Physical Features
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Height: 177 cm (5' 9½")
Weight: 72 kg (158 lb)
Eye Color: Crimson
Hair Color: Silver

Sakata Gintoki (坂田 銀時, Sakata Gintoki) is the protagonist of the Gintama series. He is also the founder and president of the Yorozuya Gin-Chan, as well as a highly skilled samurai, having fought in the Joui War in the past.

In his childhood days, Gintoki, as an orphan, was found by Yoshida Shouyou in a deserted battlefield. For a while, he, along with Katsura Kotarou and Takasugi Shinsuke, was taught by him before his teacher was arrested and his school was burnt down. In order to rescue their teacher, the three students joined in the last years of the Joui War, and Gintoki became known as the Shiroyasha (lit. White Demon) for his powerful swordplay and demonic white appearance.

After the Joui War, as a result of a trade to save Ikeda Asaemon, Gintoki was arrested and was supposed to be beheaded. However, he was soon released by the 16th Ikeda Yaemon. Some time later, he met Otose while sitting behind her husband's graveyard, where he made a promise with her late husband. Since then, he became a tenant in her house and founded Old Yorozuya, which later consists of Shimura Shinpachi, Kagura, Sadaharu and himself.

Appearance
Gintoki has a natural perm, which causes him no end of distress. His silvery-blue hair is in a perpetually messy state, which is sometimes exaggerated into a frizzy afro when Gintoki is injured. He has indeterminate grey/green/blue (in the manga) or bordeaux-colored (in the anime) "dead fish eyes" (comparison courtesy of Hijikata Toushirou), which are called such because they are nearly always half-lidded.

His standard outfit consists of a white yukata with a blue swirl pattern on the bottom and ends of the sleeves, worn so that his arm only goes through the left sleeve, and the right half droops down over his obi. Over this, he wears a black belt buckled so that there is leftover dangling from the buckle, from which his bokutō Lake Toya hangs. Underneath, he wears a black, red-lined shirt with a popped collar and black pants. He also wears knee-high black boots, buckled at the top and above his foot, which appear to add about half an inch to his height. It is shown that he has a closet full of duplicates of this outfit, so whenever it gets destroyed, he can appear in the next episode or chapter with a new one.

All in all, his outfit suggests an air of laziness, and may be a reflection of Gintoki's own personal sense of style, though it is revealed that his usual attire is actually the school jersey for the Zunborans[1].

During the winter, he will sometimes wear a haori, thicker kimonos, or more layers, of varying colors, as well as scarves.

As with most Gintama characters, his outfit and appearance change regularly for the sake of gags.

Personality
Gintoki has an incredibly funny side. This can be seen by the way he "mistakenly" insinuated Hinowa's statement (in the 'Courtesan of a Nation Arc') to mean that he, Tsukuyo, Hinowa and Suzuran could have a foursome. His normal use of dirty talk, scatological innuendos, and ability to find ladies (Dominatrices in the Love Choriss Arc) in unstrategic places also seem to suggest this.

Gintoki's past continues to influence who he is and how he acts. He admitted to Umibozu in episode 42 that he believes having a loving family is all someone really needs in life, due to his lack of a family. He is very respectful of the memory of his teacher Yoshida Shouyou due to his kind actions (the death of his teacher is probably one of the main reasons he joined the Joui war). It is this respect for his teacher that caused him to be angered when Jiraia(Jiraia) called himself Tsukuyo's teacher and yet harmed and tortured her.

His inability to protect many of his friends in the Joui war still haunts him, even feeling regret of executing his own teacher when he was forced by Tendosho (under order of Sada Sada) in front of Takasugi and Katsura, and as a result, he is very protective of his current friends. He told Kawakami Bansai in the Shinsengumi Mutiny Arc the only reason he fought in the Joui war was to protect his friends, not for his country or the samurai way.

He acts like a coward most of the time, will attempt to leave behind his friends if his life is in danger, but this only occurs in the more comical stories, as he is willing to risk his life for anyone, and is shown to be extremely caring towards his friends. Gintoki has shown to be protective of them, to the point of going as far as stabbing and killing Naraku members, terrorists and amantos when he tried to attack them. He is extremely scared of ghosts, but is very sensitive to their presence and many times will try to deny their existence.

He has many childish personality traits despite his age, calling himself a child in a man's body. One such trait is his love of sweets to the point of nearly developing diabetes. He is mostly seen eating or drinking something sweet, with strawberry milk being his favorite.

He loves alcohol but his tolerance for sake that is not high. His love of alcohol has made him so troublesome that some female characters: Otose, Otae, Kyuubei, Sarutobi Ayame and Tsukuyo decided to teach him a lesson by playing a prank on him along with Zenzou during the Scandal arc.

He loves to eat meat and will go to great lengths to acquire the latest Jump issues, rivaling that of Hattori Zenzou who is similarly spirited. He also (just like Hijikata) has a hatred of the dentist and scared of ghost, something he is ashamed of due to his age.

Gintoki is very lazy, and is often shown reading Jump and lying around the Yorozuya. Due to his poverty, he is always behind on his rent and often runs away when Otose, his landlady, comes to collect the rent. He attempts to save money whenever he can, but he also loves to play Pachinko and other gambling games, resulting in him spending all his money. Even though he's lazy most of the time, Gintoki is quite a dedicated worker and always puts his mind on his jobs.

