Yeah I think by far the biggest Problem with Arato is his introduction. That and how other characters behave around him.
At first he just gets introduced and it's no big deal. He's just kindof there having an occasional scene of annoying Mary, but not much else. But then he kindof kidnaps the plot because he's needed for a big plot moment and the dev didn't really set him up that much before hand. So you just get one huge scene after another of just arato, arato and more arato.
And the problem isn't just if you dislike Arato himself, but that other characters behave differently around him and if you like how those characters act normally, then there's just nothing to enjoy about those scenes. Mary isn't fun and cheery anymore, Shizuka isn't subtle and mysterious anymore. You can't enjoy the normal personality of the characters you like, because they don't act like that anymore and you don't enjoy Arato. So it's just a big stretch of plot that's just filled with stuff you don't particularly enjoy.
But it's not all that bad. Once the game gets it out of it's system and finally reaches that big plot moment, depending on what route you choose, you're back to mostly the usual three with Arato just lurking in the background.
So if someone gets to that point and really doesn't like the Arato content, I would honestly recommend just looking up with choices lead to the kendo route, enable skipping unseen content and skip towards the scene with the final route choice. If you don't like Arato and his stuff then there's not much you loose by skipping those scenes till then.
At first he just gets introduced and it's no big deal. He's just kindof there having an occasional scene of annoying Mary, but not much else. But then he kindof kidnaps the plot because he's needed for a big plot moment and the dev didn't really set him up that much before hand. So you just get one huge scene after another of just arato, arato and more arato.
And the problem isn't just if you dislike Arato himself, but that other characters behave differently around him and if you like how those characters act normally, then there's just nothing to enjoy about those scenes. Mary isn't fun and cheery anymore, Shizuka isn't subtle and mysterious anymore. You can't enjoy the normal personality of the characters you like, because they don't act like that anymore and you don't enjoy Arato. So it's just a big stretch of plot that's just filled with stuff you don't particularly enjoy.
But it's not all that bad. Once the game gets it out of it's system and finally reaches that big plot moment, depending on what route you choose, you're back to mostly the usual three with Arato just lurking in the background.
So if someone gets to that point and really doesn't like the Arato content, I would honestly recommend just looking up with choices lead to the kendo route, enable skipping unseen content and skip towards the scene with the final route choice. If you don't like Arato and his stuff then there's not much you loose by skipping those scenes till then.