Little Busters! - Saya Tokido Route & Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#102

It was 4 days after Riki first met Saya (well, five, if you count the 15th of May, but they almost didn’t communicate then). I doubt Riki fell in love with Kyousuke just as unreasonably quickly. Even then, the similarities to Kyousuke aren’t as much as pointed out through Riki’s narration, while Saya’s supposed beauty (while Kurugaya is still the best girl in LB in my eyes) and nice smell are shoved right in my face, which leads me as a reader to think that it’s all about Saya herself, and as such I can’t see what did Riki fall in love with: while I as a reader was only shown enough of Saya’s “other” side to make me a bit interested in her, Riki was already skirting insanity. And there’s still the fact that Saya remained static as a character when Riki was already all over her.

I myself, though, agree, that she’s similar to Kyousuke in the aspects you mentioned, but come on, there’s still little to no build, due to which we still have to build theories to explain Riki’s infatuation with Saya while it has to come around naturally, without me as a reader having to think just why did everything happen so quickly.

Our conversation made the thread extend to more than 100 messages, due to which I earned a “Reader” badge. Thanks :yahaha:

#103

Though I ultimately agree with the two of you about how there should have been more substance between Riki and Saya, I feel as though there are some points you’re being a bit unreasonable on.

First and foremost, Saya and Kyousuke are only "Mary Sue"s from Riki’s perspective. Riki has a bad habit of aggrandising those around him, especially those who made strong first impressions. Just as we see the weakness of characters like Kyousuke and Kengo in Refrain, you have to look at Replay and Aya’s backstory to get a more even-handed and human view of her.

Second, the Suspension Bridge Effect. There’s no way the situation going on would have no effect on Riki’s mental state. He was scared and under stress, especially for those first few days. During that time, Saya was his only companion - the only person he could trust - which in of itself fulfils the conditions for the Suspension Bridge Effect. Not to mention, from his perspective, she would likely have seemed like a saviour. Not only would it seem like she was “saving” him in a physical sense, but she also rescued him from the “situation”, brightening his mood and relieving him of his stress. We don’t really see much of this in Riki’s POV, though it’s still likely it happened subconsciously. If I were to make a guess, I would say that his initial feelings for her were only due to the SBE, but by the time he got over it, he had developed real feelings for her.

Now to get on with the complaints about the backstory as a single infodump and the general writing of the route. I myself was a bit disillusioned with the route during my second read-through, which is when I started looking at it critically as opposed to the first read-through where I just wanted to enjoy it. That said, I also feel a certain charm from it. It really feels to me like Jun Maeda just wrote exactly what he wanted to write and how he wanted to write it, without worrying about structure or people looking over his shoulder. Kind of like Song of Saya was for Gen Urobuchi. Insert “Saya” conspiracy theory. Though once again, ‘that said’, I don’t know anything about what was actually going on behind the scenes at the time, that’s just what it felt like to me.

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#104

You’re totally right about the SBE, that’s also what I was pointing out in my first post. I just can’t buy into the romance that’s built from initially misdirected feelings. I totally understand what kind of person did Riki fall in love with later on (still static, though), but the botched start still taints everything. A funny thing is, in Clannad you can also experience the SBE with some girls and guys, but the girls you get to can’t be romanced thereafter (common route minor spoiler), a nice little touch, but I liked that a lot.

#105

Alright, so uh… I just read this route. and uh, where to begin?

This route left me feeling… really conflicted. I mean, on one hand I do like Aya - she’s a fun character, and all of the moments of her struggling to maintain the Saya persona as her real self slips through are legitimately great. And yet… at the same time, I feel like she’s also kind of intrinsically poorly conceived and handled? Like… Aya’s great, and a lot of her greatness wouldn’t really be there without the Saya persona, and the whole deal with her being an irregularity and the dungeon is neat and fun and makes a good story, and yet… I can’t help but feel like for all that this gimmick is what makes her unique, it’s also the biggest thing that breaks her and keeps her from really being great. I love the way we see her fraying over the course of the replay section, and yet nonetheless I feel like it ultimately wasn’t worth her never getting a chance to find solid footing in more traditional everyday scenarios. It’s like we have a character who could have fit into Little Busters and a story role that would be amazing in a Science Adventure novel, and unfortunately the two just kind of chain each other down.

