Remembering Love: Gintama and the Art of Zura

Some of you may have already be aware of this by now, but one of my most favorite anime character is Katsura Kotaro aka Zura. Last week, we talked about the underdog, Shimura Shinpachi, but for this fourth and final week of the Remember Love project, I will be entailing the epicness of this man, Zura Katsura Kotaro.

Kotaro is a Joui terrorist and like Takasugi, aimed to bring freedom to Edo. However, in contrast to the vicious Takasugi, Katsura plans to retrieve Edo in more peaceful ways.

He fought in the previous Amanto War together with Gintoki, Takasugi and Tatsuma, so needless to say, he is exceptionally strong as well. His swordsmanship is on par with Gintoki and perhaps, even Takasugi and he can handle bombs like an expert, always bombing his way out of Shinsegumi’s reach during his terrorist activities.

As an individual, Katsura is.. to put it in a simple manner, random. He is like a troll. At times, he is a pacifist, and at times, he is atrocious.. but most of the time, it could be said that he is just an idiot. He planned idiotic strategies like flipping the Shinsegumi’s toilet papers backwards and getting himself injured in irrelevant and silly ways. Unlike Shinpachi, Katsura has no common sense and sometimes, even people like Gintoki had to step up with some comebacks. The two is indefinitely one of the best straight man/funny man combo I had ever seen.

Katsura has a large and random array of skills. Other then his rapping, he is also a master of disguise; he had disguised himself as Captain Katsura, Zurako, Katsurio, III Smith and many others. How he was able to fool most of the Shinsegumi members with his “painfully-obvious” disguises is completely in the dark for me.

Brimming with randomness, Katsura is the main driving force for Gintama’s insanity. He is one of the few which makes Gintama, an already crazy show even the more so crazier. When you’re watching Gintama, be sure to especially look out for this man… and his duck, Elizabeth, as they would emerge from the shadows and troll at the moment you least expected it.

List of Participants – Week 4