Hmm, I’m not sure there was ever a specific moment in the VN, but I feel Komari is always pushing to become closer to Rin. In the Anime it was a LOT more clear.
75% of qualms against Komari are her voice. DaiJObuu and all.
I really like the daiJObuu tho 
In the common route, at least, she was the only one who would approach Rin. Y’know, hug her, call her attention, and everything. Mio would ignore her for the most part, Kurugaya would tease her one or two times, Kud would acknowledge her existence but that’s pretty much it, and Haruka seems to only play around with Rin when Riki was also present.
Oh, and yeah, she took a bath with her 
I love that newspaper sword battle. It was hilarious to see Haruka get newspaper whacked by Mio. I felt bad for Komari though.
I can understand why a lot of people don’t necessarily like Komari. She can be a bit of a crybaby at times and her voice when she starts to cry can get a bit annoying. But I really do like Komari. She’s very kind, friendly and very sweet. Additionally she brings out the positive happiness and joy of the reader with her optimistic attitude and I felt really happy each time I interacted with her. Not to mention, the song that plays in the background when you’re interacting with Komari is catchy and energetic.
1 Like
May 21. Komari lends Riki her notebook to help him out in class, but accidentally lends him her colouring book as well. We’re given the first glimpse of her colouring book, and the story of the penguin which was used as the basis for the puppet show in the Anime. Huh, in EX it looks like he makes a comparison to the Animal Crossing series. Didn’t catch that reference before. You also catch a glimpse of Komari’s story about the boy and girl solving the dwarves problems, but it wasn’t finished yet. Foreshadowing…?
We then see the continuation of Rin’s task of curing Aikawa’s lovesickness, starting with the attack on Kengo. We have another scene with Kurugaya painting a picture Inazo Nitobe supposedly using Riki as the model, while inquiring about the nature of Kengo and Masato’s relationship. Riki explains that even though they’re always fighting, they don’t hate each other, which stimulates Kurugaya’s curiosity. Kurugaya explains her idea that she’s only ever thought of other people as objects, but is beginning to think that staining herself with the company of others, she might be able to gain something out of it. Lots of foreshadowing today.
My recreation of Kurugaya’s painting.
Speaking of foreshadowing for the routes, I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. In talking with Mio, we hear her talk about her philosophy of constraining the birds to the earth by feeding them, like some kind of way of rebelling against the fact that she can’t be one of them. I can draw a lot of thoughts from this alone, like how it reflects Riki’s desire to keep Mio among everyone. It’s so fun analysing their conversations. We’re also introduced to Strelka, and Kud is recruited into the Little Busters. Despite appearances, she turns out to be an excellent catcher.
We also get one of the more dramatic-themed scenes of the common route, where we’re tasked with finding Mio’s notebook and deciding whether to believe that the ones responsible had good or bad intentions. If you choose bad intentions, the notebook gets lost and your relationship with Mio hits a standstill. You also get a nice little Schroedinger’s Cat reference. If you choose good intentions, you find the notebook and get a nice little CG of Mio. It’s worth nothing that in the Anime, Kurugaya was ultimately the one to find the book, but in the VN it’s Riki. I wonder why they changed it. After, you get to read the book, and find Mio’s poem inside it. “The sea gull, wonder if she is sad, left alone without being touched by the blue of the sky, or the blue of the sea.” This time, Mio asks if she can watch you practice baseball. Since all the girls are assembled, you get the option to hear what they’re talking about during the breaks in practice. There’s a full series of scenes like this that were adapted into the OVA in the Anime. In this one, Kurugaya teaches Kud how to be cool by adding “God damn, don’t touch me or else you’ll get numb!” to every sentence. (That translation seems a bit bad in hindsight…) During practice, Riki goes to check on Mio, and she remarks that the scene of everyone fooling around having fun is a bit too bright before, but also comments that maybe something like this is “not too bad either…” Seems like she’s hesitant to leave the comfort of her isolation, but she’s gradually opening up to the idea.
