I love her theme too! Hearing One Magic Word only made it more special to me
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I also enjoyed Komari’s route as well. I really love her character and the spiral of happiness theory. Despite her lack of seeing things as they way they are can be very difficult sometimes. Her route was special especially when they played the song Just One Magic Word and it felt so good that Komari came back to her senses when Riki decided that he could no longer let her suffer through her brother’s death. I was actually surprised that Koujirou’s wife was also the same name and that his wife experienced the same traumatizing problems that Komari was having as well. She is a very energetic character and sometimes can act ditzy but I love those qualities about her.
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Happy Birthday Komari!!
She’s such a sweet and amazing character and even if she said that she can no longer find a wife I’d be willing to marry her anyway! :>
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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.
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Komari is so pure and kind and innocent positive. She’s great and I really enjoyed her route. Seeing her sad made me sad, but I thought it was such an interesting side to her.
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I just discovered a tiny but awesome detail in Komari’s bad ending. After deciding to protect Komari, Riki starts referring to her without an honorific, and her name is also written in hiragana. We actually get a more detailed view of the transition in the sex scene.
Just so everyone’s on the same page. This is how Riki usually refers to her 小毬さん[Komari-san]. It becomes こまりさん when written in hiragana and just こまり without the honorific.
Riki uses 小毬さん for about 3/4 of the sex scene up until this line while it’s building up to the climax.
…でも、考えられないくらい、気持ちいい。
…But it feels so good I can barely think.
たぶん、こまりさんだからこんなに気持ちいいんだ。
It’s probably because it’s Komari-san that it feels this good.
His mind is so clouded that he starts using only hiragana, but the honorific is still there. He refers to her in this way the next two times her name comes up. Right after he climaxes, Riki actually goes back to using 小毬さん for a single line; however, the scene ends with this exchange.
「よごしちゃった…？」
Komari: "Did we make a mess…?”
うん…。
Yeah…
ごめんね、こまり。
I’m sorry, Komari.
He has now made the full transition into using only her name in hiragana; this continues for the rest of the bad ending. Now, what can we conclude from this? Well, I’d view it as Komari not being the only one to revert back to a more childlike mindset. Kanji take many years to learn, and children’s speech is often represented with hiragana.
Komari’s bad ending is a deep, dark abyss, but that’s what makes it the most unique and interesting part of the story.
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So. I read the Komari’s route. Since I was watched the anime ver. I feel like the route is flat. Best part of Komari is her oniichan who want her to smile and Her grandpa who wanted not make her sad. (?)
That oniichan part make me sad tho. I wish I could have a oniichan 
I love her spiral of happiness theory. Where everyone can be happy. Izumi Maki-san did a good job to play as Komari.
Now I’m in Kud’s route but on hold due to other VN.
Well well, let’s start with this. First of all I want to point out that Komari is far from being my favorite character and that subjectivity has nothing to do with my comments in discussions, obviously.
This Little Busters routes are quite interesting however when we are talking about resolution well not so much. In this case I could say about Komari’s route that this could be one of the best ones in the game, after refrain of course, since is the most realistic one. I mean Komari has troubles like all the other characters and people, but how Riki helps her through everything is really good.
They spent time together then an event happens which change Komari’s mind, the event was a little bit exaggereted maybe, but it’s explained after all. Riki finally manage to solve the problem , with a little help from other characters and their experience, in a realistic way with an special detail for Komari. It took me a while to understand the bad end and yeah that was a great detail too, what would had happened if Riki did nothing for Komari.
So this route is really great and the problem how to deal with a close friend’s or relative’s death is handle in an appropiate way, so yeah it’s really worthy. About the character nothing special the clumsy and always happy girl who wants everyone to get along , yeah is a good supporting character but nothing else.
Besides that, sharing a little of my opinion I considered Komari a little annoying and that made me want to finish her route as fast as posible and then never see her again, so I didn’t actually enjoy it or like it that much. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the I describe this route as one of the best in the game.
Thank you, very much
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Komari’s route was always a pretty standard Key-like tale for me. Somewhere down the line though in reflection I realized that it’s actually pretty well done for a story of its kind. Still has quite a few bits that require suspension of disbelief though, and I hope reading Himawari hasn’t ruined my ability to enjoy this route, ehehe… I’d imagine I can still enjoy it for what it is at least.
