Is aoi and hinata's love romantic love or friendly love ? Is aoi x hinata canon or not ?

i mean, theres the blushie blushie whenever they're near each other, and also in the japanese version, he says aishiteru which unlike daisuki and others, is like the ultimate ULTIMATEEE form of love. So I think its safe to assume its romantic love.

Lol, (spoilers for aoi/hinata route) it is later revealed they are related by blood, aoi is his half-brother/nephew, so I suppose it is familial love (similar to Naotaro and Shinnosuke). They do care about and love each other, but it is never really portrayed as romantic (although you can interpret how you want). Currently, Sakura is the only one who explicitly stated to have romantic feelings for Aoi, and Aoi seems to return these feelings (the letter in the beginning addressing to him, being willing for him to be the one who receives the Lemures Blue, etc).

(Apologies for the extreme necropost; Itch rarely ever informs me of comments/posts (*sweating*)

(Official) Answer to Aoi and Hinata's relationship.

From the official guidebook:

[Q: What was it that attracted you to Aoi?

Hinata: Was I even attracted to Aoi to begin with? I mean, I do like him, and I guess it would be a total lie to say I wasn't attracted to him at all! Well, uh... I guess what people really want to ask is; "Was your relationship really a romantic one?". But if you ask me that, then I can't give you an answer. Because neither I nor Aoi knew what love is. For Aoi, who couldn't accept himself, and I, who didn't even know who I was meant to be, what we needed first and foremost was to love ourselves. That's what our route is about: self-discovery and self-acceptance. So in that way, our story is fundamentally very different from the story of Sakura and Itsuki. Aoi and I weren't even in a place where we could fall in love yet.]

The terminology used in game for 'falling in love' between them in the JP version is used for explicitly romantic love, but like mentioned, Aoi and Hinata both have a very confused sense of what love is due to their upbringings. I do think what Itsuki says about them being tied together with the red string is true and that they would have genuinely loved each other had they the chance, if only things hadn't worked out as they had, and regardless of the complicated nature of their relationship.