh while crying, all in the space of about five minutes. (Seriously. Have someone take pictures of your face while you're experiencing the Gintama and you'll see what I mean.)
The characters are very real in their desires to live good lives or to carve out a niche for themselves in a changing world. They are not so ambitious as to want to become the strongest fighters in the universe; they don't shout out the names of special attacks unless it's a thinly veiled reference to another series. No, their strength is the soul-deep kind.
In Kabukichō, the red light district, the Sleepless Town where the strays gather... This is the story of a group of deeply flawed people who proudly wear their scars and imperfections for all to see. Somewhere in that ugly cesspool of humanity, there is true beauty to be found. There are times when the story touches on very emotional themes, and times when we see just how much the characters care for each other.
This is about one of those bonds.
YOUR MOTHER TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM MEN LIKE THESE
Look at this beautiful man-creature. How could you not trust someone like this? He is the very face of sincerity.
Also hygiene.
Sakata Gintoki is many things. He's been called a stereotypical anti-hero by critics, but that's not quite it. At first, his personality may seem to fit that mold - coolly indifferent, devil-may-care, and having enough bad habits to make mothers everywhere shake their heads in dismay and hope their children never take this stupid natural perm guy as their role model. Seriously, the guy's a sugar addict, he never pays his rent on time, and then gambles and drinks away his meager income. But once you get to know him, he cares. Really.
Gintoki has his own way of doing things. Presently, he's a laid-back guy who still likes childish things such as strawberry milk and Jump magazine. Sometimes he slouches. Sometimes he nonchalantly swaggers like he owns the streets, which, by being the Odd Jobs guy with connections all over town, might not be too far from the truth.
When he was younger, he was a hero in the war against the Amanto. He joined up with the Jōi movement along with his former classmates Takasugi and Katsura. He lost his parents to the war at an early age, followed by his beloved sensei, and then many comrades who fought alongside him. This has profoundly shaped the way he looks at the world.
Above all, Gintoki values his friends. His aloof facade is possibly a reaction to having been hurt by the loss of many whom he held dear. He has no more family; nearly all of his old friends are gone. In some ways, he is afraid of opening himself up because he tends to care deeply for others, so he doesn't want to see any more of them pass away before his eyes. For the few who still manage to worm themselves in, however, he will do anything to protect them.
"What's the point in standing up for beliefs that have been laid out for me? Looking forward to losing your precious friends? I don't want that anymore. If it's my own life on the line, I'll adhere to my own code. And I'll protect what I want to protect." That pretty much sums up his world view.
Zura Katsura Kotaro is Gintoki's childhood friend...of sorts. The two grew up together, attended the same school, and fought side by side in the war. Katsura, like Gintoki, is a war legend. He had a leadership role then, and continues to lead an anti-foreigner Jōi faction at present. Basically...
He's a terrorist. (But a moderate one!)
Katsura is now a wanted man. While he occasionally lands in jail, he and his duck/penguin/hairy-old-man alien pet Elizabeth can usually be found running away from the police or hiding out around town dressed in a variety of costumes. Monk. Beggar. Space pirate. Movie mascot. Woman.
He's a real cool vigilante, and totally the epitome of elegance.
Actually, Katsura's pretty much the screwiest character in this series, and that's saying something. He's serious to a fault, yet manages to say the weirdest things with a completely straight face. Honestly, he's not all there in the head. If there was ever a character who fit the trope of the Cloud Cuckoo Lander, it would be Katsura. He just marches to the beat of his own didgeridoo, and whatever the laws are in your universe, they stop applying the minute he joins the party.
On a more serious note, Katsura hasn't managed to put the past behind him. Unlike Gintoki, the war never ended for him, so he continues to fight for those old goals. He takes being a samurai very seriously and is a stickler for the bushido. Even as a terrorist, he is an honorable man, and with Gintoki's influence in his life again, he's since mellowed out. But Katsura still has his own struggles.
Sometimes it seems like the world is moving on without him - embracing the Amanto, embracing change - and Katsura's longing for the Edo of old is nothing but a dream. His ideals are just a relic of the past; he's constantly on the run from the police. At other times, he comes under attack from extremist Jōi factions, namely Takasugi's Kiheitai, the main bad guys in the series, for not being harsh enough in his methods.
There's something about Katsura that seems lonely. Even while surrounded by others, he keeps his distance. Besides his followers, Katsura has few allies, and perhaps none whom he would consider to be an equal or a friend in the way he thinks of Gintoki.
