GinTae

GinTae is the het ship between Sakata Gintoki and Shimura Tae from the Gintama fandom.

Canon
The relationship between Gintoki and Tae begins when Gintoki tries to run off after causing her brother to get fired and framed for his crime. Tae brings Gintoki back to her house and demands that he takes responsibility since she and her brother need every penny they could find to protect their father’s dojo. Gintoki then offers his business card and introduces himself as Yorozuya Gin-chan, an odd job who does all kind of works.

When the loan shark comes to collect his debt, he gives Tae two options as a way to repay him, sell the dojo or sell herself. Tae chooses to go with the loan shark to work at his club as she believes that it is her duty to protect something that her parents cherish. This strikes a chord with Gintoki as he later reveals that he also lives by the same principle.

Just as Gintoki sees something special in Tae, Tae also sees something special in him that she allows her brother to go work with Gintoki by the end of the first episode.

As season one goes on, Gintoki and Tae start to grow closer and their relationship stronger. Tae often uses his service to solve her problems. She gets him to help her ward off her stalker, catch a pervert that stole her panties, and help a friend get her money back from a scammer. They also work together several times to help Shinpachi when he got played by a girl and when Shinpachi tries to save his childhood friend from a biker gang. The time Tae spends with the Yorozuya also develops her friendship with Gintoki into a partnership filled with mutual respect and trust. Season two onwards see the two of them becoming more and more intimate with each other.

Apart from interacting while on the job, they also spend a lot of their free time together doing domestic family activities with Shinpachi and Kagura, like having dinner together, attending festivals, going for a holiday, visiting the bath house, and shopping.

Gintoki and Tae are the closest hetero relationship in Gintama, being not only the parents figure to Shinpachi and Kagura but also the leaders of Kabukicho. They are often perceived as a couple by close friends and acquaintances, even though most of their interactions are familial at its root.

Gintoki and Tae have been shown to have deep, unspoken understanding about each other. Such meaningful bond is demonstrated as early as in Gintama’s first major arc, when Tae is looking after Gintoki after he gets severely wounded. She voices her concern for his safety and advices him not to push himself too hard for the sake of Shinpachi and Kagura, but still prepares his clothes for him to go into battle, much to Gintoki’s surprise. To reciprocate Tae seeing through him, in Yagyuu arc, Gintoki tells her that he understands the reason she agrees to marry Kyubei in the first place is because she is just trying to protect what’s important to her, and so does he, which is a callback to the first episode.

Like many heroines in anime, Tae can be very controlling of Gintoki and violent towards him, but she also respects him highly in serious arcs. Despite her boss lady attitude, she sees Gintoki as the head of her family, sometimes even letting him make the decision for her and her brother.

Both of them respect and admire each other but are too proud to admit it. They are both shown to care deeply for each other but would resort to tsundere-ish insults to hide how they actually feel about the other, with Gintoki calling Tae ‘uncute woman’ and ‘craziest chick I know’ and Tae calling Gintoki ‘stupid man’ and 'Mr Demon who destroyed the world’.

Both Gintoki and Tae also have been described by other characters as being very discreet when it comes to their true feelings. Gintoki will hide behind his dead fish eyes while Tae hides behind her smile. This trait is necessary to maintain the family theme in Gintama and not make their romantic feelings for each other a distraction. In one episode however, it is revealed that the reason Tae always complain about Gintoki is because she has feelings for him, and Gintoki also reciprocate her feelings by staying by her side to listen to her complains. However, both of them are revealed to be parody characters at the end of the episode.

Trivia

 * According to an official Jump poll made in 2013, GinTae is the second most popular het ship in Japan. Tae was voted as the 5th character and second female character to be paired with Gintoki on the Jump cover.
 * GinTae trended on Yahoo Japan several times, including when the final chapter was released.
 * GinTae shippers celebrate GinTae Festival every October which is the birthday month of Gintoki and Tae.
 * GinTae shippers use the emoji ocean wave and sakura 🌊🌸 or strawberry and sakura 🍓🌸 to symbolise GinTae
 * GinTae Final Fantasy or Gintae FF is a term that are frequently used by Japanese shippers to talk about GinTae after chapter 670