Little Busters! Anime General Discussion

Key Discussion
#1

[Rpyleoh] Little Busters! NCOP1 [BD][x264,720p,FLAC][High444][337DABE3].mkv_snapshot_00.11_[2014.08.27_01.04.45].jpg1280Ă—720 104 KB

General discussion thread for the Little Busters! Anime adaptation. Please use your discretion to tag late-game spoilers with [spoiler]. Any spoilers pertaining to knowledge from the Refrain arc are strictly required to be spoiler-tagged.

There was a bit of discussion about the Little Busters Anime adaptation in the chatroom, and it was suggested that a thread be made, so here it is~ Feel free to share how you felt it held up as an adaptation compared to the original VN, what it did good or bad, and any general thoughts you have specific to the Anime adaptation.

Anime-only viewers, don’t feel pressured to only post only here either. The arc threads and general discussion threads will welcome you, just be wary of spoilers if you haven’t finished the series yet.

Personally, I really enjoyed the Anime. I understand that it garnered a lot of hate when it first started, and everyone was quick to judge it, especially the VN veterans who were expecting a perfect adaptation of their beloved Visual Novel. Sure enough, the Anime isn’t without it’s flaws. But looking at it objectively, it’s a pretty solid adaptation. JC Staff did really well with the limited resources they had to produce a coherent and loyal adaptation of the Visual Novel. I feel like it cops a lot more flack than it deserves, and people should be more accepting of it. Dare I say it, some aspects of the story were executed even better in the Anime than in the source material. Looking at you Kengo and Rin.

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Introduce Yourself!
#2

The major flaw of the Anime is that Sonic the Hedgehog directed it. It was rushed out, and it was rushed into less episodes than it should have been.
I can’t imagine why, that’s complete idiocy, I’m not going to point fingers because I don’t know who’s to blame for that, but it’s god damn LB, they should have known damn well it would have sold even better if treated with care. The fanbase is not small nor silent.

#3

No Yuiko true end = Sad Taka T w T
Still made me cry, but that Yuiko moment of “take care of Rin” thing just annoyed me!

The ending scene… they did that perfectly. It felt just as it did in the VN!
We got a double dose of Kengo breakdown in rapid succession which I wasn’t too fond of. That just made me feel bad…

#4

I thought the anime was pretty solid, one of my favorite episodes was the test of courage.
And I think the the way they had Rin and Riki overcome, themselves? was done very well.

And Kurugaya’s arc made me very happy, I was worried they were gonna skip it, though I do wish they had a OVA for that story line,

#5

If I recall correctly, the “protect rin” line was present in the VN as well…

#6

Nope. The line may have been buried in some random line in the route at the very most, but Rin wasn’t even as present in Kurugaya’s route in the VN as she was in the anime.

I’m not gonna write my thoughts on the adaptation anymore.
In terms of adaptation quality, considering what could have and should have been done for each anime production, and seeing how much was improvised, changed for better or worse, and the animation quality, I’d give Clannad a 9/10, Kanon (2006) an 8.5/10, Little Busters a 6/10, and Air (TV) a 4/10.
This is my opinion after reading all the VNs.

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#7

I hope this isn’t necro-ing too badly…

I have a weird relationship with the LB anime adaptation. On the one hand I’m a bit frustrated that it’s just (subjectively) nowhere near as good as the visual novel. On the other hand I feel that’s mostly due to Little Busters just… not being that adaptable.

I haven’t read many visual novels, but so far, Little Busters is the one that made me feel like it really made great use of all the advantages of the visual novel medium. Between music that plays at perfect times with pauses that last exactly as long as the reader needs them to be, subtle storytelling through something as simple as character stats increasing, two really fun global minigames, a common route that constantly evolves, and most of all, an amazing set of choices that make everything feel much more personal and involving - especially with outright mortifying bad ends lurking around every corner (looking at you, Kud route’s “I want her to stay”).

