Little Busters! - Common Route Discussion

[Karifean]

That question basically got no reaction. But I am curious; and veterans, just try to remember when you first read to answer this: How did you react towards those scenes that break realism? As the above question implies, for me it actually broke immersion a bit, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks/thought.

Having seen the anime before reading the VN, I thought pretty much nothing of it. The anime uses the ‘cat ears’ metaphor far more sparingly.

@MagusVerborum I always found it funny how Kengo both plays the straight man to the others’ antics and still plays along with them anyways =P He’s still part of the battle rankings (the only non baseball team member in it) and takes part in just about everything they do besides baseball.

Many protagonists, especially those from harem settings, are just nice guys by nature. Riki, however, does nice things - despite being negative - for a certain reason. That reason is most obvious in the Mio events of the common route. Riki sees Mio all alone and isolated and wishes to pull her into his group of friends, like Kyousuke did for him when he was suffering. In other words, Riki is being nice because he knows from experience that kindness can save people.

I’d even go further and say that his reason is not just because of what he experienced, but rather because of what he experiences. It’s like he said at the end of his flashback, he just didn’t have time to think about negative things because every day was too much fun; he didn’t have a single event that brought him out of his depression, it’s a process that’s still ongoing (which is part of why he’s afraid of the idea of it ending). I don’t think I can understate how much Little Busters makes me smile simply because of how much warmth and kindness is in even just the cast’s everyday interactions. That bit where Riki has a narcolepsy attack is just hnnnngh.

[octoberpumpkin]

Finished this today! I really enjoyed it, I’m pretty impressed with LB so far. I really like the group atmosphere. It doesn’t feel overly harem-y, the characters all have personalities independent of MC-kun, which is great. I thought I would hate the baseball minigame but it’s super fun and I am really enjoying it. The fighting is nifty in how random it is but overall I found there was a bit too much of it for my tastes. Kud is my fave so far.

I like Rin more than I expected, she feels very real and relatable. The ending was pretty criptic, I think it was saying like next time I should let Rin go to the transfer program or something. I am also betting on Kyousuke setting up the Lennon messages.

Looking forward to the next route!

[Naoki_Saten]

I would like to put out a Key point which I think will add to everyone’s appreciation of the Characters and the Visual novel as a whole:

What are the respective relationships between the Little Busters girls?

After all, they are a friendly group of people who interact with each-other in different ways even when the protagonist is not around.
Well, with 6 people involved, it might be nice to have a chart by the time the podcast begins. We might even expand it later on and monitor the development of the characters’ relationships.

[Odinbeard_McSparkles]

That question basically got no reaction. But I am curious; and veterans, just try to remember when you first read to answer this: How did you react towards those scenes that break realism? As the above question implies, for me it actually broke immersion a bit, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks/thought.

I’m a bit of a stickler on this kind of stuff, but primarily only in the context of plot developments and the greater narrative being told in an already defined universe. Since this is the common route, its role is to set up the basic idea of the world, while the specific routes seem to push at what we can expect to happen. To answer your question more directly, my immersion in anime or VNs doesn’t get broken by random cat ears or characters like Tomoyo and Kurugaya taking on multiple opponents in a fight and coming out on top anymore. It did once when I got a little older and started watching stuff besides Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but I’ve watched so much anime since then that its just an afterthought. Tropes and archetypes like this are just ingrained in this type of media at this point.

My final thoughts on Riki as a protagonist: I really like him overall, and maintain that he’s an excellent person to view the world of LB! through. His student/mentor relationship with Kyouske fuels everything he does because he understands how powerful just holding out a hand in friendship is, and how that changed his life and perspective forever. My main frustration with him is how he can’t seem to to make a transition out of his pessimism, despite how good things are, especially since A) he’s not losing Kyouske (or anyone else) in the same way he has before (and he should be old enough now to realize that), and B) he still has another year with all the new friends he’s made. I understand the impact Kyouske has had on him, but in a way, it’s almost like he’s saying that the rest of his friends aren’t good enough to make that last year fun/memorable, or that no one is worthy of taking Kyouske’s place. You’d think with all the examples of new experiences being good that he has had in the common would change his views, but it hasn’t. He can’t appreciate what’s right in front of him because he’s thinking too far ahead and bumming himself out.

[VyseGolbez]

What are the respective relationships between the Little Busters girls?

