I wasn't especially under the charm of the characters, it's a game that I finished at a time when I saw it as a duty to finish what I bought, and certainly wouldn't do that today. However, I found Ai Ebihara (not sure about the name) interesting narratively as well as in gameplay (I appreciated being "punished", so to speak, for being the hypocrite expected in every other social links), and an excellent personification of the central theme.

We'll agree completely on the villain, there's something "real" about them; I totally can see someone acting the same way, given the possibility. Don't know if Hashino is responsible for this character, but if it's the case, I'll praise him without any reluctance.

the setting is really well executed

Didn't work at all on me. Never could shake off the impression that it was as artificial as the 5 corridors that constitute Inaba... And yet I love the Japanese countryside as a setting, notably in Miyazaki's movies or the Boku no Natsuyasumi series.