meh. i lurk. or I stop lurking. I'll see how I like it. everyone else is doing it so why shouldn't I? none of this is my art cause I can't draw but I write a lot. that's kinda art too.
In the fight with the "little boy" Suo was already pissed but he smiled and talked to his opponent. His teasing was part of the psychological game.
In the Keel fight late game he stays silent. Completely silent the whole time. There is no scratch on him and his opponent is already beaten up, his grin completely gone. He doesn't know it yet. But he's already dead.
And the parallels and differences between Suo's Shishitoren and Keel fights are amazing to me. (Of course it is also easier on the author to draw similar things, but how Suo is characterized is a conscious choice in my opinion.)
The perspective puts Suo above his opponent (the Keel guy is a little taller than him).
Both stances are menacing. But in a very different way. With Shishitoren he waits for his opponent to come to him, to play with him, let him get close and then effortlessly deflect any attempt. In the Keel fight he strides towards the guy, completely unstoppable. Not for once he takes his eyes off of him. I think he won't even blink until his target is eliminated.
He forces both of his opponents to fight an uphill battle against him. What I also noticed is that Suo is almost the only character allowed to break the boundaries of the panels. Especially in fights it is used to portray its overwhelming strength. (The only other character I noticed doing that is Nirei for comic relief mostly. I will look out for more examples.)
And while Suo definitely holds back in Shishitoren and times his kick perfectly to break his opponent mentally...
...he uses the same move to completely annihilate that smug Keel guy. Without hesitation. He turns the momentum of the charge attack against his opponent and well... that guy is out.
But instead of stopping with the knock out we see what happens when you make Suo snap. And this is the point I was trying to make. The cool and calm Suo has lost it. Something happened in-between scenes to provoke that part of him that he usually hides behind a smile. If Sakura didn't intervene that guy would be history.
He's so done with it all. He's furious. He's full of hate. And I don't think that hate is only towards his opponent in this fight.
There are many theories about what Suo hides under his eye patch. And my guess is that it has to do with his reaction here. The notion that an ancient deity is sealed in his eye (nice Chunibyo reference) has maybe more truth to it than one would expect. East Asian Gods are not my specialty but like in every other pantheon we will find gods of retribution or revenge. Everyone loves a good dualism and Suo shows us his two (or more?) faces. (By which I don't mean that one of them is fake, but I do want to point out the harsh contrast between them.)
Something in his past scarred him for life, maybe someone close to him betrayed him or people ganged up to overpower him. To not let that happen again he needs to be perfect. A smile that is approachable but at the same time he keeps everyone away from his core with jokes and cryptic phrasing. And the first people able to peek behind his barrier are Sakura and Nirei.
I'll leave it at that but I will probably do a post about Sakura's reactions to this.
[thank you Tumblr for not saving half of this post and now I have to write it all again. Grrr.]
So Suo, right? Kind and smiley all the time but as Sakura accurately stated:
And here in the Shishitoren fight he's still smiling, right? He has a little fun with the "little boy". Afterwards he seems a little flustered that he has let his emotions show through his fighting. Was this a glimpse into Suo's real emotions? Those hiding behind his jokes and smiles? The speech in this fight shows a little of his motivation. Bullies are the worst, and I think Suo would agree. He holds his mask up pretty well most of the fight, but sometimes it slips.
Okay Suo is now an established overpowered badass. His true strength is yet to be revealed at that point.
Now on to the Keel fight.
Fighting to protect someone. The exact opposite of everything Keel does and stands for. His eyes are clear but he isn't smiling.
We all know what happens next, Nirei runs away and until the Senpais appear the focus shifts away from Suo and we only hear him call out to Nirei-kun. I want to know what his voice sounds like. Is it panicked? Is it furious? (Looking forward to the continuation of the anime for that.)
We see his usual face a few times in between but when the focus shifts back on the four fights going on, it's like he's a changed person.
Is it because Nirei got hurt? Or did this guy run his mouth in addition to that? Imagine what it would do to Suo. He failed to protect him and now this grinning waste of space is badmouthing the brave but foolish Nirei.
Of course, Nirei getting hurt is probably enough motivation. Don't get me wrong Nirei being the sole reason for this change in character would speak for how close they got in the recent events.