Let’s see…

Komari and Kud seem to develop a mutual friendship pretty quickly, I think Mio basically connects to others through Riki for the most part, and perhaps has a closer relationship to Komari and Kud as well, if the three eating lunch together in Baseball Practice is any indication. Kud and Kanata are roommates, Kanata and Haruka are totally not related (meaning I suspect them to be related), all the girls admire Kurugaya to varying degrees, with Haruka admiring her the most. Komari is the first girl to reach out to Rin, so you could say that Rin’s integration into the new members of the group happens mainly through Komari and Riki. Speaking of Rin, she and Sasami are in a rivalry. That’s all I could think of for now.

---

To answer your question more directly, my immersion in anime or VNs doesn’t get broken by random cat ears or characters like Tomoyo and Kurugaya taking on multiple opponents in a fight and coming out on top anymore.

I honestly didn’t know that the whole cat ears thing, that everyone seemed to have concentrated on, can be a valid stylistic choice that happens in many other VNs/anime/manga. So point taken there, I guess. As a matter of fact, the fighting thing that you mention is something I usually accept as well.

[Takafumi]

I always found it funny how Kengo both plays the straight man to the others’ antics and still plays along with them anyways

Riki is similar in that aspect. He also works as the tsukkomi (even to Kengo) but nevertheless joins in on the dumb fun.

I honestly didn’t know that the whole cat ears thing, that everyone seemed to have concentrated on, can be a valid stylistic choice that happens in many other VNs/anime/manga.

For VNs, I specifically remember Majikoi doing the same thing. It was the VN I read just before Litbus and I kept noticing lots of similarities between the two (sudden animal ears being one of them.)

[Pepe]

I’ve just thought of something that I think would make somewhat interesting discussion both here and in the podcast. I know that Riki is a central character and his relationships between all the characters have been explored quite in depth. But, considering the group dynamics of the novel, I’m interested in knowing:

What do you think about the relationships between the newly inducted members of the Little Busters and the original gang? There’s not much to explore with Kengo since he doesn’t interact with them much, and Rin is a little too shy to get anything out of… But what do the newer members think of Masato? Especially, what do they think of Kyousuke?

That question basically got no reaction. But I am curious; and veterans, just try to remember when you first read to answer this: How did you react towards those scenes that break realism?

As many others have responded, these are the kind of things that I could categorize as “suspension of disbelief” for me. I’ve seen it way too many times in this medium, and little busters, when I first read it, had this all-too-casual feel that put all these sorts of crazy things on the backburner for me. Heck, even up to now, I don’t pay too much attention to Rin sprouting cat ears and whatnot.

[MagusVerborum]

May 24th was a good day, lots of foreshadowing and fleshing out of characters to be had. I really appreciated getting to see Haruka be genuinely nervous around someone, seeing her intereact with Rin and getting her to say her name out loud. I found it very interesting that Rin was able to use Haruka’s saving of two stray kittens as a sort of medium (cats are her safespace after all) to have confidence and communicate with Haruka properly. I feel as though haruka was pretty well summed up by a couple screenshots:

So, we know by this point that Haruka can actually feel insecure, and I’m pretty confident that a lot of her behaviour is an act to cover this sort of thing up. She puts distance between herself and others and can’t enjoy a genuine moment (like Komari falling asleep in her lap after practice) without doing something goody to cover it all up. She’s blatantly self-aware of this behaviour. What’s even more interesting is how oblivious Riki is, he seems to believe Haruka is incapable of acting talent. He still hasn’t figured out how she’s trying to distance herself from her sister Kanata (they’re so obviously sisters don’t even lie to me) but I’m sure that will sort itself out once on her route. Ah well. In general Riki is pretty dense. He’s good as a way of connecting the other characters together, but can’t really figure much out for himself. Maybe if he didn’t have all the Brain Trauma he’d have an easier time

I neglected to mention this but hey! We now have a full team! I really like how the baseball minigame is designed, how your goal of combos and batting your ball to your teammates becomes much easier the more teammates you have, how the field is slowly fleshed out by more and more characters. It really lends itself well to making me feel like we’re all in this together, we’re a club, a friendship group, a circle joined as one. Very cool stuff! Also there is clearly room for one more person on the bottom right there, I have to assume it’s either one of the EX-route characters or Kengo himself who joins later, I’ll have to keep playing to find out!

I feel like the days are getting shorter, apparently because I haven’t unlocked some of the other scenes that might occur with characters off-route. I guess this is true but i’m finding it also ramping up my hype for the inevitable baseball game, and whatever’s going to signal the end of the common route. I’m very excited to see what happens~

With that i leave you with this monstrosity:

I expect nothing but perfection from Best Girl Haruka

[HeliosAlpha]

With that i leave you with this monstrosity

The kanji on her cheek says 情熱 meaning passion or enthusiasm.

