#you can just tell that he and oniwaka were the oldest member of their respective cohort

[mail-forwarding]

(Seaside Summer School -- Oniwaka's rant to Maria)

Oniwaka: "So you throw your life away, and what? Who do you think you're helping?" Oniwaka: "Yourself, that's who. You're the one who feels good in the end. You like the idea that your pain'll save someone else." Oniwaka: "But look around you." Oniwaka: "You see anyone grateful for your little self-sacrifice?"

Seaside Summer School is my favourite event for lots of reasons, but the top reason is the way the writers develop the characters. Even this very short excerpt of Oniwaka's rant (which is excellent in its entirety, and which I will dig into some other time) exposes so much about his growth.

His criticism aside (which I 100% agree with, Maria may be best girl but her behaviour is not sustainable), while I'm sure Maria's actions here remind him a lot of someone else (*cough* MC), he's also talking about himself here. He says later, "It makes me think about things I don't wanna think about."

Did anyone gain from his two deaths? Was anyone grateful for either of those deaths? The answer to both of those answer is no. In fact, not only did no one gain from or appreciate his sacrifice, Oniwaka himself was actively hurt by that very act, so much so that he carries that pain forward with him in future loops, even if he doesn't understand the roots of the pain.

He can't stand seeing others make the same mistake. He likes to portray himself as a loner, as a bad boy who doesn't care about others, but with Maria, with Shiro in a later scene, all he does over and over again is look out for other people. He gives genuinely good advice and due admonishment. He tells Maria to cherish herself, tells Shiro to cherish the time/opportunity he has. For all his bluster, he's a genuinely good guardian and caretaker. Unlike Snow and Horkeu, he's not afraid to deliver a good smack of common sense, and he doesn't care to sugarcoat it to spare feelings. He'll say what needs to be said even if it hurts the person hearing it, because what matters is that the other person changes for the better. Tough love, and all that.