Five Blessings

Like, Bofurin is full of street fighters who don't seem to have been formally trained, so when Suo first brought up his master and the fact that he was taught a hodgepodge style, I kind of assumed that maybe his master was training a small handful of kids he selected? In a lowkey, informal sort of way.

Then when the Red Chanpuru was introduced, I was thinking that maybe there was a more formal sort of relationship, but I was still envisioning a small scale operation where individual members train people of their choosing.

But the way that things played out this chapter, it seems like the training is more formal and larger scale. Suo praises the kids for working on their training and studying and offers to quiz them, which makes it seem like an actual school with a real curriculum and everything.

Honestly, it kind of reminded me of a wuxia sect, with a bunch of young disciples being guided by masters and their older martial brothers. Is Suo's master the only one in charge? How big is this operation? Wuxia sects often have a signature martial arts style and fighting techniques, is Suo's hodgepodge style the signature style of the Red Chanpuru?

First, we need to distinguish between sworn brothers and martial brothers. A martial brother is anyone who has the same master as you. Similar to how if your biological father goes out and has another kid, that kid is your brother, if your master takes a new disciple, they are your martial brother. Your master "adopts" disciples, and you are brothers by virtue of having been "adopted" by the same master (note the quotes here, because this isn't literal adoption; I don't think anyone would genuinely argue here that Suo is literally Nirei's adoptive father by virtue of being his master).

Sworn brotherhood is different. A sworn brother is usually your friend first, and to become sworn brothers, you choose to swear an oath together. Traditionally, this involves burning incense at a temple and making an oath before the gods. A sworn brotherhood is a mutual agreement between the brothers, an alliance of sorts. You "adopt" your sworn brother directly.

There's a particular element of the sworn brotherhood oath that this panel reminds me of. Some versions of the sworn brotherhood oath include a blood ritual, with each brother mixing their blood into wine and making a toast. In addition, Endo's line about bonds stronger than blood is also interesting here. Traditionally, you would have a duty to your sworn brother's family, and you'd perform similar duties to a relative despite not being literally related. If your sworn brother's parents die, you're supposed to mourn with him; you're also supposed to contribute money to the dowry of your sworn brother's daughter and to the expenses of a funeral in his family.

Now that I've established the basics of what a sworn brotherhood is, we can connect this to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of China, which has one of the most famous examples of sworn brotherhood. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei take the Oath of the Peach Garden. Their goal was to protect the Han Empire from rebels that were destabilizing the country, and the oath represented their alliance. Liu Bei becomes a warlord and leads the others as the eldest sworn brother, with his two sworn brothers as his generals.

The reason that I bring this up is because this reminds me a lot of this panel, and also of what we learned about the Red Chanpuru. This panel shows three bloody hands, so if it's meant to represent a sworn brotherhood oath, it's presumably between thee people, just like the Oath of the Peach Garden between Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. Also, protecting your city from rival gangs causing trouble seems awfully similar to protecting your country from rebels.

My personal speculation is that the founders of the Red Chanpuru are sworn brothers, and that they're inspired by Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. I'm assuming that's who these three figures on the title page are.