There are many ways to interpret Kurugaya’s behavior, and one very plausible way is to argue that she takes to the logical extreme of “becoming the mask.” Kurugaya is and always has been isolated, so perhaps she acts tough because that’s what society has forced on her, or angry because that’s what she’s supposed to feel when confronting Riki’s bullies. When she begins discovering these emotions herself through the Little Busters, I believe she acts around Riki and the others the way she feels like she should, but ever so slowly that punch in the gut that yes, these feelings are real, approaches.
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I personally am not curious for an “explanation” why she is the way she is. However, obviously, in the past she approached her situation differently, as seen in the little moment of a flashback that we do get. She also has some stuff about having lived outside of Japan and having an other name.
It’s not about why she is the way she is. It’s about wanting to know about the bits of her history that are there, as the story teases us with there being more backstory without showing us that.
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I dunno why you think that; that part of the story was done with before the VN even began. Yuiko even says during this route that it wasn’t until she met the Little Busters that she realized how unemotional she was in the past. Now that she has friends, she knows not to take it for granted, but isn’t entirely comfortable as part of the group.
To me, the narrative never pushed towards giving an explanation. It revealed as much of her uneventful past as they needed to establish her character as a treasurer of friendship and love, and that unemotive past was nothing more than a reflective disconnect born from a contrast between Yuiko’s present and her past, which worked towards forming her personality.
It wasn’t supposed to, in fact it existed for the exact opposite reason. That entire arc of the route was about how Yuiko is fine in accepting and not caring about any personal conflict, but will be driven to make change if her friends get involved. This is a blatant “she cares about these people” moment because the Little Busters are important to her.
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I dunno, I’ve gotten the comment from a couple people that this feels like an unfinished story. We may get some more details about Kurugaya later on (I’m looking at you Refrain) but honestly I had a great time just getting to know her as a person.
I agree with this, I don’t think that Kurugaya is emotionless (she goes out of her way to deal with bullies coming after Riki, why would she even bother if she didn’t care about someone other than herself?) but I do think she hams it up, taking her outward appearance and turning it into whatever she thinks will have the best result for what she wants. She’s very intelligent, so I don’t think she would just ‘blow her lid’ that extremely on a whim. But it is clear from the way she cleans up the incident by involving Masato that this was improvised. She puts on a mask and projects an appropriate emotion that way for effect, rather than simply letting her true emotions show on her face. I personally feel that in this moment she is afraid of letting her true emotions, her care for Riki, show too much so she purposefully explodes to misdirect from that aspect of her personality. Her identity to me seems to be constructed so that she can feel unique, and above it all. That’s how she copes with her difference, by separating herself and constructing a wall. By exuding a presence that says “I am different, you cannot understand me and I am wiser than all of you beyond my years.” She can protect herself from others who would take advantage of her difference e.g. to bully her.
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I agree, but that’s not necessarily what I was getting at. I was responding to:
which gave me the impression that people were thinking that her initial lack of an emotional reaction to getting bullied was a tell of her lack of emotion, which I was disputing.
I don’t think anyone would dispute that the arc, by the end, clearly demonstrates that she does have emotion, especially (though it could be interpreted as “only”) towards her friends. What I was trying to say was that the earlier parts of the arc, before the resolution, weren’t meant to highlight her lack of emotion, that it had already been made clear.
Although when you bring everything I just said full-circle, I agree with what you said either way.
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Kurugaya’s route is my least favorite one in LB. And I’m not even sure why. A couple of reasons come to mind, for example, that I don’t like sad endings or that I have neither liked Kurugaya as a heroine (though I liked her as a character) nor could I relate to her emotionally. But I’ll try to dig a bit deeper.
But first, the things I did like.
I liked how the route was not following the standard procedure of a girl being troubled and Riki becoming her knight in shining armor. Same goes for the fact that it was Riki who displayed and voiced his love first and kept fighting for the establishment of a romantic relationship. There’s also Love-Love hunters and all this stuff with the original Little Busters. Rin not trying and not being helpful, the boys trying but not being helpful, either. And I can relate to @Kanon in that the scenes with the old gang felt more entertaining than those with just Kurugaya.
I also find the idea of rebelling against the inevitable and fighting for a lost cause, the way it was presented in this route, quite charming. “Facing forward”. I like the ideal of fighting for your love despite knowing you cannot succeed. Normally, the reason would be society, or something tragic like a deadly sickness. But in this route, the enemy was the world itself. And I personally think this was to the route’s detriment. My impression after first reading this route was that it’s about a girl who was not allowed to live out her love. It felt like the author had deliberately… forbidden her from getting a happy ending. Like he wanted the lovers to struggle against some kind of unfairness without bothering to show its source. The ending was sad, but the route itself didn’t provide a reason for why it had to happen, thus my dissatisfaction.
