#benizakura is so underrated

[courtesanofdeath]

Pale crimson burns bright as it's polished by the spring breeze. Beaten by the shadows of your urges, full speed dancer, full speed dancer, let's dance.

[regnigt]

It's an underrated part of Katsura's character development how he realizes in the Benizakura arc that no, he *can't* just sneak away and deal with things on his own. His absence has consequences. He has friends who love him and will stir up all sorts of trouble to find him.

Not that Katsura doesn't still retain a self-sacrificial urge (in spite of all his "I'm a general so I must be careful" learnings), but arguably he keeps it better reined in from this point onwards. Seeing Shinpachi and Kagura in danger for his sake and then also Elizabeth and the rest of his men coming after him, even raising an anti-Kiheitai Joui alliance for his sake - all that made a lasting impression on him, I think.

(Now Gintoki, on the other hand, is always to ready to throw his life away and seems to genuinely find it hard to grasp how much that would hurt those he loves the most. He got a wake-up call in the Four Devas arc when it came to Shinpachi and Kagura, but mostly in practice that just meant he was more willing to accept that they could fight alongside him even in moments of greater danger, not being less personally reckless...)

[gintamajustaway]

I love that you love Otae so much. Non of my friends who have watched Gintama like Otae, because either she is too violent and does not play a big role in anyone's life, Shinpachi aside. And of course she does not fight in the big battles. But I think her role to Gintoki and others is so important, as she is always there to support and love them no matter what. I always loved Otae, but after the Kintama arc and onwards, she became my top 10 Gintama characters. She is so underrated imo.

She does actually fight in the big battles. Just because she’s not directly out front doesn’t mean she’s not doing anything. The only female character that fights out front is Kagura because she’s one of the Yorozuya and thus, one of the main characters. From the start, it was established by Gintoki that he needed Otae to make sure he had a home to return to and Otae takes that very seriously. Not only that, but like in the Benizakura arc Otae is shown as someone that helps Gintoki, takes care of him, and trusts him to come back to the place she’s looking after for him while he’s away. She’s one of the most reliable and steadfast characters in the whole series. Again, I’m not a Gin//Tae shipper at all, but I can’t help but think (from what I’ve seen) that most people who don’t like Otae don’t like her because there’s a different Gintoki ship they like more. There’s nothing wrong with having a preference on shipping, of course, but from what I’ve seen, most Otae hate stems from her “getting in the way” of their preferred ship and that’s sad to me because Otae is an excellent character that is deserving of so much love for all the amazing things she does. I’m so happy she’s in your top 10, she’s awesome! 

[oddjobsqueen]

As a Gintae shipper this has been really bothering me. How popular is Gintae? Obviously it's nowhere near as popular as Gintsu but how does it compare to Kontae ?

I’ve answered a similar question before here about GinTae’s popularity in Japan. It’s trended quite a number of times, such as when Benizakura and the first LA film were aired on TV there, when BFY was released, etc, and again trended when the final chapter came out last year, which should mean that the ship still has a pretty big fan base to this day. 

Comparing to Kon*ae , from what I’ve noticed there isn't such a huge gap between the 2 ships in JP, probably because just like GinTae, fans are more accepting of Kon*ae as it was introduced very early in the series, (besides it also fetishizing stalking).

Fans used to measure the popularity of a Gintama ship in Japan according to the number of fanart on Pixiv, but for the past 2 years I realised that most GinTae shippers are dormant, passive shippers and would only come out when there’s a new development for the pairing, so I’d say that Pixiv doesn’t actually tell us anything about ship popularity. This is also evident from the way GinTae is the only Gintoki hetship that's ever trended on the internet but doesn’t have that many entries on the site.

In the western fandom however, GinTae is very very unpopular and underrated, I even heard until 3 or 4 years ago fans still considered GinTae as a crack ship. The Gin*su and Kon*ae subfandoms are much bigger for obvious reasons, where most Gin*su shippers are also Kon*ae shippers (although Kon*ae shippers are not as enthusiastic (see: rabid) as gin*su shipper so we heard from them less).

[gintamajustaway]

yoooo i finally finished gintama and i just can’t stop thinking about what do you think of how zura will cope with what happened to takasugi. i just love their relationship so much thinking about how they’ve been together since childhood and even before they met gintoki. sometimes i feel like takazura is underrated but they are really precious i love to see more of them ㅠㅠ

I mentioned not too long ago that Gintoki and Katsura have already grieved Takasugi in some form. Think of the Benizakura arc -- Katsura and Gintoki were back to back opposing Takasugi. I’m sure Katsura had some tenacious hope that things would work out for the better, but he’d already pretty much made his choice fairly early on in the series. (That being said, I’m sure there was a part of Katsura that would always know he’d die for and with Takasugi if necessary, you don’t just let go of relationships like that -- especially not the Joui.) Anyway, they’d already come to terms with who Takasugi had become and losing him for real would obviously hurt, like losing a limb almost, but they’d already grieved him in some form. Doing so again for a more permanent loss would be more difficult to handle, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch from what they’d already experienced.

I was a little miffed with what Sorachi did with Katsura in the end. I know I’ve said that before, but it’s worth saying again. I felt he was underutilized and some of the big speeches and things he gave throughout the series just kind of tapered off and equated to nothing in the end, which was disappointing. It’s Sorachi’s story and I’m cool with how he ended things, but I do wish Katsura could have gotten a bit more closure.