How are you going to adapt that? You can’t. You need to cut out just about all of what I just listed to adapt it to an anime. And that is, I feel, where a lot of the spirit was lost.

Even accepting this, I still can’t say it was a great adaptation. It made some bad choices, IMO. (VN and Anime Full Spoilers) Changing the ending, showing Koshiki Miyuki during the first occurence of the Cheap Tricks scene, and not forgetting about half the cast during Refrain (that made Rin’s dream so much more impactful), just to name a few.

However, I’m being too negative. The anime did a lot of things right too. (Full Spoilers) Episode Masato is absolutely wonderful, as is the Haruka Kanata sequence. Kengo turning into a fun-loving idiot was really well executed. And no matter what I say, the anime is what got me hooked on Little Busters in the first place, and had already established Kyousuke as my favorite anime character before I even read the source material.

In conclusion: It was fine, it could have been better, but it had a limit anyways. Little Busters just fits the visual novel medium too well.

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#8

I agree that Little Busters makes use of the VN medium very heavily, thus making adaptation difficult. But, in the back of my mind, I can still think of a way that they could have adapted it well enough.
Refrain spoilers

One example would be to very subtly showing that alarm clock in Riki’s Room with an already past date when finishing up one of the characters’ routes.

Another one would be actually keeping the romance intact in the Kurugaya route >_>

But I feel the same way. They made a few mistakes, and it could have been done better if they legitimately tried to make things confusing then clearing it up in refrain… buuut I enjoyed in nonetheless.

YES! THIS SO MUCH!
Refrain spoilers

It was one of those little things that makes the impact lost on the reader. Instead of having to wait two, maybe three weeks thinking “What the hell did Kyousuke do to Kengo!?”, it just spoonfeeds it to you as it happens. Urgh.

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#9

No such thing in the Key Discussion topic :stuck_out_tongue:

Ahaha, I think everyone does.
I only skipped through the first season (end of Mio route, sleepover, Kud route, and the baseball game.) What I saw was okay. The ending of the sleepover episode had my Riki x Yuiko ship go full speed ahead, the Kud route adaption actually made me like the route (didn’t like it in the VN) and the baseball game episode annoyed me at times. I liked how they slowly dragged Kanata into the group though!
I watched Refrain as well and (despite them changing up Yuiko’s route, they did that well anyway) it was also pretty okay. I didn’t like Rin’s part as much as in the VN. I don’t like Rin very much, but that “don’t let go” section of the VN really scared me, whereas in the anime it didn’t do much. Kengo crying for two episodes straight really got to me, and the Kyousuke farewell was as powerful as ever. The last couple episodes were a bit confusing, but that’s how all Key anime end up.

I feel like, while it was great, it felt a bit less serious than in the VN. It just didn’t seem as tense as in the VN. Maybe that’s just because I knew what was going to happen though…

#10

That flashback though. <3
(has nightmares of hearing Little Melody in the VN)

#11

Putting Song for Friends there was a great choice.

#12

It was wonderful. I’m too much of a biased person though.

I’m one of the people who played the VN AFTER I watched the anime, actually. I really loved the anime, especially Refrain, and the VN just made everything so much better. Of course everything has its flaws, but I feel like it was a great adaption.

Of course, Rin was in practically every episode because they tried the Clannad trick where they squeeze-Nagisa-into-every-single-route but still, it was great.

Haruka best girl.

Btw, anyone watching the EX episodes? Its the only way of seeing the other girls routes and I LOVED Saya’s.

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#13

I watched all of them, yeah. I liked Kanata’s best overall (partly because Haruka also happens to be my favorite girl). But I’ll reserve my judgment until I get a chance to read the visual novel version.

#14

Okay, just finished LB anime for the second time, made an account just to ask this:

What the heck happened?

Um, maybe I’ll need to expound a bit more, eh? :slight_smile: This whole post regards the Refrain arc, so I’ll have to spoiler pretty much all of it; sorry for the blurry post!