This time, in my second readthrough, I knew all about the “why” and the route wasn’t nearly as confusing. But I still couldn’t relate emotionally. Maybe it was something about the way Kurugaya had “faced” the problem? She didn’t tell Riki anything about the looping and by the time he found out, she was already hurting him by forgetting things that mattered to him and the impossibility of her desire was already becoming clear. Also, what was her reaction when Riki did find out? She told him, and not for the first time, to forget about her who was supposedly unable to reciprocate his feelings. Quietly, and with a portion of self-loathing. Maybe I just wanted her to burst out in tears loudly and cling to him. Being more vocal about her emotions. But to be fair, that wouldn’t be like her.
I generally feel like in this route, both Riki and Kurugaya tend to not communicate problems to each-other. Riki, too, refused to tell Kurugaya about the bullying. While they do fight for their feelings, they do so… quietly, for a lack of a more fitting word. I’m more used to the way Key normally does things, by breaking open one’s chest like a wrecking ball and seizing one’s heart.
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The entire bullying arc in the beginning is structured in an odd way. You get a bad end if you tell Kurugaya about it and let her deal with it, but in the end she comes in and saves the day anyway. I understand the point of this arc is to showcase both the wonderful relationship between the original Busters and the development of Riki as he breaks from his shell and takes the reins of his life for once, but having her save Riki at the end seems rather forced and unnecessary. I would have much preferred it if this part was a little longer, with Riki and Kurugaya’s romantic relationship developing somewhere in it. Riki should have stolen a tape recorder from the broadcast room and been the one to catch the bullies red-handed. That would have done a lot more for both the cohesion of the route and the development of his character, the latter point being integral to this route.
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But like Taka said, the point of the arc is to show that Kurugaya can and will get emotional under the right circumstances. Because Riki makes the dumb decision, he indirectly escalates the issue and forces Kurugaya out of her comfort zone.
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Yeah, it seemed like it was necessary for Riki to not seek her help himself, because it gave an opportunity to show how much he valued her place in the Little Busters. The bad end ends before anything happens, but it’s possible that after she takes care of it herself, she just leaves the group because she doesn’t want to get them involved in her problems, like Riki was worried about.
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I entirely disagree that Riki’s development is integral to the route. This isn’t Riki’s route, and Riki himself has less of a role in this than most of the routes. He is but a catalyst for Yuiko’s monumental decisions.
Like the others have said, Riki’s dumb “hero play” is what kickstarts the route, but there’s more to it than that. For most of the route, Riki is a witness. A witness that has gotten involved in something no one else notices, but a witness nonetheless. Riki is more of an audience surrogate than in any other route.
Riki’s moment as a character comes from the confession scene and the build up towards it. This is the part where Riki “takes the reins” but that is the only moment he could control - One that was intrinsic to his self. The rest, the happenings in school, the happenings in the world, are just things for Riki (and us) to witness.
Yuiko causes her own problems, solves her own problems, and shows us many things about herself and the world. We just watch in a sort of feverish daze where dream and reality lose distinction.
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Umu, I forgot about that. I agree, that is an important moment for showing Kurugaya’s depth. My problem is precisely because no matter what you choose, Riki makes a “dumb decision.” Kurugaya solves the problem no matter what, so I argue that the choice of even telling her about the situation doesn’t even need to exist.
You make a good point. I suppose anybody could have taken Riki’s place, but because it is Riki, who becomes a very different character here than in the other routes, I am less compelled to agree that he is an audience surrogate. It’s hard for me to digest the last third of the route, but while it is certainly out of his or Kurugaya’s control, is it impossible to argue that his confession to Kurugaya spiked her feelings as well, leading to the never-ending June 20th?
Got ya covered.
The thing I notice most about Riki, and about the world of this route, is that it is all a part of Yuiko. This becomes more noticeable on a second read-through, but the story really begins to change perspective part-way through this route. As you said, Riki is a different character in this route, and this is a part of a greater whole. The various dreams, the ways that the other students interact with Riki, the little things that Riki becomes aware of… It all circles around Yuiko in a very strange (almost artificial) way; that artificial appearance is inherent to Yuiko as a character. The route, despite not covering much of Yuiko’s past or even her present, is focused on being incredibly reflective of her character.
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That is a good point. I suppose I’m just having trouble understanding the nature and magic behind this route. You could argue that Riki is a decoy protagonist, and that Kurugaya’s journey into self-discovery is the real route. She traps herself in this prison, never wanting to let this fleeting moment of happiness go, having finally understood it for the first time in her life. It reminds me of Mio’s route, in that they want some moments to last forever, never going forwards or back.
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I can accept this view the most in regards to her backstory. While I personally didn’t need to know exactly why she is the way she is (as I can relate to her pretty well already and can fill in some likely blanks myself), I certainly wouldn’t have minded her just talking a bit more about what life was like (or just more talking to her in general. Upon retrospect, the time you do spend with her is actually quite short, comparatively speaking.) That being said, I do think it actually would have been a tad out of character for her to do so, as my guess is that she doesn’t talk about it simply because there isn’t much to say. She didn’t enjoy life before, and she’s finally gotten to a point where she enjoys everyday life, so she focuses on that.
