Shuichi Saito (斎藤 秀一 Saitō Shūichi), often misspelled as "Shuuichi Sato", is one of the major supporting characters in the manga (he is arguably the deuteragonist until Chapter 14 in which he is rendered unable to function and Chie Maruyama takes his place as deuteragonist). He is the orphaned son of Mr. Saito and Yukie Saito and the boyfriend of Kirie Goshima.
Appearance[]
Shuichi is a very tall and delicately built pale-skinned boy with short, curly black hair and light-green eyes. After Chapter 2, he gradually looks more and more starved and sleep-deprived, his hair grows shaggier and longer, his cheekbones are prominent from malnutrition and has dark circles under his eyes that look almost like bruises. He tends to dress formally, however, most of his clothes seem to be too big for him due to him being so skinny. From chapter 16 on, he also wears a tattered cape. In the same way that Kirie Goshima is usually drawn with an exasperated expression, Shuichi is usually drawn looking tired and melancholy, and somewhat frightened. Compared to other male Junji Ito characters, Shuichi's facial features are rather delicate and feminine, with thick eyelashes and full lips.
Personality[]
Shuichi is a timid and fearful individual, as well as extremely depressed and when agitated, displays erratic, manic behavior. He has severe insomnia as a result of his parents' suicides. He is generally shy and quite reclusive, only going outside when necessary to Kirie's well-being, or when she urges him to. He would do anything for Kirie and tries to protect her at all costs, even staying in Kurôzu-Cho because she doesn't want to leave. Except when in situations that threaten his or Kirie's safety, he seems soft-spoken and submissive and doesn't respond when attacked, most likely out of a desire not to start a fight. He seems to stutter quite a bit when talking to people aside from Kirie. After Chapter 14: Butterflies, Shuichi enters a catatonic state, leaving him to obsessively repeat the phrase "this town is going mad." He experiences a psychotic break by Chapter 17: Escape, and sees his father in a tree-stump telling him to join him, to which he replies with frantic yelling and screaming.
Plot[]
Shuichi in Part 1
The Spiral Obsession[]
Shuichi in Part 2, wearing a hat to prevent triggering his mother's phobia
In "the Spiral Obsession" parts 1 and 2, Shuichi is orphaned by the spiral curse. He tells Kirie that the town of Kurôzu-Cho is "contaminated by the spiral." When Kirie tells him that she saw his father staring avidly at a snail, Shuichi replies that his father was acting very strangely. Said person became unhealthily obsessed with spirals, and killed himself to embody a spiral. Shuichi and his mother became paranoid about spirals, but his mother develops an intense fear that leaves her panicked whenever faced with a spiral. The hospital nurses take great precautions to facilitate her extreme phobia. However, upon realizing that spirals exist on her own body, she shaves her head and cuts off the skin of her own fingertips and toes. Shuichi visits her regularly and must wear a hat and gloves so he doesn't scare her. Shuichi realizes that a spiral exists inside the body, being the cochlea of the inner ear. He greatly fears his mother will find out, and does what he can to protect her from learning this information. They contemplate taking her to the same psychiatric ward they were going to take Shuichi's father, in order to give her better support for her phobia. But before they can, Yukie Saito kills herself by stabbing her eardrums with scissors, despite never learning of the cochlea, as she is deluded by hallucinations of her dead husband into believing there are spirals in her ears.
The Scar[]
Azami Kurotani develops a crush on Shuichi and begins stalking him, finding his phone number, and even renting an apartment in Kurôzu-Cho so that she can go to his house every night and stand at his door knocking and screaming at him. He freaks out and even collapses almost any time she appears, stating bluntly that "she is a spiral." He urges her to leave Kurôzu-Cho for her own protection, and to go to school at his old school. He is called by a student who appears to be an admirer of Kirie, who asks to meet him. Shuichi does so, but learns it was a trap meant to lure him to Azami. Azami's formerly crescent-shaped scar turns into a spiral that devours her head and soon swallows Okada with it. Shuichi climbs a tree in order to distance himself from Azami, who is rapidly being eaten by the spiral. Kirie soon appears and alongside her, he watches Azami disappear entirely.
The Firing Effect[]
Shuichi is invited over to Kirie's house for dinner because he doesn't eat. Kirie remarks that he will die of malnutrition the way he is living and has to drag him out to her house in his reluctance. He expresses his fear of her house, not because of her, but because she lives so close to Dragonfly Pond which he says is "infested with spirals." The spirits of dead people, including Shuichi's parents, whose ashes are being re-burned by Mr Goshima (and made into pottery) are seen calling Shuichi's name, screaming for help. He hears them over the phone when he calls Kirie because he's lonely; Kirie claims that it's nothing, but Shuichi quickly figures out what's going on and comes over to Kirie's house, smashes Yasuo's kiln, and temporarily frees him of his spiral obsession.
