Okay, I hear you folks loud and clear. Here it is.
How Suo foils Sakura as a character
For starters, their personalities, on the surface, are quite different. Sakura is rather brash, but he is very upfront about his feelings and takes initiative when needed. Suo carries himself with dignity and grace, but remains passive and would much rather observe a situation unfold at a distance.
This translates into the way they fight as I’ve mentioned before. Aside from their fighting styles being completely different (Sakura’s kickboxing is close contact while Suo’s aikido lacks contact and focuses on deflecting attacks), the way they treat their opponents differ. While Sakura makes an effort to understand Togame, Suo imposes his own (contrived) worldviews on Kanuma. Sakura converses; Suo monologues.
Speaking of Umemiya’s philosophies, Sakura is known to eat a lot ( @furinfry made a really nice writeup on this theme, and they explain it much better than I can), even being dubbed a glutton by… Suo. Which is funny, because it’s been shown that Suo himself doesn’t consume food around others, claiming to be on a diet.
If Suo’s refusal to eat is a metaphor for his self-alienation from his peers, then Sakura’s acceptance of Umemiya’s advice is proof of his assimilation to Furin.
On the topic of alienation, Sakura is vulnerable and wears his heart on his sleeve; he unintentionally lets people into his world whether he realizes or not. Suo does none of these things—and his emotions are either (unintentionally) drawn out by the people he cares about, or when he witnesses something that contradicts his principles.
Sakura hates covering his appearance, while Suo makes it a point to do so (given that he literally wore a scuba suit to a beach).
The way they treat Nirei post-KEEL also differ. Suo is concerned for Nirei and helps foster his fighting skill to the extent of abilities, but Sakura remains rather ‘wary’/protective of Nirei (obligatory dead wife flashback mention)
There’s also the case with how they handle other people’s situations. Suo first observed and evaluates, then shares his own rational conclusion while Sakura tends to be upfront of what he feels about it.
The way their internal dialogues are written also differ. Sakura’s focuses on himself and his introspections (given that he’s the MC), and they’re very descriptive. But Suo’s is limited; he simply addresses the situation around him. The only time he introspects is to put himself below Sakura.
I’m probably missing a lot of things, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Additional Tidbits which add no value to this post:
Sakura’s flower is the Cherry Blossom, a tree that is so rooted in Japanese culture. Suo’s is the Chinese redbud, which is well… inherently Chinese (gotta tag @psychicwavementality for this one)
Sakura is learning how to cook, but Suo makes it a point that he prefers to bake instead
Sakura develops throughout the story, but Suo stays rather stagnant (I really want to make a writeup on this which also talks about Nirei’s development soon)
Suo’s character color is red; Sakura’s color is sometimes green (representing Furin). Both red and green are complementary colors on the color wheel.
