I think its my least favourite route. Sasami just kinda gets on my nerves, particularly with the way she speaks. Eh, might be just me. Also, the whole cat thing was nice and all, if rather nonsensical.
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I have to say the best part of this route is the comedy and the connection of Sasami and her cat. I didn’t find the romance really that believable, Riki seemed more like an option B because of Kengo’s rejection.The romance came a little to close to the end. Also the cat transforming seemed a bit much and was the only way to bring Riki and her together. It was funny though.
I was balling so hard for this route, that poor kitty! I recently lost my cat and had to put him down he was 17. He was a big part of my life, pretty much a child to me. I can see if people don’t connect on the pet connection (if they’ve never had one) but on an emotional level it is all there. To love someone and then for them to go away and guilt yourself, only for them to find you and they’re near the end. I can’t understand how someone couldn’t feel anything.
I do wish that we go to see more from Kuro’s view and how he interacted with Sasami. I think it would’ve added more to the narrative, but it still worked on the emotional level for me. This was more emotional than any of the original Buster routes.
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Putting aside the cat transformation, which of course was obviously used to force Riki and Sasami to spend time together, I don’t think Riki was the option B
After basically spending all her school years running after Kengo trying to get his attention, she discovers that the very reason that brought her to like Kengo isn’t there anymore. Not only that, but that same reason instead pointed now to Riki.
Would she have fallen in love with Riki from the beginning if she knew he was the one to recover her uniform? Probably not, I don’t know. What Sasami admired the most was the “manliness” in Kengo, and Riki has a different kind of “manliness”, which he shows only in dire situations.
However, it’s still something that shook Sasami’s view of both Kengo and Riki, and after all the time they spent together, I think it’s not too forced for her to fall for him, even though admittedly it doesn’t take much time for her to change her mind.
tl;dr: if we ignore the forced cohabitation because of the cat transformation, I personally don’t think the romance is forced
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Oh right!!! I had totally forgot that whole uniform bit while posting orz. Honestly that entire part slipped my mind. I think it’s because that the romance it’s a big part of the route that it didn’t stick in my mind. Now that you mention all this it does make more sense that she would end up falling for him.
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I really enjoyed the ending, I actually teared up a bit, which I very rarely do when reading visual novels.
But on the whole, this route was kind of a fail for me. I was hoping there would be more to Sasami’s character than a tsundere, and after spending hours clicking through her dialogue in Riki’s room, I just didn’t get the substance I was looking for.
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Having just finished the route, gotta say, I really enjoyed it! I have a lot to say about it; how I felt it was really well structured, how it works as a common after and how it has references to almost every other route, but I don’t really have the time right now. Just a quick question.
A lot of people are dismissing the rules of the world as “convenient plot device for romance”, but the story goes out of it’s way to explicitly state that the world is intelligently designed and we should be thinking about why it is the way it is. Don’t you think it’s plausible that Kuro wanted to push Sasami and Riki together?
EDIT: Nobody wants to tackle that? Whatever, I’ll let someone get to it later. For now, here’s my thoughts.
Aaaaah, it’s the Common After I always wanted!! Well, kind of. One big limitation of Little Busters is that we saw very little of the aftermath of the events of the story. This route fulfils that need by giving every character a moment in the spotlight. In a first for LB routes, every character has a role! Let’s go through them one by one.
Kyousuke is mostly absent, and his inclusion near the end is kinda spotty, so I guess he’s the worst example lol. Moving on.
Masato plays a central role in the early portion of the route. Pushing forward the comedy, having more fun with Kud, muscle dancing and his friendship with Riki, it’s common route Masato being common route Masato and it’s great.
Kengo hoo boy. Did anyone notice that he’s very different from any iteration we’ve seen thus far? He’s like a combination of the early common Kengo and the later crazy Kengo. He wears his Kendo uniform with the LB logo on the back. (Why have I never seen fanart of this??) He acts and shows expressions that he never would have. He’s serious and calm, but also a lot more innocent and fun loving than the old Kengo. Just look at the final image in the tweet below! Kengo has never shown us a face like that before. And if you just listen to the voice acting, you can tell Kengo was given very specific instructions in how to present himself. It’s really fascinating to look at. Also yeah, he was a bro, and it was quite amusing to learn the reason Sasami fell for him…
Kud doesn’t get that much screentime, but she has some fun with Masato and we also get a scene that strongly hints she still has feelings for Riki. When Riki asks her about love advice, she says something along the lines of “that’s unfair…” (sorry I didn’t get a screen for it). Everyone has memories of what happened in their routes, very cool.
