Little Busters! - Yuiko Kurugaya Route & Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#1

Discussion thread for Kurugaya’s route in Little Busters! Feel free to discuss anything from Kurugaya’s route barring the post-refrain content.
When referencing events from other character routes or Refrain, please mark with [spoiler].
Her birthday is the 13th of March.

Yuiko’s route is by far my favorite route in Little Busters!
Ever since I was little, I’ve had a big fear of being forgotten, or forgetting people… but stories about such scenarios really draw me in. A lot of Key Novels have plots based around a amnesiac scenario, as far back as ONE That Misaki Kawana ending~ <3 however I believe Little Busters did it best.
In Yuiko’s route we get a good love story, with a sense that something in the background is going wrong. There is an original ending, and an ending that is unlocked after completing Refrain. The overall route is pretty cryptic, and relies on other routes to explain it in a way that makes sense. If you think hard enough about everything we learn about the secret of the world, you should be able to piece everything together~ Ahaha~

In the original ending, (Refrain spoilers here!) Kyousuke’s plan to make Riki and Rin stronger, by resetting the world, kicks into action, and the world begins to reset. Yuiko becomes too attached to Riki, and uses her dreamer powers to mess with the fake world. Kyousuke tries to force the world to reset, and as a side effect Riki becomes aware of the reset. He tries to stay together with Yuiko, but unfortunately he isn’t strong enough, and the world is reset.

After completing Refrain, the VN time-skips to the start of Fall, after the trip to the beach.
Riki sends a message to Yuiko, as he remembers the events of her route. This leads to Yuiko fulfilling her promise by confessing to Riki~

At least… that’s how I interpreted it :stuck_out_tongue:
What did everyone else think of it?

What would you rate this route?

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0 voters

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Little Busters! - General Discussion
#2

Kurugaya’s route is an interesting beast. It’s definitely the black sheep of the heroine routes of Little Busters. (At least for vanilla LB, anyway)

It breaks from the traditional format of the other routes, and instead starts off as a simple romance story and ends tragically when everything goes wrong. On the first playthrough, it’s full of intrigue and foreshadowing. On the second playthrough, you can gain a much deeper understanding and appreciation of it. (Refrain Spoilers) The typical format each of the routes follow is that the girl is able to solve her regrets she left in the real world, and reach happiness with Riki’s help. The problem with Kurugaya is that, unlike the other girls, her regret cannot simply be solved by accomplishing a single goal. Her regret could only be solved by continuing to be with Riki and experiencing the depths of her emotions. But Kyousuke needs to reset the world, and Kurugaya continues to selfishly resist in order to continue being with Riki just a bit longer. It’s a story of one girl fighting against a cruel reality (in this case ‘the world’ itself) in order to grant her simple wish of being with Riki. But eventually, they have to part, with Kurugaya understanding that she would die after she let go of Riki’s hand.

It’s a really tragic and bittersweet route, and the Anime adaptation nearly brought me to tears. It’s only through the true ending you unlock after Refrain that Kurugaya’s fans can get some kind of resolution to her story. They really should’ve made a Kurugaya After instead of Kud…

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#3

I still have to watch the anime, (procrastination~!) but I hope they did Yuiko justice.
After reading refrain, it is implied that Yuiko wasn’t meant to be one of the people Riki had to help,and that she was there to help with Kyousuke’s plans (unlike the other heroines) yet the Little Busters! gang still helped Riki, even after telling him that he should avoid Yuiko. I wonder what Kyousuke was hoping for…?

I haven’t read it in like… 2 years? I should go over it again~

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#4

I disagree with Takafumi.

Route spoilers:

There’s a point in Kurugaya’s route (I wish I had the screenshot right now) where Kurugaya realizes that she’s gotten to experience emotions and fallen in love with Riki.
At this time, the dream-like dialogue appears on-screen. This was supposed to be the end of Kurugaya’s dream/route, but Kurugaya couldn’t settle for just experiencing emotions for the first time. She was supposed to be satisfied, but instead became closer to Riki, willing her story to continue, causing the defects in the world until its eventual collapse.

I did draw similarities to Misaki’s route from ONE. I think having a route that sticks out from the rest is good, but people seem to dislike Kurugaya’s route when I look around. I kinda wish the LB routes were longer and went past the school setting a bit, but ah well. I hope to reread it all again some time.

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#5

I appreciate the spoiler tags as I’m speaking as someone who has only just unlocked refrain (haven’t touched it yet), I really liked Yuiko’s route personally, and yes there is bias cause she’s my favourite of the cast, but what I liked about it were the differences it held when compared to the other routes. I felt that most of the other routes had Riki build a relationship with the girl by helping them through their hardship, or trying to understand them, and through this the girl would fall for him.

