Vow To Follow
Episode 6 of the Wind Breaker concludes Suo’s fight and begins with Hiragi’s fight against Shishitoren’s Sako. Sako is amongst the five most powerful at Shishitoren. Sako and Hiragi seem to have a history where Sako is holding a deep-seated grudge against Hiragi. While they fight, Sako dominates Hiragi and is able to land a heavy blow. Hiragi is kicked at the back and it seems that he lost.
Sakura gets worked up, listening to Sako badmouthing Furin and Hiragi. Umemiya asks him to calm down and explains that Hiragi is one of the four kings of Bofurin, leading the Tamonten team. He explains that another name for Tamonten is Bishamonten, the god of war who controls the battlefield. This is when Hiragi wakes up as if resurrected and changes the entire course of the fight.
In a flashback sequence, we find that Hiragi and Sako first met when Sako was bullied by some classmates for being too smart. Hiragi enters and teaches them a lesson. Since then, Sako looked up to Hiragi while Hiragi gave Sako lessons on how to fight. Naturally, Sako wanted to follow Hiragi’s footsteps and join Furin high. It was also because he wanted to support Hiragi in becoming the strongest person at Furin since at the time, Bofurin did not exist; Furin was a mere school for delinquents. However, Hiragi asked Sako to forge his own path, explaining that he’s already decided to support a person called Umemiya. Sako felt betrayed by Hiragi and decided to become stronger, picking fights wherever he could. This is when Choji and Togame found him and took him over to Shishitoren’s side.
We come back to the present and Hiragi is certain to win the fight. In a voiceover, Sako explains that he wanted to follow Hiragi. He still remembers him fondly. When Hiragi finally knocks him out, he carries an unconscious Sako and carefully puts him aside, before Togame could disrespect him.
When he goes back to sit next to Umemiya, he questions on why Umemiya wouldn’t ask about Sako and Hiragi’s history. Umemiya replies that he would be interested when Hiragi would be ready to tell him.
The Episode Review
In line with the title, this episode’s theme is “a vow to follow”. On the surface, it explains the origin of Sako’s grudge against Hiragi, but the episode also highlights the idea of loyalty and belonging within Bofurin’s members, particularly Hiragi, who have pledged their loyalty to Umemiya. While Bofurin’s “vow to follow” aligns more with friendship, camaraderie, and familial ties, Shishitoren’s idea of following is characterized by power, fear, and submission. Thus, the episode distinguishes between the two factions through Sako and Hiragi’s backstory.
Moreover, the pressure is building upon Shishitoren in this episode as they lost the majority of the matches. We also get a sneak peek into the time prior to the existence of Bofurin. It’s important to note that before Bofurin came into existence, Furin High was a regular school filled with delinquents, and the town was plagued by turf wars. Overall, this episode delved deeper into the characters’ history while being of thematic importance as well, however the episode was quite dull in comparison to Suo’s fight sequences.
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Episode Rating
(3.5)
Hey thanks for the comment! Wind Breaker comes under the shonen genre right, and if you compare many different shonen anime, they have a set pattern. When that pattern repeats is what I mean by slightly monotonous. Suo’s action scenes had a character to them, they were jovial, taunting fights, and his reasoning was pretty clear. He wanted to punish the opponent for their behaviour towards their team member.His fight isn’t just a fight, it’s a reflection of the ideological differences between Bofurin and Shishitoren. While if you look at Sako’s grudge, it was merely due to the fact that Hiragi encouraged him to find his own path. So if you think about his reaction and hatred towards Hiragi, it actually seems quite unnecessary in comparison to what Hiragi did. This is why I feel that the episode was dull in comparison to the last because Sako’s motivations to fight Hiragi were quite weak. I hope that clears up the air about the review.
I don’t get the whole dull part when this episode had much more story and character development involved. Well if seems you only looking for the fights…