Rin gets some very cool development in this route too! It opens with her finally stopping the pointless fighting with Sasami’s underlings and making an honest attempt to make friends. (even if some of it happens when she’s a cat…) Rin demonstrates tremendous growth from her previous self in this route.
Haruka and Kanata share a moment if you ask for love advice where they are ACTUALLY TREATING EACH OTHER LIKE REAL SISTERS. I’m sure I’m going to see more of this in Kanata’s route I hope, but this is so fun to see. They’re having fun jabbing each other without it being malicious. It’s really heartwarming.
Komari is revealed to be Sasami’s friend and classmate, and it really feels like Komari brings out a different side of Sasami than many others see. She has her own nickname for Sasami that she isn’t allowed to say in public, and Komari also made sure to keep their friendship secret from the other Busters so as not to aggravate Rin. It’s unclear who decided on that, but it shows that Sasami really is just a pure, misunderstood girl. A few people here have already talked about that, Sasami is actually a really cool character, with many layers under the superficial stereotypical façade. And yeah, she remembers the dream world too, and still has her picture book about it, now completed.
Mio gets quite a lot of spotlight in this route. For some reason she’s everywhere! Riki is borrowing books off her, she figured out Sasami’s circumstances on her own by observing her shadow, and lots of references to the conversations they had about mystery novels. I guess that’s because, this route is in fact a traditional mystery, moreso than any other route in Little Busters. We’re presented with strange circumstances and a bunch of clues, and reasoning allows us to figure out the rules and reach the culprit, who was in fact presented at the start of the story. I was so impressed when I saw Riki reasoning out that the world wasn’t real because of Sasami’s transformation being unrealistic. At that point I was uncertain if this really was a solvable mystery, but that bit of insight, that proof that the writers put that much thought into it, was all I needed to reason out the rest. So I challenge you guys to continue thinking about the motive of Kuro in this route; there’s still a lot we haven’t uncovered.
But there’s one I saved for last, because she’s extra special.
Kurugaya doesn’t show up at all until the end of the route, and it’s extra strange. Kyousuke had the excuse of being job hunting, but we’re never explained why Kurugaya didn’t appear. But I believe she was around in some capacity, working to help behind the scenes. Why do I think this? At the end of the route where Riki is finding his way back to the world (I think this might be limited by choices), there’s a scene where he’s working through the fading world and, what would you know, ‘A Capriccio Played by an Awakening Love’ starts playing out of nowhere, and most importantly, RIKI HEARS IT.
There is no way this line was included for no reason. I can’t see it as anything other than Kurugaya using her influence to help Riki reach Sasami and Kuro. Blink and you’ll miss it, but really cool to see our favourite anego continuing to manipulate the strings behind the curtain. Shame we couldn’t see more of her.
For all of these reasons, Sasami’s route makes me really happy. It’s like a dessert to end the banquet of the series, really satisfying. That said I still have one more route to read!
If I think of more to add, I’ll post it here, but I just wanted to draw attention the role all the other Busters play in this route.
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Yeah, that’s only in the non-romantic path.
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Thought so! So without THE POWER OF LOVE TO GUIDE HIS WAY, he needs Kurugaya to get back.
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Regarding Kurugaya, I think a part of her remains in the dream world until Kurugaya’s True End (perhaps it’s her memories of those events - she’s the only character with perfect memory, so if even she forgets things, where do those memories go?), and when the world is fraying in the end of Sashimi route, it momentarily connects to that ‘bubble’. Maybe this in fact is what triggers Riki’s memory of the Kurugaya route, and allows him to potentially reach Kurugaya True End.
An interesting side note that reading your commentary made me realize, is that the game has no canonical pairing. Sasako route takes place after the dream so there’s no repetition anymore, what you see of the other characters can be taken as a ‘fixed facts’ at that point in the story, and it’s evident that Riki isn’t together with anyone. This brings perspective to the fact that despite everyone in pre-refrain pushing Riki and Rin together, the romantic Rin True End is in fact optional, just like Kurugaya’s. Which makes perfect sense to me - just because everyone thought Riki and Rin going out is the best way for them to support each other and survive the difficult times ahead, doesn’t mean they were ready for romance, or the best possible pairing otherwise. So… all heroines are fair game! (Totally not derailed, but Sachiko route’s really cool with lots of post-refrain development).
Also, I’ve said it before but that Sahakashakako ending gets me every time…
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Yeah, Little Busters is very cool about not pushing a particular pairing as canon. Always appreciated that.
Is there any indication that the Kurugaya True End takes place after Sasami?
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The final scene of Kurugaya True End takes place ‘on an autumn day’, which isn’t specific but certainly allows for it to happen after Salami route (Autumn in Japan being roughly around October-November depending on region - Sashimi route starts on Oct 23).
