Ch 220: [All His Thoughts] Analysis
All things considered, this chapter was lowkey on the wholesome side in the grand scheme of everything that's been happening- Don't get me wrong, we're still in the middle of chaos, but I'd say the majority of this chapter was net positive compared to all the angst we've gotten and will get in this arc... so let's remember to come back here when things inevitably get intense again-
And I'd say the positivity starts with this guy ^^ Sakura's clearly in distress, so the first thing Mamajikawa does is stop Sugi from putting any extra pressure on him. Then he makes Sakura's favorite meal and he even gives him some down time by making small talk before bringing up the issue. When it is time to talk, he starts with himself. He says he knows how it feels and then asks Sakura a question about his next move. He goes past just understanding Sakura's feelings since he's been sitting in his feelings for a while now and moves on to action since that's the best way to actually get the healing process started. Even after Sakura expresses how scared and confused he is, Mamajikawa sticks to the positive in a way that will allow Sakura to move forward rather than just trying to comfort him. With Suolingo gone, it's taking quite a few people to provide the support he usually would, but Mamajikawa's got the deeper level therapy covered-
Next up is Sugi!! I honestly find it adorable how badly he wants to talk to Sakura. He probably knows exactly what he wants to say, but he wouldn't dare disobey Mamajikawa, so he spent the whole chapter eating as fast as he can- But as silly as it is, I also find it really sweet that he genuinely wants to help here. He probably remembers how his words helped Sakura during the war, and now he wants to help again. We saw how much thought he was putting into it throughout 218 before he asked to join Nirei and Mamajikawa, and now he can't wait to share his conclusion.
As for what he actually wants to say, I can definitely see it being another affectionate criticism of Sakura's current state. Just like against Endo, Sakura has lost heart here and doesn't know what to think. Sugi has been watching Sakura fight his way through so many problems and get so many people to open up and reflect, so I can definitely see him telling Sakura that he should be approaching the Suolingo situation the same way: not giving up until he's gotten his feelings across. One of the things Sugi is jealous about when it comes to Sakura is his ability to stir people's hearts, so he'll probably be the one to tell Sakura that he can't give up on Suolingo before he's had a proper conversation (fight, words, both) with him.
.......Sugi has taken over Suolingo's comic relief role for the arc though-
Now, Nirei............ my child- I was honestly surprised at how little we've been getting Nirei's personal feelings since Suolingo actually left, but of course I've found the most depressing ways to explain it- Don't get me wrong, I know Sakura's the mc and he was really close to Suolingo too, so it makes perfect sense for Nii-sensei to put so much time into exploring his feelings here, but it still felt.... off for Nirei to be relatively calm for these past few chapters while we cover Sakura's side of things. He does clearly miss Suolingo and he's been anxious about finding out the truth, so I was expecting Nirei to be more out of it until he had the chance to think/talk through his feelings (like what's happening with Sakura now) but it seems like he was able to pull himself together pretty quickly on his own and he wasn't too shaken by the info from Endo. We did get the basis for his resolve back in 213, but a lot has happened since then and he's still fine..... and I'd say that could be due to one of three reasons:
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Nirei's resolve is just that strong. This is the wholesome one, but as I said, we did get into Nirei's resolve back in 213, so there's always the possibility that he's willing to take everything they learn about Suolingo with a grain of salt until they actually get to talk to him again. Nirei's pretty fierce when he's determined, so maybe he really can't be broken until he hears from Suolingo himself again.
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Nirei has past experience with a major loss, too. Mamajikawa's whole story was about him losing his family and now he's comforting Sakura through the loss of a friend, and Nirei may be somewhat similar. During Mamajikawa's arc, Nirei didn't have too many stand-out moments, but there are a few things that did catch my attention. In 194, after hearing the story from Sugi, the others question what it must be like to lose a family member, but Nirei is the first to wonder how Mamajikawa's actually holding up. In 199, when the big fight is over, Nirei seems to be the most concerned about whether or not Mamajikawa was able to make it to his grandmother by a long shot. In 201, after the funeral, Nirei once again seems more focused on Mamajikawa's feelings compared to the others (and his expressions feel different from the others when they start talking about how they would feel if they lost a loved one imo, but this part might be a stretch). Over all, I feel like Nirei was more focused on Mamajikawa's perspective as the one who was experiencing all of this loss compared to everyone else trying to comprehend how it must feel to experience it.