NEO ARMSTRONG CYCLONE JET ARMSTRONG CANON EVIDENCE
Raise your hands, kids. Who knew I was going to make this joke?
Gintoki is a pretty "macho" kind of guy. It's hilarious in how stereotypically over-the-top male he is sometimes, as if he's got some sort of complex. Through various conversations, we know he hasn't gotten laid in a long while. Katsura...lives in his own delusional world, so I'm not even gonna go there.
Let's just be honest, then. This pairing is not canon; it's not even remotely close. Jeez, the manga runs in Shonen Jump! You think they'd give the main character an openly homosexual relationship?! Both of them have potential (female) love interests, too, though there's been very little focus on developing that. The cold, hard, you're-gonna-die-a-virgin truth is that this is a fantasy cobbled together by slobbering fans who get their jollies by slashing hot guys together, and maybe also by sleeping with these bedsheets. God, what a bunch of losers!
...I am one of them. (Though I'm sad to say that I don't have the bedsheets.) And I'm one of the creepier ones at that, for I have compiled this sexxay load of subtext and disturbing innuendo, ribbed for your pleasure.
To start, Katsura's hated nickname, Zura, means "wig". Gintoki is often referred to as a "natural perm" due to his curly hair. OH YEAH, BABY. PERM AND WIG! They come as a set, bound together by those nasty clumps of hair that get stuck in the shower drain.
These two go through a lot together. They're Bash Brothers, getting into tons of trouble together and fighting back to back on numerous occasions.
At this point, we don't know a whole lot about Gintoki and Katsura's past, but from flashbacks and conversations, we know that they went to school together. They both greatly admired their teacher, who taught them the way of the samurai. From the way they interact, it's safe to assume that Gintoki has been calling his buddy "Zura" since way back in the day.
Then they fought in the war together. Once, the two were injured and surrounded by enemies. There seemed to be no hope for their survival, so Katsura suggested that they commit suicide together and die honorably as warriors. Gintoki, tired of watching his friends die, says, "If you have time to fantasize about a beautiful death, then why don't you just live your life beautifully until the end?"
These words have a profound effect on Katsura. They change his life, as he becomes a man who's not afraid of running away in order to live and fight another day. This continues into the present day where he is constantly on the run. He has abandoned the notion of suicide in favor of living. In a way, this was the major turning point in their lives that helped shape the present-day Katsura.
But hey! Two guys out at war, sexy swordfighting, possibly patching up each other's wounds... Yeah, there's subtext here.
Their first meeting in the series goes like this:
That's love, man. Nasty shower-drain-hair-clump love.
Then Katsura tries to recruit Gintoki into his terrorist group...
...and they proceed to get all up in each other's faces and bicker like an old married couple.
This is pretty much their standard interaction. The seasoned slasher will know that all this figurative playground hair-pulling is grounds for making stuff up about how proof that they like like each other. It's just that they both have the maturity level of eight year olds, that's all.
Besides engaging in their own brand of teasing banter and slapstick antics, Gintoki always seems to wind up stuck with Katsura during his most embarrassing moments. It doesn't work the other way around because Katsura has no shame. See:
Hey, you said something about taking a dump here, right?
I'd make a joke about being buried in deep shit, but it might be too literal here.
For another example, when a baby is left at his door, Gintoki is accused by everyone of fathering an illegitimate child. Many of the characters take turns having "family time" with Gintoki and the baby, and Katsura is no exception.
This is totally what they would look like as a family unit.
And when Gintoki carelessly insults Mademoiselle Saigou, the buff owner of the local okama club, he's "recruited" as a new member and forced to cross-dress in order to work off his penance. Katsura also happens to be there, and that's how we get these two smokin' hot ladies, Paako and Zurako:
These smokin' hot ladies who work in tandem to spit nasty backwashed homo-juice at unsuspecting children. (I think this illustrates how they're on the same wavelength, don't you?)
None of the subtext is very sexual in nature... Except this next piece, though it's also quite distubing. When Gintoki switches bodies with his dog, Sadaharu, he's accosted by the the animal-loving Katsura.
The sad thing is... I... I think that's the most blatantly sexual the series has gotten...
Anyway!
Perhaps the strongest evidence for this pairing comes from the Benizakura arc (episodes 58-61, chapters 89-97) and the Ryugujo arc (episodes 115-118, chapters 174-182). This is where things get really slashable.