Saya basically just eats common route and wears its skin. “No, of course this isn’t a character route, look at the baseball practices! Look at the date!” It’s like… Either go all the way with having common route, or just admit that you’re going right into a character route, you know? We get setup after setup for her to interact with the common route one way or another, only for each to get knocked down in turn. She gets a unique cut-in where she deflects an attack for Riki in the battle rankings? Better shut those down before you get a chance to really do anything there! She hides in the batting practice and makes an occasional comment? Yeah, her hitting the ball does nothing apart from build a combo, and those stats you gain are 100% irrelevant to this playthrough since you’re locked onto her route by now and it goes all in before the baseball game would have happened. (And seriously, I still have no idea why they did all that work for someone who will never even exist outside of a route that outright cannibalizes common!) Riki going all manic over his relief whenever he has a moment with these peaceful days? Him wishing Saya could experience them together with the Little Busters? Her regret explicitly being that she never got to experience a normal adolescence? Hell, the idea from the goddamn opening cinematic that this story is about adolescence? Literally no payoff at all (unless it’s in idiot riki or school revolution, I guess, but somehow I doubt that), and following Saya to the point where she gets involved in things is literally mutually exclusive with any trace of the normal life remaining. (Well, I mean, I guess I don’t actually know what happens if you don’t spend time with Saya on sunday. I can’t imagine any way that you could get any ending but Riki falling asleep in his room after being locked out of pretty much every route-starting choice, though…)

I feel like the pretense of having a common route raises expectations it never meets, detracting both from the experience of that common playthrough and from the character route itself. (Although admittedly, I may just be salty over the fact that the post-Refrain content is apparently all completely split up instead of one cohesive flip-side common route where we could see more interactions and events with a post-refrain perspective while building up all of the EX girls together before you start their routes… ;>_>) Also, I really feel like it’s just kind of a waste that we had this big, flagship bonus route and instead of taking advantage of happening at a stage where it could be certain no characters were locked to bring them together for events on a level that the original story just couldn’t deliver, it doubled down on the “nobody else exists in a character route” issue even harder.

(And also, I mean… Well, I haven’t read it yet so maybe this’ll turn out to be an unfair judgement and it’s actually the most important possible thing, but… idiot riki route? Really? Is this what we needed instead of a cohesive postgame flipside-common route or just like… post-refrain content in general for people not named “Yui-chan” or “Kud”? [Because I refuse to acknowledge Komari’s picture book as post-refrain content. I mean, it’s cute and all, but like… where does this require that you know the secret of the world already? Where does it address or recontextualize anything about Refrain, Komari’s thoughts on it, or even just the theme that made “it’s not enough” possible? I know Komari’s the penguin and Riki’s the star, but that would make the Little Busters both the villagers who made Komari feel inadequate and the star country Riki takes her to-sorry, sorry, I digress.])

The dungeon was fun, although it definitely could drag on during replay, and Riki’s version of the shooting gallery is frigging impossible. @_@

Oh, and of course, Kyousuke acting as an antagonist will never not be a gem. I loved it in Rin2, and I love it here.

Honestly, my best guess for the whole mindscrewy stuff, with all the time travel talk, was that Saya died around the same time as the bus crash, possibly nearby, and between that and her childhood bond with Riki she got pulled into the world where nothing happens. Presumably this happened at some point during the game (since it’s post-“Let’s play baseball”, which I’m assuming to be the first playthrough since what other starting point really is there?) and just can’t be accessed before Refrain because reading it at that point would spoil the whole darn jig. So she shows up, fucks everything sideways because she’s an unaccounted for variable, Kyousuke does his whole shebang, and then the impression I got was that when she chose to vanish from the dream world her consciousness somehow pulled off some sorta slingshot maneuver with whatever Key Magic powered Kyousuke resetting and Riki and Rin getting their final try, waking up as a child back when she knew Riki with the events of her route as nothing more than a fading dream, and then going back out to live her life - basically a bittersweet ending where she exists in a neverending loop from the moment where she wakes up to her death and time in the dream world, allowing her to keep living those happy days with Riki even if she’ll never be able to wake up and meet him again in the future? Then again, we see her dream-ripple thingie after the credits so maybe she just creates her own dream world or something, I dunno. Nice as it would be for her to miraculously live and be able to have an adolescence with the Busters for real, she’s not exactly in the bus crash for the preexisting story-rewrite to save her, and I trust her experience enough to not just say she’s wrong when she calculates that her blood-loss is going to be lethal. The loop idea is just my best way of reconciling Kyousuke’s line about her time traveling as something thematic and not just a comforting lie.