Getting back to 220, the part where Nirei says he can understand Sakura's sadness "painfully well" feels like Nirei's thinking of a similar past experience that left him just as depressed. We haven't really gotten into Nirei's past and home life, so I'm curious about what his family is like and if he had any close friends before coming to Furin. Even now, he does still seem to view himself as less than equal to his peers, so maybe he doesn't feel mutually close to many people even though they all mean a lot to him. We as viewers know that everyone loves Nirei, too, but if he has a history of people abandoning him, it would explain why he tends to fixate on being useful to the people he cares about rather than just being friends. Even when he was calling Suolingo out in 211, he listed everything Suolingo had done for him as evidence that he cares about him rather than recalling the fun times they shared, so I feel like something in Nirei's past left the idea that [doing things for people is how you show that you care about them] rooted deeper for him than most people who simply want to do acts of service for (and/or appreciate acts of service from) their loved ones.
Now, if we do go along the loss route for Nirei, I do think it would be more about abandonment rather than death. Nirei's main overarching goals as part of his class and Bofurin as a whole are to not be a burden and to support others any way he can. He uses "-san" even with his classmates, which is pretty formal/respectful despite them all being the same age, as though he feels like the others are above him and/or he doesn't want to come across as cocky. He even blamed himself for letting Suolingo get away as if it was his job to make Suolingo want to stay....
All this yapping to say: I think someone (or multiple people) left Nirei in the past in a way that really shaped who he is today. Whether they actually said it to him or he inferred it himself, Nirei most likely feels that they left because he didn't do enough on his end to maintain the relationship. This could have been a family member, a friend he felt really close to, or even a mentor figure, but whoever it was, he probably felt that they left because he didn't support them nearly as much as they supported him. (If it was a friend, they could have started avoiding him because they didn't want to get bullied...... or they joined the bullies if we want to be extra tragic-)
^(so much for me making a short post for once-)
- Nirei is simply keeping his own feelings down for the time being to support Sakura. This one ties into a lot of points from option 2 and both can be true at the same time, but wherever Nirei actually is on the spectrum from okay to depressed, he could be putting his own feelings aside and focusing on Sakura because he understands how hard things are for him right now. If Nirei is used to loss, he probably knows that the first one is the most painful and wants to be there to help Sakura through it. However, if he hasn't actually worked through enough of his own feelings yet and he's just ignoring them because he wants to be there for Sakura that badly, it could lead to a break down for him in the future once it's too much for him to bare and/or hide.
ANYWHO, this can contribute to any of the 3 points, but I also want to note that Nirei's really good at analyzing people in general. He could see through Suolingo's act because he grew to understand him over time, he was able to accurately assess Sugi's situation after hearing from him, and he spent this chapter observing Sakura to figure out the extent of the situation and what he should do for him. He's been doing this since before Suolingo disappeared, so I wouldn't say this is his contribution to "filling the void," but I do feel like this is a trait he shares with Suolingo (though Suolingo's much better at reading people quickly and acting in the moment while Nirei's more about bigger analysis after collecting enough information). I also like that this doesn't seem to be something he learned from Suolingo or anything, it's just another one of his strengths that he probably doesn't even realize is special...
And I haven't even talked about Sakura yet btw 👍 The frame Sakura recalls is from Kaji's speech in 58/59 where he calls him out for being afraid of letting his walls down because he doesn't want to be susceptible to others judging and rejecting the real him. This is right before the tightrope in 60 where he first accepts that his classmates like his true self and allows himself to want to be with them. In 220, when Sakura's interpreting his dream, he notes that deep down, he's still terrified of being rejected and that part of him doesn't even want to see Suolingo and potentially hear that this fear of his is reality.
Sakura's been thinking about the whole situation as much as he can and the conclusion he reached is that he "hasn't made any progress" since that revelation. He feels that this fear of his should have gone away by now, but Mamajikawa notes that it's completely normal to not want the people you care about to reject you. Sakura has made major progress in opening up and letting people into his life and Suolingo's sudden absence is a completely fair reason to question whether or not he's been rejected.
That said, Sakura's self-perceived "lack of progress" could be more about how he's still doubting Suolingo even though he had resolved to trust him (and the rest of his classmates) before, but even in that case, I'd still say it's completely fair for Sakura to have the exact doubts Suolingo was trying to plant in his classmates in the first place- Sakura would probably never see it this way on his own since it would be somewhat "blaming" Suolingo and Sakura can't help but blame himself for everything, but I do hope the others (and maybe Suolingo himself later on) help him understand that it's completely healthy and sometimes necessary to doubt people in order to build deeper levels of trust.
Ok, I'll end with my favorite subtlety of the chapter~ Sakura's kitchen is empty because he doesn't know much about cooking or making fancy meals, but his room does have the key items gifts he got from the core squad. Food represents connections in wbk, so Sakura not having that many cooking tools represents how he's still learning so much about building relationships, but his room (aka his heart) still has evidence of those he has connected with so far. (I'd lowkey love for Mamajikawa to give Sakura something by the end of the arc, too 👀👀)
Posted Jun 30, 2026, 2:54 AM UTC