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I honestly didn’t think about Kuro being a cupid. That would be a cute idea. Though I feel when Kuro sees the interactions of Riki with Sasami he realizes that he can help Sasami remember him. Also I think that Kuro realizes Riki’s is important (since he’s so strong from the whole ordeal and his close relation to the world) so when he creates his world to get Sasami to remember him, Riki is an important link.
I didn’t personally get that romance motivated idea from what happened. I feel the transformation to cat was only to get her to remember and Riki was that catalyst for her to remember. Since Kuro’s time was very limited so he just wanted her to remember him and say goodbye and wouldn’t have that amount of time to do so. But it worked out a bonus in the end.
That is one thing I was sad about, I wish we got to see more from Kuro’s POV to understand his side and to really draw out his character. There is just a lot of telling instead of showing.
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Alright, so uh, after a long hiatus I finally got back to Little Busters for Sasami route, and um…
Negative 1000 out of ten. This route was pure evil, I hate it, and I want to punch the scenario writer.
But no, seriously, this was an amazing route, pure evil though it was!
Honestly, the biggest thing I was afraid of with the EX routes was that they might all end up being like Saya route - just focusing pretty much exclusively on the heroine and not taking advantage of the fact that they could assume none of the character routes were locked - but Sasami answered that with flying colors, to the point that it set an insanely high bar for Kanata to surpass! Characters acknowledged that the story so far had happened, almost every main character got to show up at least once… it was amazing!
I really loved how at the start of the route we got little glimpses of how Riki’s grown and how his relationships with the others are a normal part of his world after refrain. Little moments like him seeing the night sky and thinking to text Komari about it, or the note that he’s regularly borrowing books from Mio, were really sweet. (Not to mention that I’m a hopeless Komariki shipper who practically squealed when he used her “positiveness magic” to psych himself up about filling the role of “Great Detective”!)
Now, this still wasn’t entirely the final “all-stars” route that I kind of wish EX had, bringing the whole cast together for some huge climactic adventure since Refrain was mostly just about the boys - ultimately it was a character route, and a decent chunk of the cast was left without all that much screentime - but it still came more than close enough to fill that void that Refrain’s (masterfully crafted) sense of isolation left in me. Up until the dream was intentionally dying, it felt nice and alive to me, with at least a little bit of time for most of the Little Busters I’d been missing to contribute. Komari was especially MVP, providing some much-needed support and cuteness for the early chunk of the route (I loved her just being like “Well, I trust you enough to assume you’re not lying” about the unbelievable predicament and then coming up with a test to establish that Sasami was indeed Sasami) before – in tandem with Rin – leaving a valuable clue and a moment of backup from Kyousuke when she was forced to bow out. (Not to mention that little moment at the end, when they were burying Kuro.)
I also absolutely loved the further exploration we got of the mechanics and implications of dream worlds in this route; not only was Riki almost constantly acting with the secret of the world in mind and making deductions and calculations based on it, but there were at least three different sequences that left some really neat insights I’ll probably want to reread on the nature of the dream-worlds. (Speaking of which, does Komari and Rin appearing in Kyousuke’s dream to alert him to the situation – and Riki slipping through Kurugaya’s[?] dream to get back to Kuro’s world in the alternate ending – mean that the cast can learn to manipulate and/or move between dreams even when they’re not in their final moments now? I’d love to see a fanfic about them continuing to be together in their dreams after they all have to split up, or about Riki traveling from dream world to dream world in order to ensure that final wishes are granted.) Also, apparently if you stay in a dream world as it collapses, you can get literally retconned out of existence? Which is pretty yikes.
And speaking of elaboration, it was also great that we got additional insight into the specifics of Riki’s past and such. Beautiful, beautiful exposition! <3 I really liked how he was tied into Kuro’s own motivation, it felt really natural and super nice thematically. The way that Riki exhibited similarity with Kuro and was able to serve as a vector for his feelings to get across was really sweet and honestly reminded me of his feelings and Takuya’s overlapping in the climax of Komari’s route I swear I’m not trying to stretch for comparisons I just really like Komari I guess I’m sorry. I also loved how Riki’s own helping people thing was addressed – the guy is just incapable of leaving a sad story alone without trying to save it. (Also, there were tons of little philosophical musings and thematic things that were super relatable for me – this VN is kind of targeted directly for a super-effective critical hit to my own personal hangups – although I’m not going to go over them right now, because I’m starting to run out of energy writing this post. The one thing I’ll note is that the “To have had something and then lost it is sadder than to have never had it in the first place” in the first dream was both incredibly understandable and also seemingly kind of counter to the themes of Refrain.) Also, seeing Riki be all proactive and playing Great Detective was amazing.