Twisted Souls[]
In this chapter, Shuichi is the first person to realize that the families of Kazunori and Yoriko are cursed with spirals. He says that their house is infected and has twisted the souls of the two families. He asks that Kirie run away with him again, possibly that night, but she is angered by this and leaves, telling him she won't seek his help anymore. He and Kirie later try to help Kazunori and Yoriko escape from the town and their families by train, but they had been spotted by their families while trying to sneak out. Shuichi proposes that they head to the beach, and circle around to the road out of town from there. In horror, he witnesses Kazunori and Yoriko become twisted and flee to the ocean.
Shuichi cuts Kirie's hair
Medusa[]
In this chapter, a boy dies after pulling an attention-seeking stunt, and Kirie's friend, Sekino, tells her that she understands his feelings, as she also craves attention. Kirie seeks Shuichi's insight, and he tells her that attention-seeking is a curse of the spiral, relating to mesmerism. He offhandedly tells her that her hair is getting long and that maybe she should get it cut. Kirie's hair then becomes contaminated by the Spiral. Every time she tries to cut it off, it chokes her. Shuichi finds her outside the train station, immobilized by the attention-seeking hair, and runs off, leaving Kirie crying. He returns during Kirie and Sekino's fight in the schoolyard, cutting Sekino's hair to save Kirie from strangulation, but then being trapped by Kirie's own hair. Kirie collapses, and Sekino, satisfied, walks off shrieking hysterically in victory. Shuichi emerges from the tangle of Kirie's hair and frantically begins cutting it off, saving her.
Jack In The Box[]
Kirie calls Shuichi over the phone in a moment of grief because she blames herself for the death of Mitsuru Yamaguchi, who got hit by a car trying to prove his love for her. Shuichi reassures her that it wasn't her fault, however she is convinced by a haunted Jack-in-the-box in her room that Mitsuru died for her and will come back to haunt her. Shuichi and Kirie go to the graveyard in order to see whether or not he had risen from the dead. Shuichi brings along a shovel and crowbar to dig up and pry open the coffin, and a wooden stake to stab the body with. Shuichi digs the up the earth surrounding the casket, and tries to pry off a few nails, but the rest of them come undone themselves. The two are then chased by a restless, rotting Mitsuru, who is revealed to still have a car suspension spring in his body that was never removed when he was mangled between the wheel and chassis of the car.
The Snail[]
Shuichi doesn't make any appearance in this chapter.
The Black Lighthouse[]
Shuichi doesn't make any appearance in this chapter.
Mosquitoes[]
Shuichi makes an appearance in this chapter visiting Kirie in the hospital, much to her surprise. She remarks she hasn't seen him in what feels like ages, and he comments that "I've become such a recluse I hardly go out anymore." He tells her to check out of the hospital, sensing that there is something wrong with the place. Kirie's cousin Keiko Nakayama, is brought into her room to stay, and Shuichi says to Kirie that she shouldn't let her stay and that he has gets a weird feeling from her. A mosquito appears, and he panics, spraying bug spray everywhere to kill it. He picks it up, informing Kirie that only pregnant female mosquitoes suck blood, before being kicked out of the hospital by a nurse. Once again predicting what will happen, he leaves the bug spray, which Kirie later uses to save herself from the spiral-cursed mosquito women.
The Umbilical Cord[]
Shuichi doesn't make any appearance in this chapter.
The Storm[]
Shuichi and Kirie having fun on the beach
While at a recreational outing on the beach, Shuichi predicts a typhoon will hit Kurôzu-Cho and runs off to alert the townspeople, who mock and ridicule him for it. A hurricane, which is contaminated by the Spiral, arrives and remains stationary over Kurôzu-Cho; it has fallen in love with Kirie and tries to take her. Shuichi mentions that it is hypnotized by Kirie, and he attempts to keep her from the hurricane's clutches. After a period of hiding, they are found by the hurricane and sucked up into its eye, only to fall back and land in Dragonfly pond. They are fished out by Kirie's parents, apparently unharmed.
The House[]
Shuichi doesn't make any appearance in this chapter.
Butterflies[]
In this chapter, while the many residents of the cramped rowhouse work together to create a whirlwind in order to fend off murderous children, Shuichi remains unresponsive, curled up against the wall. He enters a catatonic state and becomes unable to do anything except obsessively murmur "this town is going mad."
Chaos[]
Shuichi is seen mumbling to himself, again repeating "this town is mad." A fellow refugee, annoyed by his repeated muttering, attacks him for it. When Shuichi is completely unresponsive and continues to mumble, the refugee beats him and drop-kicks him out of the row house. Kirie chases him out to check on him and she and the rest of her family, along with Chie, are evicted. Later, after he and the Goshimas are chased around town by a tornado gang, he saves Kirie and Chie from being sucked into Dragonfly Pond, the place which seems to be the source of the spirals, presumably riding a whirlwind to do so.
Erosion[]
When prompted by Kirie, Shuichi tells the others that the reason people are turning into snails because they are moving too slowly therefore the spiral can catch them easily. He raises the possibility that if they, too move too slowly, it could likely happen to them. Shuichi decides to eat the snail-person out of his own hunger and possibly a desire for Kirie to follow suit. He looks disturbed while doing so, however, because of his ability to predict spirals that Kirie has now learnt to trust, she eats, convinced of the safety of the action, though still conflicted over its morality. For reasons unknown, from the start of this chapter onward Shuichi has a tattered cloth tied around his shoulders.
