Little Busters! - Refrain Arc Discussion

[Aspirety]

We see in Refrain a few times how Riki has grown craftier, demonstrated in the two traps he uses against Masato and Kengo respectively. Before the dream world, it never would’ve occurred to Riki to make a makeshift stretcher.

Another thing is that, the Rin2 baseball match in many ways reflects the bus crash. At first Riki is freaking out and losing his cool, heart thumping, and then Kengo calms him down and he pitches a perfect ball - until Kyousuke intervenes. There’s been lots of little things showing his growth in preparation for the rescue. And in the rescue, he has finally learned to calm himself down. Also same music cementing that connection in Riki’s experience!

(I have not finished reading the topic yet so I apologise if this has already been said)

[Mikey]

The Refrain arc, I believe, is the best part of the VN. Its so emotional (I was crying buckets).
By the end, I was so proud of Riki and Rin and how much they had grown. I mean, Rin was terrible with people, and Riki would always rely on everyone, especially Kyousuke.
That sorta character growth is why I read VN’s

[Aspirety]

Really the only time where his narcolepsy becomes a big deal was in Rin2… if they integrated it into more routes, it might have actually had more impact.

Maybe the inclusion of the narcolepsy is a bit wishy washy, but it was always there. I’m pretty sure Riki has an attack in every single girl’s route at some point (or in common before their route?). I think an interesting point to refer to is the bonus content in Kud’s route. Kud makes a mention of how Riki often looks like he’s having nightmares when he has a narcolepsy attack, and turns it into a talk about how she wishes she could help him overcome the tragedy that awaits him. The nightmare is mentioned at the very start of the game too, right after the OP plays. The nacrolepsy always brings him back to the scene of the accident. Could it have been handled better? Yes, but don’t ignore what they did do.

Another thing is, I see a lot of people calling out Refrain as going against the message of Komari’s route. But in my mind, Komari’s route is the perfect setup for Refrain. The ending is all about “rewriting a sad ending”, because not all endings have to be tragedies. Riki turns the little match girl into a story where, instead of the girl dying, she lives on and grows old. And at the very very end, Komari adds the note of “and then she passed away”. Loss is something inevitable, it will come to us all eventually. Komari’s message remains true. But that doesn’t mean we need to end this story on a tragedy.

But yeah, having finally caught up in the thread, I’ll say it again. Refrain is goddamn beautiful, and stands up to the test of time. I can’t wait to get deep into gushing about it proper on the podcast.

[Takafumi]

Maybe the inclusion of the narcolepsy is a bit wishy washy

It’s actually used for something in the Yuiko route at least, though even that is minor.
I think Narcolepsy was the perfect affliction for Maeda to work with (an emotional hurdle to overcome, plus an easy integration into Maeda’s signature focus on an inner world) but the rest of the writers found little use for it within the Little Busters! narrative. If the same Narcolepsy thing was thrown into CLANNAD or AIR, I think it’d get more use.

[BlackHayate02]

Yiss finally got to finish Refrain. That was a ride. I’d say Little Busters! in general hasn’t really aged well for me (which I’m largely attributing to my own huge change in personal views from back when I first read this), but it’s still a good story nonetheless. I’d still say this is the best VN from Maeda that I have so far read, and I think it has a lot to do with him being finally able to effectively use a plot device he likes using: the escapist fantasy-sort of ending everyone calls “Key Magic.”

Needless to say, I’m also riding the “It’s not enough” train, wheeeeeee.

One reason is that Maeda was able to use Key Magic in LB! as means to bring the themes of the story to a full circle, rather than a mere need for his characters to have a “happy” ending. I think this has already been explained here before, so I’m no longer expanding here. Though a bigger reason why I prefer the It’s not enough ending is because of the role Rin played here.

I really like how Rin gaining strength by her own accord became the key for everyone to achieve the happiest ending possible. Kyousuke and co. was unable to believe in that ending on one part due to guilt and on another part because they could no longer believe that Rin could get any stronger. We can’t blame them for believing that; their attempts at making her a stronger person failed horribly.

