in the guidebook kurosawa described ariake as “not a femme fatale, but a femme fatale man” and i looked up from my screen to stare at the ceiling for a really long time. i love the symbolism and aesthetics associated with him so far (particularly the bridal and arachnid imagery) but i’m also a huge fan of yandere ukes as they’re distressingly rare. a sewayaki-type yandere character that is helpful to the point of being meddlesome is as intriguing as it is foreboding in the context of a murder-mystery story and i have a morbid curiosity as to how a mandatory-first route character like this might behave in routes outside of his own. plus i enjoy how fresh his sample voice clips are hahaha kurosawa saying that his voice actor understood him better than she did makes me So facking excited…