Admittedly, Riki doesn’t make a strong impression at first and he won’t strike you as an interesting protagonist early on. He’s not returning into a town for the first time in 7 years while lacking memories of that place, he’s not a mysterious traveler, not a gun-wielding scavenger in a world that rejects life, not a delinquent and he’s got no superpowers, either.
He’s an ordinary boy in an ordinary school where he and his friends make the most of their ordinary everyday life. The only irregularities in his concept are dead parents and a sleep disorder.
Yes, his concept, at first glance, doesn’t seem interesting. But that’s ok. Because ordinary means peaceful.
Riki is a protagonist who’s good at whatever he’s currently needed for.
As long as his life is ordinary, he doesn’t need to stand out. He only needs to be able to have the most fun and be happy.
Recruit members for a team? No problem. Riki can approach just about anyone naturally and he’s got zero enemies. He’s nice and always ready to help. He won’t tease people for the fun of it - his comedy routine is retorting, not attacking.
Even when things get serious and someone close to him is in real trouble, Riki will demonstrate incredible dedication and willpower. He will stand his ground and do everything he can in order to support and save his loved ones. Sometimes he’ll fail due to lack of strength, only to come back stronger and face the challenge again.
He’s not strong and capable from the get-go, but his mentality allows him to grow stronger over time.
The same is true for his concept: It’s not unique and interesting at first, but it becomes amazing later on.
And hey, he’s good at talking to girls. That’s an awesome skill. He’s not the handsome senpai type, but he can win over most girls naturally.
That’s a side-effect of being feminine~ Is being feminine a skill? o.o
Being good at social interaction is definitely a skill. Riki is also perfectly hetero, so there’s the hurdle of talking to the opposite sex, which he skillfully overcomes. Being feminine may give him an advantage, but it’s not doing all the work for him.
Forget feminine, Rin is an actual girl. And look how good she is at talking to girls -_-
Riki is a very strong contender for my favorite Key protagonist, and currently is.
I’ll never have a favorite, probably, but mother of Maeda I love this character. He’s absurdly well written and Rin 2 and Refrain blew my mind with how much I grew to appreciate what an excellent MC he is and how he breaks the typical MC mold. He’s undeniably valuable to the story of LB! and integral to what makes it such a great VN without fail.
I would like to talk about this point made in another topic:
Did they ever really explain what exactly triggered Riki’s narcolepsy? I didn’t seem to quite get that, and if they did, then this is just me asking a simple question 
We know it started when he had the car accident with his parents. So it is obvious to think that he falls asleep whenever something bad/sad happens. But this theory gets negated because he randomly falls asleep when something good happens either. I can’t remember if it gets a clear explanation somewhere
Yeah. It’s not very scientific, but the idea is that he developed narcolepsy as a defense mechanism against traumatic events that he can’t face. Only problem is that as a result, he has narcolepsy, so it can and will kick in at completely random times. But what’s important is how his narcolepsy symbolises his fear of loss. After confronting that and overcoming it, he was able to be born into a new world where he wasn’t afraid anymore, and therefore his narcolepsy was gone.
Until he realized at the end that his nightmares were of his parents lying dead in front of him,
I had always thought that his nightmares/narcolepsy had to do with “the secret of the world”. Because they very first line after the OP plays is him talking about having a dream, it seemed to me like the OP was supposed to be his dream. And with all the foreshadowing in the OP, and taking to account the events of Refrain, this actually would have made a ton of sense if they hadnt come out and directly explained it.
Yeah. It’s a bit of a red herring for the secret of the world
I know I’m late but. Eh, Riki is my least favorite. I know I shouldn’t base my opinion because of the anime, but the visual novel might have featured this also. I really hated Riki’s overused story about how when he was alone, Kyousuke and the Little Busters gang came and cheered him up. The first time in Komari’s route was just perfect, but seeing how he kept dragging on that story for every other route after Komari’s was kinda just lame. Riki in my opinion, is weak. Not because of his physical strength whatsoever, but because of his narcolepsy and his bad choices he makes, I mean, the artificial world kept resetting due to the poor choices he made, and I know that happened in the visual novels for some of Key’s other games too, but he kept getting the bad ending unless Kyousuke said something. If Kyousuke didn’t say anything, the good end wouldn’t have been unlocked. Kyousuke would have been a much better MC. Not to mention the ending. Rin was the first to remember about the ending when <Rin and Riki forgot all about Haruka, Mio, Kurugaya, and all the other girls from the LB, and they just remembered the original LB gang. Rin was the first to remember the LB gang, every single one, while Riki was basically being a dimwit and not even remembering the girls that he invited to be part of the LB group.> I found that part the most irritating. Riki is by far one of the worse MC’s for Key in my opinion. I think Yuichi would have been a better MC. I loved Little Busters, I’m just not a fan of who the MC’s are. Rin and Riki’s love didn’t even speculate until Refrain, which was also considered the end.
I might have done the spoiler tag wrong, forgive me .-.
Uh… No? Kyousuke had like… Zero to develop? And Yuichi isn’t even really explored, besides he’s already a protagonist, he has nothing to do with LB! Unless you write a Kanon x LB! crossover with Yuichi as the protagonist…
Still. Riki is the last choice for me.
That’s a fact, not an opinion. It’s the whole idea behind the VN.
I don’t think they used that idea in any VNs pre-Litbus.
But then there would be no… point. There’s no development to have with Kyousuke that is as expansive as Riki’s. It wouldn’t fit with the background of the story either. Can Kyousuke even help with the cast’s regrets as well as Riki did?
That ship was pushed in the anime. It wasn’t as in-your-face in the VN.
Yeah the whole point of Riki’s character is that he is weak, and Kyousuke made the secret of the world so that he could become strong enough to survive without the rest of the gang. It’s funny how the points you hate about him are exactly the points that were intended by the author. I honestly am not such a fan of Riki but I appreciate his place in the story of Little Busters
One thing I like about Riki: he is easy to self-insert, so the whole VN experience with him as the protagonist feels a lot more “close” to you.
Though that would mean most routes were pointless. Most routes he went through didn’t even help Riki become stronger, he was just a bystander.
WHAT?! Of course they helped, that was their main purpose! I’ve never seen the anime, but seems like it’s lacking a lot of information…