Read the new chapter now so you can laugh with me down below. Hehe.
This guy! The smug one thinking he's cute by bragging his cooking skills to be superior! Yes this one!
"Heh" he suffixes while he is inside joking with himself about being better waifu material. Because that's what he is thinking about right now. The happy face of someone asking for omlete rice.
Kotoha being like "bro, I've never wanted to be in that competition anyway and I hate know it all punks like you"
Let's have a little flashback *throws glitter everywhere*
"I'm not embarrassed??! You're embarrassed or something!" *blush*
A is this a tsundere match or tsundere who match?
Objection, your honor, are they allowed to be this adorable after suffering loss in every way possible?
Averting your eyes first means you feel guilty and are hiding something. This rule goes for cats and Sakura. So sus.
Please proceed to have a really intense moment about omurice..
"You're definitely going to judge me. There's no way my cooking could be better than a café's food. I'm not making you omelet rice. Anything but."
Ok Momi-chan.. wanna repeat your little joke?
Uh-huh. What I wanna know, is which expression of Sakura is on his mind right now.
Watching the lightbulb turn on in Kotoha's eyes is priceless!
"It's not what I think? What do you think that I am thinking?"
Me and me feels are back from the underground. And just in time, I dare say!
The fake out on Sakura's backstory followed by one of the most tragic tales yet. We know Momijikawa for a few chapters and dang his life is just a series of kidney punches that I felt throughout my body.
We've experienced so many forms of loss and coping with grief since the beginning. They have all overcome it in different ways, but never alone. Their bonds revolve around the strenght they give each other to find a way forward again.
Sidenote: No need for shallow love interests or lukewarm motivations. Came for the cool fights and stayed for the found family.
Easing us into the pain with a tragic loss and then throwing us into the cold water anyway because what the hell.. I was honestly expecting to wait a few more seasons for this, but here we are.
Now we will learn what it means to grieve alone, and to suffocate any hope of ever receiving redemption or recognition for the painful experience. And what it means to find hope in the most unexpected place anyway.
I have to say the other first years are just... the best.
The extrovert that adopts every introvert and socially awkward person he sees...
^ this guy's face is just a mood. Always.
The moment the feral cat and the really nervous rabbit make eye contact...
Sakura realizes he dodged a bullet with his relatively early rehabilitation into delinquent/vigilante society. That guy also needs a #healingjourney for his confidence.
They are amazing grade captains and I'm not even a little mad that we all got left hanging on a cliff last week. Just give me more scenes like this and the feeling that this manga will go on forever. (Because it will, right?!)
I have to say the other first years are just... the best.
The extrovert that adopts every introvert and socially awkward person he sees...
^ this guy's face is just a mood. Always.
The moment the feral cat and the really nervous rabbit make eye contact...
Sakura realizes he dodged a bullet with his relatively early rehabilitation into delinquent/vigilante society. That guy also needs a #healingjourney for his confidence.
They are amazing grade captains and I'm not even a little mad that we all got left hanging on a cliff last week. Just give me more scenes like this and the feeling that this manga will go on forever. (Because it will, right?!)
This chapter still makes me shiver from goosebumps all over the place. We meet Kotoha in chapter one being calm and collected while facing a gang of thugs threatening her. Without her Sakura would've never started doubting the lone wolf warrior way he strived for, and he could've never helped Natsuki-chan in the way he did. The circle of empathy closed.
Kotoha's moment of pure disbelief in her being told that she is allowed to be angry and let it out for the first time is so relatable and genuine.
"Forgive them. They didn't mean it like that. You being mad makes this more difficult for everyone else. Because you are unable to just forgive and forget small mistakes everything is falling apart. This is your own fault."
And the small mistakes continue to stack up like dirty dishes that no one wants to take responsibility for. And you clean and clean and clean and... it is never enough. You are never enough to clean up this mess in the sink, this mess that isn't the exception anymore as was promised so often. It has mutated into a structural part of the decaying construction your whole life is still tied down to. To clean would summon demise but the foul stench just won't go away. You ignore it, don't breathe, don't heave, don't look. Forgive and forget.
Until it either stops or you snap.
