Id love to hear your wataei take as someone neutral on them
Ig a very short answer is this: it's all tell, don't show.
Think about all of the major relationships we get in the story: Leo and Izumi, Izumi and Makoto, Chiaki and Kanata, Kanata and Madara, Rinne and Niki, Shu and Mika, Ritsu and Mao... regardless of how you feel about them as ships, one thing is you get a pretty cohesive look at their dynamic and how their relationship developed and why they have the kind of bond that they currently do, be it for the better or worse.
With Wataru and Eichi, what you get is a lot of tell. You are constantly told how important they are to each other and how much they love each other and how much their bond matters, but we never actually explore why and how. It's a weird kind of limbo where a large bulk of Wataru's character is dedicated to his relationship with Eichi with little no justification as to why, and while we do get to know Eichi's end of this question and have a clear perspective on his feelings it doesn't make up for what's missing.
Wataru says in the Detectives and Phantom Thieves story that Eichi is the one who pulled him back to reality. He also later reveals that he originally joined Fine out of spite and intended to leave, but grew to care and love Eichi. Okay, show us. What changed? What about Eichi made him forgive and forget? What was it that made a fundemental change in Wataru to justify the line in that story? Because I can see Wataru doing the first part (coming to love him) simply based on Eichi's personality, but it's hard to believe the rest. And part of that is everything that follows.
We pretty much never see Wataru being vulnerable around Eichi. I'm not talking about superficial things like his willingness to eat in front of Eichi, I'm talking actual poignant conversations that lead to something. He's always the one carrying the weight of their relationship, whether physically (because of Eichi's disability, which I'm of course not blaming him for needing assistance with) or emotionally, being patient and dealing with Eichi's insecurities and misgivings. This in and of itself isn't a problem, it's just that we never see this the other way around. It's easy to assume Wataru is centered in this relationship given that Eichi is the more obsessive one, but narratively it's pretty much always Eichi's feelings that their relationship revolves around. It's his misunderstandings of Wataru's character, his insecurities over Wataru joining a theatre troupe, his possessive tendencies resulting from those insecurities, his pleasure and happiness being emphasised by Wataru.
At one point, you just kind of get the sense that Wataru is his prize for winning the War. Which is a really terrible way of going about it considering what he put Wataru and his friends through, especially because we know Wataru wasn't exactly as unfazed as he made himself seem in front of others by the events of the War. He was hurt and resentful, he is just written to completely ignore everything that mattered to himself for Eichi to get what he desired the most without actually having to try and earn it.
And the thing is, that is just like Wataru. He is always trying to compartmentalise all his negative emotions in favour of staying whimsical, his tendency for escapism. If he pretends hard enough that the heartache isn't there, then it goes away! The issue is that this is not supposed to be how he is with Eichi. Wataru lets down his guard with Tomoya, with the eccentrics. Let's some of the loneliness show even as he tries his hardest to contain it still. He is supposed to be willing to do the same with Eichi, but he never does. He is so careful about never inconveniencing Eichi that in Sanctuary, he only lets in Eichi about his lingering emotions related to his past after the fact. Yes, he did trust Eichi to wake him up, but he didn't trust Eichi with the weakness itself.
Which, this whole thing runs contrary to what Wataru's arc is supposed to be. If all he does around Eichi is continue wearing a mask, even if it's not the one he wears all the time, how is Eichi the one anchoring him in reality? Because it seems he's never really willing to face that reality in front of him.
Ig what really makes the execution of their relationship terrible is how hollow it feels now. EiWata has more verbal acknowledgement and affirmation than all of the other eccentrics' ships, except for ShuMika. They get none of the same exploration. Think about how reciprocal the development of Shu and Mika's relationship was and how individually they are explored then grow together. How we get a very clear picture on Kanata's perspective about Chiaki and the fact that the focal point of Rei's relationship with Kaoru was when Kaoru saw his vulnerability and came to understand him beyond the perfection he displays as an idol.
There is so much to explore with Wataru and Eichi and how their relationship developed. Instead we just forego the dramatic setup of their relationship to have Wataru already fully devoted to Eichi, never get an answer as to why that happened (whereas we know why he grew close to the eccentrics and why he likes Tomoya and chooses to be vulnerable around him), and have his part of the relationship constantly minimised in favour of what Eichi wants or needs in the narrative.
In a general sense I have beef with how Wataru's character has been treated in latter event stories because in some aspects he's downright regressed. The Wataru we knew during the War and the earlier days of canon was someone who never let anyone get to him, but also had the self-respect to not let someone actually mistreat him. Some of the conversations between him and characters like Keito just drive me up the wall because that's not the Wataru we knew from the earlier stories. Ig Akira doesn't realise it's a bit contradictory to say being with Eichi anchored Wataru back in reality while the narrative still effectively boxes him into a performance he plays as Eichi's jester.
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