Endo said the furthest thing from the truth, and it's completely understandable that Sakura reacted so aggressively.
Okay, Suo wasn't honest with the boys and constantly lied to them. But does that mean he wasn't their ally?
What about everything Suo did during his time at Furin? It was Suo who suggested Sakura become first-year grade captain because he believed in him. It was Suo who trained and motivated Nirei. He was seen as the brain and heart of their team, when he proved himself as the strategist during the Noroshi War.
Throughout his time at Furin, Suo supported the boys, helping them develop. He cared about their well-being and making them even stronger. If that's not behavior worthy of an ally, I don't know what is.
Suo did what he had to do and disappeared and only his disappearance should be considered betrayal. I refuse to believe that what he did while he was with the boys stemmed from malicious intent. He brought too much good to the group to be considered anything other than an ally.
I believe Suo was the strongest ally from the very beginning.
I’ve been thinking about cha. 146 a lot recently. More specifically, about how both Nerei and Suo offer to fight Endo on behalf of Sakura while Sugishita tells him to finish what he started. The scene stands out to me, especially on a reread, as one which clearly shows Suo Being OffTM before the official start of his arc.
This scene showcases two of Suo’s worst habits 1. dissociating and 2. projecting onto Sakura.
I think it is very important that Nerei speaks up first. This is, of course, an indicator of the progression of Nerei’s own arc of becoming a Furin protector like the people around him he so admires. I initially thought that was the only reason that he spoke up first. But then, Suo said his piece and it just felt so flat in comparison I did a double take. Nirei’s impassioned speech comes first so that Suo’s can flop harder as a pale imitation.
Suo often echoes what other people are saying in conversations or quickly passes the proverbial talking stick onto others. E.g. the special chapter:
(There are sooo many other examples of this. Revisit your favorite “Down Time” chapter and I promise you’ll see it in a new light). It’s like he can’t always muster up the energy to fully engage and just parrots what others have already said.
146 keeps this pattern going. Suo starts by basically saying, “Ditto:”
He reheats Nirei’s leftover nachos for the most part with “This time we’re here to pick up where you left off.” He then ends by passing the burden of conversation/choice onto Sugishita:
cha. 146 is, however, the first instance in which this happens in a high-stakes environment. Suo is reaching his limit!!
Now, I say, “For the most part” because there’s some nuance—bringing me to his habit of projecting.
Suo and Sakura are foils. They have both been shown to clearly see parts of themselves in the other. So, when he and the reader see a Sakura who is clearly not fully convinced by his and Nirei’s words:
(My boy is CONFLICTED)
he musters up the energy to engage more fully and pivots into adding what he himself would want to hear.
Suo’s face is often covered during moments when he is trying to hide emotional vulnerability (see: all of 210-212). So, I think that this boy is deffers saying what he himself desperately wants to be told.
Unfortunately for him, as Sugishita so bluntly points out later in the scene, what Sakura needs is different. And so, because Suo’s projecting his own desires and also leaning heavily on Nirei and Sugishita to do the emotional uplifting Sakura needs, his attempt at convincing Sakura not to fight is a major swing and a miss.
TLDR: 146 has so much juicy Suo content to dissect and I love speculating about why the curtains are blue.
I just realized that Suo is not surprised by the natto. He's actually surprised Nirei accidentally spoke to someone who knows him.
He's surprised Nirei figured anything out about him at all.
This also implies somebody who knows Suo intimately was stalking his activity at Bofurin, and Nirei stumbled into them. This might actually be a serious plot point hiding in plain sight.
Everyone is like "oh, Suo is going to be the villain", "Suo might be there to gather intel for another group", "he's going to betray them", but from looking at panels of Suo and analysing his eye (the most expressive part of him), the way he looks at his friends it screams more like he is sure he might not have a lot of time with them, wether that's because he actually belongs to another sort of gang or criminal organisation and he knows he'll have to go back to them, or, what I think might be more feasible, someone is after Suo and that might be why he's so secretive, his level of skill for his age, the casual references to his master, how weird "diet", his need to protect people, the way he's being portrayed as untouchable... Idk, to me this screams he's going to have one hell of a sad backstory and also, there's definitely someone after him.
I think he sees himself in Sakura a bit, sure he has no trouble socialising on the outside, he acts cheery, he's a tease, he interacts with people, he's kind to them, he protects them, he engages in various conversations, he gives advice but if we use Umemiya's main two lessons to Sakura so far "fighting is a conversation" "eating brings them closer to each other,helps create bonds", Suo uses a mainly defensive style of fighting, one could say that means that he's avoidant in conversations, and he doesn't eat with the others, which might show that he is unsure about creating actual bonds with his classmates, possibly because he is sure he's going to have to leave them at some point.
