Wind Breaker episode 7 review: Choji’s darkness and the strength to become free

Our Wind Breaker episode 7 review looks at Togame’s past, why he’s sticking with his best friend Choji and his brutal fight with Sakura.

The Wind Breaker episode 7 review

At long last, Sakura finally gets to throw hands against someone after the Bofurin vs Shishitoren matches started. His opponent is the Shishistoren second-in-command Togame and as he shows in this fight, he’s no slouch when it comes to brawling with someone. After a few minutes of the two fighters beating each other up, Sakura helps Togame realize why the Bofurin entered Shishitoren turf back in episode 3. Two devotees of power, Arima and Kanuma, were harassing a middle schooler who did nothing to them.

Togame decides to inflict some pain on these pathetic people and “skins” them (i.e., take their Shishitoren jackets). He then has a flashback regarding how he met Choji and was convinced by him to join the Shishitoren. Things take a turn for the worse once Choj becomes the gang’s leader and punishes a member for getting beaten up by another gang, “skinning” them and kicking them out of the devotees of power club.

To say that Togame doesn’t like what his friend is doing is a bit of an understatement, though he convinces the leader to leave the duty of removing members to him. After the flashback ends, Togame and Sakura go back to fighting, though the latter points out that the former is no longer taking the fight seriously. Wind Breaker episode 7 ends on a cliffhanger, with Togame wondering what exactly he’s doing.

Blood and wooden sandals

Wind Breaker episode 7 knows we’ve been waiting on the main character to feed some knuckle sandwiches to his opponent and it doesn’t waste any time in showing the two of them going at it. The atmosphere for this fight feels different from the previous matches; Shishitoren members are seen cheering for Togame and you can feel their excitement, a factor that wasn’t present in previous battles.

And there’s a good reason why the devotees are cheering: Togame is a well-experienced fighter who gives Sakura a run for his money. Early on, Sakura is forced to dodge a lot of Togame’s attacks before he can land one of his own, only for the devotee to flip the Bofurin onto his back and attempt to introduce his wooden sandals to Sakura’s face.

The sounds of his sandals slamming down on the stage they’re fighting on sound like gunshots as the protagonist dodges his feet, reinforcing the fact that you do not want to mess with this guy. The moment his eyes glow white and his face is covered in shadows when he tries landing a punch looks terrifying and only adds to the aforementioned fact.

But Sakura’s fighting skills aren’t anything to sneeze at, either. He soon turns the tables and manages to land a few devastating kicks of his own on Togame, with the final one he lands on his opponent’s face looking equal parts painful and awesome thanks to slow motion and the sound effect the kick makes. This moment (and the rest of Sakura’s comeback) is backed up by a high-energy song that adds to how awesome this scene is.

The comeback doesn’t last long since Togame lands an equally powerful kick that knocks Sakura to the ground and has him wheezing, with Togame slamming his feet down on Sakura’s head. Both fighters have, at this point, caused the other to draw blood because of their blows. It looks especially painful for Sakura as a decent amount of his DNA is now on the floor thanks to Togame and his sandals. It’s a good detail that shows what’s going on here is brutal and that these two are made of some stern stuff if they can withstand each other’s hits.

Strength = freedom

The theme this time around is being strong equals being free in the eyes of Togame and Choji, something the second-in-command talks about during his “conversation” (i.e. fight) with Sakura. The main character points out that Arima and Kanuma were bullying someone younger than them during Togame’s debut episode and in a surprising turn of events, Togame beats the hell out of the two before skinning them.

This isn’t something that I expected to happen. Originally, I thought that Togame was okay with the Shishitoren outright harassing other people because they were the strong ones, so they could do what they wanted to those weaker than them. Looks like I was wrong since Togame appears to have a code he follows.

That’s not the only thing we learn about him. A big chunk of the runtime shows him taking down some Shishitoren members before being discovered by Choji, who wants him to join up after seeing what he can do. Both characters here aren’t as vicious as their present-day counterparts are; Choji and Togame both seem to be happy and want to become stronger to become free and not yield to anyone else.

They even go and beat up members from another gang who attacked one of their own and Togame even compares Choji to the sun, what with his happy demeanor and his fire within dedicated to becoming stronger. The violins playing during this part of the episode reinforce that is all genuine and not some act.

Given who they are today, however, the flashback shows things becoming dark as Choji wishes for all Shishitoren to be as strong as he is. That means weeding out members who’ve lost in fights because the weaklings will not be free in his mind. This perversion of his ideology combined with the smile and unfeeling look in Choji’s eyes as he skins a Shishitoren member is unexpected, a bit scary, and (because Togame is present for all this) rather sad. You really feel for the guy as his friend seems to be off his rocker and he’s utterly shocked and upset at what he’s doing.

Togame, who’s grown close to Choji at this point, decides to be the one who gets his hands dirty by removing weak members so that his sun will eventually return if only strong fighters make up their faction. It’s an oddly relatable and understandable dynamic since these kinds of relationships are present in real life.

It changes how previous beatings and skinnings are looked at now as Togame only wants the old version of his friend to come back and that may be the only reason he’s sticking with him and his gang. The sunshine during the happy part of the flashback and the rain and thunder that accompany the moment Choji decides to weed out the weak perfectly reflect both his and Togame’s emotions, especially when the latter starts crying because his friend has turned into something unrecognizable.

It’s also another interesting way of seeing how people view what it means to have strength and it makes some sense. If you’re the strongest person, no one would be able to control you, thereby allowing you to be free. It helps reinforce the theme of the show and gives viewers a bit of food for thought.

The fact that Togame comes to realize he no longer has any idea as to what he’s doing shows just how much of a toll his role has taken on him. The guy no longer seems like a monster, but more like someone who no longer knows who or what he is after devoting himself to getting his best friend back and seems to have lost his way.

Wind Breaker episode 7 excels in giving pathos to Togame’s character, as well as in the bloody fight scene that shows just how ugly a brawl can get. I’m ready to see next week’s episode and witness how things go from here.