okay I'm caught up. now that I know the world of choujin x I gotta say........ azuma saying that tokio's choujin is fitting and something he really wants to embody (non-verbatim) really says a lot about how he views tokio huh. and I mean, he's probably not wrong but WHEW man these two.....

also I'm calling it now. they're both choujin x aren't they. omg and because choujin x can be either savior and destroyer, ishida will probably make them split at some point and they each take a different role but it's like two sides of the same coin thing...... goddamit

When Saiko said she loved Uri I thought she meant as a close friend but then I read some analysis posts and they had good arguments saying she may have a crush, and now I can see it both ways? I'm very bad at explaining but apparently she paid him special attention and messed with him to get his attention or sth. And I don't know in chapter 147 I can possibly see sth in the way she looked at him, I don't know what to think anymore XD. So do you think if it was actually romantic it would /1/

/2/ go against the series themes or the themes with which the Quinx were presented? And it would possibly be unrequited on Urie’s part, so I dunno. Oh another argument was that Ishida loved drawing them together in the calendar especially and their interactions were curious and sometimes emphasized in the manga, like Saiko teasing him with her drawings and him praising her as a leader etc. I’m sorry this is all over the place I hope you can get my point.            

Hello anon! It’s actually not all over the place; I understand what you’re saying. To start with, no, I definitely don’t think it would go against the themes of the Quinx–Urie unquestionably is romantically in love with Mutsuki, and that’s currently unrequited, so I don’t think it would be against the themes of the story at all to have Saiko in love with Urie. But as for whether or not she is… I’m not certain. Under the cut, because ships!

The word used apparently is a word that could refer to platonic love or to a partner–it’s the same word Hide used for Kaneki.

On the one hand, there’s the fact that Saiko has also said she loves Mutsuki earlier in :re, so saying that she loves Urie is kind of a repeating pattern (and most people agree that was platonic/even kind of a joke).

On the other hand though, she does reference boobs like immediately after hugging Urie, and most convincingly, the fact that there are hearts on the chocolates Saiko gives Urie on the calendar’s Valentine’s Day illustration, which seem to indicate romantic love, and you’re right, they were drawn together a lot in the calendar.

That being said, from a storytelling perspective, I guess I’m not sure what purpose introducing Saiko having romantic feelings for Urie has. Her having platonic familial love for him seems to fit more to me with her character and the fact that a few chapters before 112 she was joking about being everyone’s bride:

From a character perspective, Saiko’s character arc is currently stagnant precisely because she keeps pushing off responsibility to Shirazu, Sasaki, and now Urie.

Even in this omake she tries to mold herself to please Urie:

To grow, you’d think she’d have to learn to stand on her own two feet as her own character, which would mean growing away from Urie and Kaneki (and coming to peace with Shirazu’s memory)–though since they are a family, I do think Saiko’s belonging is ultimately with Urie and Mutsuki, regardless of what form that takes. I suppose having romantic feelings for Urie might be a contributing factor to Saiko’s dependence on Urie, as a foil in some ways to Mutsuki’s unhealthy dependence on Kaneki. It also could be representative of the fact that Urie has tried to take on Shirazu’s unhealthy habit of always trying to bear the burden, which Saiko even observes here but then goes on to encourage Urie to do exactly that:

But my other reservation is that Saiko having romantic feelings for Urie is that, if anything is to come of it, it hasn’t been built up in a satisfying way by the narrative. Let’s look at our two canon requited relationships, Touken and Akiramon:

Essentially, they’ve both been built up as love interests since pretty early on when they met each other. Additionally, Akira and Amon equally impacted each others’ arcs in the first TG (not so much in :re from what we’ve seen as of yet though), as did Kaneki and Touka in the first TG and now in :re. Now let’s look at our unrequited canon ships:

Takizawa and Akira are also presented as potential love interests really early on, even though that one is currently not canon (though it still has unresolved build-up that does need to be paid off, and Akira and Takizawa impact each others’ arcs more so in :re).

Same with Shuu and Kaneki.

And also Karren and Shuu.All of these ships have equally impacted each others’ arcs from the very beginning of their interactions in the manga, and are coded in romantic terms pretty early on. That’s not the case with Urie and Saiko. In :re, we have two potential relationships with build-up (on both sides) that are not canon because one person is oblivious/focused on someone else: Ayato and Hinami, and Mutsuki and Urie. Again, like with Touken, Akiramon, Shuuneki, Seiaki, and Tsukikana, Hinami and Ayato’s arcs and Mutsuki and Urie’s arcs have been intertwined with each others’ from the beginning, and their relationships with each other parallel each other too. That doesn’t mean these ships need to become canon (they don’t, please see the unrequited ships I cited above), but if Ishida plans to make something of Saiko having a crush other than it just being yet another example in the moon arc of the dangers of counting on one person to fix your problems (because that axe is gonna fall probably soon-ish), I have questions about why Ishida waited so long to even begin hinting at it (because there’s, like, nothing. If you think I missed something please point it out, but I really can’t see any romantic hints between them prior to Saiko’s proclamation in 112 and the calendar hint, and I’ve looked multiple times. Mutsuki having a crush on Sasaki was actually something I did pick up on in the early chapters of :re, so that actually had more build-up in my opinion than Saiko having a crush on Urie did.) If Saiko x Urie is endgame, my personal opinion is that it came out of nowhere and so should have been hinted at way earlier, because I’m not sure how Ishida can pull it off and still make it well-written when it doesn’t follow the same patterns of the other ships involving major characters, requited and unrequited, that we see in the manga. And I prefer to be optimistic about how well-written a series will be, even if no series is perfect. However, it is possible Saiko will learn to stand on her own two feet and then meet Urie on a more equal plane, and if that happens, I’m certainly not opposed to it.  Can you tell I’m just desperate for a Saiko arc? I love her so much already, and if she just struggled, she would easily be one of my favorites. We’re so close to an arc for her and I crave it like water. She deserves it.