One scene that kind of solidified that I could see Suo being similar to Sakura is when they go visit him while he's sick, Suo's eye had a particular softness and sadness that to me looked more like he was recognising himself in Sakura, what with being alone and not letting people in to help him, it looked like he personally understood Sakura's situation.
Look, idk, this might just be a bunch of nonsense, I just got into Windbreaker 4 days ago, but I just feel like Suo and Sakura are folds of each other in a way. Sakura is wary of getting closer to people because he's been ostracized and shunned in the past, Suo is wary of getting closer emotionally because he fears the pain of having to leave them behind.
Unlike most other series out there, Nii-sensei does a good job of giving the series events a sense of [progression of time]. This way, the audience has a good idea of how much time passed since the start of the series, and thus Sakura’s character growth:
From the information available, we are able to extrapolate a rough timeline of events
April 1st - Sakura’s birthday. He turns 15 (confirmed by Nii-sensei that Sakura is the youngest in his class)
First week of April: School starts
First day of school: Meets Nirei and Suo and the rest of the classmates, goes on patrol after school and gets in a tussle with Shishitoren.
2nd day: 1:1 matchups with Shishitoren.
3rd day: Meet more of Class 1-1, including Kiryu and Tsuge.
4th day: Class 1-1 chooses Sakura as grade captain
(assuming a weekend here)
5th day: Sakura wants to get to know his classmates more, including Anzai and learns about KEEL.
6th day: fights KEEL after school
7th day: Sakura needs a sick day off from school.
8th day: Sakura speaks up to Kaji-senpai, opens up to Class 1-1 and is accepted by them for both the strength they see but also his awkward self too :)
The rest of April-June: Getting used to Furin life, meeting Tsubaki, Old Man Ito etc.
First week of June - Ropo Ichiza and Gravel arc
June 7th ish - June 21st: Training arcs with the senpai
June 21st - Furin War starts (Takiishi’s birthday). Lasts one night
Around July 21st- Bbq party, shortly after summer break starts this week.
August 5th - festival hangout with Shishitoren
Second week of August: Visits Furin Gardens (Kotoha and Ume’s group home/orphanage), meets Natsuki and we see how relaxed and calm he is, and how he acknowledges he’s been changed by the town :) !
usually the summer break ends the last week of August.. this could mean slice of life will end and plot hits when they’re back in school, or plot hits in the next few chapters anyways.
timeline wise it still seems to be the first week of August
cool tidbits:
S1 anime covered literally the first week of Sakura starting high school (and the first 10 episodes took place over the first 3 days!)
S2 anime covers about 2 months of time in their world
the hoped for S3 anime will probably have the first 3 episodes cover the 2 week period of June 7-21, and the rest of the season will take place in the hours after June 21 (talk about dragon ball Z pacing haha, a few hours is covered by 15+ anime episodes)
In ~200 chapters of the manga, only about 5 months have passed since Sakura moved to Makochi. We’ve already seen him experience Spring at furin, and now we’re currently in Summer.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s wild that only 2-3 months after starting high school, Sakura has assimilated so much into the community and has earned so much love and respect from everyone there, even the 4 kings and Ume 🥹❤️
the revelation that suo helped care for and train younger kids that were in harsh environments puts this scene, and the entirety of 56, into a fresh perspective for me. suo was familiar with circumstances like these. it even explains why he took the lead, when hes usually more content hanging back. suo couldve been working off of his own personal experience in ch56, but i dont really believe that anymore. he was very efficient when he entered sakuras house. it was well practiced. he intruded as much as necessary to ascertain sakurasa well-being, and left once he had.
these panels, however, i completely believe are things that suo went through. especially the second one. that has to be how he felt after losing/damaging his eye. the only thing we dont know is what happened that 'wasnt normal for him' but considering this whole conversation is about receiving help that you dont know how to engage with, it couldve been from his master, or from rakta or from bacchus. or someone unrelated! we dont know yet. OR it could even serve as foreshadowing for this current arc. nii sensei put in a blaring neon sign saying "SUO CANNOT HANDLE RECEIVING HELP IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES" and nirei being like "i want to anyway ❤"
this panel also sticks out to me. theres something so distinctly longing in his expression. and the way that we see nirei moving away from him but not him with kotoha really emphasizes that lonely feeling. suo is so cleanly separated from them and their ways of thinking.
Why Shishitoren was a good first arc and what it established about our main characters [Analysis]
(Pretty long post ahead!!)
[From chapter 10]
Who I'm referring to when I say main characters: Sakura, Umemiya, Sugishita, Suo, and Nirei (even though I had nothing to say about him in this analysis). And I personally do not count the first four chapters as an arc, considering it's literally just an introduction.