Shuichi, finding his father in the treestump
Escape[]
Shuichi, Kirie, Chie, Mitsuo and other survivors attempt to escape from Kurôzu-Cho through the hills that surround the spiral town. Upon Chie and Kirie deciding to try to escape, Shuichi tells them that it is no use, however, he accompanies them nonetheless. When they realize that the spiral pattern is even in the flora of the forest, he remarks that the spiral curse is down to the level of growing cells. During their long walk, Shuichi sees a hallucination of his father's corpse in the spiral of a tree trunk and panics, needing Kirie to calm him down. Over the course of the chapter, he states multiple times that "It's in us and around us," referring to the Spiral.
The Labyrinth
When the group come back to Kurôzu-Cho, Shuichi is the first to recognize the town. He is also the one to come up with the theory that the town has been cursed with spirals for a very long time and that the making of the spiral row houses was something that had been done subconsciously. Later, he and Kirie go to dragonfly pond, only to discover that it has dried up and that in its place is a ginormous spiral staircase going down several kilometers.
Shuichi being attacked by a spiral and falling
Completion[]
Shuichi and Kirie succumbing to the spiral curse to stop it
While they are going down the spiral staircase, Kirie is attacked by a spiral who wants to be taken with them to the bottom. Shuichi, while wrestling the creature off of Kirie, is knocked off the staircase and falls to the bottom, landing on a mass of spiral corpses that make up the ground for a huge, contorted city of spirals. When Kirie finds him, he is completely incapacitated (it seems that, when the Spiral carried Kirie down gently by means of a whirlwind, it did not extend the same courtesy to Shuichi). He tells Kirie to leave him to die and continue trying to escape, declaring that the Spiral curse is almost over; however Kirie refuses, stating that she doesn't have the strength, and they embrace each other, their bodies twisting together partially, and they become frozen in time, presumably for centuries. It is implied that they will be able to move again when those centuries have passed, and won't have aged at all.
Lost Chapter: Galaxies[]
Shuichi first receiving radio waves
This chapter happens sometime between The Spiral Obsession Part 2 and Medusa. Kirie is over at Shuichi's house when he shows her the existence of a completely new spiral galaxy. Amazed by this discovery, she informs her teacher, Mr Yokota who insists they consult an astronomer. The astronomer, Torino, is astounded by Shuichi's discovery and begins to obsessively examine the new galaxy. Excited, Kirie and Yokota tell Shuichi what a great discovery he has made, and that it could even be named after him as "The Shuichi Galaxy". Shuichi is very upset by this proposal, and tells them he doesn't want his name associated with "that thing". Kirie is concerned by Shuichi, and decides to visit him. She finds him cowering with his head in his hands, shaking. He tells her that powerful radio waves are being transmitted into his head, and she tells him to get a hold of himself. Torino begins to recieve these radio waves and they tell him to kill Shuichi so he can be honored as the official discoverer of the new galaxy. Shuichi tells him that he had been told the same thing, to kill Torino before he could do so. Ultimately, Shuichi quickly concedes, telling him he never wanted anything to do with the galaxy anyway. After Torino's head explodes and he is sent up into the sky to join the spiral-cursed "galaxies", none of the galaxies found in Kurôzu-Cho were ever seen again.
Abilities[]
Shuichi has the ability to sense, or "feel" spirals, and, as demonstrated in Chapter 3, he can actually see those invisible to anyone else's eyes as well. It is implied that he has visions in Chapter 5: Twisted Souls, when he says "If what I saw hasn't driven me completely insane..." also implying that these premonitions are horrific and vivid. He can predict spirals too, always knowing all the details of how the spirals will attack. He seems to know an uncanny amount about Kurôzu-Cho's history with spirals. Shuichi's strange abilities to connect with spirals and know their motives and intentions has never been explained. At first, Shuichi states that he knows what's going on because he goes to school in another town, however, that excuse is quickly disproven as he also displays an ability to actually predict the details of the spiral curse before they happen, with no warning signs whatsoever. It is unknown whether or not he can only see through the Spiral when it directly affects him and/or Kirie, or if he has somehow been witness to the Spiral infections of complete strangers as well; though, given his generally fearful personality, his severe reactions don't do much to indicate either.
Quotes[]
- "It's in us, and around us."
- "Mad...this town is going mad..."
- "This town is contaminated by the spiral."
Etymology[]
- The name Shuichi means "excellent, outstanding" (秀) (shu) and "one" (一) (ichi).
- Shuichi's surname Saito means "religious purification/purification, Buddhist food, room, worship, avoid, alike" (斎) (sai) and "wisteria" (藤) (to).
Trivia[]
- Shuichi is the first person to be orphaned by the spiral curse.
- He is also the first to realize what is going on in Kurôzu-Cho.
- Shuichi seems to be the only character with magic abilities that are permanent and not induced by the spiral.
Gallery[]