But one thing they missed out was that Rin is the kind of person who finds strength through the power of nakama people she cares about. It’s indirectly portrayed in how she gains more hissatsu pitching techniques (blame Ina11 for this haha) when someone hurts her cats. I can’t really think of a more concrete example from routes other than Refrain beyond that one quote by Rin in her route, but it’s nice to see that trait of her surface in the happy ending.

I also really like how she gains that strength by her own accord. Sure, Riki did help her properly cope from her emotional trauma at first, but her biggest and most vital character development happened because she willed it, because she wanted to protect her nakama girl friends that she has encountered through her emotional journey. While I would have love to see more of how she developed friendship with other heroines, I’d personally chalk it up to the limitations of the medium and the game being too squarely targeted to male audience, but I do think it was foreshadowed well. Regardless, Rin’s character arc in Refrain, and her dynamic with Komari, is still really great stuff.

My score? Somewhere between 4.25-4.5, I guess.

((PS: I should have chosen Ravel’s Bolero as Rin’s classical piece, but haah she still named one of her cats “Mendelssohn”… unless Riki can count as a heroine? I mean I like how Bolero just gradually gets, hehe, stronger.
Unless we think that Kyousuke is the true heroine, which I wholeheartedly agree, in which case I give him Dvorak’s New World Symphony because, hehehehe New World. Also Kyousuke reads shounen manga and the piece was used in a shounen anime before (One Piece spoilers beware)… eh, obviously I’m just joking around with this gimmick. :'D ))

[Ganesh_Swami]

Oh looky-looky~ i call myself little busters fan and i haven’t posted my thoughts of it till now. Let’s rectify this mistake.

Prologue
I open the screen and see a creepy image, yeah it’s disturbing. Then riki wakes up and everything starts off normally… for a few minutes until Kyousuke’s absence causes a great misfit. Things start to pick up now, the little busters have lost their leader and they break up one by one until only riki and rin remain. The mission begins now.

Masato
Masato the goddamm best friend you can ever have. This muscle idiot is the most sensible of our cast. Masato wanted one basic thing that all humans want… ‘friends’ he wanted a place where he could have fun without worrying about stupid things which he found with little busters.
To be honest it’s very difficult to find any fault in his character, he did everything that his role required. Getting himself on line so his friend can survive, keep being an idiot so they enjoy the last time they have with him. My favorite character from the Cast.

Kengo
Kengo is a like a child. A stubborn child who wants to save everything precious to him. He took his time with busters in the real world for granted so now he regrets it. He wants to forever be with his friends, keep having fun. What he learns is very similar to Riki, ‘letting go of things’.
He finally accepts his fate (which i don’t fucking approve it’s not enough man) and sees his friend off with a smile and a loving last memory.

Kyousuke
This man!. He’s great, awasome, faithful, brave,… The list goes on. He’s introduced to us in the beginning as some sort of superhuman, an ace. But how they portray his failure, is one of the few times i considered a character as though real human. The writing of his despair state, his faith in riki, the will to save his friends is absolutely incredible.

Rin
Yeah Rin though is a big character she’s ultimately overshadowed by the guys big time. She’s only there for the most part of refrain and there isn’t anything too special about it. Her dream is a part that rectifies it somewhat but i find it very short.

Riki
Riki means ‘strength’ and yeah like his name this character displays strength throughout the story. Both mental and physical. His will is incredible, he goes to any length when a friend is in trouble or if the situation calls for it. This is the best trait a character can have. His friends are everything to him and he’ll do anything for them. Getting stronger plays a very important part in his development. It’s something we can all relate to as we all get stronger through various obstacles in our lives. For those people who think Riki is a boring normal protagonist, most people in real life are like that ‘people who live daily repetitive boring lives and enjoy little things with their friends’.
And it’s because of this normalness, the miracle he pulls off is much more meaningful. Even a normal person can do amazing things.

