Synopsis
Saki Arima is the late mother of Kousei Arima and wife of Takahiko Arima, and was a nationally recognized pianist in her lifetime. Her death, and the way she treated her son beforehand, is what left Kousei unable to play for two years afterward.
Saki was a harsh, at times outright abusive teacher, but Kousei comes to understand, only after her death, that the severity came from a badly misguided kind of love rather than resentment. For years he believed she hated him, even imagining her ghost punishing him for once wishing her dead, before realizing that what she truly felt was fear over whether he could make a living on his own.
She had shoulder-length brown hair and dark eyes, and in her final illness is most often shown in a wheelchair, breathing with the help of a nasal cannula.
