zie

slower paced chapter this time but lots of information inside!! we go back to suo from where we left off with furin before - without a resolution on what happened at the meeting (though i'll put my 2 cents in about what i think happened there later) and there is lots to say!

first off is - suo being multilingual fully confirmed! from what i can tell he's speaking chinese (probably mandarin but maybe another dialect but i don't know enough to tell), vietnamese and korean here. he also speaks english with rakta and bacchus later. interesting to note that being a polyglot isn't uncommon in the red chanpuru as stated later by rakta. but also interesting that he seems to know the most out of the three members here, or at the very least rakta doesn't know viet and korean. says a lot about how he was raised if he knows so many so well. i also want to point out that he knows all these citizens by name! it's later confirmed in the chapter that suo was making the commute to makochi every day and was in fact living in bankoku-kai while going to furin so even while being part of bofurin it seems he was engaging with his local community and probably working for the red chanpuru as well.

the chapter then moves to a place called the red vortex and it seems to be where suo grew up and may still live. the kids here are seem to be being trained in the same mixed martial arts style as suo but it's kind of odd that there's no adult supervising or even a older kid. all of the boys (and this i'll come back to) are younger than 15 and seemingly teaching themselves, which is odd? i did karate for a time and then fencing at a slightly bigger club and it's really common for the older kids to help out teaching classes (i did assistant coaching for a little while) but it doesn't seem like that's happening here - probably because all the kids older than 15 have gone into the red chanpuru.

this is a sentiment that suo doesn't seem very happy about, he moves to his favourite deflect and redirect in conversation technique to steer away from the topic of joining and its seeming more and more likely to me that there's probably internal problems inside the red chanpuru that suo is trying to solve.

mostly a side note but an interesting reaction when caught being rude and snappy to a superior in age and station. suo brushes it off easily and it's a reaction that could be taken as just embarrassment and maybe a little upset at saying the wrong thing to the wrong person but given that he also calls him sir right after, it seems like the hierarchy is really strict here and there might've even been times when discipline has been handed out for being rude though not likely from suo himself.

now this is where i'd like to talk a bit more. i mentioned before that it's only boys training, i didn't realise at first given that their kids and all the long hair was tied back but in the line up its pretty clear that yeah all the kids learning to fight are boys. the girls are kept out of the way watching and seem to not be allowed to learn. rakta and bacchus' reactions to the girls is pretty telling too, those aren't guilty looks theyre sporting - they don't feel like it's wrong for the girls to be excluded and if anything they seem annoyed that they're calling out to suo to say hi. now im not saying that this is be-all end-all misogyny but given the grace and care nii-sensei puts into the female characters of windbreaker im sure there will be more exploration into this. its not to say there's anything inherently wrong with an all boys gang, bofurin is an all boys gang, primarily because it's based out of an all boys school. but its interesting to see that an organisation based in a multicultural city still draws lines for oppression in different areas.

it's looking like there are a lot of internal issues inside the red chanpuru and maybe even the city itself and i wonder if part of the arc and conflict is tradition versus equity and an evolution/modernity of culture.

perhaps its not that deep but as a girl its always a bit personal to see things like this. but it's hopeful for me to see suos reaction being a kind one to the girls and their genuine joy in interacting with him.

moving on we see the chef, the first adult of the red chanpuru associated characters we've seen so far. (i'm thinking rakta and bacchus are around 17-18 like roppo-ichiza and the furin 3rd years are). we also see what are almost definitely kids in poverty, notably lacking adults with them from what we can see. though parents of the kids are mentioned it's clear they've been sent to get food while the parents presumably go without and this is a common occurrence. this says a pretty big amount about the state of the city and hints more towards issue within red chanpuru and the city itself.

this conversation corroborates that. the chef says more kids have been coming and business isn't that great, more importantly suo - an officer and some one who can represent the red chanpuru somewhat - apologises to the chef which makes me think there's definitely someone off about the red chanpuru. there also the reaction to saying thing will get better, suos buddies look pretty annoyed and incredulous to this remark, while suo only looks sad and a little guilty. it's made clear later that bacchus at least thinks the chef is ignorant and naive and there's clearly a coverup of some sort going on that's the root of the issues popping up and likely the reason suo had to leave.

yeah definitely something going on here...

and then this heartbreaking panel, sakura you don't deserve all this suffering...... god take his suffering and give it to endo fr

but yeah back to what i said at the start, i think the conversation at furin ended with umemiya barring them from going after suo. it's been established before that sakura and ume have very differing directions to leadership. while some of umes ideals are things that sakura wants to emulate it's also shown that there are conflicts in how they deal with problems and their thought process doing so.

umemiya is shown to be a bit of a monolith when leading, he's makochis big brother and he wants to protect his family but this leads him to be single minded and not reach out for help.

umemiya's priority is the people of makochi and protecting them and while sakuras priority is also this he approaches it differently.

windbreaker is about sakura, he's the main character and the narrative is about him. and windbreaker is specifically about his growth and how he learns to trust and grow along side others when he was isolated for most of his life.

and his growth has been showing! he was the one to contact their allies for the extinction war and learn how to fight with others. the majority of his growth so far has been teaching him about making and using connections either others, learning to rely on and help people in the community and that's exactly how he leads. unlike umemiya who wants to protect as a singular force, sakura protects as a collective as he learns to trust others abilities. umemiya made furin because he knows he can't do it by himself but in the end he will always try to do it by himself . sakura has learnt to bring people together and that's how he wants to lead, leaving no man behind.

but umemiyas priority isn't the unity of furin and makochi though it is important to him but more their safety. i think umemiya when hearing about red chanpuru and suos position as officer (not leader im not sure where people got that idea from?) is that it would be too much of a risk and that he would have to cut losses. and this is where they clash, sakura doesn't want to leave anyone behind and would resist against it. and i think he'll have a following along with him. i'm sure the kings will take umes side, they sympathise with sakura but if red chanpuru really is stronger and suo is a member they don't have a leg to stand on in interference for one kid.

but sakura sure isn't going to take that lying down. he seems miserable and someone pointed out that he didn't hang up his clothes, something he made sure to do even when sick, and it might be because he feels horrible but it might also be because he feels slightly disillusioned with furin.

so far windbreaker has been about sakura learning to connect and trust people, and now i think he'll learn how to deal with betrayal and conflict when it comes to people you care about. he's finally healed from his wounds before and now he's going to learn to stitch up new ones.

i think red chanpuru is going through some kind of civil war, maybe factions have split and i also think that they might have closed off the the city, which is why suo had to leave. i'll probably do a more in depth post on what i think the arc will look like later (like i mentioned before but still haven't done... whoopsie) since this is really long but yeah