#and how it relates to both hayato and saito .. in a way (?)

[shokosriver]

AITSF spoilers

this is not the cabaret club man

[keycrash]

i think i haven’t really talked about my AI thoughts much? i can’t go into it in too much detail rn or i’ll get overwhelmed but i mentioned some stuff on twitter i was thinking about. spoilers, obviously

i’m really proud of uchikoshi in a weird way because AI pulled off a lot of the themes ZTD tried to tackle but in a MUCH more polished way; most notably is the theme of love and found family. we knew going in that love would be a major theme of AI given that ai is...love in japanese... but i didn’t expect him to delve into so many different kinds of love and explore each so well

he tackles conventional forms of these types of love by showing how sometimes the family structures/relationships that are considered normal and acceptable on a surface level can be fucked up and hurt you, but how sometimes ones that are unconventional or underrepresented can be fulfilling and healing

as far as romantic love goes, hayato and hitomi are a single mother with a father tied up in a complicated past, and renju and pewter are mlm, and both were considered positive relationships; meanwhile manaka and sejima are, thankfully, portrayed as Pretty Fucked Up, with an old politician taking advantage of a young girl leading to her death

with familial love, mayumi and ota are coping with mayumi’s dementia and the loss of ota’s father; date and mizuki aren’t genetically related and mizuki has a lot of baggage from her previous family situation; hayato and iris aren’t genetically related but he loves her as his own; hitomi loves iris so much that she’s scared to tell her she’s not genetically related to her for fear that iris wouldn’t consider her her mother anymore, but on the flip side, sejima’s lack of compassion and involvement in saito’s life is likely a factor in the progression of the murders, and mizuki’s parents being fucked up is treated VERY realistically-- shoko’s straight up shitty even if she argues that she has a REASON and WHY does mizuki “MAKE” her do this, and while renju doesn’t agree with shoko’s actions he’s a shit parent in that he doesn’t really do anything to step up to the plate. date coming into mizuki’s life as her new guardian is the best possible thing that could’ve happened. no i’m not crying.

and platonic friendship! holy fuck! boss’s love for hayato in doing so much to try to protect him and keep him secure, renju manaka and hitomi’s love for each other and how manaka’s death fucked renju and hitomi up (and, imo, it’d make sense for hitomi to have been in love with manaka as well), mizuki iris and ota being friends despite being wildly varying ages (though there are some points where i think there were some comments that could’ve been handled better), renju confiding in date, date and aiba sharing their very thoughts and experiences and knowing each other more than anyone can know another person and loving each other so goddamn much, oh my god

i could rave about the relationships in this game for ages; uchikoshi working with an open world, with a cast that has largely known each other in an elaborate network of relationships for a long time is a new experience but he pulled it off. he really did. i’m endlessly impressed with this game the more i think about it. i’m so happy with it i’m so proud of uchikoshi :’)