(Also, is it just me who’s disappointed that Kengo and Masato never showed up in a more antagonistic role? I mean, they literally call themselves guardians of the peaceful daily life in Refrain; them trying to make the disruption who twisted the dream around herself like a gravitational singularity and tore these peaceful days apart disappear before Kyousuke had to step in could have made for some amazing boss fight-y moments and confrontations.)

So yeah. Saya route was fun, but at the same time… well… what in the world even is this mess. :wtf:

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#106

The way I read your thoughts (and I totally agree with this) is that we just want an Aya after. Essentially we want a VN version of what we saw in the end credits scene :umu:

Such is the irony of this route. It leads you on, and makes you want this reality so so much, but it never gives you that. It shoves in your face that it’ll never happen and can never happen. It’s pretty much a punch in the gut by Maeda, and I have no idea what he was thinking at the time :maeda:

#107

Hm, maybe? I mean, my thoughts are a bit more “Aya should have just been a more normal character route instead of doubling down on the gimmick”, since a) I’m in the camp that doesn’t think she’s getting saved and b) I’d still just rather see more of the base Little Busters, but yeah I do think Aya deserved a more “daily life” route and I can definitely see where an after game would do wonders for her.

Also, wow, I only just realized that I somehow completely bypassed the time machine conversation in my reaction. Like, holy crap, Saya’s line about wanting to visit her past is suuuuper relatable (even if it’s maybe a little counter to the story’s theme of enjoying these days but moving forward), and I have no idea how I didn’t mention it. (Honestly, that’s probably a big part of why my first thought when I saw the last scene was her consciousness looping, since it seemed like a decent enough bittersweet to grant her her past despite stealing her future.)

#108

WHY
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Can someone help me please? It seems like my game is lack of mixed bath scenes and I don’t know how to get there…I haven’t tried Riki idiot yet tho, so could be the condition is completing that route?

#109

The missing CG’s are in fact from baka Riki.

#110

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already tried baka Riki, but it is still missing…

#111

Oops, my bad I don’t have that one either :yahaha:
Someone will come around who knows what it is…

#112

@Nguy_n_Minh_Long
That CG is from the bath room on (I believe) B4F. IIRC, You have to choose ‘investigate outside the room’ and find the sign saying ‘mixed bath’. Riki will then take a bath with Saya and you will get the CG.

This route is interesting, but way too ambitious. I appreciate the premise of another existence hacking into Kyousuke’s world, and I think it managed it well enough for most of the route, but the ending seemed to give up the ghost, as others have argued above. The character of Saya was fun and well-written, but the gameplay segments eventually began to drag, even with the comic dialogue breaking them up. Despite its length, it seemed underwritten given all the divergent elements that were introduced.

What makes this route interesting is that way it exposes the skeleton of the visual novel. Like the player, Saya is an interloper in the world of Little Busters! who is able to influence Riki’s choices. Little Busters! overall has this meta-visual novel quality—a world of infinite and concurrently occurring possibilities—but by introducing another ‘player’ like Saya, Maeda can really play with the game-like plasticity of Kyousuke’s world. Also like the player, Saya meets multiple bad ends on her way through the route. If LB can be interpreted as a meta-commentary on visual novels, then Saya’s route is almost like a meta-meta-commentary.