Epilogue
I’m not gonna go deep into this. I’d say it’s not enough is my go to choice cause like Riki i would like to live with my friends rather than alone.
Though there is one thing. On the second playthrough of refrain you have the choice of selecting weather you want to say yes to Rin’s proposal or not. We get few romance scenes between riki and rin with that option. But preferably i like the no option, the romance is good and all but it feels out of place after refrain, it feels childish and doesn’t give sense that the characters grew up.

[machelmore]

This is a really fundamental question, and exactly because of that I’m not sure there’s an answer to it, but there’s no reason not to try and find one:
How much of what happens is Kyousuke, and how much isn’t?
If you ask me, the latter half of the question is likely to be much easier to answer “How much of what happens isn’t Kyousuke?”, because I tend to think that the vast majority of what happens is at least guided if not directly controlled by him. I know there are people who reject the idea that Kyousuke basically has omnipotence within the dream world, but, well, that’s why I’m asking.

I bring this up because of a conversation I recently remembered that I had with @cjlim2007 and @HeliosAlpha after the Komari podcast. We tossed around the idea that Kyousuke had set everything up on the day where Riki and Komari go out together and find that dead cat in the rain.

Not only is Kyousuke the one who suggested that they go out together

but we know from Refrain that he can actively control the weather. It’s not impossible that he set it up all the way from making it rain in order to cancel baseball practice that day.

In particular, it’d be interesting to find out exactly how much he knows about what’s going on in Mio’s and Kurugaya’s routes. He acts like he knows nothing, but I personally have a hard time believing that.

[Naoki_Saten]

By the same logic, we could say that Masato is the one setting up everything, because more often than not, Masato is indirectly giving Riki subtle hints on how to get onto a route or showing up with perfect timing. I remember Masato predicting a rain at least once whle the weather was still clear, for example.

But I think that’s not because Kyousuke and Masato make things to happen a certain way, but because they’ve seen it happen several times before. Events repeat until a route is resolved, but Riki’s reaction to them is not a fixed one. So it’s not strange for them to guide him a little bit, like showing him the way to a milestone he had reached before.

[Federico585]

Man that route was something special. All the guys had excellent screen time like the fight with Masato, Kengo’s determination to protect Riki and Rin, and the seemingly perfect Kyousuke falling to depression due to his own personal failure and then recover. Before I said that Rin transferring schools in her route didn’t seem like such an enormous issue so I’m glad that I was proven wrong as to why that was. I was pretty shocked during the CG where Riki extends his hand to Kyousuke since I realized then the guys most likely died, and even more so when I learned that also included the heroines besides Rin too. As appealing as the idea of an ending where Riki becomes a hardcore badass after the gaining the strength to move on from his friends dying is. I’m the kind of player who will always choose the endings in games to save as many characters as possible like in Mass Effect/Devil Survivor so I’m extremely content at this ending where Riki and Rin manage to save everyone through their own power. My one complaint is how if you choose to make Rin your girlfriend in the second play through it doesn’t wrap it up too well during the epilogue since it will abruptly move back to the scene where Kengo returns from the hospital. But aside from that it was a really phenomenal route and will definitely need to watch the anime version later.

[machelmore]

Alright, I’m back to pick up on some unfinished business I have here, because I’m petty like that.

It’s not that he tells himself that he doesn’t need it: his narcolepsy comes from a trauma. He has overcome the trauma, ergo he, in turn, has overcome narcolepsy

I just can’t quite let this go. Riki’s narcolepsy is a medical issue. Trauma - yes, even emotional and mental - has a profound effect on the anatomy and physiology of the brain. There are neurological pathways that never would have opened up in the developmental stages when they were supposed to in Riki’s case, as well as various other effects to the brain I’m not qualified to speak on because I’m not a neurologist. But my point was, even if Riki overcame his trauma on an emotional level, that doesn’t mean his brain will just magically fix itself. At best, he might lose his narcolepsy over time as his brain normalises itself, but as I mentioned before, there are neurological pathways that never opened up when they were supposed to and such, so I think hoping for even that much is somewhat optimistic. I would be more optimistic if he had overcome it a lot sooner - when he was younger - because the brain loses elasticity as you grow older, and because he’d have made it in time for some of those pathways I mentioned, but at his age I’m a lot more doubtful that he’d recover quite so easily. Again, I’m not a neurologist, so I can’t say for sure what would happen, but the odds seem stacked against him.