[StarfishBender]

What do you think of Riki? What makes him different from other VN protagonists?

My new comment here would be better noted in the Komari route thread but it does change my views somewhat on the Common Route, so without any spoiler…

I learned something that I hadn’t seen mentioned before ( or I missed it) about Riki’s past that puts him in a similar situation to me - albeit that not as a teenager in my case. It goes a long way to explaining to me why Riki sees Kyousuke as a mentor. Well, we don’t always learn everything about someones past experiences soon after meeting them after all.

Now this is why I like to hold off from making definite judgements too soon because Key VNs have this habit of dropping an unexpected shift in perspective - and is at least a part repayment in suspecting there is more bubbling away under the surface of what we see.

I expect this is far from the only change of perspective to be experienced here for further replays of the common route, along with the strong hint that there is some very clever storytelling wrapped up in the VN structure.

[Kanon]

I expect nothing but perfection from Best Girl Haruka

YOU GET MY APPROVAL.

[Hardscope]

Before I started reading Little Busters, I would often talk shit about Riki. I mean… Look at him. He’s scrawny, timid, and has a girly voice. Surely he can’t be a God Tier Key Protagonist like my man Tomoya Okazaki, right?
Well, Riki is actually a pretty cool dude. He’s not as strong as the others, at least not initially. But we see him sort of “grow up” a bit in the common route and in the only route I’ve finished so far, Mio’s route. (More on that later.)

Initially, I thought Riki should barely even be considered a character. He was a shy observer, and Kyousuke seemed to be the real protagonist. Kyousuke brought everybody together and he is the leader of the Little Busters. Riki Naoe never led anything in his life. Nobody gravitates towards Riki as they do the other Key protagonists.

Riki begins to grow out of his shell a bit thanks to his task of gathering members for the baseball team. He says something along the lines of “Wouldn’t Kyousuke do a better job?” (can’t remember the exact words) The newcomers to the Little Busters form a figurative circle around Riki, same as the old Little Busters gathered around Kyousuke.
There’s one particular point where Kyousuke really pushes Riki forward, which is where he has to be the captain and choose the batting order for the game. I had a screenshot, but I can’t seem to find it (edit: Magus put it in his post). Basically, this is where Riki decides “Alright, I’m gonna step up.” I consider this to be the climax of the common route, at least in terms of Riki’s development. Common route didn’t turn Riki into another Okazaki whose body is one big callus, but Riki developed an identity of his own and became a protagonist rather than a cameraman.

[Nirie]

So I started reading Little Busters and I’m about a week into the game (With in-game time). So I thought I’d post some of my thoughts about Riki and a few of the other characters so far.

Riki: Riki seems slightly reserved compared to some of the others. He apparently has no parents according to a line he said to Mio, maybe an orphan? His short voiced moments in the battles or practice actually surprised me a bit with how soft his voice, almost even girly.

Kyousuke: He’s pretty calm and cool, He seems to care deeply about his friends, but it’s a little hard to judge him right now

Rin: It’s a bit weird how much trouble she has just saying the names of the new team members, I’m curious if there’s a reason for that or if she’s just shy. I feel bad for sending her to her doom against Sasami every night though.

Kengo: I don’t really have much to say about him since he’s refused to join the club yet to focus on his Kendo practice, I’ll get you eventually, Kengo. He does seem to be somewhat noble, or just protective of his friends since he fought some strange thing (A bird or bat?) in the school at night when Rin was defeated by it.

Masato: Although he’s a bit of a muscle idiot he is a pretty funny guy. I’m hoping to learn a bit more about him and his rivalry with Kendo. He’s probably my favorite of the original group. I also slightly agree with him about us finding only mostly weak girls to join the baseball team, this match in the future might not go so well. . .

Nishizono: Seems very smart, although just like Riki, I can’t tell when she’s being serious or just making a joke. I’m very interested in what happened to her. I’m probably going to end up on her route, I’m also pushing for her to be Kud’s roommate.

Kurugaya: Probably dependable when she isn’t pulling pranks, I guess she’s the big-sister type?
Although she made some rather worrisome comments when I originally asked her to be Kud’s roommate.

Kud: I guess she’s a bit cute but I can’t understand half the things she says in her Engrish. She seems to have some worries about being a foreigner? I’m surprised they let her wear that cape over her uniform.

