A (no so) brief character study on Sanzu
My beloved partner asked me for my opinion on Sanzu, and I thought I might as well make a post out of it. That post ended up severely lacking in chill though I had lots of fun writing it!
Disclaimer: what follows is my understanding of Sanzu’s character. Just my own, personal reading of TR. Please enjoy!
As I’ve said previously, Sanzu is one of my favorite characters in TR (I prefer Kisaki to be honest, for many reasons, but that’s another discussion for another day). That being said, I think his characterization in the manga is also one of the most frustrating, if not THE most frustrating because the story ended without telling us much about him though he is of pivotal importance to the plot. I wouldn’t say it is bad writing, because I don’t think it is, but it is nevertheless super frustrating. Here’s a somewhat structured collection of my thoughts about Sanzu, and I’m mostly talking about his role within the narrative, and what might inform his point of view as well as how he might be perceived by the other characters. Naturally, a lot of this belongs in fanfiction territory.
I’ll starting with names, because most characters in Tokyo Revengers have cools names that can tell you lots about their personality and role into the story. In this case, Sanzu is no exception.
A river of three crossings, Sanzu no Kawa.
So I don’t speak Japanese at all, and I can’t read kanji for shit either, but I do know a thing or two about Shintoïsm and Hinduïsm, and we’ve seen throughout the manga that TR is riddled with Buddhist imagery.
In this case, the name Sanzu chooses for himself refers to the river that separates the living and the dead. The Sanzu-no-Kawa (literally the “River of Three Crossings”. Three. Yes, you read that right lol) is a mythological river in the Japanese Buddhist tradition.
Basically, before they can reach the afterlife, the souls of the deceased must cross the Sanzu River by one of three crossing points: a bridge, a ford, or a stretch of deep, snake-infested waters. Where you can cross the river is decided based on how you’ve lived your life. The more offenses you’ve committed, the harder it will be to cross the river.
On a side note, I noticed that “Sanzu” only exists in altered timelines. Before Shinichiro time leaps for the first time, Sanzu still goes by Haru. It’s not until Haru remembers seeing Shinichiro drowning in a river that he takes the name of Sanzu.
Another fun fact is the possible link between Sanzu’s name and Senju’s moniker (“Kawaragi”). Similarly to the Sanzu-no-Kawa, there is also the Sai-no-Kawara (“Riverbed of Death”) which is the boundary by which the souls of young children cross over to the realm of the dead.
It’s also neat to note that their given names both involve the number ‘one thousand’. I’m not too sure what to make of it, but I like thinking that a name roughly translating to ‘one thousand springs’ (Haruchiyo) is a sort of pun, referring to a sort of time loop. Spring always comes back the same every year, and Haruchiyo is stuck in the past, with memories from alternative timelines. Nothing changes but everything is different.
The one who stands in between
To me, Sanzu is the character who has the least sense of belonging anywhere in the story, the one who stands in between factions, in between past and future, friends and enemies. For instance, Sanzu is both Mikey’s oldest friend and the one Mikey is seemingly the most estranged from at the beginning of the story. Towards the end of the manga, Sanzu clearly appears the be the one who knows the most about Mikey’s past and time leaping yet he says the least. As Shinichiro’s trigger, the Sanzu we know best has two conflicting sets of memories. Amongst all the characters in TR, that makes him the one most capable of relating to Takemichi, because he’s the only one who has experienced having knowledge of altered timelines, and dealing with trauma caused by the knowledge of multiple failed timelines. Moreover, their goals should align, yet for the most part, they’re actively working against one another. In fact, I would argue that Sanzu’s situation is even more tragic and agonizing since he’s dealing with the knowledge of the worst timeline conjointly with the uncertainty of the future, and the inability of having a clear view of the consequences of his present actions.
That would explain why he seems to have such a fatalistic view of his actions. I think Sanzu must have felt incredibly helpless, from the moment he’s seen Shinichiro die. Maybe the only sense of agency he could reclaim in that situation was to take on the Shinichiro’s purpose as his own destiny and become Mikey’s guardian, thus relegating himself to the role of a helper. Or in this case, an enabler.
Come to think about Takemichi, I think it would be easy to imagine that Sanzu would have been jealous of him. Although Takemichi comes from nothing and he is a stranger, he manages to capture Mikey’s interest very early on. On the one hand, Takemichi enters Toman of his own volition and quickly becomes a core member. On the other hand, although Sanzu is a close childhood friend of Baji and Mikey, he is not a founding member, and upon entering Toman he is tossed from one division to the other due to his behavior. Sanzu is constantly sidelined whereas Takemichi always remains at the center of the action. Everything that Takemichi has, Sanzu might have thought he deserved. Sanzu was already fiercely loyal to Mikey before Takemichi first entered their lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sanzu felt like Takemichi stole his place by Mikey’s side.