As far as Komari’s character herself goes, I actually always thought she was perfectly fine, if a little clichéd. I remember a lot of people saying the anime handled her friendship with Rin better than the VN did; I’ll be looking out on that front a bit as well this time around.
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And so here I am in Komari’s common route. Wondering what is the significance of Kojirou’s quote from that poem:
“The years that come and go are travellers of eternity; life is but a fleeting dream…”.
Somehow I think this is important…
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So, I finished Komari’s route yesterday. It’s one of the few routes I read in vanilla. A lot of things happened that I did not notice back then.
(This post has become a bit long. Sorry 
The first thing I want to talk about is Komari herself. After dropping a bit as a character when I read through the common route once more, her route made me like her more again. The main reason is that she shows more intelligence and selfawareness. She also shows courage, asking Riki out for a date and telling him that she loves him - though we know from common that she is not really shy. She became much more a character with a few quirks than JUST those quirks.
Now, unto Kojirou:
I absolutely love this character. Reminds me a bit of a certain old man in Rewrite 
. I will probably be a bit like him myself when I am old. His reaction in the beginning is quite understandable, it goes a bit against his pride and he also does not know Riki yet. But since Riki has learned to just stand up to this kind of antics from his friends while still staying respectful, Kojirou starts liking him for this part of his personality and they connect.
From there on, while still sticking out his quirks at times, he is really considerate yet helpful giving Riki information and also being worried about him and Komari. He is fully serious in the final encounter, which is good for the narrative, since the mood is serious at the moment, but that also shows his worry about Komari and guilt towards his wife.
He acted perfectly responsible towards Riki. I don’t think he could have done much better with his wife, he just did not know hot to handle it.
You notice the route getting a bit more depressing pretty pretty early, Komari is missing some of her memories and and brother. not knowing that he is dead, and Riki is stuck with the knowledge and not really being to help her, aside from offering to be there for her.
I don’t know much about the Little Mach Girl, but I think that is generally about accepting death as well. I like that this is a theme throughout her route.
Then the bad thing happens, and it is super depressing. Her route mostly did make me sad, but horribly depressed, both times reading it. Komari was in a really bad mood, and that’s such a big contrast to how she was before that - which made it even worse than it already was. It’s a bit weird how she was able to tell Riki all of the backstory.
Her brother was great person and he really loved her. He did not mean to make happen what did happen, he was afraid of making her sad. I was a really unfortunate situation.
Here we branch into the bad end - and yeah, reading what you guys posted before me, I can totally see implied H-scene even without it being explicit in EX. The same end as Kojirou and his wife, Komari still totally mentally broken. Depressing. However I think it makes more sense after going a bit further into the good end and actually hearing the backstory from Kojirou.
Let me take a short moment to mention Kurugaya and Masato. Masato is just a big bro. He is really understanding, serious and respectful. And he picks up on the situation REALLY quick. After being turned down by Riki about hanging out several times.
Kurugaya is also very helpful. The whole talk about dreams is very helpful to Riki, and she shows her smart and serious side for the most part of the scene (and adds some funny and very direct innuendos at the end). She is also quite (even if not fully) serious when coming over with clothes for Komari - very supportive.
Quick mention to Rin, as she is very worried and supportive of Komari and that shows how close of a friendship they have developed.
I really like Riki for going all the way to try and make his own picturebook, even though he a) sucks at drawing and b) does not even know if it will work in the end - including cutting classes and I think at least 1 all-nighter. I’ve seen that bit of the anime, I think it’s a bit better there, since everybody helps out, showing even more that everyone is concerned about her.
The scene on the rooftop is very touching. You can really feel the slow shift as she starts accepting. When it started working and I got the CG with Komari crying in Riki’s arms, I was crying as well.
I like how they used the white/black screen with the message of Takuya for Komari and Komari for Riki, very nice choice to include these lines and highlight them in the way they did, contrasting each other.
And with that, a final scene from Komaris point of view. I really like that it was added kind of as an epilogue, since we see that Komari really is better now, their relationship is blooming, and she finally is about to meet Kojirou (I also think the line about marrying Riki is very adorable).
And with that, the wonderful Alicemagic starts playing, ending the route on a happy mood.
The music also starts getting several really nice tracks. I liked Sunshine After the Rain, The Boys’ Farewell and Song for friends a lot. Why are there so many good piano heavy tracks in here?
Just One Magic Word has a lot of potential to make me cry in appropiate scenes.
Overall, I really liked the route, but I think there is potential for more in Little Busters!
