a tragedy on two legs

wind breaker is a fighting manga, and everyone's first fight says a lot about their characters:

sakura says he wants to fight his way to the top, but the first thing we see him do in the manga is protect someone. even as he rejects people with words, his actions show where his heart lies

before the shishitoren fight suo seems amused with the situation, but when the fight with kanuma starts we see how disdainful he actually is of childish bullies that hurt others

nirei was once saved by a furin student, so now he wants to do anything to be that person for someone, even if he doesn't currently have the skills to help someone without getting hurt

kiryu is attentive to girls and wants to protect them in and out of fights

sugishita wants to protect the world umemiya created

tsugeura and kiryu have their first fight together, a fight kiryu is involved in for trying to protect a girl, while tsugeura just happens to be there. when he learns those man are after the girl his thoughts aren't about the men hurting a girl, but about how kiryu is cool.

protecting people is a side effect of his real objective of fighting strong people. his virtue is letting opponents get the first strike. is that a sign of his chivalrous nature? not really. i would argue that for someone obsessed with people's virtues, his are surprisingly unclear and unsubstantial.

one way to write a mystery is by misdirecting. look at this shiny thing and dont worry about whats happening over there! i see this happening with tsuge's character all the time. have his introduction be with kiryu so we can pay attention to kiryu protecting the girl and forget about tsugeura's own motivations!

another fight that establishes everyone's character is the one against keel. for tsugeura, he... cares about his friends? but is that ever relevant for his character? in the same fight, suo caring about his friends is more relevant than it ever is for tsuge.

what sakura said he was (someone that only cares about fighting to the top) is what tsugeura actually appears to be. as far as i know he could be upset only because they weren't putting on a good show.

moving on, i was checking this document again, and to my surprise tsugeura's name has large river in it. surprising because suo - who has been connected to tsugeura since the beginning - is from a river island. maybe tsuge's from there too?

another interesting thing in his name is the connection to betrayal. is he betraying suo? bofurin? if he's from the kasai district too, is he betraying them? is he the one who's going to be betrayed?

when tsugeura finally talked about his past with suo everyone felt underwhelmed. 200 chapters of build up for this? tsuge didn't offer any information on suo even when anything could be of help, he only said anything when asked.

but what i'm thinking now is that he never tried asking suo again after that first day. is suo's virtue really that interesting? no one ever says their virtue to tsuge, he's the one that assigns people virtues after observing them.

i think its clear what suo's virtue is. was that really the question tsuge made that suo didnt want to answer? when they met again he could have said "wanna tell me your virtue now?" instead of what he says here.

we're getting their history now, when suo isn't there to disavow tsuge if he's lying. i would have actually trusted suo more than i do tsuge because i already know suo doesn't like to lie.

suo's actually even more honest then i expected. i thought because we see a silly side of him and a colder side of him, the truth lied in the middle and that would be his personality in the red chanpuru, but that's not what happened. he acts there the same he does in makochi. (at least with the population). and when given the opportunity to lie, he still chooses to say nothing.

is tsuge being an optimist here or did his strategy to keep people out of his business work? since i've noticed it, i've been obsessed with how tsuge keeps people out of his business by doing the opposite of suo.

the way i see it, suo is evading questions in canon but leaving it obvious for the readers he's hiding something. while tsuge is misdirecting us. he's Too Much, so the characters leave him alone and don't ask him anything, which frees him from the responsibility of having to lie in the first place! brilliant strategy. suo, take notes.

in the grande scheme of things, this isn't much, but its actually what started this unraveling for me. out of our six main first years, tsuge is the only one that doesn't have school as his favorite place. does that mean he's evil? no. other characters have other places too, like tsubaki and anzai.

but having all the other evidence, i think muscle power could be important. if tsuge is part of another group, they could be hiding in plain sight as the workers of muscle power.

suo's absence is so big we don't think about how tsuge is also missing. and while we had a hint of suo's backstory around chapter 100, we don't have anything for tsuge. why make him such an important character? there has to be more to him. we have anzai's backstory, sugishita's backstory and now suo's close before getting even a hint of tsugeura's.

i think suo and tsuge are used by nii sensei to misdirect each other all the time. suo is a traitor don't look at anyone else. suo is annoyed at tsuge don't think about who else suo should be annoyed at.

while i never doubted how much suo cares, i do doubt tsugeura. does he even care about protecting makochi and its people?? what is the principle of his life?

one of the only things we know about tsugeura is that he's interested in suo. he went looking for him in middle school, and now looked for him again and managed to become friends with him. are they from the same place? is tsuge with a group that wants to take the red chanpuru down? was the fight a set up? did suo hurt his brother? is he really only interested in knowing his virtue?

suo left, and tsuge is still in makochi. is what he wants in makochi? what if the first years go to find suo and makochi is left more vulnerable to attack?

IDK!!! but if tsugeura's going to be a traitor it has to be this arc because we're not gonna do fake traitors two times (i dont think tsuuge is going to be pure evil either). bankoku-gai (not red chanpuru, we haven't really been introduced to them) is more like makochi than i thought it would be. so maybe the danger will come from something else. something tsuge is involved in.

at the end of the day what i have is: why is tsuge even as important as he is? it could be only sakura, suo, kiryu, nirei and sugishita. we didn't need another character, tsugeura could have been part of anzai's group. so if he was included, it means his character is more than he seems.

and that's my thing, when you stop to think about what tsuge's deal is, you have nothing. and you don't even realize you have nothing! we have more on suo than tsuge. we have more on anzai and momijikawa than on tsuge. and yet, no one is going crazy wondering what his backstory is. and that's what makes it suspicious.

i know i started this by asking what tsugeura's deal is, but unfortunately that's also how i'm gonna end it too.