Gintoki seems to dislike his curly perm hair. To elaborate further, in Episode 5 he says his lack of girlfriends is due to his 'natural perm' hair. Though several female characters have shown an interest in Gintoki, such as Shimura Tae, Sarutobi Ayame, Tsukuyo and on some occasions Yagyuu Kyuubei, he usually does not return their affections because of their physical abuse toward him. He even assaults Ayame who tends to stalk him, but he has a huge crush on the weather girl, Ketsuno Ana and once stated he wished to marry her (possibly because of the kind personality he sees on TV). It might be possible that he shows a lot of interest in any women that has a nice body and who does not have an angry personality, is a stalker or physically attacks him. This was proven in some episodes and during the pool arc, when he saw a woman with binoculars he got super excited, until he found out was Tsukuyo and lost all interest commenting that she is a drunk terminator.

Despite his appearance and initial behavior, Gintoki has a great amount of pride for the old bushido code. He takes it upon himself to rescue or avenge not only his comrades and friends but also people he barely knows.

According to Tama, Gintoki is bit of a sadist who shares the same personality as Sougo.

Despite all these traits (or perhap due to these traits) Gintoki possess immense charisma and is able to attract anyone, he always knows what to say to make anyone feel more comfortable and can make anyone laugh (even in the most inappropriate times) and feel alive. This ability has given him very loyal allies and friends from all sorts of people even former enimes, even leading to him getting the admiration and affection of a lot of women. As Hinowa pointed out he was able to affect Tsukuyo, and as has even made friends with the Shogun.

Strength & Abilities
Gintoki is a highly skilled samurai. His current combat skills were enough to make the blood-thirsty Yato Kamui staking his claim on him as his future prey in Episode 146. Umibouzu stated himself that Gintoki "carries himself with a certain grace" and that he is "like a master of the sword" in Episode 200. There were times when Gintoki shows his rage when facing enemies with immense strength towards Jiraia, Doromizu Jirochou and Oboro. His greatest strength seems to be his immense stamina and endurance, to the point where he has been called immortal by other characters. He could be the strongest swordsman so far presented in the series.

In his childhood, he was under the tutelage of Yoshida Shouyou along with Katsura Kotarou and Takasugi Shinsuke, where he learned how to become a decent samurai. As every student who was taught by Shouyou and survived, Gintoki became infamous because of his tremendous skills with the sword.

Yagyuu Binbokusai conceded that Gintoki's sword style may well be his own, and not affiliated to any school.

His weapon of choice is usually a bokutou , a wooden katana, engraved with the word Touyako meaning Lake Toya on the handle, carried by his waist. As Gintoki hates killing and mostly tries to avoid killing people, he barely uses a real sword to avoid vital damages. Therefore he is willing to adapt his bushido to other people or the current times in order to avoid needless loss of lives, as explained to Katsura in Episode 5. This is the most probable reason for his carrying a wooden sword and not a real version. His bokutou was made from a ten thousand year old tree from another planet, claiming to have the ability to break even the meteorite. Whether it is true is still unknown, but it may be Gintoki's overall strength and skill that gives him those abilities. In the manga, it is shown that Gintoki always bought a new bokutou from the TV Commercial every time his current one is broken.


His bokutou has broken in 7 occasions:
He cheated by letting Kondou use it, who did not know that he had sabotaged him by breaking it.
When Kagura was angry after trying to defend it from an Amanto Gankeimaru, only to discover that he bought it by phone.
In his second battle against Okada Nizou after he obtained the Benizakura.
In his first battle against Doromizu Jirochou.
Trying to encounter the shock wave when he was trying to destroy Kintoki.
His last showdown against Oboro.
His bokuto was eaten during his fight with Okita Sougo who was possessed by the excalibur sword Maganagi
He has also been seen using normal katanas such as the one made by Murata Tetsuko in Episode 60.

As a child, he was attached to Yoshida Shouyou's Katana after he gave it to him. Gintoki would carry that Katana even during class. What happened to it has yet to revealed.

The other time he used a Katana and Jutte was when he borrowed from Terada Tatsugorou memento in the Devas of Kabuki District arc, Gintoki vowed that he would protect everything that was important to him.

In fellow Shonen Jump anime Bleach, Gintoki was reading the manga in an omake wishing that he could use Getsuga Tensho, Bleach's Ichigo Kurosaki's signature attack in DVD version of Episode 3. But when there was an opportunity to learn a secret signature move from the spirit of Touyako, Gintoki was too lazy and unmotivated to learn.

Immense Strength : Has shown on several occasions unrealistic strength. During a fight with Hosen, implied as one the strongest characters in the series, Gintoki managed to injure Hosen; Kamui would go as far as to say that Gintoki defeated Hosen. He was also able to tear Bansai's strings, which were as solid as steel and designed to rip people's limbs off. Gintoki's muscles were hard enough to avoid losing a single limb before he finally tore the strings.

Tremendous Endurance : Gintoki's ability to stay alive, regardless of how severe the injury is, during situations where he is shot by a gun, beaten to a pulp by Hosen, left to die by Jirochou, show his uncanny endurance. Though his endurance has a limit his body can't overcome, like when his pressure points were attacked with poison needles, physical pain barely stops him from making use of his combat skills to the full.

Expert Sword-Wielding : Gintoki's ability to use his wooden sword impressed Yagyuu Binbokusai, the grand patriarch of the Yagyuu.