So, I have three main questions that don’t seem to be answered by the anime (don’t know about VN, haven’t played it):

a) How many people were in the constructed world with the Little Busters? It’s stated at that least the 10 LB members are there, but anyone else? In particular, this is about Kanata, the twins’ parents, and Komari’s grandpa, etc. Basically anyone who either provided new information or were altered by the experiences. I leave off Kudo’s parents because I read about what happened there.

It seems it works to just have the 10 + Kanata, with the others being “NPCs” of sorts created from the minds of the relevant parties (ala Kudo and her grandpa and mom). But, this means the girls really DIDN’T meet with their fathers and settle things with their family. And if Kanata wasn’t really there, then that means Haruka made up with an illusion, created either by Kyousuke, or by her own subconscious (I dunno which is worse, but both suck). Also, how did Komari’s grandpa give so much exposition to Riki if he was just a creation of either Komari or Kyousuke? Didn’t he know things that neither of them could have known?

b) How much did everyone know about the time loop and the real world accident (as well as the real month of June prior) as they lived in this constructed world?

We know Kengo and Masato knew everything, as Kyousuke says as much, but what about the 5 girls? If they knew everything heading in then it causes problems: why do they really seem to get very attached to Riki if they are aware it’s all a sham to benefit a classmate they never really knew all that well (since all the intros and problem-solving happen IN the constructed world)?

And, their reactions all along really seem to imply they are honestly finding things out for the first time (especially with Kanata/Haruka’s arc; how can you fake being that shocked at finding out the twin you hated so much was really protecting you and that you really loved her, and she loved you back, this whole time after the first revelation?).

So, I have to assume the girls didn’t know about either until later (just like Kudo has her “I remember” moment, so they all do, AFTER Riki proves himself and gains their affections. This seems to match up with Komari’s book about how the dwarves all disappear after the boy and girl solve their problems (i.e. regrets). It also doesn’t seem to be contradicted by anything in the anime. Kurugaya seems like she could have known from the start without it affecting her reactions that much, but the rest seem to have been in the dark through most/all of the first season.

c) What actually happened in that missing month between May 20th and June 20th? Nothing in the anime hints at it. Reading online about the VN, I guess there is more information, such as how I found out Kudo’s mom was really executed on live TV (ah, the Tevuan rebels going the ISIS route, apparently, ensuring they will be branded a terrorist cell by the entire free world, and inevitably hunted down and destroyed. Nice move, dumbasses. Just kill her in secret and make up any story you want, morons). I also found out that the girl from Kengo’s arc (Koshiki?) actually really DID kill herself. What other surprises lurk in that missing month?

That’s about it, I guess. It’s a puzzler, which makes it one of my favorites, especially when the clues actually tie together and are self-consistent (I’ll accept magic worlds and magic wishes with no problem as long as they stay consistent and the facts line up with the solutions we see later).

Also, the nonstop tear-jerkers from halfway through Refrain until the end (a little too unlikely for me, but I accepted Clannad as one of my favorites with all my heart and I got through Mai HIME’s cheese-filled final episode (of an otherwise fantastic series), I can deal with cheesy endings ;)). All in all, I have to say I quite like the series and am glad I took the time to watch it.

Ciao!

#15

These are just my guesses, but…

a) I’d say it was the ten of them. Only the ones caught up in the incident communicated through ripples of thought and created the world. Kanata etc. were not caught up in the incident, that would be the ten of them and some more classmates. I’d say the eight of the ten (all bar Riki and Rin) were “special” because they had those regrets that they wanted to resolve before their deaths.
Now we know that Riki and Rin were also in the world so obviously it’s possible to bring outsiders into the world. Much about this isn’t known, but the others besides the ten are either NPCs or outsiders that were cocooned into the world by the ten. Something like that.

