Little Busters! - Kanata Futaki Route & Character Discussion

I’m gonna stay away from all the other posts for now because I don’t wanna be spoiled :stuck_out_tongue: But I just wanted to figure out why people hate Kanata so much. Biz gave a good explanation in the bad ends thread:

I think what she did makes more sense in the long run and the reason why people hate her so much is that they don’t know why she’s doing that. The biggest thing to remember about Kanata, I think, is that none of those bad stuff that she did happened in the real world. From Biz’s explanation, at least (which I trust more than my own memory :P), what she did, she did for the sake of exploiting the secret of the world.

Would she have done the same things in the real world? Had she already done those? Well, I can’t answer that. Maybe her route explains it, maybe it doesn’t. I’ll find out eventually

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I believe that those things, or things similar, happened in the real world. That family issue was a reality. I recall that post LB! Riki noted that the two warmed up to one another. I think they all gained something from that time. It’s the removal of her from Riki specifically that only happened in that bad end in that world.

Reminder that this is a spoilers thread on Kanata’s route, so Refrain spoilers are fair game, seeing as you must know the secret to read the route to begin with.

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Oh alright, I forgot which EX routes took place in common, and which took place after Refrain.

I specifically meant the scene with the bench, though, since most people seem to find that memorable of Kanata’s evil personality :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Would she have done the same thing in the real world, or had she done something similar? Well, who knows.

I started Little Busters not long ago after have seen the anime, I know then the story of Kanata who is one of my favorite characters. But each time, I am still amazed how much she can be unfriendly. It makes you wonder how her route is possible in Extasy.

It’s been brought up before, and after my rereading, I think I can answer why Kanata’s route exists. This route happens after the resolution of Refrain where Haruka attempts to get along with her sister. Thanks to that she learns about all of Kanata’s sacrifices and the whole marriage shenanigans that are about to tear them apart forever. I can’t 100% say what the plan was, but obviously the fabricated world is rebooted. The characters seem to have different goals with the reboot. Haruka aims to find a way to save her sister while Kanata only seems to want to make up for lost time with Haruka. I think this is made clear by how the two interact with Riki. Kanata is always a cold workaholic telling Riki he should have fun with his friends instead. Haruka( along with A-chan senpai) clearly ships RikixKanata. It is then quite ironic that it doesn’t matter which twin he falls in love with: the result remains the same. Whether according to plan or not, Kanata ends up asking the others for help, and then the world ends. After that Haruka wakes up with her arm in bandages giving us the context of the real world. So Wedding Busters takes place in the real world making another possible epilogue to Refrain.

I’m not well versed enough in Refrain to know if rebooting the dream like this is a plot hole or not, but I still think it’s cool as shit. Kanata’s route is a sequel to both Refrain and Haruka’s route. Therefore it takes elements from both, and it works really well. It’s just another reason for this to be my favorite route.

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Well with the official steam release of little busters i finally got the chance to read kanata’s route along with sasami and saya.

Don’t hate me for this but this route is my least favourite of ex routes. Things started a slow in this route ]Riki joining the dormitory committee for help and kanata being there. The first half with mostly slice of life and kanata and Riki’s interaction was okay but not interesting. Things only got serious and interesting after the alcohol lamp accident. But i feel it was to serious. The writers tried to add some comedy with kanata’s tea cup and her pouring down tea on someone but it wasn’t enough.

I’m not saying that laughs are important for story but the feeling of sadness or losing something is grown strongly after you felt happy at first. Kanata’s route was the most serious of all.

But one thing that was unique and i loved about kanata’s route is flashback. Her rote had the most and strongly written flashbacks. We see why haruka is treated like a unneeded kid (yeah i stole that from the vn) why she put herself through the misery because she didn’t wanted kanata, her sister, to suffer as her. They made a promise to play fake in front of their families, to pretend to hate each other. But in this long time and the abuse she suffered from the saigusas she failed to remember the reality, she broke. Kanata couldn’t see this she had to do something to save her precious sister. So she gave up her life, she became a doll, a mechanical doll for the manipulative people to use. She did this to save haruka and I hold her in high regards for this selfless act.

Also i don’t know but does haruka remember Riki from her route because she talks a lot of time about how he helped her.

And then there is when kanata asks why riki helped her if you answer with ‘i can’t answer’ then riki remembers haruka with a perplexed feeling in his heart.

Also at the wedding crash if you chose the ‘i can’t answer’ then riki kisses haruka. What does tjis mean, does riki remember his feelings for haruka this time like he did in saya’s route?.

Spoilers just in case even though I don’t think it should apply due to the Refrain completion requirement.

It’s made clear that some of the heroines remember and retain their feelings towards Riki after the dream world ends (especially if they had feelings prior). They can’t remember what happened in it anymore since their routes were loops amongst others (and even the boys’ memory is starting to become hazy on that time) so I’m assuming that the “I can’t answer choice” is following the Haruka route to some extent by having Riki solve another of Haruka’s problems and that’s the endangered situation of her sister.

