Little Busters!: Become stronger

[blkmage]

From the fine nakige makers at Key/Visual Arts comes Little Busters, a story of youth and finding true strength. Unlike the most well-known anime adaptations of the main Key trifecta, Little Busters will not be handled by the expert tearmakers at Kyoto Animation, but is a work produced by J.C. Staff.

Riki was a child when his parents died, leaving him hopeless and depressed. What saved him was a group of four kids calling themselves the Little Busters. They took Riki out and played with him during his time of need. He really enjoyed being together with them, and his grief gradually faded away. Now in his second year of high school they still hang out, fight and live together, and enjoy their school life.

What sets Little Busters apart from the Key games before it is that LB includes in its cast a group of bros that play a huge part in the story and Riki's development. Expect light comedy for much of the introductory act before it delves into absurdly sad stories.

[SIZE="1"]「]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (from right to left):

[color="DarkOrange"]Natsume Kyousuke [/color]
(CV: Midorikawa Hikaru)
The leader who causes everything normal to turn into a fight

[color="Sienna"]Naoe Riki [/color]
(CV: Horie Yui)
Ordinary boy who experienced extraordinary youth

[color="DeepSkyBlue"]Nishizono Mio [/color]
(CV: Tatsumi Yuiko)
The calm natural material under the parasol

[color="DimGray"]Inohara Masato [/color]
(CV: Canna Nobutoshi)
The cute idiot who likes muscles

[color="LemonChiffon"]Noumi Kudryavka [/color]
(CV: Suzuta Miyako)
Exotic (self-proclaimed) mascot

[color="Magenta"]Saigusa Haruka [/color]
(CV: Suzuki Keiko)
Carefree, joyful, and noisy girl

[color="Silver"]Miyazawa Kengo [/color]
(CV: Oda Yuusei)
The strongest guy and Masato's rival

[color="DarkOrange"]Natsume Rin [/color]
(CV: Tamiyasu Tomoe)
Unsociable high-class kitten

[color="Yellow"]Kamikita Komari [/color]
(CV: Yanase Natsumi)
Bubbly girl from a fairytale

[color="DarkOrchid"]Kurugaya Yuiko [/color]
(CV: Tanaka Ryouko)
The big sister who is a little naughty

Expect: Air/Kanon/Clannad, fourth-wall breaking humour, bros
Don't expect: Air/Kanon/Clannad, heavy romance, KyoAni production values

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

I haven't watched it yet but I'm thinking I am now obligated to.

[Atria35]

So far, it's very light-hearted, which is a-okay with me. It's a nice change of pace to have a group of friends focused on - and NOT a group that's mainly girls! I'm not sure how I feel about a story that will partially center around baseball (even though it seems more a plot device than anything). So far, not that funny, still waiting for something that will tickle my funny bone.

[goldenspines]

I haven't watched it yet but I'm thinking I am now obligated to.

Great, Hat. Now I have to watch it too. D:<


Actually, it did look interesting, but I was on the fence until Blkmage made this thread about it.

[Vii]

I'm watching. 'Cause it's Key. And I like the bros aspect.

I am a little bummed that KyoAni isn't animating it, though. The animation isn't bad, but I keep wondering just how much better it would be if KyoAni did it. :/

First episode was okay. Got a chuckle or two out of it.

And Riki's voice is way too high.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Honestly, my only Maeda/Key experience so far is Angel Beats, which I hated, so I didn't exactly have the highest hopes for this.

I loved the first episode. I loved the general atmosphere, I loved the friendship and group dynamics of it, I am excited that it's going to have baseball, I instantly grew attached to leader-man. It's light hearted, but in a Spirit of Youth! sort of way, rather than just aimless happiness I think it's really highlighting the good parts of being young. The idea of going out with a bang really works for me because I'm approaching graduation this year, having already seen my older friends graduate, and now the same thing is coming to me. I can really tell I'm going to get sucked into this if it keeps this up. Animation is pretty standard for JC Staff, decent but this isn't Hyouka or Tempest, certainly, but I really like the character designs, which look infinitely better than the ugliness of the earlier Key shows. My only real fear is that this will go into "Now let me spill out my entire tragic backstory" zone, but I was expecting that from the beginning so.

