Chitose Saku always has people around him. He is class representative and the center of his class, and five heroines have their hearts set on him. Yet he gives none of the five a clear answer. Why does someone so loved keep putting off his reply?
Today we'll look at the reason through MBTI and attachment styles. Part 2 began on October 13, so now is a good time to sort this out. This article covers only the anime's Part 1 and Part 2 up to episode 14.
✦ MBTI of the Main Characters at a Glance
Types fans assign on personality-type sites
🎵 Listen: "Ao to Natsu" covered by Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle cast
The MBTI types are not official settings. They are classifications made by fans on personality-type sites such as Personality Database (PDB). The attachment styles are an interpretation based on scenes from the work.
Saku Is a Man Who Talks and Sets the Stage
On personality-type sites, Saku's type splits between ENTP and ENFJ. Both types are extroverted and intuitive, and both lead a room with a way with words. That fits Saku, who brushes situations off with a joke and, when needed, redraws the whole board.
Episode 5 is a good example. When Yuzuki asks, "Won't you be my boyfriend?", Saku first probes what is going on inside her. After hearing that she needs a fake boyfriend because of a stalker, he accepts.
He reads the situation fast and sets the frame of the relationship. But thanks to that frame, he also gets a relationship where he can stand in the boyfriend's place without having to examine his real feelings.
What Attachment Styles Reveal
Attachment styles are a framework that sorts how people get close in romance. They became widely used after psychologists Hazan and Shaver applied them to adult romantic relationships in 1987. There are three main types.
✦ Three Attachment Styles
How each one gets close
The secure type is comfortable with both closeness and independence. The anxious type worries about being abandoned and tends to cling to the other person, and the avoidant type pulls back the moment things get close.
On the surface, Saku looks like the most secure person around. But follow the scenes and the avoidant pattern is clear.
Scenes Where Saku Pulls Away
✦ Saku Pulling Away
Episodes 5 to 10
In episode 6, Saku tells Tomoya Naruse, who has a crush on Yuzuki, that his relationship with her is a front. Then he steps up to help with Tomoya's romance.
He reaches out so easily for other people's hearts, yet in front of his own he never takes a step forward.
In episode 10, Yuzuki finds the courage to stand up to her stalker, thanks to the time she spent with Saku. Even so, there is no scene where Saku states his own feelings.
Even as the story moves, he doesn't say "this is how I feel," and he looks like someone waiting for the situation to say it for him.
The more the heroines approach, the more Saku's jokes multiply. Stepping back half a beat the moment things get close is his habit.
Yuzuki: A Contract That Changed Her Heart (ENFJ)
✦ Yuzuki and Saku
From a fake couple to a changed heart
Yuzuki is classified as ENFJ. It is a type attuned to how others see her and skilled at managing her own image. Behind her popular image lay the wound of being stalked.
The fake-couple contract was a safety device for Yuzuki. In episode 9, Saku takes Yuzuki, soaked by the rain, to his home and presses her hard to say what is wrong, and Yuzuki tells him about her past.
Then Saku brings out a story about himself that he doesn't usually tell. It was the scene where two people in a contract showed each other their insides for the first time.
Yuzuki can be read as someone moving from anxious to secure. Her heart steadied as the experience of Saku standing by her and protecting her piled up.
It is a relationship that began as a contract and whose feelings change inside it, and it deserves to be called one of the most heart-fluttering stories of Part 1.
Yuuko, Yua, Haru: Head-On and Caring
✦ Heroine Attachment Readings
Interpretations based on scenes
Yuuko is classified as ENFP. She is bright and honest, a person loved by everyone with a princess-like air. She does not hide her feelings for Saku either. This straightforward charge is where Saku's avoidance collides hardest.
Yua is ISFJ. She is the straight man of Team Chitose and quietly supports Saku from his side. In episodes 1 to 4 too, she helped Saku and Team Chitose get Kenta back on his feet.
She can be seen as a caring secure type who finds stability in looking after others. She doesn't push Saku, she stays beside him, which also makes her the one he can lean on most easily.
Haru is ESFP. She is a lively person who plays shooting guard on the girls' basketball team. Her feelings show right on her face, and in episode 7 she shows a quiet rivalry over Saku and Yuzuki's reward date.
As someone who charges ahead without calculation, she contrasts most clearly with Saku's avoidance pattern.
Asuka: Two Avoidants Face to Face (INFJ)
Asuka is classified as INFJ. She is the type who doesn't easily show her inner thoughts and keeps her distance with poetic speech. Her place as a third-year senior makes her feel like someone hard for Saku to reach.
✦ Asuka Arc Flow
Episodes 11 to 14
In episode 11, Saku sees Asuka chatting warmly with a male classmate at a career counseling session and feels a sense of loss.
In episode 13, he overhears during a parent-teacher-student conference that her going on to college has already been decided and bursts in. In episode 14, she goes with Saku on a limited express train to run away to Tokyo.
Asuka is someone who firms up decisions alone rather than say what she feels. Saku is someone who doesn't put his feelings into words either. What happens when two people who keep their distance sit face to face is the central axis of Part 2, now airing.
Even with five heroines' sincerity, Saku steps back at every decisive moment. The rift with Asuka in the Cour 2 PV 2 hints at why.
Below, we dig into the real side of Saku's MBTI (ENTP·ENFJ) and his fearful-avoidant attachment.
Why Saku Alone Makes Hearts Race
Each heroine touches Saku's weak spot in a different way. Yuuko and Haru do it by charging ahead, Yua through care, and Yuzuki through a process in which her heart changes inside a contract.
Asuka keeps the same distance Saku does, which makes her the most similar and the hardest partner.
The reason Saku, loved by five people, cannot give an answer is not that he has no feelings. It is that getting close itself is hard for him. What makes us flutter at this story is that we watch that distance shrink bit by bit.
A new variable also appears in Part 2. Mai Todo is voiced by Sora Amamiya and belongs to the girls' basketball team of a rival school. She is introduced as a player skilled enough that Haru and Yuzuki would struggle to beat her.
She hasn't appeared in episode 14 yet, but she is someone who will shake up the setup around Saku in Haru's arc.
How long Saku will linger in front of the door of his heart, and how each of the five heroines will knock on it, is worth watching.
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Well then, shall we begin today's adventure?