Overall, I actually think this was one of the strongest routes namely because it’s also a very good other aspect to the notion of child abuse. In Haruka’s route, you can see pure and unfiltered hatred and lack of human decency towards Haruka, but in Kanata you can see that child abuse (after she stopped getting repeatedly whipped and beaten) is also in the form of manipulation and making a child think there’s nothing that can be done against the “adults” because they’re “family” and so they have to follow along or risk consequences.

I’ve really enjoyed this route, and personally it was the comedy aspect that felt more jarring to me. We know that Kanata went through as much shit (though a different kind) as Haruka and to me, the addition of casual comedy and shenanigans would’ve been a little inappropriate considering Kanata was never allowed to have fun in her life.

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Little busters is so confusing at times but still my favourite VN till this date.
I wonder if Riki had lost all his memories after rescuing kyousuke would he still ended up with Rin?
There are 2 ending with rin in refrain. If you chose ‘yes’ (second refrain playthrough only) then it seems that he and Rin are going out but if you choose ‘no’ (default choice in first playthrough) it seems he hadn’t made up his mind yet. Maybe this is because he is conflicted on his feelings for everyone.

Anyway i agree with you that the shenanigans were unnecessary in kanata’s route. It’s just about different tastes. I still like this route very much but not as much as other ex routes. It’s only because the real interesting part only started after the alcohol lamp incident. Everything before that felt like a filler to me.

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Well, it’s not a memory loss. He’s lost awareness of what happened in the dream world but retains the fact that it happened and it was important, so he knows, understands and remembers the meaning behind everything that happened with or without ending up with Rin. Overall I think the reason why the non-romantic ending was default was to prove Kyousuke wrong in that they didn’t need to be romantically involved with each other to be strong enough to pull each other through the bus accident, but the romantic situation is still there for those who want one for Rin

And let us agree to disagree based on personal preferences for routes, then. I really liked Kanata’s approach personally. :yahaha:

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Well I just got around to play the Steam version of LB! and I have to say I’m really confused now, as I never read EX routes before.

Like, Sasami route kind of made sense in context of Refrain and everything that happened in routes. It made it clear that the character do remember more or less what happened in Refrain and some girls still have feelings for Riki, (iirc it was only Kud though) and the timeline made sense.

What really confused me the most (so far, because I still didn’t play Saya route, lol) is Kanata route. I have hard time figuring out where, at the time of her route, are we in timeline, or at which point in the story we are at all. Is it after Refrain? Before Refrain? Is it dream world? Is it real world? Haruka at one point made things a little bit more clear, when she was thinking about having to retain memories she wanted to forget, to enjoy the “repeats” which would imply Kanata route still happens in dream world, but after Refrain? Which then would make a little sense to me. Also what’s with Kyousuke obviously pushing for all this to happen?

I really would like to consider it non canon route and be done with it but man, it does keep bothering me.

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Kanata’s route takes place in two parts as far as the timeline goes because the first part of her route tackles the psychological issues she has as an also abused child, and the second the concrete real-life solution to the source of those issues. The first part occurs within the dream world and the second occurs a while after Refrain (as evidenced by the mention of hospitalisation in the route IIRC) precisely because of that.

Also, not only is Kyousuke continually seeking for Riki to be confronted with more tragedies within the dream world to grow from the experience, but he also continually seeks the well-being of the Little Busters, which is directly impacted by their relations as well. It’s not out of the ordinary to assume that post-Refrain, Kyousuke encouraged the plan because he, too, wanted Haruka and Kanata to be able to enjoy their teenage years together without a situation of abuse anymore even if it meant Riki going away for a while.

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Oh baby that was a good route. So lets start off with my biggest problem with it.

Riki.
Riki come on dude, get out of here, Haruka should have been saying your lines, it’s fine if you be her support or something, but this route reeeeally should have used that fancy viewpoint changing and just put Haruka in charge of the main bulk of the route, at the end of the day it only stuck to Riki because his Diki needed to find it’s way into Kanata’s…heart for the EX release, he just kind of shows up and wins her over with little work, even entering the route is jarring as hell, he does basically no interacting with her until you’re literally on the route. People already mentioned that she had interactions with quite a lot of Little Busters(which is really good, makes Wedding Busters more believable), why couldn’t Riki just be one of those and let Haruka take the main character role, it feels like it’d would be so much more natural that way. Not to say that Haruka doesn’t have a huge role in the route, by all means, I think she steals the show, but it could have been so much more! Haruka should have been the one holding her hand in the infirmary, not Riki!

So lets talk about the flashbacks, probably the worstbest part of the route. As my P A S S I O N A T E post above(post removed because Kazamatsuri is less flexible on rules than Kanata) might have implied, those flashbacks reinvigorated some hateful feelings towards a certain…

That’ll do.