b) Only Kyousuke, Masato and Kengo actively knew the truth. The five girls didn’t know about it while they were in the artificial world. Kurugaya eventually deduced it during her route and Kud remembers it during hers, but otherwise I don’t think any of the girls remembered until (after) the ends of their respective arcs which also where supposedly in the visual novel all girls besides Komari leave the world. In case you didn’t know, any girls whose arcs you have completed will not show up in any other girls’ arcs anymore, and you cannot reenter their routes until you’ve completed Refrain - Komari is the exception to this rule.

c) I think they all met but didn’t socialize much. Kyousuke does say the world starts on “the day they all met”. Maybe he was referring to something else, but I’d guess the ten somehow got to know each other around that time. Or rather they knew of the existence of each other, but that’s about it. Other than that, the Tevua civil war happened and Koshiki commited suicide. The baseball team seems to be an idea that only came to be in the artificial world. In all… I’d say for the most part it was a month like any other.

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#16

a) Naturally the 10 members are there. It’s implied that Kanata was as well, but I’m not sure if it was confirmed. I believe that the twins’ parents and Komari’s grandfather are NPCs. Kanata is explained in Little Busters EX, which may or may not be canon. Komari probably knew things, but wasn’t aware that she knew them. All the heroines have their memory manipulated I’d imagine. (eg, Kud)

b) We’ve discussed this somewhere else on the forum I think. I believe that all of them know about it, but forget about all of the real world information either at the start of the story, or around the time Riki starts to involve himself with them. They will then remember when their regrets are resolved (or are close to being resolved.) While it may seem that Yuiko was aware of the fake world the whole time, she reacted very strongly to the bullies in a way that she wouldn’t to an NPC. She probably forgot until at least after the confession. Throughout the first season, all the heroines would be only vaguely aware of the secret of the world. I remember that at the end of most routes the heroine either hints or states that they know the secret of the world.

c) I’m not sure if these are within the missing month, or just things that happened in the real world, but yes, Kud’s mother and Koshiki both died. I can’t remember much about what else happened in the real world, but Little Busters EX has quite a few interesting bits of information in it.

A lot of the story is down to interpretation. There are like… 3 or 4 “true ends” so not even the ending is clear. There are a lot of interesting knowledge bombs in the VN though, and you’d probably notice some things going through it.

#17

Cool! Thanks for the ideas. I more or less thought things were along those lines, just based on gut feeling, but it’s nice to hear some confirmation, especially from those who played through the VN and know more about the core story. :smile:

#18

Gonna give some of my own opinions on this. Well people seemed to answer your questions on “what” but kind of ignored the “how” and the “why” so I shall tackle that.

a: As the other members said, it is just the 10 of them. Not sure about the girls in the EX routes but I haven’t read nor watched those yet. Now, you do have a point, they didn’t really meet with their family and settle things. But the thing is they didn’t really need to. All of the problems they had were problems of their own which, subconsciously, they knew how to solve, but couldn’t muster the strength to do so. And that is how Riki helped them. So even if Kanata is actually a bitch in the real world and doesn’t care about Haruka, the problem that Haruka solved was the problem with her own perception. And I guess all the stuff that Komari’s grandpa knew are things that Komari knew, perhaps subsconsciously (see next item)

b; I’m honestly not sure, but I can confirm that most of them only had vague memories of it. Now how can they fake finding out things if they knew it already? Because it was their subconscious that knew it. Komari subconsciously knew that her brother was dead but because of the circumstance, her active mind equated it as him being in some state of not-dead not-existing. Riki helped her realize her subconscious and make it her active thinking as to help her get over it

c: Funny thing: none of those items are actually explicitly said in the VN. You only get to understand them once you put two and two together :wink: As for what else happened, well, just Little Busters Little Buster-ing (without the five girls). Probably the only girl that would’ve interacted with them on a regular basis would have been Haru-chin as she is shown to be on good terms with them from the intro (that stint with Masato being her first encounter in the game and anime, for example)

#19

Contrary to popular opinion, I honestly don’t think that the anime was by any means rushed. Sure, it cut out a lot of details that gave the visual novel some nuance in its storytelling, but for its medium, the anime works, and has a sensible storytelling that made sense, well at least for someone unfamiliar to the source material while watching the anime (like me), and it was still pretty charming on its own (at least for me ahaha).