By the same logic, we could say that Masato is the one setting up everything, because more often than not, Masato is indirectly giving Riki subtle hints on how to get onto a route or showing up with perfect timing.

I mean, we could, except that Masato clearly can’t control things to the extent that Kyousuke can, and that we already know that he chose to stay out of it. There’s definitely a part to the boys’ behaviour and interactions with Riki that come from having seen it all before, but that doesn’t really deny that Kyousuke set things up either. We know he’s a mastermind behind certain things, so I don’t think it’s strange to question if he was behind anything else. He’s making a directed effort to mature Riki and Rin, so I find it hard to believe that after the point where Riki enters the heroine routes, Kyousuke just doesn’t do anything.

Edit:

I presumed the narcolepsy acted as a mental protector for Riki, to shield him from reflecting upon his traumatic experience. Once he got over it there was nothing left to trigger the protection.

Basically the narcolepsy isn’t gone, but the mechanism that induced the narcolepsy is gone.

I’m not sure how this would translate medically/practically, and so I can’t say whether or not this would feasibly work. I’d still say that at the very least it would take time, because his brain needs to physically change. But aside from that, that would only cover the attacks where something actually triggered his narcolepsy. The “random” attacks - which we see at several different points - wouldn’t be affected by this.

[Takafumi]

I presumed the narcolepsy acted as a mental protector for Riki, to shield him from reflecting upon his traumatic experience. Once he got over it there was nothing left to trigger the protection.

Basically the narcolepsy isn’t gone, but the mechanism that induced the narcolepsy is gone.

[Mogaoscar]

I just can’t quite let this go. Riki’s narcolepsy is a medical issue. Trauma - yes, even emotional and mental - has a profound effect on the anatomy and physiology of the brain. There are neurological pathways that never would have opened up in the developmental stages when they were supposed to in Riki’s case, as well as various other effects to the brain I’m not qualified to speak on because I’m not a neurologist. But my point was, even if Riki overcame his trauma on an emotional level, that doesn’t mean his brain will just magically fix itself. At best, he might lose his narcolepsy over time as his brain normalises itself, but as I mentioned before, there are neurological pathways that never opened up when they were supposed to and such, so I think hoping for even that much is somewhat optimistic. I would be more optimistic if he had overcome it a lot sooner - when he was younger - because the brain loses elasticity as you grow older, and because he’d have made it in time for some of those pathways I mentioned, but at his age I’m a lot more doubtful that he’d recover quite so easily. Again, I’m not a neurologist, so I can’t say for sure what would happen, but the odds seem stacked against him.

I’m not sure how this would translate medically/practically, and so I can’t say whether or not this would feasibly work. I’d still say that at the very least it would take time, because his brain needs to physically change. But aside from that, that would only cover the attacks where something actually triggered his narcolepsy. The “random” attacks - which we see at several different points - wouldn’t be affected by this.

In universe, Riki’s narcolepsy is obviously caused and healed by suffering a trauma and getting over it, but since you seem eager to bring in medical terms, I’ll argue on those as well.

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder, true, but that doesn’t mean that it’s related to brain tissue or neuronal pathway alteration. Narcolepsy is an autoinmune disorder, which basically means that the body’s own inmune system detects the host as an unknown hostile entity (as if it was a foreign bacteria, virus…) and tries to eliminate it. Of course, autoinmune diseases don’t make the immune system target the whole body, but rather a part of it, in this case, the disease targets a group of neuronal pathways that dictate the changes between REM and no-REM sleep so that no-REM sleep is a lot rarer in narcolepsy-affected people.