We're gonna go in order, so:
Sugishita vs. Arima
I adore how fast that fight happened, if we can even call it a fight. It really didn't need to be longer, because Sugishita already had his time to shine during his fight against Sakura.
Though, it does put into perspective just how strong Sugishita is (and how skilled Sakura is, considering he was able to keep up with him) and it establishes that his high pain tolerance is one of his main strength.
But it also displayed his biggest weakness: Umemiya, or, how much he cares about Umemiya, even above himself or his own safety.
[From chapter 10]
Despite his outward nonchalant attitude, it becomes obvious very quickly that Sugishita is very fragile emotionally. He struggles to handle and hide his emotions, and lacks the emotional maturity a fifteen years-old should have (which we learn later why), as we can see with just how jealous he is of Sakura being skilled, but most importantly, the fact that Umemiya recognises Sakura's potential too.
But the thing is, he's clearly aware of it, which is why he's so focused on staying by Umemiya's side, who guides and reassures Sugishita like it's breathing.
[From chapter 10, 11, & 28]
Sugishita and Umemiya's dynamic also emphasises Umemiya's own maturity, patience and natural leadership. It would be easy for Umemiya to force Sugishita to be more social, to sit in the circle and talk with others, but he doesn't. He doesn't tease him for it either, he just lets Sugishita stay in his comfort zone where and when he wants to, without babying him or coddling him in that comfort zone either.
Suo vs. Kanuma
During his very first introduction, we're clearly told there's something off about Suo, but he's still so friendly!! And helpful to Sakura! It's hard to know just how genuine this friendliness is, but with this fight, we get a much better idea of Suo's personality as a whole. Yes, Suo is kind, playful and protective, but he's also got this much darker, sadistic, and childish part of himself.
I like the difference in which Umemiya and Sakura see Suo letting the fight go on, instead of ending it just as quickly as Sugishita did. Umemiya has more experience, and is able to see Suo as a whole, both his kindness and childish desire to show how strong he can be to Sakura, despite the fact that Sakura doesn't understand that and instead sees Suo's way of handling this fight as cruel.
[From chapter 12]
But this fight also gives us clues on who Suo used to be, or who he's trying not to be, and on his master as well, with his Staircase to adulthood metaphor, which is ironic because he's still a teenager himself.
[From chapter 12 & 13]
We're also told to expect a fight between Sakura and Suo at some point.
Hiragi vs. Sako
I really don't have anything to say about their fight xD Other than the tension between these two is so thick you could cut it with a knife
like.
[From chapter 14 & 15]
I'm honestly really glad that Sako came back later on, it was a nice surprise!
Sakura vs. Togame
While this fight is a lot more about Togame than Sakura, Togame's problematic with Tomiyama's behaviour and how much he's indulged him in this behaviour serves as a great warning on the ways that love and devotion can turn into something twisted, even if the love is pure.
But I think that Togame sort of giving up at the end (and then trying to talk to Tomiyama when he came on stage) is also a good comfort for Sakura to see that even someone who he considers trashy can change, actually.
[From chapter 1 & 20]
The story keeps on pushing Sakura to face this new perspective, the one where he doesn't have to reject people and stay alone, to aim for the top alone, simply because he believed so for so long, he's allowed to meet new people who expend his perspective on life and himself.
I was thinking this might have also been an important fight for Sugishita to see, even if he seemed more focused on Sakura being a good fighter than the way his own devotion for Umemiya parallels Togame's for Tomiyama. But, to be fair, we barely get any insight on Sugishita's thoughts in general, so he might have noticed but just thought something along the lines of: It's not like Umemiya would ever lose his mind like Tomiyama, right? Right.
[From chapter 22] (Umemiya isn't in the shot here but he is sitting where Sugishita's looking at, on his right.)
Also, this fight was a good way to start Togame and Sakura's friendship, which becomes really important later on!
Now, about Sakura, we've got yet another claim that he'd prefer death over humiliation/giving up, and while it may seem like an exaggeration, we learn much later on that he means it. So, Sakura values his goals above himself or his own safety, and he might have suffered or even still suffer from some type of suicidal ideation/thoughts.
[From chapter 17]
And once again, the story insists on Sakura's instinctive protectiveness, when he tries to attack Tomiyama for kicking Togame.
One last thing I think this fight did well was 'refuse' to give the answer of who's the strongest between the two. By making Togame give up, the author basically said "This story may have fighting as a mean to create tension and push its characters to change, but it's still at its core about teenagers learning to be better people." and I think that's neat.