We didn’t need to know that (Komari route) Komari’s grandmother also went through the same ordeal as she did, to get that Komari’s arc is a story of acceptance of demise. As beautiful the scene was, we didn’t need to see Kurugaya route’s diary scene to get that her story is that of someone refusing to let go of happiness. Though debatable, we do got the gist of what happened between Riki and Rin in the scene in Refrain where they escaped from Kyousuke. We also didn’t need to see more of the family dynamics in Haruka’s arc that wasn’t shown in the anime to get that, well, they’re downright cruel. And honestly, we didn’t really need to see (Haruka route) Kanata physically abusing Haruka to submission.

Imo the anime was just at the right length.

If there’s any major flaw that I need to point out in this anime, it’s the occasional clumsy writing. Riki didn’t have to say in his mind what is practically obvious and easy to infer without having him spell it out. Komari arc’s ending scene was rather extreme in its depiction of acceptance (while the VN was more subdued in execution). The changes in the final few episodes of Refrain was something I kinda get – perhaps they wanted to make it less convoluted for its medium – but they did kinda made the story’s central theme rather murky.

However, I have to give mad props for improving on some of the aspects of the story. The really made the bonds of the central cast even tighter than the original source did. More KomaRin is always a good thing, which added more emotional weight to the Last Dream segment of Refrain. I found Rin to be more likable in the anime, too. And somehow, Kud’s arc was less confusing in the anime lol.

Though inconsistent in quality and limited at times, I think they brought out the best of the character designs. I dare say the anime’s visual style looks better than the VN’s.

Regardless, I still appreciate LB! anime for formally introducing me to Key. Though Clannad was my first Key anime, LB! gave me a bigger familiarity to Key in general, so yeah. :smiley:

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#20

Were we separated at birth…? Where have you been all my life?

Personally my favourite part of the adaptation was the ending, contrary to popular opinion, I thought it handled with tact and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It’s taken a lot of battling with myself to really come to this realisation, but I think I can honestly say… I don’t like the original VN ending.
(Yeah I said, I can see the angry messages coming already :stuck_out_tongue:)

I think it was needlessly convoluted introducing a huge scope for readers to be misunderstood, misinterpret, and in some ways mislead as to the entire take-home messages of Little Busters!.

Why do I think the anime ending was handled better?

The anime gave rise to a dual interpretation for the idea of being “born into a whole new world”.
If you want to believe they made a new dream world where they were all rescued after the initial explosion in the real world (as in the VN, which I’ve always found to be extremely backward). You can have that interpretation.

If you want to believe it was a metaphorical play on words to emphasise Riki and Rin’s newfound strength and resolve, as they simply woke up directly after their anxious breakdowns. You can also have that interpretation.

There are a tonne confusing, and unexplored points of contention that remain vague even after the conclusion (both VN and anime. Understandably so, but that is for another post) but the ending was one aspect I believe was paramount in needing to change for an anime audience.

I absolutely, positively, fundamentally believe that simplifying the ending in such a way like this. Was the best thing that ever happened to Little Busters.

This here is where I strongly disagree. They omitted explaining the nuances behind dream world creation, e.g. recreating the moment of death, and creating the reset point. But that never needed explaining, nor does it take away from the themes at all. It appeared quite clear to me that the script writers thought it was probably too much unnecessary exposition for an anime episode. Trimmed fat, I guess you could call it.

Additionally because of the changes to the ending rescue scene. I feel it delivers the themes of transitioning from dependency to autonomy with a lot more focus. There were no people dying here at any point. There were only people being saved. People who we were more or less forced to believe were going to die no matter what.

People were saved. Not from some freakish world creation power. But sheer willpower, hard-work, and love for the people that Riki and Rin had learned and gained so much from. In the anime it felt more like they truly earned their happy ending. At least I think so :stuck_out_tongue:

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