What indeed? Because it will never stop. The only thing you can change, as Ume proclaims it so well, is how you treat yourself. It is a cruel process to recognize that this pain, of what you were told is a superficial scab, is actually you bleeding out slowly on the inside. To endure it all in silence because you are being told that what you are feeling is wrong, all while your feelings are sending you all of the warning signs to get out of there... it will damage you deeply. It will create the kind of cognitive dissonance spiraling out of control, that will make you doubt everything you believe to be true. You won't just distrust other people. You will distrust your own self.
It is your own fault for being like this and staying in this situation, isn't it?
It isn't. You didn't ask for anyone to ignore you, to take advantage of you, to spite you without reason, or to be trapped in an unending cycle of guilt and self-blame. But then you see the first genuine reaction to your story that is validating your rage and sadness as justified, and suddenly the world is upside down. For the first time since forever you are able to consider yourself a living being and all that comes with it.
The process of reevaluating everything about you and your life until now is a long one and the setbacks will be painful, the progress will seem almost invisible at times, but it's worth it. Because you are worth it.
Love your response to that troll, but one thing to consider in the future is not tagging asks like that. Everyone else who uses the wind breaker tag doesn't want to see that slime's hate toward Nii-sensei ten or twelve times a day. Totally get how cathartic it can be to respond, and yours was a great response, too.
Ehehehe thank you! I'm waiting for their answer in my ask box with childish glee.
And you are completely right about the tags - that was more of an automatism than a conscious effort in the middle of the night when I wrote this. I removed them.
New chapter new umemiya flashbacks Aren't nii sensei tired of making ume the savior and the hero of everyone's problem?Poor Sakura....he can't get half the flashbacks ume gets in every arc
What? Ume was in this chapter? Where?
Oh, I almost didn't see him next to one of the greatest depictions of a girl being fed up with everyone's bs and showing her rage in the whole shonen genre.
I know you have been rage baiting our fine community of character development enjoyers for a while and now I see why:
You have no character arc of your own, or else you would've moved on by now.
Honey, either stop the hate-reading or write some fanfiction, if you think you can do it better. But you can't even contextualize what happens in this chapter so the only thing left for you is to spew shit like this.
Remember the first chapters? Remember who first approached Sakura? It wasn't Nirei, it wasn't Suo and it was definitely not Umemiya. It was Kotoha seeing right through Sakura's facade and reaching out to him. And now we know who faced her head on and didn't brush her anger away. And Ume also had that moment of someone recognizing and validating his pain after his suicide attempt. We came full circle so hard that it became the infinity sign. (Wrote this analysis for my windbreaker fam out there and not for this anom ask.)
This chapter is about Kotoha and why she sees her own pain mirrored in Sakura and in the new girl in the orphanage.
Framing Ume as the hero devalues both Kotoha's pain and her agency by pushing her into a classical damsel in distress role. She doesn't need saving. She needs a friend.
So stfu and go back to the cursed reddit incel hole you've spawned out of.
How would Sakura even be part of this flashback? Standing in front of a teenage Kotoha as a wee child and then they get angry about their abusive families together?
Oh wait. One more thing before you go. Is this you?
Because that's what all the asks of your kind feel like. I'm so done with it. Kotoha inspired me. If you want to discuss the series honestly, you are more than welcome to do so. But leave me (and everyone else) alone with this backwards bending bullcrap.
Don't mind me. I was just bawling my eyes out while I edited these. This chapter made me feel like 13 again. Completely lost in my righteous anger and no one to let it out on but myself.
Having no other outlet because getting taught that showing your anger through screams and tears is manipulative or unbecoming of your age (or any other arbitrary reason) only silences you in moments where you should speak up. You are allowed to voice your opposition to unfair treatment. You are allowed to be mad when you get hurt.
Anger exists to protect the vulnerability at your core. It's the guard dog that will only get more vicious every time someone oversteps the boundaries. It's the wall to hide behind when everyone seems like your enemy.
Hiding forever or trusting again to potentially repeat the cycle? One will keep you safe and the other will make you grow. But growth hurts.
Me, totally cool about this: Thank you! Glad it was to your taste!
Me internally: omfg someone binged my posts which is like the greatest achievement and compliment of our times!!! *totally not rolling all giddy on the couch right now*
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