The Benizakura arc is one of the most intense arcs in the series, and gave us the first real glimpse of the main bad guys, Gintoki and Katsura's former comrade Takasugi Shinsuke and his group, the Kiheitai.
Nizo, one of Takasugi's men, ambushes Katsura one night. The Odd Jobs trio hears of this, as well as word that there's a serial killer loose on the streets, and they mount an investigation. When Gintoki and Nizo first cross paths, Nizo taunts Gintoki with how he's killed the legendary war hero Katsura.
Gintoki refuses to believe him. He's got faith in Katsura, who is a damn good swordsman. And he wouldn't dare to die on Gintoki like everyone else did; not Zura, the only person who's managed to stick with Gintoki all this time! But Nizo is a pervy bastard and decides to taunt Gintoki some more.
"I cut it off of him as a trophy, but I'm sure he'd want you to have it. But is Katsura really a man? This smooth hair is silky and soft as a woman's."
It takes a lot for Gintoki to get really serious, but Nizo's comments drive him into a rage and he charges into the fight. No one is allowed to insult Zura's hair except Gintoki, you hear that, bastard?!
Screencaps don't do justice to the raw emotional intensity of the scene. Gintoki's faith in Katsura is unshakable, and so very, very slashable. Nizo is also obviously insinuating something about Katsura's masculinity, if not his sexuality, and the fact that he is using this to taunt Gintoki could also be taken as a hint toward romantic involvement if one chose to see it that way.
Of course, it turns out that Gintoki was right, and Katsura is alive. Cue back-to-back badasses and heartfelt conversation.
Katsura: Gintoki! Don't change, okay. It would take a lot of mettle to kill you. I wouldn't take the job.
Gintoki: Zura, the day you change, I'll be the first there to take you out.
Ohoho! I don't think it gets more poignant than "don't change". They love each other just the way they are. Bask in their epic friendshippy-ness! Bask, I say! And if you need even more BFF-ery, look no further than the Ryugujo arc.
It's summer vacation, and through a series of unfortunate events, the cast are brought to the legendary Ryugu Palace. Much to everyone's dismay, Gintoki and Katsura breathe in a strange gas and are turned into useless old men, severely limiting the group's fighting power.
Surprisingly, they're completely in sync this way. And while this arc doesn't offer much in the way of relationship development, it does give us a tantalizing glimpse of a possible future. Because of this, I believe it's a canon-supported possibility that if they get out of all this crazy stuff alive, they'll continue to stick together, and grow old together, and annoy the ever-loving shit out of each other until the very end.
They've come a long way, from idiot kids to senile old people, but always, always friends.
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE DIARRHEA BECAUSE I JUST CAN'T KEEP IT IN
I'm inherently a multi-shipper, sniffing out the crack and following it where ever it leads. Every once in a while, a pairing really captures my attention and I fangirl it like mad. Few manage to rope me in like this, but when they do, the obsession will be obvious because I will write ship manifestos for them.
I discovered Gintama through a recommendation and instantly fell in love with the cracky-quirky atmosphere. I'm more for The Crack than serious romance, but there are still tons of possible pairings here. From het to slash to femslash, nearly all combinations are possible and I could find evidence for them all. When I took my first tentative peeks into fandom, I saw that the most popular slash pairing was Gintoki/Hijikata and sort of assumed that I would end up with that as my main pairing. I should have known better since I've assumed things like that for other series only to end up massively obsessing over something else.
Gintoki/Katsura kept creeping up on me like some sort of shambling zombie, not content until it had devoured my braaaaiiiinnnssss~
At first, upon discovering that they had a past together, I thought there was slash potential for some sort of hot and heavy desperate battle-sex. (Hells yeah!) I still couldn't settle on any pairings, but I started shipping them in the Paako/Zurako form, if only because the thought of two full-grown men eating lipstick off each other's faces was too hilarious to ignore. Eventually, it usurped all the other pairings and claimed its cosplaying self as king of the hill (or, more accurately, drag queen of the shipping pile).
One day I was watching the Ryugujo arc, and the next thing I knew, it was like waking up in an ice bath with a kidney missing. "I ship these two bags of wrinkles hardcore," I thought to myself. It was like an epiphany. My inner stupid weeaboo yaoi fangirl was like, "Dude. Now this is my version of happily ever after! Dentures and senility, iyaa~n! Age spots, kawaii~! So romantikku, desu ne? ♥" Then it only took one quick search for LJ comms to push me into the spiral of insanity you see here.