Um, I’m sure there was more that I wanted to talk about, but I can’t remember at this point (maybe I’ll make a second post at some point when it comes to me), so I’ll just go over the last thing – Sasami herself. She’s… fine? I mean like, I definitely don’t dislike her, she’s cute and I’m always down for people trying to hide the fact that they’re actual total sweeties, but I feel like she – or at least her relationship with Riki – was kind of the weakest element of this route, weirdly enough. Too many of their interactions felt a little too “generic tsundere comedy” to me, and the thing with the reason she liked Kengo actually turning out to have been a Riki moment just felt kind of dumb – like yes, the biggest thing she admired Kengo for is a trait Riki also has in spades, but I think it would have felt more natural for her to just come to realize that and come to like him while understanding that Kengo wouldn’t return her feelings, without also just like… making it so it was actually Riki who caused the meet cute, or something? I dunno, it just felt kind of weird, especially since in the end their relationship wouldn’t have felt any less natural if it really had been Kengo who helped her and that just ended up being a perfectly valid crush that didn’t work out.
That said, the actual story was amazing. I loved the aesthetic of the slowly crumbling dream world (especially the foggy courtyard <3), the old film reel style of Kuro’s memories was A+, and the central relationship between Sasami and her cat was incredibly touching. The way she tried to cut off her love for cats because of the guilt and pain of losing Kuro, and how that defense mechanism ended up stealing her time with him… The way it was all tied together with the broader story and feelings… oh man. Look, I just… I’m not someone who cries all that much, you know? I get emotional over fiction, sure, but even when the farewells in Refrain were tearing out my heart and smashing it against the ground until nothing was left, I still was able to blink back the tears. But this? This absolutely PULVERIZED me. From Sasami seeing Kuro’s memories, through their final moments together, through the credits, I was outright sobbing. I had to go and hug my own cat for a while before I was ready to come back and read the bad and alternate endings. This route snapped me like a twig, and I hate it, and I love it for it.
Ultimately, between the exploration of the setting’s mechanics, the moments with characters I’ve come to love, and the sheer emotional wreck it left me, this is up there as one of my absolute favorite routes. Komari still edges it out just because I really love her and Riki’s dynamic, but ultimately Sasami takes number two and the status of an amazing wrap-up for the story. After this I’ll probably go replay Kurugaya in order to write an essay on her route and see her true ending, and then I guess it’s on to Kanata. I really hope that route’s as good as this one was!
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Looking at Kaza, it feels like: “There are two types of people–those who like Saya’s route and those who like Sasami’s” (Hyperbole obviously, but not by much?)
The two’s approach to lore and whatnot are pretty much opposites. Sasami wants to answer as many Twitter comments as possible. Saya lives and breathes uncertainty.
I wanted to leave a written record of what I said in the podcast:
This route isn’t just about Sasami and Kuro. Riki and his worries are a big part of it.
It’s post refrain and Riki is trying to live up to his role as the new leader. And he puts a lot of pressure on himself because of it. He thinks he has to be reliable, he can’t make mistakes and he has to get things done on his own without asking anyone for help. And it’s Sasami’s role to support him, to cheer him up and remind him he’s part of a team. So he’s not supposed to to everything on his own and cooperate with others instead. When Riki is depressed over his supposedly bad performance at helping Sasami, she basically tells him “You’re doing fine. I’m glad you’re here. I trust you.”
I think this worry is understandable, but needless. Riki has been through this multiple times. He’d help a girl in times of crisis and they would overcome the trials together. So he’s more than fit for the task this time around, as well. But the whole ‘leader’ thing makes him forget the teamwork part.
Yes, even though Sasami is the one in trouble and also gets depressed several times, she and Riki take turns in cheering up and supporting each-other. When Sasami pushes Riki out to keep him safe, it’s Riki’s turn to remind her of his wish to support her and the importance of teamwork. Even after the route concludes, in the epilogue, Sasami joins the Little Busters and declares she will team up with Riki and form the ultimate battery. In other words, she intends to continue their relationship of mutual support.
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Love her apron that she wears, (having issues uploading an image of it the last few days for some reason so you wont get an image sorry)
Currently she has my favourite route, because its so weird that she keeps turning into a cat. I still have Saya’s route left but this one was great. Was very unique because it took a comedic stance instead which felt refreshing. Love how she is a tsundere towards rin and her laugh too.
I can understand that this would probably also be the worst route for some people but I liked it. This route nearly made me cry so I guess is the closest towards making me cry.
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