When I first read Komari’s route, I was a freshman in high school. I was still somewhat reeling from the loss of my father a couple years back, I was struggling to make friends in my new school, and I wasn’t really sure how to cope with any of it, so I just bottled up my negative feelings in hopes they would go away entirely. But when I watched Komari come to the painful realization that she had to face her problems head on in order to live without her trauma getting in the way, I realized that I had to do the same thing. I had to accept the bad things that had happened to me and use them to make me a stronger person.
Also, watching Riki and the other members of the Little Busters doing so much for Komari was the first moment in the story where I really felt the impact of how amazing the bonds of friendship could be. I didn’t have many friends in my real life, but with the Little Busters, I could almost feel what it was like to belong somewhere and be reached out to. That picture book Riki made wasn’t just for Komari, it was also, in a way, for me. And that gave me the strength to keep going in life, even through the most painful of times. And to this day I’m extremely grateful to Key for giving me that gift.