Bromance is my drug of choice, and preferably heavily laced with crack. I'm probably the world's biggest sucker for friendship pairings based on trust and mutual respect and all that good stuff. And if the pairing isn't versatile enough to encompass both angst and humor - hell, the whole spectrum of human emotion, then I usually lose interest after the initial thrill. I don't like perfection, either. Sparkling bishounen and delicate wilting flowers? No thanks, Bub. Love's just not love unless you know and accept your lover's flaws, be they physical or otherwise. In this way, GinZura fulfills all my raging OTP requirements.
If I didn't ship these guys together, I would at least say that they were "heterosexual life partners". They're both the closest that the other has to a "best friend". They're not the type of friends who just greet each other on the street and go drinking once in a while, though. Nah, they're the type of friends who have known each other so long that they've grown utterly sick of the other guy's ugly mug, and yet they can never get rid of each other. It's like having gum superglued to the bottom of your shoe, except gum doesn't show affection by insulting you on a regular basis. Gum can't punch the shit out of you and be forgiven two seconds later.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
See that? That's the beauty of true friendship. Real friends are the ones who would stick with you even after you purposely ran them over with a car.
One-sided abuse doesn't sit well with me, though, so if we take it the other way, real friends are the ones who would stick with you even after you tried to alter their memories when they had amnesia...
...and then kicked them when they were down. Figuratively speaking, of course. Katsura only beat Gintoki's ass with a heavy signboard, that's all. Ha ha ha! No kicking involved!
These two guys will never be able to get rid of each other. Ever. And that right there is extremely important to Gintoki. For Gintoki, who's lost so many loved ones, Katsura is like a godsend. He's a tough bastard; Gintoki knows this. In fact, he's counting on it. Katsura has always been there, and he always will be. I'm sure there's no one else he'd rather trust to have his back in a battle, and I'm sure it's the same for Katsura, too.
That kind of support is what I find romantic in this pairing. No matter how stupid they act around each other, there will always be trust and grudging affection underneath that. And who knows? Maybe when they grow old together - and there is nothing more romantic than growing old together - they'll be just like how we see them in the Ryugujo arc, Sega Mega Drive and all.
Past - Present - Future. Even within Gintama's large cast of characters, I don't think there's another combination that has this much going on for it in terms of time and possibilities. And as corny as it sounds, there is just this intangible something in the way they can act so silly around each other and still find acceptance that really tugs on the heartstrings.
VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE, SO WATCH OUT FOR HEARTBURN
Gentle Readers, you might be asking yourselves, "Why should I ship this pairing? Besides all the bajillion and two reasons you've given me so far? I'm still skeptical."
Because it's awesomeness incarnate, that's why.
We've also got your fetishes covered. Cosplay/roleplay. Crossdressing. Teacher-student if we're going with the 3Z universe... Oh yeah, all the kinks! Even best...iality... Let's not play this game anymore.
Ah, what the hell? I'm done preaching to you guys! Kids these days... You youngsters shouldn't be sitting in front of the computer all day reading crappy essays about the fictional love of fictional characters. Lurking around the edges of fandom and not even participating? Pah! When I was your age, I sat in front of the computer all day and wrote crappy essays about the fictional love of fictional characters! Go forth and make fanworks! Class dismissed!
In case you'd like to follow the examples of your wonderful sempai, here's where the goods can be found:
General Gintama Stuff for n00bs
gintama
gintama_yaoi
gintama_route18 - Gigantorhugenormous collection of doujinshi scanlations for nearly every conceivable pairing...and some inconceivable ones that will have you clawing at your eyes while snorting in laughter. (Ah~ This is why I love Gintama fandom~)
Stuff Pertaining to Perms and Wigs
ginzura - For all your Perm + Wig needs. This is the LJ home base of the strange alien creatures known as GinZura fans. Time to break out the tin-foil hats, because I'm mind-controlling you to go here.
The Masterlist Of All GinZura Fic That’s Been Written As Of Now, Hopefully To Be Expanded In The Future - 'Nuff said. We're a smaller fandom, so we can do cool things like this.
Gintoki-x-Katsura on deviantART
Japanese fanart sites - Pixiv and Tegaki
银桂吧 [GinZura Bar] - For all your Perm + Wig needs...in Chinese, ohoho!