Can someone more familiar with the main Key trifecta tell me how this compares with the other shows, because I could very possibly put aside my disdain for the character designs if it means getting something like this.

Oh, and the flashbacks to when they were kids? Adorable.

[blkmage]

Little Busters is not about baseball. [s]It is about hitting cats while playing baseball.[/s]

Riki's voice is a huge improvement over his voice from the visual novel, when he was voiced by the same seiyuu as Rin.

Little Busters struck me as a much more complete and coherent version of Angel Beats. That isn't to say that Angel Beats is the same as Little Busters, but there is a bit of overlap in some of the themes. That said, I found Little Busters really uneven. The common route, Rin's route, and the Refrain route were really good, but I found the other character routes ranged from trite to outright incoherent. The minigames and overall structure of the game made sense though.

Little Busters is fairly different from the other Key games because of the dynamic of the bros. That said, I'd say that if you want to dip your toe in the waters, Clannad probably offers the closest to that dynamic with Tomoya and Sunohara in the early part of each of Clannad's arcs. That and Clannad's character arcs are much better than Little Busters' equivalents and are guaranteed to be better integrated when adapted into a linear story.

[MangaRocks!]

Just got done watching episode one, and LOL, that was really amusing. :grin:

I did already know that it's going to get serious later on (since when I was looking up stuff about the show a while back to see if I'd like to watch it, I accidentally ended up getting spoiled on the story's big twist ... and I wish that I hadn't, because that probably would've been/will be a pretty nice revelation to receive at the proper time in the story; but oh well-- there's nothing I can do about that now except to not spoil it for anyone else ), but while I've no doubt that I'll be drawn in by that stuff as well, I did quite enjoy the lighthearted tone of this episode. Plus, I really love the characters' friendships and the way they interact with each other. (And Hat made some good points on those elements which I agree with as well.) Oh yeah, and Kyousuke is awesome.

Can't wait for more!

[Vii]

Kyousuke reminds me of Akio from Clannad. X3

[MomentOfInertia]

I haven't watched it yet but I'm thinking I am now obligated to.

Magnificent.
...crap, how am I going to fit this in....

[blkmage]

Little Busters is way less enjoyable when I'm forced to listen to Komari's voice.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Yeah, I pretty much hate her and I hope the other girls are better.

Kyousuke is like the freaking best though so the show is still great.

[Xeno]

I cannot express my disappointment with this thread enough. I was hoping it was a thread dedicated to this song from FLCL: The Pillows - "Little Busters". I am disappoint.

[MangaRocks!]

Kyousuke is like the freaking best

^ Yes, he most definitely is!!

With great characters, the unexpected ability to make me laugh harder than any other show I'm currently watching this season, and the promise of some nice serious stuff later on, this is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

Looking forward to next week!

[blkmage]

This episode introduced one of my favourite characters, but it was bad. The animation wasn't great, but whatever. The direction, though, was awful. It's like they lifted cuts directly from the visual novel.

[MangaRocks!]

^ Hmm... well, to be honest, I didn't really notice anything much worse in terms of its animation or direction than the previous episodes; but, then again, I'm not watching this particular series for its animation/direction quality (or lack of it) anyway, LOL , so I guess I'm just sort of automatically ignoring those factors in this case. :grin:

Anyway, as usual, I loved this episode-- the characters and their interactions are hilarious. I never thought I was a fan of this kind of goofy humor (I tend to enjoy dry/sarcastic/witty/etc.-style humor much more than exaggerated/slapstick stuff), but for some reason this is really working for me (not that I'm complaining, LOL! ).

Can't wait for next week!

[blkmage]

Animation isn't that important and I'm not expecting a lot there. Direction is super important though, because it'll basically make or break Little Busters' more difficult elements. I think they've handled baseball and the fighting system as well as they could've at the moment, but I'm not optimistic about their handling of the secret note subplot so far (episode 2).