…pulsating piles of rotting maggot-food that is the Saigusa/Futaki family. As I’ve said in my Haruka post, even if they’re overwhelming negative feelings, it’s something worth applauding to an extend when a piece of media can force such strong emotions from the reader. Aside from my seething hate boner the scenes show more of that FUCKING HOUSE and just make me wanna love and protect Haruka even more.

…there was something else in this route what was it…

OH RIGHT THE OTHER GIRL, Kanata

So I get it, the route is to make you feel for Kanata, make you sympathize with and forgive her for all the shit in Haruka’s route.
So I can sympathize with her now, and I’ve always been able to forgive her because that’s what Haruka wanted at the end of her route.
But she was still a total cunt, 200%, fuck that noise, no amount of this showing her being gentle and caring in common(only for it to vanish completely in the route itself???) is going to make me forget how shite her attitude and actions were in Haruka’s route. I don’t dislike the Kanata from this route, as I said I can sympathize with her, I do enjoy her ultra serious spaghetting, but guuuuurl I’ll always remember that time your minty ass employed some cheap tricks.

Oh and Will and Wish is totally forgettable and doesn’t even play for the bulk of the route.

SO LETS TALK ABOUT WEDDING BUSTERS.

First of all the prospect of seeing

not getting their way frankly makes my penis fully erect, the only way to make it harder would be to say, burn the Saigusa house to the ground until it is nothing more than a cold pile of ash(just like the hearts of the family!). Wedding Busters is the kind of shit I needed years ago in Haruka’s route, a beautiful comeuppance for the pulsating piles of rotting maggot-food involving all of my beautiful children having fun fighting against evil. It’s fantastic to see such a large scale mission with Riki as the head too, as a great follow up to Refrain. I laugh at how Haruka just casually drops that she’ll report the horrors of the pulsating piles of rotting maggot-food to the police for their sins only AFTER completely embarrassing them during this no doubt expensive event, what an absolute fucking savage, I love her.

The catharsis of seeing all this go down, the joy of seeing my busters having fun on such a scale, I mean look at this, they’re fucking kidnapping someone, this scene is phenomenal.

Overall, real good route, has it’s issues, some ups and downs, but fuck, A-chan-senpai gets a ton of screentime even, I’m very very happy with this route.

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Definitely my favourite of the EX routes, continues with a story that we already know but adds still more depth to the sorry tale of Haruka and Kanata and it’s good to see that not everything was magically turned right after the reboot. I liked Haruka more than at any other time in LB, and then we have Bride Heist which felt like it righted the lack of closure from Haruka’s route. And a whole load of A-chan senpai too :happy:

Anyway, my brain is a bit frazzled after over 150 hours of analysing so much of LB so I’m struggling to put meaningful thoughts together at this point.

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I have a question. On their birthday Kanata received two pairs (meaning 4) marble hair ornaments. She gave a pair to Haruka and kept one herself. Soon after their uncle’s told haruka that kanata threw away her pair. So now in the present haruka ties her ponytails with the two pair of marbles but kanata also has a pair she uses to tie her hair.

Where did this third pair come from?did she buy similar looking ornaments.

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As far as I understand there were four pairs, two for each (therefore 8 ornaments, two per hair-tie) and Kanata could likely only keep one after her family made a show of the second to break Haruka’s trust towards her.

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There were two pairs.

The Saigusa family broke off one of the ornaments on Kanata’s and told Haruka she did it herself. One hair ornament for the #1 child and two ornaments for the inferior #2.

She either fixed the ornament or got a new one. Probably the latter, since the present-day ornaments are larger. At least, I think they are?

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Yeah thanks. After re reading the route i confirmed there was four pair of them. The futaki family threw one of kanata’s away to break haruka’s trust and torment her by labelling haruka as having a second place as she would have two hair ties and kanata only had one left now.

And i think the one kanata wears is the one that wasn’t thrown away. Cause riki notices that it has scratches and the colour was dull. A new one wouldn’t be that beaten up and there is no need for kanata to buy a similar one like that cause it would hold any value.

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Well, that’s a little obvious. :yahaha:

It’s not the hair ornaments themselves that matter to Kanata but the symbol of her promise with Haruka that got lost in their relatives’ manipulation. Barring the fact that she would never allow herself to lose said ornament in the first place, she would have no reason to buy another one since the work doesn’t really depict her as being particularly oriented towards hair accessories.

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Well i have a question for you guys.

Why do you think the futaki family wanted Kanata to become the best in everything?what was their goal?. Did they plan for her to get good reputation and then secure a powerful position in society (Lawyer, mayor etc.) and then use it for their own gain or they just wanted a pawn that to manipulate ?.

It just clicked for me how Kanata literally can’t show her back to anyone. Traditionally, a scar on your back refers to a wound received while retreating making it a symbol of weakness and failure. Well, Kanata doesn’t allow herself to show any weakness in the same way she doesn’t show her physical back.

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