However, I am not done yet. On my second reading and after seeing a lot of thinking and analyzing of a few newcomers, given that I don’t really know much more than this and Rin1, I watched out for potential foreshadowing a lot more than on my first reading. I am not sure what all of it means, but I will mention what I found. I will speculate on a few things, remember that I don’t know anything about Refrain, so whether I am right or wrong, don’t tell me please. As such, these cannot be spoilers.
If any of you don’t want to read my theories since you rather don’t overanalyze and just want to let it the plot happen, I’ll put it in to this details box so anyone who does not want to read those can just not click on it (I used this variant because it’s not technically a spoiler even though I think I am onto something, but also since it’s easier to tag and unblur)
A bunch of heavy speculation
First of all, the whole stargazing thing was full of stuff. How did Komari know about it? Kyousuke seemed puzzled as well, but his reaction strange. Riki suggest what he said has a deeper meaning, and I am pretty sure that is the case, I am not sure what kind of meaning that might be
Especially considering the number 8 was in there as well. 8 shooting stars, Riki missed all of them but 2. Upon noticing the 8th one, Komari seemed sad for a short moment, but that was not brought up again.
The number 8 was mentioned in her picturebook earlier and I am pretty sure that the shooting stars as well as the dwarfes represent our characters in some way shape or form. I know we have 10 characters, but Riki and Rin have a kind of special role, so they might just be excluded. However, while I realize that there is probably a string significance here, I am not sure how.
2 things happened back in common route, short before it ended, since I was not sure if that is Komari exclusive or always happens in a different form during the common route, I will just put it here to be safe.
First, a long narcolepsy blackout on the roof with Komari. It was a very deep blackout it scenes, especially with the lines “Like a string that was cut” “There is only darkness.”. I don’t really know what to think of it, but I am pretty sure that scenes has some deeper, important meaning.
Second, after the pancake party, Komari and Riki meet outside, talking about how Komari became friend’s with everyone relatively fast. Komari mentiones that it somehow “felt like we’ve all been together for a long time, already”. That highly suggest either some sort of timeloop or dream happening - IF there is a dream happening, a lot of the lines near the end in the special black/white representation might also apply here. I think we might have gotten the dream exposition on that route for a reason.
Not to mention that Riki claims he does not dream, “No matter whether it’s natural sleep or sickness”. If this really was a dreamworld we experience it would make sense if Riki does not dream inside of a dream.
That is highly supported by my thoughts on what happened during the train ride, where Riki experiences “I felt like I was seeing the same view over and over again when I looked out”. If this is not a real world but created from his memories, it is easily understandable that he would not remember ALL of what is outside during a train ride.
There are a few interesting wordings on the bad end as well:
It sounds like everybody else disappeared from this world. Also they are being aware that the world is ending and will turn back to 0. Yep, some sort of loop is taking place here, pretty sure.
Not only is there something again about ending worlds, but the “may your eyes grow a little better” line happens again as well. I don’t know if that line is significant, but it seems to me, since I can’t figure out a non magic way of what she could mean by that.
The final thing is a word about Kengo. Riki might have been mistaken, but he thinks the person he spotted on the graveyard was Kengo. Since the line is there, I am pretty sure it was. Was he following/ahead of Riki the whole time, watching him “from the shadows?”. On his own or Kyousuke’s idea? I still don’t know much more about him, but this bit made his characters a lot more intriguing.
Honestly, I somehow fear that the dream speculation is possibly correct - the hints are just too many right now. I don’t know though.
EDIT (3 days later, 
) : In addition to what I said about “ending worlds” etc, I realized that 2 song names fit into that. “A World is Born” for the title might be saying a lot more than I initially thought, but also there is the very somber “A World Where Nothing Happened” - another “World”.
Key point: What did you think of Kojirou? Do you like him? How do you judge his actions - in the past and the present interactions with Riki?
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Just finished this one too and… so much what @Tidulimar said!
Enough of the merrymaking and jolly japes, and into the Onion Cutting Simulation that I expect from Key VNs 
Now I don’t think this is an especially innovative route (shades of Kotomi?) but what it does is done very well and I did enjoy the route ultimately. Kojirou although much older provides a similar need from Riki as Akio does in Clannad for Tomoya - he can’t provide the answer Riki needs but forcing Riki to find his own answer and take a big step towards adulthood. His antagonistic attitude initially does belie I think that he wishes he could atone for a past mistake but having made the decision that he can’t he at least allows Riki the chance not to fall into the same trap ( which is effectively the bad route end).
