"No Matter How Goofy And Foolish He Is, He Is Just As Much A Trickster And Mastermind. These Sides Of

"No matter how goofy and foolish he is, he is just as much a trickster and mastermind. These sides of his character are not at extremes. It all comes around. His ambitions, his promise with Shigeshige, his bond and shared past with Gintoki. These are some of the driving forces behind every action he takes. " YES ALL OF THIS. So well said. I've been thinking of this, and of something similar (his love of the spotlight in the present day vs his war-era leadership style - both sides are true).

Right! Although maybe it isn’t necessarily that he wishes to hoard the spotlight, but judges that that’s what’s necessary in the fight he’s fighting at the moment? 🤔 

I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to say here but I think you hit on something hmm. A key idea on the factions in Gintama is how they revolve around certain leaders. Nizo’s take on this was that they exude a certain light and charisma. He was infatuated with Takasugi’s so he wanted to take down other perceived lights like Katsura’s and Gintoki’s. Moths gather to flames. Later on we have arcs revolving around different characters who despite being flawed, portray significant leadership roles. Hijikata, Sakamoto, Shigeshige, NobuNobu, etc. In the end, Katsura’s way of reforming the government lends to the idea of the importance of everyone being their own king or leader.

Although it’s no question that when Katsura’s quirky personality starts leaking into serious business, he turns into the regular show-off drama queen we love. 😂 However that’s partially the result of reuniting with Gintoki and redeveloping a newfound love and attachment to people and the community. Unlocking his true personality comes after he was stuck in a negative mindset closer to Takasugi’s at the beginning of the series.

In the Joui war, his true personality was largely repressed by the pressure and strain of leadership. The battle they were fighting then (survival) was heavier than the one present-day Katsura is fighting (for the future). Nowadays, Katsura has more room to breath and live and goof around like everyone else.  

On a more casual level though, when he’s going around complaining about being on stand-by or having little screen time or his character overlapping with Kyuubei’s… it’s more than just a comedic 4th wall break because it speaks about his character. Actually, he does seem to get a lot of down time when he’s out of a job or not doing Joui things. 😂 So we see him hanging out with Hasegawa and Gintoki often, but his unique position at the edge of the law puts him at conflict with half the cast that regularly participates in shenanigans. As a result he seems to get a little lonely at times, haha. Even on stand-by, he seems to just be hoping for a good moment to come out. It would lead to disappointment, but he has an absurd amount of patience haha. Poor Zura. It does make sense for him to be attention-seeking.