Umemiya vs. Tomiyama
This fight was perfect to showcase Umemiya's emotional maturity regarding his title, and his talents as a fighter, which were contrasted by Tomiyama's current mental and emotional instability.
I've also just found the depiction of Tomiyama's breakdown beautiful, both in the textures and emotions on their faces, but also in how calm, patient, and stable Umemiya stays toward Tomiyama, like an anchor during a storm. Even when it would have been more than justified to just throw him of, Umemiya makes a point to have a conversation with Tomiyama, to try to guide him out of this lonely path.
[From chapter 25]
Forgiveness is a core character trait of Umemiya, and knowing about his past, his patience and gentleness toward Tomiyama make a lot of sense.
Now, back on Sakura. Sakura and Tomiyama have one trait in common, which is the one that drove Tomiyama out of line: they love fighting and find purpose in it.
Sakura seeing just how destructive letting yourself fall into that feeling of loneliness, while pushing others away (or having others pushed away from him, in Tomiyama's case) was crucial for him and his journey as the next leader of Bofurin.
Basically, this arc is a direct continuation of Sakura's first obstacle in the story: Kotoha's claim, clashing with Sakura's core belief that he can only count on himself.
[From chapter 29 & 28]
Despite being one of my least favourite arc (I don't hate it, I just prefer other arcs), I think it did a really good job at 'selling' itself and wbk. The way the fights gradually become more and more interesting made sense, it's basically a tournament arc but remixed and a lot more interesting because there are only 5 fights, and it shows us that despite the anatomy, poses, textures, and angles of the 'camera' being mastered, wbk also has many stories to tell with its characters, and that Sakura's journey will be a lot more complex than getting strong enough to beat Umemiya in a fight.
The two panels we got from WBK 216 of Bankoku-Gai/Kasai District are very interesting to look at that I wanna break them down and maybe pinpoint a certain location where the place could be based on.
We have (1) an old Chinese man in a samfu and a Qing Dynasty cap, (2) a Muslim woman with a hijab, (3) an Indian woman in a sari, (4) a Saudi Arabian man in a thawb, the men's official national dress, (5) a child wearing a keffiyah (worn in parts of the Middle East and North Africa), (6) a Korean man in traditional hanbok, and lastly (7) a Chinese man in Western-style clothing (that specific look with the harness and golf cap probably dates back to the 1920s, either during the Republican era of China or the British colonisation of Hong Kong).
[Edit: the one wearing hanbok is a Korean woman, my mistake.]
This is very much a mix of different people that literally come from different eras and backgrounds, but maybe the following panel might give us more context and clues.
Getting the obvious out of the way, the yin-yang symbol represents Taoism, and in the context of martial arts, yin-yang is a fundamental concept to learn for fighting styles like tai chi. Other professions like Chinese traditional doctors and feng shui masters also based their studies around Taoism.
In the background, we have a big Muslim mosque on the right (plus the crescent moon for Islam) and either a tall Buddhist or Hindu temple on the left. This is reminding me very much of my country Malaysia, which is a very multicultural place with many different races and ethnicities (the top three races in terms of demographics are Malays, Chinese and Indians), and among its most popular religions are Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. (May I point out the significance of threes and Red Chanpuru having three dragons as their logo.)
It actually fits with the etymology of "chanpuru" being taken from the Malay word "campur" and refers to the blending of cultures found in Okinawa, including Southeast Asian.
There are a few things that I'm not sure where it came from, like the ornament of the creature with its tongue out (probably Japanese) and the mouse-like creature on the right roof eave of Bankoku-gai's gate (I have no idea at all). But the small guardian lion holding a ball on the left roof eave looks to be Chinese (not Okinawan since shisa do not have balls under their paws). The hanging neon signs along the left and right sides seem to resemble Hong Kong and Taiwan a lot, and the sheer number of lanterns and intricate decorations on the entrance gate and the giant dragon on the bottom right is giving Chinatown.
Now, this is to not discredit the Okinawan theories on Red Chanpuru and Suo. Okinawa itself is a mixture of cultures from traditional Okinawan to Chinese to mainland Japanese to Southeast Asian to North American, and I do believe Suo's fighting style is based on a mix of various Okinawan martial arts (please do check out @asofspades' master post on Okinawan Suo, it's so good).
My big takeaway is that Nii-sensei might not just be taking influences from Okinawa alone and also include other places like Malaysia, Hong Kong and China in order to create a true sense of multiculturalism. China has a significant Muslim minority and has trade relations with African and Arab countries, Malaysia and Hong Kong have Indian populations, and Japan has Zainichi Koreans. Perhaps, the common denominator across the board seems to be the Chinese influence when creating Suo's background for the current arc in the manga.