I also very much enjoy the baseball practice mini-game, although I find it kind of difficult to predict when to hit the ball after it gets thrown back by someone else…

And now that I’ve written this I think I’ll go dive back into it~

[MagusVerborum]

I’m just gonna say, the conversation Riki and Kyousuke have at the beginning of May 25th is basically everything i said about Riki in my earlier post. The writers clearly know what they’re doing, which is nice! When i sit down with a work I’m always looking for well-written characters with flaws that I can pray that they overcome, and Riki has exactly that. Let’s take a look:

Kyousuke brings the baseball arc to its climax as he places the mantle of team captain (and coach) firmly onto Riki’s shoulders. Riki rejects the responsibility and further devalues himself in the dialogue, honestly I wonder if Kyousuke’s teaching of Riki will sustain him after Kyousuke has graduated. I hope this is what we’ll get to see in Refrain, and this inner struggle for Riki, his stubbornness to avoid claiming responsibility for his own skills and work is what drives his character right now.

He certainly has. Riki is the soul of the team, the focal point for all the character’s interaction as a club. He brought them all here, and he’s the only who can’t see that (except maybe Rin but we’ll let her do her own thing) I’m really happy that Riki finally decides to take on the role of captain in this scene, and he sets about organizing everyone into a cohesive fighting force!

This was a pretty fun setup game. I don’t have any clue what I was doing except that i should ‘put Kud on first base’ but eventually I just went with Kyousuke’s suggestion. I asked Rin for input and she just gave some totally adorable answers:

Rin you munchkin

And then she just took herself out completely! What a nerd.

I managed to use up all of my Wandering time getting through all these suggestions but honestly i feel like my time was well spent

The final scene of the day is a chill chat with Masato, wondering how the big game is going to go tomorrow. Most of it is fun banter but the end lines stuck out to me:

No sprite, super ominous, probably greater implications.

Point is, I think the whole “everyone in the team contributes to the whole” isn’t just relevant to the baseball game, but the the friendship group. I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but the fun part of the characters is how they interact with each other. Like in the previous day’s horror competition, exploring the school at night and avoiding getting spooked. You can take any combination of the girls with you and there will be a totally different sequence of events. It doesn’t just give the novel some replayability, but on your different playthroughs through the common route you’ll get entirely different interactions, different observations from Riki, and the characters will have slightly different relationships with each other. Very cool stuff!

Finally i want to add some speculation to the point of the tasks, I’m sure they will lead us to ‘the secret of the world’ somehow but if we take a practical look at the tasks themselves they must have a purpose in the world. If we assume that Kyousuke and/or Kengo are behind it then they probably benefit the club in some way. There are two parties I can think of who would be interested in the school being cleaned up. They are:

Futaki Kanata
and
The leaders of the clubs

Now, this is kind of a long shot (most of my theories are) but I would hazard a guess that Kanata doesn’t like the club very much, even scolds Komari (the precious baby) for a slight during recess break. She knows that the club causes all kinds of trouble around the school, so what better way to placate the head of the disciplinary committee than by solving some odd problems around the school? Granted not all of the tasks are the most responsible (delivering a riposte to Masato seems more like a joke than a good deed) so that beings me to my second suspect.

Kyousuke is very mysterious about how he managed to gather the club members of the opposing team, and i would not at all be surprised if the tasks are being done so that Kyousuke can convince them to fight against them. The biggest weakness in this theory is that the leaders themselves aren’t really ‘characters’ in the story, so having them be the source of the tasks wouldn’t make as much sense.

The issue with both of these theories is the seeming predicting of the future with the cafeteria task, but as we know Kyousuke knows and sees all. He’s even aware of the wildlife making its way into the food storage rooms and giving people eczema. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that Kyousuke can see the matrix know when the staff members are getting ill.

Anywho, off to the big game tomorrow! Chaaarrrrgggeee!!!

[StarfishBender]

And then she just took herself out completely! What a nerd.

That did make me laugh when Rin made the excuse to not play and Kyousuke says something a bit sarcastic like “…match cancelled, forgot soy sauce”

[VyseGolbez]

This post will be entirely spoiler tagged, wahoo!

(common route after having completed Rin1 spoiler)So one thing I noticed during my first replay always skipping everything I’ve already read is that Rin was more confident in herself. She managed to say other people’s names earlier and with more confidence as one example of that. Now there are two possible reasons for that. The first would be that her shyness actually stems from interacting with Riki more (I didn’t pursue the tasks this time). This explanation doesn’t make the most sense to me, to be honest. The second explanation would be that character development somehow makes its way back through time, after all, her getting more confident is her main development of the Rin1 route. I currently subscribe to the second explanation. And if we start to think about how character development can make its way back through time, the whole memory/dream combination theory is even stronger. I doubt that we have a physical timeloop in the most typical sense, with people actually traveling back in time, and veteran fans will probably know why I doubt that.