We also get the ‘Theseus Maze’ scene, where Riki and someone else work to help Kud find her way into the furniture storage room and move some furniture. Turns out to be an epic quest of figuring out how to open a door with a giant key, navigating the labyrinth of the school’s basement, before finally reaching the storage room and realising that there’s an elevator straight to it. There’s a variety of different scenarios you can get from this by choosing different people to help you. For example, if you pick Kurugaya, you get a scene where you fall on Kurugaya’s boobs and earn the title ‘boobs demon’ from her. aha. The night ends with Rin spending time with the girls, and asking Kyousuke to add Komari’s phone number to her phone. It’s revealed that Kyousuke has a password setup on her phone to limit her from using features she doesn’t know how to use. He promises to tell Rin the password if she’s able to master using it.
Sorry I’m late! These will be off-schedule now obviously, but I plan to finish them.
May 22. Kyousuke begins the day by greeting everyone as ‘good fellows’ similar to how he did the day before, and the group questions whether he’s just going to get more grandiose with his greetings until the day of the baseball game. They bring up how they still need one more member to complete the baseball team, and Kyousuke states that it’s just a matter of time until the final member arrives, not asking any more of Riki.
When we arrive at class, we discover Mio receiving her book from Itou-san. If you picked bad intentions yesterday, you’ll see Riki swelling with jealousy and disappointment that he assumed the one responsible had bad intentions and couldn’t help Mio. If you chose good intentions, it’s a much nicer scene where Riki feels very happy and at peace with the situation. There’s even a nice little exchange between Riki and Masato that I really liked.
The mission to cure Aikawa’s lovesickness continues with him failing to recite his original rap lyrics correctly. When they regroup, Riki comments that perhaps because he and Rin had never fallen in love before, they’re unable to approach the problem in the right way. In the end Rin was able to acquire Sasami’s email address, and passes it onto Aikawa in order to cure his lovesickness. A little difference I noticed from the Anime was that in the VN she says to Aikawa that she didn’t tell Sasami his feelings for her, but in the Anime she pretty blatantly described his feelings for her to her.
Later Kengo comments on Riki’s poor attendance, causing Riki to reflect on Kurugaya’s poor attendance, and he goes out to try and bring her to class. He finds her and she says how she doesn’t want to attend math because someone there wouldn’t be happy seeing her. She demonstrates what she means by going to class, and having the Math teacher freeze up and avoid mentioning the test. Kengo explains afterward that Kurugaya manages to pass all of her exams with flying classes, and even made a mockery of the math teacher everyone hates last year. We learn more about her history bit by bit.
We also get a major helping of foreshadowing when we find Komari looking into the faculty office’s fish tank. Riki asks if she has any fish of her own, and she mentions a pet goldfish she won at a festival, but finds she has a gap in her memory when she tries to recall what happened to it. Before she can reach a conclusion, she realises she forgot to return the handouts and rushes away.
At this point, depending on your relationships with the heroines you get to choose where you go. In my playthrough I have the option of seeing Mio, Kurugaya or the original gang. If you go with the gang in the cafeteria, you encounter Haruka. If you go anywhere but the cafeteria, you catch a glance of Haruka walking into the cafeteria. Nice touch! The cafeteria scene follows Rin’s mission to collect lunch for the gang, and Haruka collecting bell marks to exchange for a Unicycle to ride to school. Yeah, that one actually caused Riki to facepalm. The Mio scene revolves around her description of ‘omisubi’ and her nori gag, and a passionate description of detective fiction that ends in a strange glimpse into her fujoshi side. Either that, or another gag, I’m not sure which. If you choose to hang out with Kurugaya we’re introduced to her role in the broadcast committee, broadcasting without anyone to listen to her. There’s a lot of interesting comments made here for people familiar with events later in the story, but I’ll hold back from drawing too much attention to most of them here.
Next up is a scene that will only crop up after you’ve completed at least one of the heroine routes, so your second or third run of the common route.