The weigh of Karma, destiny and cie
Though Sanzu and Takemichi have a lot in common, starting from their devotion to the goal of saving Mikey from himself, the hidden struggle of reconciling their knowledge of different timelines with the present and future, layered identities, an eroded sense of self, etc…, I think the most fundamental difference between Sanzu and Takemichi is a difference between passive and active. Whereas Takemichi actively struggles to reclaim his life from a series of doomed timelines, Sanzu takes the opposite stance of resisting change.
Sanzu is pretty much the diametrical opposite of Takemichi in that aspect, which is probably why although their main goals align, they’re always at odds with each other. That being said, although Takemichi is unambiguously the hero of the story, Sanzu isn’t a clear antagonist. He’s neither hero nor a villain. If you look at it from a more meta stance, he’s a very ambivalent character, being both central to the story, and on the periphery of the narrative.
(Now that we’ve seen the conclusion of the manga, we know that Sanzu’s probably talking about Mikey’s cruse in the screenshot above. But it tells you something about him that he would have such a fatalistic approach on Mikey’s struggles when it is contrasted with Takemichi’s. Curses are absolute. Essentially, to Sanzu, saving Mikey doesn’t mean getting rid of his dark impulses, it means allowing Mikey to embrace them. Someone who can’t bear Mikey’s darkness doesn’t deserve to stand by his side.)
Mikey’s loyal mad dog
Sanzu’s character is actually really fascinating and multi-faceted. He’s manipulative and clever. Devoted to a fault. He feels a heaviness of duty to his friend who is like a god. In Tokyo Revengers, Mikey is Sanzu’s promise and his future. For Sanzu, there is nothing that cannot be sacrificed for Mikey’s sake, including his own sister. Sanzu can be both calculated and quick to judge and take risks. He has little regard for authority that he does not respect. I wouldn’t put past him acts of radical love. Sanzu following Mikey in every timeline is a radical act of love. Actually, one of the things I found particularly interesting about Sanzu in the latest parts of the manga is that although he’s always become a career criminal in every future timeline we’ve seen, he clearly states that he doesn’t want to be a delinquent. To be fair, that panel belongs in the conclusion of the manga, which corresponds to the only timeline where Sanzu does not in fact become a career criminal.
That reminded me a bit of Kakucho ending up becoming a career criminal in every timeline as well, to be honest. There are many fun parallels you can draw between Kakucho/Izana dynamics and Sanzu/Mikey. I’m sure you can see a sort of mirroring here.
Relationships
(do you see me getting increasingly lazy with my titles?)
1) Takeomi & Senju
They are the family he’s rejected. They’ve probably failed him from Sanzu’s perspective. The only timeline where we see Sanzu and Takeomi together is the Bonten timeline, and Senju is absent from the picture (most likely dead? Definitely dead? I don’t remember exactly). I think in this timeline, helping Mikey might have been a way for Takeomi to redeem himself in Sanzu’s eyes. Becoming a key, essential figure of Mikey’s organization might have allowed Takeomi to 1) ensure Mikey and Sanzu’s relative safety and 2) remain part of Sanzu’s life now that he’s the only family he has left.
2) Shinichiro
Honestly I very much understand Sanzu’s relationship with Shinichiro through the lenses of sibling trauma. I’m not saying Takeomi was abusive to his siblings. He probably tried his best to raise them, being a very young, struggling adult himself when he took charge of their family. But on the other hand, what little we’ve seen of Takeomi in the manga doesn’t bode well for their home life. Ironically, although Sanzu’s life was drastically affected by Shinichiro’s action, and he might have looked up to him, his entire worldview seems to be closer to Takeomi’s than Shinichiro’s (or Takemichi’s which is identical to Shin’s). You could say that Shin’s perspective would be more along the lines of “reshape the world to your ideals” and Takeomi’s would be the opposite, “reshape your ideals to fit the world you live in”. That translates to Sanzu enabling Mikey’s dark impulses instead of struggling against it like Takemichi does throughout the story.
3) Mucho
Mikey probably knew Mucho would be a good fit for Sanzu because Mucho is also out of place in Toman. I think their relationship might have been extremely ambivalent. In some aspect, maybe Sanzu truly loved Mucho as a brother. But that love might have been twisted from the start. Remember, from beginning to end, Sanzu kept lying to Mucho. We never get to see Sanzu’s point of view in this sequence, only Mucho’s, so we don’t know how sincere he was.