The causes of narcolepsy aren’t 100% clear, but there’s a clear genetic and hereditary factor, and some other factors that include immune system diseases, stress, trauma and hormone-related diseases or sudden changes in their levels.

And as for cures, the bit that you were addressing in your post… There are none that are known of, and the disease has never magically disappeared, so if we were taking things seriously, Riki shouldn’t have ever been cured of its narcolepsy. The only methods available are controlling the sudden sleep stages with constant medication (something that Riki doesn’t use).

So what do we get from all of this? Don’t try to analyse things realistically when Maeda isn’t a Doctor or researcher and even shows like House M.D. and such are unrealistic when treating with diseases. Stick to what the universe offers you or nothing will end up making sense.

By the way, in case you were asking yourself about the source, I took it all from the NINDS.

[machelmore]

You seem to be missing my point… Regardless of the specifics of the disorder, you’re right, we have to look at things within the context of the universe. You said yourself

the disease has never magically disappeared

so if it were to magically disappear, it would need to be done within the known “magic” the LB! universe presents us with. In your original post you argued that he’d get over his narcolepsy even in the “It’s enough” ending just because he got over his trauma, which we now both agree can’t really happen. The magic of the LB! universe shows us the mechanics of the dream world, but there’s no “magic” outside of that to magically cure his narcolepsy in the “It’s enough” ending, where he doesn’t do so within the dream world. So you’ve basically just agreed with me and presented it as a refutation.

[Mogaoscar]

In your original post you argued that he’d get over his narcolepsy even in the “It’s enough” ending just because he got over his trauma, which we now both agree can’t really happen.

First of all, no, we don’t agree.

the disease has never magically disappeared

This references the real world disease, not what can or can’t happen in Little Busters.

You keep thinking that LB’s narcolepsy works like real world narcolepsy, when, if it did:

if we were taking things seriously, Riki shouldn’t have ever been cured of its narcolepsy.

LB’s narcolepsy just doesn’t work like the real world. It is clear that, Riki got cured of narcolepsy in the it’s not enough choice, and at that point he’s outside any imaginary LB world. At that point Riki is in LB’s reality, and I don’t care how he got cured this point anymore, the point is that he got cured. That’s enough evidence to say that the disease in LB doesn’t work the same way that it works in the real world, because in the real world, it can’t be cured.

And so because of this, trying to argue with real world medical terms is nonsensical.

[machelmore]

I’m arguing under the premise that the only difference between the real world and the LB! universe world is the existence of the dream world in the LB! universe. I thought that was a given. If you’re not arguing under that premise, then no, we don’t agree. But we don’t even really disagree either. We’re not even arguing about the same thing. Your position makes a lot more sense to me now. I disagree with the core premise, but that’s whatever.

[Mogaoscar]

Well, I’d like to see how this core premise that you talk about explains Riki getting cured in the one scenario that we see him get over his narcolepsy, from a medical standpoint. Remember that LB’s dream world has no physical influence over LB’s reality.

And even if that could be explained, what sense does it make for Riki to get medically cured by means of medicine, brain reparation or similar stuff, when getting over a trauma and what Takafumi said makes way more sense from a literary viewpoint? We’re trying to understand and see the possibilities of what the VN wants to tell us or have us learn, while you’re digging deeper than necessary to explain a meaningless physical reality that adds no value to the VNs message itself. Otherwise, please explain where you want to get at.

[machelmore]

This seems like a weird thing for you to say. You were the one that presented a hypothetical and claimed what would have happened in a scenario we weren’t shown, and then you say to me

We’re trying to understand and see the possibilities of what the VN wants to tell us or have us learn, while you’re digging deeper than necessary to explain a meaningless physical reality that adds no value to the VNs message itself.

Meanwhile my position is corroborated by the VN itself.

Well, I’d like to see how this core premise that you talk about explains Riki getting cured in the one scenario that we see him get over his narcolepsy, from a medical standpoint.