At the same time, many of these ideas were not necessarily new by the time the player arrives at Saya’s route, so it’s not something the route can hang its hat on. What you see in her route is more an interesting extension of the conceptual basis for Little Busters! than something totally different. For that reason, the route’s flaws end up coming to light. The romance was sweet but I can empathise with those who feel it was underwritten at times; I couldn’t connect strongly to the drama. The ending was confusing and gave little closure. The gameplay became a chore after some time; although it was lightened by the Ecstasy mode gimmick at the end.

Overall, a good but not great route. Saya is a lively enough character to bring it to life even in its slow moments. I prefer it to Sasami’s, but Kanata’s remains my favourite EX route.

2 Likes
#113

Thanks for your help a lot ^^ !

#114

I still have yet to finish this route LOL. I had watched the anime few years back. I was waiting to have it fresh in mine for when the podcast rolled around, but I do know I have lots to say about this route. I do have to say so far, I’ve really enjoyed these two routes, over Kanata’s.

#115

[Warning: If you haven’t finished Saya’s route, or watched the EX anime adaptation and Angel Beats!, this comment might give you wrong ideas or might feel spoiler-ish. Reader discretion is advised]

Ever since I finished Saya’s route, I couldn’t help but connect it with the setting of Angel Beats! in my mind. I’m having crossover-ish visions that expan both of the stories like crazy. Like, all of the Key universes are actually virtual worlds maintained in big mainframes, and are connected via a big terminal central called God Complex and everyone is a digital entity. I’m even trying to write those thoughts into a story lol.
Then, I’ve recently stumbled upon a song on Spotify and I associate it with Saya’s story and my thoughts in general so much, so I wanted to share it with you guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHSbLy6XufI

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#116

I’d Like to get right into discussing this route, all of its time-bending confusion, the sugary-sweet romance, the over-the top comedy and the mystery of its ending.

But there’s something even more important I have to get off my chest first.

taking a deep breath…

FUCK YOU, AYA’s DAD! FUCK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES OVER!!! YOU GODDAMN IRRESPONSIBLE MORON! It’s your duty to take care of your own child first and foremost!

Why drag your own flesh and blood into wars and suffering all over the world? If you really can’t stay put and do your most important job, at least leave her with friends or relatives back in Japan or something! Why pointlessly risk her life and rob her of her youth like that?! Pretty much anything would be better than the shit you’re putting her through!

She died having NOTHING worth remembering - except for that one boy who played with her for a while! Just cause you had to go pursue your grand, heroic goal! Doesn’t matter how many lives you save - if you mess up your child’s life for no good reason, you’re a failure as a grown up.

Fuck shitty parents.

Please excuse me for getting emotional for a bit…

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#117

Why is there so much shitty parenting in Key games? flashbacks to CLANNAD Side Stories

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#118

Well at least a lot of Key stories have parents…

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#119

Now I wanna talk about Riki’s relationships in Saya’s route. Of course, the most important one is his relationship with Saya, but it’s also worth taking a look at his relationship with everyone else, since it’s so much different in this route compared to all the others, which I intend to explore in my next post. But first off…

Relationship with Saya - the romance

You could call it a love at first sight. Riki has been captivated by Saya’s beauty from the first encounter on and his admiration of her kept growing by the day. Captivated by her beauty, then mesmerized by her coolness and skill and finally charmed by her clumsy and pure, therefore much more approachable personality.

The romance in this route is the kind of sugary-sweet, innocent and pure love that makes you think of nothing but your love interest and view everything through rose-colored glasses.

At first, Saya was a cool spy with all those amazing skills that made her look invincible. At the same time, Riki thought what it would be like if she was a normal girl doing normal things, so he could spend time normally with her - but then he would have no chance with someone as beautiful as her. So, was their life-and-death struggle something good after all? “I was no longer sure how to feel about our relationship”. How sweet.

The cafeteria contests between Riki and Saya describe their dynamic really well. Riki admires Saya for being superhuman and perfect. Saya knows that and tries to look as cool as possible to get his attention. But she’s also unlucky, so she ends up looking pathetic, thus inferior to Riki in the end. The failure to look cool frustrates her, causing an over-the-top reaction. A display of weakness that makes Saya look really cute, so Riki ends up falling for her even more. And since Riki is super lucky, albeit unskilled, that makes them such a perfect team.