[MangaRocks!]

Ah, I see what you're saying-- I somehow thought you had meant the direction of the animation, not the direction of the scriptwriting/plot (whoops! ). As for that, basically the only real thing I know about the plot (other than what I've already seen in the episodes so far) is the big twist , so I'll definitely defer to you there on whether or not they're doing well at adapting it.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Actually, I can definitely see why the cheaper budget is annoying. I liked the last episode more than the one before it, but it is pretty noticeably cheap and it's kind of irritating when I think how great this could be if it had a budget like Hyouka, which I'm pretty sure half the greatness came from KyoAni showing off their talent the whole time. Similarly, the fights are pretty funny but when you wonder what they'd be like if they were done with Chu-2 Koi level talent it becomes kind of disappointment. I am still watching and enjoying the show but this is noticeably dropping from my love of the first episode.

New character is pretty great, though Komari dropped the bar significantly so we'll see if I still like her later on or not.

Actually, even if they aren't Key things can anyone think of any shows with a similar bros dynamic? It is pretty obviously the best part of the show so I'd love to see a show with that except hopefully more polished than LB.

[blkmage]

Well, at least we're getting Komari's route over and done with first. But it's really not a good sign when each successive episode keeps on looking worse. At least there was Kud.

[MangaRocks!]

Um... maybe I'm just missing something, but Komari actually does not annoy me at all...

Anyway, some thoughts on episode 4:

LOL, Kud was so cute.

Nice, so it's getting a bit more into some of the serious stuff now.

And oh my gosh, some of the stuff in the latter half of the episode was hilarious!!


On a sidenote, I haven't mentioned this until now, but I like Riki's personality. There's something slightly unexpected about it (...though for some reason I can't quite describe exactly what that is at the moment). Now, I mean, obviously Kyousuke is the absolute best :grin:, and Masato is fantastic for laughs ; but I like Riki quite a bit, too.

[MangaRocks!]

...Also, it was obvious even to me that this was going to have to be longer than 26 episodes, and now it looks like that's been pretty much confirmed.

[blkmage]

Little Busters is longer than Clannad, so that's not surprising, even longer if they include the EX routes.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Terminal diseases are common in Key things right? Pleasepleasepleaseplease tell me that Komari is going to have one. Maybe the same as her brother? Then the writers can cry all they want. And I would cry too. Many, many tears of joy.

[MangaRocks!]

^ Er, that seems a bit harsh. (Seriously-- I mean, I know her voice is extremely high and all that, but I'm kinda struggling to understand why she apparently annoys some people that much... )


Anyway, couple of thoughts on episode 5:

I thought it was common knowledge that you're not supposed to stand up in a boat like that, LOL. Also, poor cat, and poor Komari.

Very much looking forward to next week, as always!

[blkmage]

Komari is the least interesting character and her route isn't that good (which, to be fair, can be said of almost all the character routes). That she has an annoying voice exacerbates that.

[MangaRocks!]

Episode 6:

Oh man, I actually teared up several times throughout this episode (...and no, it was not from her voice, LOL ). If this is just the beginning, I think I'm totally going to break down by the end. I don't mind, though.

I loved [spoiler]the little bits of personal growth that Riki and Rin had in this episode, too. I already know that's the point, so maybe I'm just noticing it more because of that, but it was so sweet. And the friendship that they all have with each other is really touching. :hug:[/spoiler]

[blkmage]

Hmmm, not entirely sure how I feel about this. I think the placement of Komari's route so early on kind of hurt the ending, especially what with the Little Busters not being entirely assembled yet. I guess we'll just have to wait and see why they decided to plug this in the middle of the common route.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

I liked the theme and message of the end but the actual execution was pretty terrible. Hopefully now that we'll have a better character coming up next it'll improve. If not, well, I guess I'll just keep hoping it hits the first episode.

At least the budget has at least seemed to stabilize.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Well, 7 was better, but the drama at the end was still pretty bad. Not sure how I feel about the new girl, though she isn't as bad as Komari.