You can argue that, considering the reason they are going after Riki in the first place is only to screw with Kurugaya, (and considering her history of dealing with these issues/these same girls before), she likely would have felt obligated to step in regardless of whether or not any of the Busters were involved (IE: a world where Haruka and Kurugaya don’t join the other Busters, and the bullies go after Haruka instead given her [somewhat tenuous] connection/familiarity to Kurugaya. Bit of a stretch, I realize, as the whole reason they are going after her in the first place is likely because they see her interacting with Busters a lot, but hopefully the point itself stands.) I do agree that there are certainly elements of both, though. I think that is the extra kick in the ass that escalates the moment and makes the anger real, rather than another calculated response (for me at least).
I’ve struggled with this, and mainly with Key works for a long time now. Its rather disconnecting how often I’m drawn in just by how real characters like Kurugaya and Haruka (and many others) feel to me, only to be ripped out by the seemingly randomness of the situations some of them get placed into are, especially when supernatural or magical elements are thrown into the mix. I’ve often tried to rationalize it as a bigger statement as to the sometimes incredibly cruel and random nature of life, but many of them just strike me as too convenient or unbelievable. I think the only reason I was really able to accept it here is because I had already seen enough of the “weirdness” tied to the secret of the LB! world that I was willing to think of this outcome as at least plausible within its own context, and accept it for what it was.
This. For me, the route hinges on those last few moments when the world starts crumbling around them, and there is nowhere and nothing left to hide behind. No more fake laughs or half smiles. No more pranks or shitty jokes. It happens just like you expect it to; once the emotions are there, they tumble out: uncontrollable, irrational, heart-wrenching and wistful. The facade finally breaks, and then comes the final realization: of what Kurugaya was, what she is in that moment, and what she could still be, in another place. In another time.
Despite the bizarre nature of it all, despite the logical part of my brain that kept screaming about the believeability of the time loop and warped dream worlds, I resisted those anchors and saw something truly sublime: the conclusion to a genuine and hard hitting progression. A soul-crushingly bittersweet moment. The rebirth of a person. A warm memory surrounded by the cadence of an endless, cold rain. And this one will be sticking with me for a long time.
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Lots of great commentary, figured I’d just make a simple contribution. I personally feel Kuguraya’s is the most romantic route in the game - I’d almost but not quite go as far as to say it might be the only one with an actual romance. It’s entirely about the characters themselves, not a struggle against some external issue that gradually makes Riki and the heroine grow closer.
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This. This, so much. It actually further feeds my frustration into the anime adaptation of Little Busters. (Anime spoilers) I was fully satisfied with them taking out the romance of the other routes in season 1 because I really felt that they were unnecessary (and, in some cases, took away from the value of the story). But I was quite disappointed that they took away the romance entirely out of Kurugaya’s adaptation and half-assed it about her gaining strong emotions because of her friendship with the little busters. Call me corny, but I feel the amount of emotion that one gains from romance is infinitely greater than those of friendship. And the worst part is that it could have worked! Because of the whole timeloop thing, they could have put the romance in, retconned everything by the time Rin2 started, and the viewers would not be confused! But they didn’t and it left me quite salty
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In all seriousness though, I don’t remember them taking out the romance. They definitely watered it down, but it was still there. The confession, the date scene, it was still there. The Kanon-esque replacement of all Riki-specific dialogue with “Little Busters!” was certainly annoying, but the episode looked beautiful, and they only had 3 episodes to work with, so I forgive it. I’d already read the VN, so I wasn’t missing anything.
Oh and we got that one moment in the slumber party episode, and that was cute enough for me.
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This is the major reason I love this route - it isn’t Riki being led around by the heroine, dazed by what’s happening around him. Not until the end, anyway. 
This is a story of two people discovering love for each other, who strive to come to terms with what they’re feeling. Riki wants to feel worthy for the headstrong Kurugaya, and with the support of the original Busters he manages to spit out his feelings and become a better person who doesn’t need to be helped up by others all the time, anymore. Kurugaya is scared to understand what she’s feeling; maybe she feels unworthy of Riki’s affection, or perhaps she feels like she’d be a bad influence on him. Regardless, this is something new to her, and something she cannot explain with her immense intelligence. The way they fall for each other, in my opinion, is both beautiful and natural; they humanize each other. It helps that I can personally identify with not only Riki but Kurugaya as well. The romance of this route is really the highlight for me. It is not a melodrama, it is a love story.
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I’m preeeetty sure none of those were kept in the anime. They kept the little love-love hunters but never expounded on it further. Ok maybe the date was there too, but I am positive that they removed the entire confession scene.
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Ayy ayy, I gots a key point thingamabob. To what extent do you feel Yuiko changes throughout the route, and by what means?
Also, I hope there’s a further podcast for post-refrain content. The final CG from this route (that unlocks after the end of the game) bookends the running weather motif throughout the route, where sky = adventure, rain = enclosure, snow = isolation and sun = reprieve, with Yuiko represented as a reflection.
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