At some point, Saya begins to reciprocate Riki’s feelings. And her feelings are the exact same innocent, pure, rose-colored glasses type of love. But she’s so bad at controlling those feelings, she ends up embarassing herself even more. Not a problem. For any of them. These two are so infatuated with each-other, their attraction does not dwindle no matter what they do. Not even if Saya hides her embarassment by saying vulgar and dirty things. Not even if Riki becomes idiot Riki. (Ok, that one kinda does come with a bad ending…)

And you know what? I very much enjoy seeing this kind of innocent love that makes people think and do stupid things and transforms their reality. It’s sweet.

I say Key wants to teach us not to be shitty parents. Like, seriously. There’s only 2 or 3 things that can thoroughly mess up a person’s childhood and force an unreasonable amount of struggle upon them.

  1. Bad parents - like neglect, abuse, bad relationship, bad parenting in general
  2. Force majeure - like death, sickness, poverty, natural disasters, accidents, war, etc.
  3. External factors/society - like bullying. When you think about it, it’s likely caused by 1 and/or 2 happening to the bully in the past.

So be good parents and you’ve basically covered 50%! That’s how you contribute to making the world a better and happier place!

1 Like
#120
#121

Saya’s route is a big old mixed bag. On one hand Saya herself is an entertaining and very amicable character. She slots comfortably somewhere in between the tsundere and the ojou-sama without taking in many of the negative characteristics of either. Furthermore the later half of the route does a lot to make her sympathetic, using the logic of the dream world in a way that wouldn’t have been possible pre-refrain. On the other though, I find the actual plot of the route uninspired and somewhat convoluted, particularly with regard to the function of the dream world with regard to people outside the little busters. This is a problem that exists in all of the EX routes, but is felt particularly strongly here. That is, the means by which Aya is supposed to have come into the dream world are flimsy at best, especially when compared to how the world is described in refrain. The other point of light contension is that Saya’s route is a bit lacking in terms of thematic complexity when compared to the other heroines of the story. Where as the heroine routes prior tended to balance the pure romance with their larger ideas and messages, Saya’s route leans more into the romance and the action while not going as far to say as much in as interesting a way.

If anything, the strongest points in her route are actually the moments of action on the part of the other characters. While he still isn’t doing anything groundbreaking, it is quite refreshing to see Riki being more of an active protagonist. More so than that though I actually find Kyousuke’s actions the best part of the route. Kyousuke is a fascinating character for plenty of reasons, but the single most interesting thing for me was his cruelty. Key is not a developer that often touches upon true malice or really much antagonistic action at all. When they do, that malice is so exaggerated as to feel ridiculous. Kyousuke’s actions in Rin 2 were great because it was cruelty justified and reasoned. And it’s from that same place that his actions form here. Saya is an obstacle in the path to Kyousuke’s only goal–nurturing Riki and Rin and sending off his friends, so his malice is coming from a place that the audience can empathize with. He is a villain that is logically and emotionally consistent and reasoned and that’s more than one can usually ask from key.

It’s because of this that I find the ending either one of the best or worst things about the route. It’s somewhat open and vague as to allow for personal interpretation. If one considers this in the context of Little Busters being an anthology all about accepting the inevitability of death and defining one’s own maturity, then I always favored the reading that the ending was Kyousuke giving Saya, in the context of the dream, a life where she had all of the things she wasn’t afforded in her own life, before she dies in peace. It isn’t real, but it doesn’t have to be. Saya can not live and come in between the Little Busters, but Kyousuke is not a vile man. In that way the end is very reminiscent of Angel Beats for me. Both Saya and Riki have to accept that some things can not be won and nothing is eternal. And that’s a strong statement particularly since refrain had that perfect happy ending and Riki didn’t truly have to lose anything. And in that way it’s almost a little like Umineko, where if nothing else Riki chooses to believe that Saya escaped and found happiness, and even if that isn’t true that idea let’s him keep walking to his own happy end–refrain. It’s not the best EX route, that’s Kanata :wink: , but it’s pretty alright. Better than some of the heroine routes for sure.

Stay golden,
Bread

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