Miyako Saitou

"Don't say that so lightly. I'd like to if I could, you know. The dream that Ai showed us was an experience I can't easily forget. But, that needs to be thought of as having essentially won the lottery. The longer I do this job, the clearer it becomes to me... Miracles like that don't happen twice. The reality is things just don't go that smoothly."

Miyako Saitou (ミヤコ) is a major supporting character in the Oshi no Ko manga series. She is the current president of Ichigo Production, Inc and the adoptive mother to Aqua Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino.

Introduced as the wife of Strawberry's former president, Ichigo Saitou, she initially hated being the twins' caretaker but, over time, grew to genuinely love them, taking them in after their mother passed away. She is especially close with Ruby, supporting her aspirations of becoming an idol like her mother by lending her the agency's resources.

Appearance
Miyako is a radiant-skinned woman with upper-back length strawberry-blonde hair that has bangs hanging on the left side and rouge-colored eyes (Rouge is the French word for "red").

She is initially stated to be a young wife and thus can be assumed to be in her mid to late 30s by the time Aqua Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino start high school.

Personality
Initially, Miyako appears to be a shallow woman who married her husband Ichigo Saitou in order to meet hot actors. She was hot-headed and resentful of being made the twins' caretaker, hastily deciding to sell Ai Hoshino's scandal before the twins stepped in to stop her. She is also shown to be somewhat of a pushover, as the twins are capable of manipulating her into going along with their whims.

However, Miyako gradually showed a more responsible and compassionate side as she took care of the Hoshino twins and proved crucial to maintaining Ai's secret life. This culminates in her adopting them both after Ai's death, at which point she is shown to be a loving and dutiful mother and is specifically stated to be soft on Ruby Hoshino.

Professionally, she demonstrates great ability in managing Ichigo Production, Inc through a moment of struggle, pivoting away from the idol business and allowing the company to stay in business for over a decade, despite her lack of experience and connections.

She is also quite perceptive, being able to figure out that Mem-Cho is actually older than she claims to be, a fact no one else had discovered by that point, even Aqua Hoshino wasn't capable and was seen surprised by this.

Summary
Miyako was introduced as a character who wanted to use her husband Ichigo Saitou for his connections. Because she was used as Aqua Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino's caretaker, she referred to her husband as a jerk, and described Ai Hoshino's situation as sordid. She remembered and realized they were covering up Ai's pregnancy scandal, so she intended to sell the information to a weekly magazine.

Miyako's mindset seemed disarrayed at the time, likely from stress. She proceeded to take pictures of the maternity record book with her smartphone. It seems her plan was to sell it as evidence. Miyako thought of what she wanted to do with the money while her grew face visibly sweaty and nervous. She made off-hand comments about host clubs, and raising someone's specific rank to the "top spot" for a month.

After that initial comment, Aqua and Ruby began talking to her. She reacted with shock, and the twins began lying, stating they were messengers of the gods. She reacted with normal disbelief, making comments about Aqua talking, but denied the fact by believing it was a prank being recorded.

At that point, Ruby took over, stating she was an incarnation of Amaterasu. Ruby manipulated Miyako by saying it was her destiny to help raise the twins, since they had a great destiny themselves. The baby furthered the manipulation by stating Miyako would receive divine punishment, and when the latter fearfully questioned what it'd be, the other child interceded and said, "You die."

Miyako responded with more fear, and asked what she'd need to do. Ruby stated that Miyako would need to guard the Hoshinos' family secret, and to "dote on the children and do all they ask..." Essentially, Ruby wanted to be spoiled. Aqua's twin sister added this as an after comment: "If thou art faithful in this, thy next husband might be a handsome actor."

This seemed to seal the deal for Miyako and she became to eager to do anything they asked. She was visibly happier in the following manga panels.

After that incident, it seemed normal for Miyako to actively engage in regular conversation with the baby twins, since Ruby and Aqua had an outburst asking why Ai wasn't getting enough job opportunities. Miyako calmly explained the difficulties of the entertainment industry.

Etymology

 * The name Miyako is written in katakana (ミヤコ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (美夜子), it could possibly mean "beautiful" (美) (mi), "night, evening" (夜) (ya) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Miyako's surname Saitou means "religious purification/purification, Buddhist food, room, worship, avoid, alike" (斎) (sai) and "wisteria" (藤) (tou).

Navigation
 Miyako Saito