It was cool to see a kind of reversal of roles, since it was Riki that fell for Yuiko, it was Riki that learned a lesson from Yuiko as oppose to how Riki taught all the other girls.

I still don’t quite comprehend what happened though, in relation to the ending as I felt it only unfair that those things be happening to them just because the world rejected their relationship (or something like that). But hey, I still have to go through refrain~

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#6

Is that disagreeing with me? o.o

That line is just a simplified version of what you said… I think~ ^^ Ahaha~

#7

This part is what I disagree with. Yuiko was meant to be helped, but her falling in love with Riki once realizing her emotions wasn’t part of the plan

#8

Oooh, then why did Kyousuke repeatedly warn Riki to not get involved with Yuiko whenever Riki asked for help?

#9

One has to wonder why Kurgaya is there in the first place if she’s not supposed to be helped. By “getting involved” he means getting involved in a relationship. One also has to ask why the Love-Love Hunters even existed.

Kyousuke’s hostile behavior doesn’t start until after the fireworks scene, which is around where Kurugaya’s should “should have ended”. The bros in general were supporting Riki until Kurugaya experiences emotions through the fireworks event, but stop him once he tries to take it a step further into a romantic relationship.

Skimming through this is pretty relevant to see the change:

Don’t click unless you want to be spoiled:

You can see that the bros were all for Riki helping Kurugaya, but don’t want him to take it past the fireworks scene.
And this part is where Kurugaya’s route basically “should have ended” as you can see from the dreamlike text., but she decides to prolong the dream.
Don’t click unless you want to be spoiled:

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#10

I always assumed she was there to help Kyousuke~ She is the only other person around who has control over the others, and she is the only one who has been seen manipulating the world during other people’s routes. The fact that she is exempt from the rule set by the dreamers must mean something. Kyousuke didn’t even realize that Yuiko’s regrets aren’t something that can be instantly sorted out.

My view on the whole Love-Love Hunters thing is that it was to have fun. I don’t think Kyousuke expected Riki to be accepted by Yuiko. Most of the Love-Love Hunter plans were just jokes, and even the fireworks didn’t work as planned.
Riki had already become strong. He had learned how to stand up to bullies, and he learned not to rely on others all the time.
Kyousuke just let his best friend express his feelings, before he forgot them all. I don’t think Kyousuke believed anything would come from it.

I guess we will never really know. Kyousuke’s mind jumps around a lot. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking until he acts on his thoughts.

#11

I moved 7 posts to an existing topic: Little Busters! - Refrain Discussion (Spoilers!)

Discussion, while great, was getting quite off-topic and just becoming Refrain-focused, so I made a Refrain thread for you to continue in :smile:

Little Busters! - Refrain Arc Discussion
#12

I’ll have to think this out more later so to be super detailed and all, but to put it very simply for now-

This route is my favorite. The reason for that is the idea of wishing for or wanting something that you simply can’t have, and despite the natural adversity of the situation- You fight for it. No matter how fleeting, and even if it’s met with failure that one has to ultimately accept. This is just something personally touching, and no other part of the VN can compare to it for me.

Spoiler’d because reasons.

Little Busters! - Refrain Arc Discussion
#13

I will say that Yuiko (and yes, I insist on calling her by her first name) was my favorite of the new girls, and I was really disappointed when, like Nayuki (Kanon) and Kyou (Clannad), she didn’t get her own arc. However, when I realized the first arc of Refrain was hers, I was really happy and was liking where it was going, but I was left disappointed even more by the end of it, comparable to Tomoyo (Clannad) and Hinata (Angel Beats!).
I actually went on a bit of a rant in one of my more recent videos. @Inuconandoyle knows what I’m talking about.

#14

Well that’s rude, considering she doesn’t want to be refereed to by it.

#15

In hindsight, yes it is, but I want to be able to refer to be more familiar with the characters I’ve grown attached to.

#16

Does she even mention she dislikes the name Yuiko in the anime? O.O I skipped a lot of episodes…

#17

I recall that she was uncomfortable with others saying it (I think it was Haruka who called her “Yui-chan”).

#18

Komari :stuck_out_tongue:

Haruka always called her “Anego.”

#19

I don’t rightly recall, but considering how changed up it got, I think it probably got thrown out.

No no, he’s right, Haruka did say something similar in the Anime at least once, I believe she said Yui-nee.
Pissed me off. Because she shouldn’t, I’m pretty sure someone fucked up there.
She usually used Anego, but that Yui-nee or whatever was definitely there.

#20

WHAT!? B…But… That’s wrong ;~;

Still, her reason for hating people using her first name is totally acceptable, even if it is a bit distant. I like to believe she lets Riki call her by her first name in future~

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