In a sense, maybe he was sincere to some extent, and he still chose his self-imposed duty to Mikey over his affection for Mucho. Sacrifice is only meaningful if you lose something important to you, right? Maybe Sanzu killed Mucho to redeem himself in Mikey’s eyes precisely because he cared for Mucho. That’s something we will never know for sure.
4) Mikey
There’s Shinichiro’s ghost, the knowledge Sanzu had of a past in which Mikey died, but we can’t pin down his obsessive devotion to Mikey on Sanzu’s dual sets of memories and his implication in Shinichiro’s crusade to save his brother. Remember, this happened before the story even started.
Sanzu was always devoted to Mikey, and his brand of devotion is one of destruction. Upon first reading, I thought Sanzu’s character reminded me of Medea (I’m thinking of more modern depictions of Medea though. I can only recommend Bright Air Black by David Vann).
Generally speaking, Medea plays the archetypal role of the enabler. She helps Jason steal the Golden Fleece by using her magic to save his life out of love and then brutally murders her own brother so they can escape. They eventually get married but Jason leaves her 10 years after to remarry King Creon’s daughter Creusa. In an act of revenge, she murders Creusa with poisoned gifts and kills her own sons by Jason.
Sanzu reminds me of her for three reasons:
The excess of love bordering on obsession: the love he has for Mikey is immeasurable. In every failed timeline, he’s constantly on his side, living in his shadow. On a side note, I’m convinced Kisaki would have kept a very close eye on him in every timeline Kisaki ruled Toman using Mikey’s name. I don’t think he would have necessarily killed him, but Kisaki would have certainly recognized the danger Sanzu posed to himself. On the one hand, their goals seem to neatly align: making Mikey the head of the most successful criminal organization in Japan. On the other hand, their methods and end results are contradictory. They would have been bound to clash at some point, and I have no doubt Kisaki would have come on top.
The mysteriously blind devotion: Sanzu didn’t choose to love Mikey, and his love is servitude. He expects nothing from Mikey in return for his devotion, and he gains nothing for his services.
The potential for backfire: Sanzu’s only human, and they never had the opportunity to grow old in failed timelines. I wonder how long it would take for Sanzu to snap. Some dogs don’t wait long to bite the feeding hand, but in Sanzu’s case, Mikey never did much to feed him what he wants (love? recognition? gratitude?) That makes me think that an interesting idea for fiction would be to think about what would make Sanzu snap and turn against Mikey. What would he do to exorcize years of rancœur over being scored and neglected, the shame of being used? What would he do if Mikey were to betray him? I’m thinking of something along the lines of Misery by Stephen King tbh. I can’t imagine Sanzu killing Mikey. But forcing Mikey to enact his fantasy of being his perfect King? That would be a good darker twist on their relationship.
On Sanzu’s appearance
One thing I noticed about Sanzu’s character design is that apart from the ultimate timeline, his face is consistently scarred, and his appearance oscillates between pretty and grotesque, masculine and feminine, conformity and rebellion, hiding and exposing himself. Sanzu’s character design is also very interesting, including a variety of masculine/feminine elements. He’s also been shown to be very unconventional as a bosozoku gang member as well. If you remember the beginning of the manga, and to some extent, the Kanto incident, bringing a weapon to a fistfight is not something most gang members would do because it’s seen as cowardly, and most of them actually put a lot of stock into traditional fighting values. It’s also really interesting to see that Sanzu himself doesn’t seem to belong completely in gang culture as enacted in Toman. He didn’t want to be a delinquent in the first place, and he isn’t shown fully adhere to gang values (as emphasized in Tenjiku/Kanto Manji arcs, he brings weapons to fist fights, manipulates and lies to his superiors, doesn’t fight his opponents straight forwardly, etc…).
Sanzu doesn’t really belong anywhere. He’s always in between. He doesn’t fit in society, but he doesn’t fit in Toman either. He doesn’t fit into Tenjiku either and ends up betraying Mucho. He doesn’t exactly fit in Bonten either since Mikey keeps rejecting his help.
That was super long and rambling, and I would have to think some more about the last parts where I got lazy. For instance, it might be interesting to think about Sanzu’s lies. Does he believe in his own lies? What do his lies tell us about him? On a last side note, @echtach-messy-place, you said I wrote a lot about Sanzu which is not exactly true because what I mostly wrote about is Mikey from Sanzu’s perspective. So I technically didn’t really write all that much about Sanzu himself. But Sanzu is so interesting, and in my opinion, he’s one of the best-written characters in TR up until the last arc. It’s a pity he wasn’t given a more thorough backstory :’). I would have loved to learn more about his relationship with his siblings for instance, and maybe his interactions with Mikey, since it’s always been shown to be so one-sided (which is quite telling in itself, ok.)