My point is that it doesn’t need to be explained medically if the magic of the VN is the cure. But in your proposed hypothetical, the use of the magic we see in the VN is discounted, so it would need to be explained medically. And as for your latter paragraph writing it that way, while it might make more sense from a literary viewpoint, it would be medically unsound, which seems like bad writing to me. In the “It’s not enough” ending, it’s explained how the magic in their universe was used to cure Riki’s narcolepsy. If his narcolepsy was also cured in the “It’s enough” ending, they would need to explain it.

[Naoki_Saten]

Concerning narcolepsy, I agree with @Mogaoscar. I doubt that the authors of Key have made any detailed investigations concerning the medical background of the disorders they are using. Heck, they are definitely taking trauma too lightly in LB. The characters are cured too easily, too quickly. But that’s how things work in the Little Busters universe. Their aim has never been to provide a detailed and scientifically accurate insight for trauma and the problems that come with it.

My take on narcolepsy is the following: It’s 100% self-induced. When Riki had decided to not to be born in order to never lose anyone precious again, this is how his subconsciousness had manifested it. Every time he is about to lose someone, he faints. It’s a self-defence mechanism to knock him out before the shock of “loss” hits him with its full brunt. He temporarily disconnects himself from the world.
What I mean is: It’s all in his head. His organs, tissue, blood flow, etc. had not been actually been tampered with. The brain controlls it all. Therefore, the moment he made the decision to face his fears and to “be born”, the now obsolete mechanism got removed.

There’s definitely a part to the boys’ behaviour and interactions with Riki that come from having seen it all before, but that doesn’t really deny that Kyousuke set things up either. We know he’s a mastermind behind certain things, so I don’t think it’s strange to question if he was behind anything else. He’s making a directed effort to mature Riki and Rin, so I find it hard to believe that after the point where Riki enters the heroine routes, Kyousuke just doesn’t do anything.

The thing is, just because Kyousuke has made some things happen doesn’t mean he made everything happen.

I’m so sure of this due to what I think how the dream world works. Attributing everything to Kyousuke means denying some of the properties of the dream world.

Based on what Midori said in one of its ends, it’s a world that fulfills wishes. The wishes of those that create it. It’s a function with a direct connection to its properties. The girls all had regrets they wanted to deal with before dying. That enabled them to create the world in the first place, along with the LB boys. Therefore, it makes things happen so that those regrets can be resolved. Therefore, events that are directly connected to the heroine’s regrets… happen. Events that contain information Kyousuke couldn’t possibly have known unless he had somehow read through all the heroine’s memories. Stuff like what happened to the heroines, how the people and places involved looked like, etc.

I have probably explained that in detail somewhere on this forum, so I hope this suffices for now.

[machelmore]

Therefore, the moment he made the decision to face his fears and to “be born”, the now obsolete mechanism got removed.

Well yes, that’s what happened in the “It’s not enough” ending, but we’re arguing about before that, at the time of the choice between “It’s enough” and “It’s not enough”. Look, in the “It’s enough” ending it’s not cured via the dream world magic like in the “It’s not enough” ending, and there’s no real explanation for it medically, so if it were to be cured, they would need to explain it. What is there to take issue with there? It’s not a big deal, but I see no basis for claiming that Riki would have gotten over his narcolepsy in the “It’s enough” ending. I guess you can claim that the narcolepsy in LB! is different from the real world narcolepsy, fine. But I’m not satisfied with that, since they used a real world disorder and gave us no real reason to think it was different, I think they would have to abide by its limitations.

The thing is, just because Kyousuke has made some things happen doesn’t mean he made everything happen.

That’s why I’m asking how much was he behind. You seem to think I’m arguing that he was behind everything when I’m not. I’m just pondering how much he is behind.

[Takafumi]

…in the it’s not enough choice, and at that point he’s outside any imaginary LB world.

That’s a bold assumption to make.

My take on narcolepsy is the following: It’s 100% self-induced.

I don’t disagree in any way. I believe that in reality it is self-induced, however within the dream world it can also be triggered by any of the dreamers. Obviously Yuiko’s route is the most obvious example of this, but it is apparent throughout.