Kengo’s friend Koshiki is about to commit suicide from jumping off the school rooftop, but Kengo leaps out just in time to save her, fracturing his arm in the process. This is definitely one of the biggest moments of the common route, and marks a massive turning point for Kengo’s character. He decides that in order to continue living on, he replaces his passion for Kendo with his passion for Baseball and the Little Busters. He manages to swing a home run with his single arm and is recruited into the Little Busters. I’ll note that this was handled much better in the Anime, a lot more dramatic and suspenseful. Here it’s all over very quickly. Form this point onward, it’s not the same Kengo you once knew, but completely different side of him we haven’t seen before. Riki notes that it’s just like how Kengo used to act when they were kids. When Riki is in class after the event, he thinks back to Kyousuke’s words earlier, and wonders to himself if this unpredictable event was also according to Kyousuke’s scenario. ‘A World Where Nothing Happens’ plays briefly in the background; one of the first appearances of this BGM in the game. It’s very unsettling…
After that, we have Mio finally joining the Little Busters! Depending on your actions, either Riki or Kurugaya brings her along to recruit her as manager of the Little Busters. With this, the full Little Busters are assembled! If you go wandering now (I think only after you’ve completed Mio’s route), you’ll find the next time Mio battles, she’s equipped with the cyber-weapons of the science club! Will that help her ascend to the top of the battle rankings? Probably not, but it’ll help
Kud treats us to some tea in the home economics clubroom, and we also get that scene where you choose to either go with the girls or stay with the boys. Stay with the boys and things get very BL, with you practically confessing your love to Kyousuke. Go with the girls and you get to the heart-thumping sleepover party feat. trap Riki. Pick your poison!
Tabletop Baseball, that is. You guys are perverted.
1 Like
Anyone know what it is? I’ve never been able/spent the time to beat the third one.
I have many theories about these guys actually fitting into the rest of the story. I wish we would have actually heard more about them because they really interested me. EDIT: Oh wait didn’t realize they were part of Saya’s route
I don’t really like Magic Ensemble that much. Though ironically, Only One Magic World is one of my favorites.
This happens in the VN if you never choose to go back to the courtyard, IIRC.
They should do a spin-off about the science club instead of the Little Busters, with Bio-Tanaka as the main character.
2 Likes
Yesss. Though it’d be Mad Suzuki, not Bio-Tanaka. I’ve heard there’s a character in Kud Wafter who’s a member of the Science club, so I wonder if she’d be involved somehow as well
ALSO: To anybody wondering when I’m gonna finish these reflections, stay tuned, because I will soon! At the very least before I start reading EX again
1 Like
He’s the one who has a crush on Mio and gives her the power-up, right?
Yep that’s right! Bio-Tanaka is from the biology club, not the science club. I used to get them mixed up as well
Bio-Tanaka also appears in Kyousuke’s One Question One Answer too, iirc.
So I was just made aware of the “Kick the Can” scene and it seems I totally missed that scene in my playthrough of the VN
Are there any other kind of hard-to-spot scenes in common that involve you doing certain things first (such as multiple playthroughs or whatnot?)
Hmmm… I don’t think the puppet show showed up until one of my last times through.
About half of the common route is locked out on the first playthrough
I figured out that much lol
But I was able to get others such as the puppet show, kengo joining, stronger stats for rin and riki on gamestart. I guess I meant stuff that you have to make specific decisions to get, and can be easily missed
There’s a conversation with the girls during baseball practice (the ‘go see what they’re talking about’ option) that you won’t see if you don’t stay with Mio on the 18th. Took me a while to figure out when I was trying to find it again… It’s the final conversation taking place on the 24th. If you didn’t stay with Mio, you get an earlier conversation instead.
2 Likes
Something I found out about Lennon as I reread the common route…
From the very beginning of the story, he was with Kyousuke. Kyousuke was the one who threw Lennon to Masato in the opening fight, and Rin knew that the cat was for her because Kyousuke threw him. Thinking about it, (Rin 1/2 spoilers) Kyousuke knew exactly where Lennon would be at any given moment of the story. Realistically, I bet Kyousuke put a tracker chip on Lennon before bringing it home to Rin, and set up his whole plan before returning back to campus.
It’s just an observation I made. I could be wrong, but I think there’s no other explanation.
He wouldn’t even need a (Rin2/Refrain) tracker chip as he supposedly has full control over Lennon. I always saw Lennon as an embodiment of Kyousuke’s will, if you will
Reading all this just reminds me of my salt at no Kick the Can in the anime… ^^;
2 Likes
Reading this reminds me that I started a year ago and still haven’t finished… OTL
2 Likes
Consistency. The water pistol fight didn’t show up in the CLANNAD anime, so I think a standard was set to remove all fun side-events from Key anime adaptions.
2 Likes
This is way too depressingly true