[Echo]

I’m addition to that, Rin (common after Rin 1) starts identifying the other main characters like Mio if they meet them during the Sasasasasa battle missions. On the first playthrough when Rin is asked who the classmate she met was she says “I don’t know” but from the 2nd playthrough she identifies her as “Hmm… maybe… Nishizono san?” This could mean that along with raised confidence, her social skills also increases little by little every playthrough

[MagusVerborum]

May 26th, the day of the big game. The first (and probably only) game of baseball that the Little Busters will play in. It would be no false assumption to make that I’ve been putting off writing this post for a day or so, because though I did enjoy quite a bit of this day, I may also have a, uh, controversial opinion or two. I shall do my best to clarify going forward and I hope that we can come out the other side of this post as a team.

The day starts off with more comedic gold, Rin really doesn’t want to pitch today, she forgot the soy sauce, she only had seven and a half hours of sleep instead of seven and forty five minutes (honestly I’m impressed she’s managed to maintain that range, that’s like a perfect amount of sleep), she probably forgot to feed her cats too! Thankfully she’s got Kyousuke to pull her through, and she eventually brings herself to commit to the event, on the proviso that when she gets too nervous the other club members will gather round her like on that one match-plan she drew up for us. have I mentioned how adorable Rin is?

Riki is also having his doubts, especially when the other members of the team start to break down. But Brousuke is here with some helpful advice:

Now, Riki does completely fail in trying to unify them in any sort of order, but honestly I wouldn’t expect less from this band of misfits. The leadup to the baseball game is so heartwarming, an watching Riki stand up and act and then seeing the other characters stand up behind him is inspiring in itself.

Starting with Komari, who is slowly but surely pulling herself out of my worst girl folder, all of the characters show their support in Riki’s time of need. I have to wonder if the way this day plays out is any different depending on whose route you’re aiming for, or what your progress is like. I have to assume that this is the scene where the tenth person shows up, I just have no idea how one might trigger that scene. Anyway, Kurugaya reminds us of the thing that Riki is still patently oblivious to

Everyone gathers around Riki and we get started on the big game that the Common route has been hyping up since near the very beginning~

deep breath

So, I’m not a big fan of the baseball game. It’s unfortunate, but true. I might make a big post over in the minigame discussion thread breaking it down but as many people have pointed out to me the baseball game itself isn’t really important. What is important is that the baseball team is one giant piece of symbolism for how the new Little Busters are all coming together, sharing their time, creating memories that matter, and having fun. Now, I don’t think that really excuses the fifteen minute long RNG based tedious powerpoint slide filled with nothing that i sat through, but I definitely have no shame at all in choosing the ‘give up’ option on subsequent playthroughs.

I will say, the scenes with everyone crowding around Rin were excellent. I would have loved it if they were the entire sequence, with maybe some CGs in between showing off Rin using her Meow Ball and some incredible levels of character-driven anime bullshit to top it all off. Just so that I’m completely transparent, here’s a look at my final scorecard:

I didn’t really care that I lost, and I don’t think that had any effect on my negative perception of the baseball game. I literally do not care about winning. I couldn’t hit higher than a 2-Combo in the daily baseball practice minigame and I enjoyed the heck out of that, but i honestly can’t understand how the finale of the Common route fell so flat.

We get another peek at Riki’s inner monologue before we retire to our rooms for the night:

Now what’s interesting is how futile Riki’s attitude is. He should know by this point that things are changing, and not only that we are (looks at calendar) one day away from the end of the common route. Clearly these times cannot continue forever, and the baseball game wasn’t enough to inspire a change in attitude from him. Not yet anyway.

Now, I honestly have no clue what’s going to be going on for the next little while, nor what to expect from the ‘routes’ of the characters, which apparently only start after May 27th. I’m not particularly familiar with route-based VNs so I’m excited to see what comes forth next! Onward to Komari’s pancake party!

[Kanon]

but i honestly can’t understand how the finale of the Common route fell so flat.

That’s cuz the Finale is for if you win.

[MagusVerborum]

…May 27th? Wow the entire day was just the pancake party. Well at least I had a great pancakey time before the emotional rollercoaster that will be coming my way shortly. Guess I’ll upload my Battle Rankings for everyone’s perusal and move onto Rin1!

I was particularly happy with Brousuke and Kengo’s titles. And Haruka’s title should really just be permanent