I wasn’t too keen on Komari in the common route, and I wouldn’t say she’s suddenly leapfrogged her position on the leaderboard but the story did make me feel some compaassion for her character here. And so along with a invoking more empathic regard for Riki, both in his actions and for the little reveal about losing his parents, I can say that if this was the aim, then it succeeded for me on those levels.
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ALRIGHT, First R E A L route down. And this is a gooood route. This shit is some vintage Key right here, relationship buds > dramatic event shifts the mood into depressing > depressing backstory is reviled > The power of Love lets them smile though the sadness in the end. In fact, it’s so vintage Key that I see the scenario writer, Tonokawa get a ton of shit on Kaza for just being ‘Maeda lite’, for just sticking to the old Key plots too often. But I like Tonokawa forthemostpart, there is no harm in this route being extremely simple and by the books, especially since it’s pretty much universally considered to be the first route you do(shoutouts to the dumb Mio first bookclub order), it’s like a tutorial, easy to get on with a clean vanilla story that you have to be a real grumpy fart to not enjoy.
That does make it a tad difficult to make a huge post of the route though, everything is laid bare, there is little to analyse, the route is definitely more one of raw emotion rather than outstanding writing, not to say it’s not well written, I think the writing is fine, but it’s not what one would remember the route for. So lets talk about emotion! And we’ll start with the queen of emotion herself.
Komari, The Peerlessly Cute Fairytail Girl.
Real talk, Spiral of Happiness is legit. There is joy to be found in bringing joy, to have a character so devoted to the idea is simply, well, a joy to read, limits of reality are nothing before the great Spiral of Happiness! I like Komari, a lot, second best girl.
But on to emotion, Komari is a character of extreme emotion, positively beaming with happiness and positivity at every possible moment, that is if she’s not being wildly overly flustered. She’s a wonderful foil to the calm and negative Riki. Much like her route(and probably related to that) I also see complaints that she is ‘boring’ because of her simplicity, those people can fuck riiiiiiiight off, Komari is a wonderful character, a person who wants only to spread happiness and positivity. I’m smiling right now, as I write this post because that route just made me happy to read.
ALSO GOOOOD DAMN KOMARI MAKES SOME GOOD NOISES. I commonly hear people complain about her voice and those people can ALSO fuck riiiiiiiiight off.
Moving on, Komari’s theme Magic Ensemble is amaaaaazing, a peppy whimsical song that is just made for Komari, I am absolutely in love with the drumstick tapping before the drop, like most of the music in Little Busters it’s just completely and utterly solid. But wait, it gets better
For the big finale Magic Ensemble is remixed into Just One Magic Word, a beautiful somber piece that plays up the whimsy even more, it sounds like it came right out of a fairytail, and that’s P E R F E C T. Look at the situation where it plays, Riki coming along to break the ‘curse’ with the power of love, this shit IS a fairytail.
The name is fantastic too, just what is that one magic word? It’s obvious, it’s Smile. The song begins when Riki tells her to smile, those are the words that finally get though to her. Those who know me may be aware that I am a practitioner of BEING HIGHLY INVESTED IN FUCKIN’ CHEESE. That ending climax of the route is full of cheese and it is B E A U T I F U L.
Kojirou deserves a shoutout for being an excellent supporting character too, Tidulimar summed him up pretty well a couple of posts up.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this route, moreso than my first read, and I really liked it back then to begin with. It doesn’t set itself a high bar, it aims to tell a simple and short story and flawlessly executes it. I won’t ever hold it as a literary masterpiece, but the end of the day, I still have a genuine smile on my face, the route that can make that happen is something worth cherishing.
Also shoutouts to perfect edition for finally depicting the old vanilla cover in a CG.
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I have a question about how the routes work on Little Busters. I’m on Komari’s route right now so I figured this would be the appropriate thread. I hear routes lock after you finish them? Could I get the Komari bad end, back load my save and get the good end or would I be locked out ?
That worked for me, just need to make sure you save before the crucial final choice.
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Thanks for the answer and quick reply.
Now to get back to playing. 
In this version the "end"s are done like a choice so even if you did not make a save - press e to return to the previos choice.
Loading a save that is in a route works in general.
The only thing that will lock is the choice to get into the route. As long as you save at least once within the route you can skip forward and backward within it to get all the bad ends although it’s recommended to get the bad ends first or else it’ll leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.
