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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have not viewed that from this perspective. Thinking about it, you are right. While I as a reader would have enjoyed more, it’s more fitting for her character not to.
On the other hand, other routes have the characters talk about their past in some weird and not very fitting moments as well. But I considered that weird on their routes so I guess Kurugaya handled it better.
Yuiko’s change begins far before the route even begins, back when she first joins the Little Busters. A sense of camaraderie and happiness washes over her, but perhaps she pushes it away subconsciously or doesn’t even realize it. It is a single crack in that dam of her heart, that she patches up with the illusion of being defective because she doesn’t want to understand something she can’t explain.
Then, in the route her feelings for Riki surface, as she states things like how he makes her lose her composure. When presented with his confession, she runs off. Simply spending enough time with Riki, who wants to understand her, is enough for her to change into what she considers “human.” She becomes a living, beating heart who makes a wish to never let these feelings end. She becomes the exact opposite of who she thought she’d be, that’s how I see it.
So, Anego. I knew from the first time she was introduced that she’d be one of my favourite characters. Philosophical, quick-witted, charmingly selfish, and with very subjective world view, she was my favourite character during my first playthrough.
To me, the way she, within three lines, goes from basically admitting it was on purpose and asserting philosophy, to acting like there’s something wrong with him, to denying doing it outright, shows quick wit and spontaneity, which are never bad things to have.
When they’re talking about the “sidewalk café”, she says that it’s beautiful because of its simplicity, and Riki’s sarcastic about it. This type of exchange happens a lot between these two, and it makes me think of an old favourite quote of mine: “Must you ruin everything with your logic?” She always manages to describe life so simply, as if higher understanding was a matter of perspective rather than knowledge.
I can’t not talk about this. I think I’ve fallen in love. As someone who’s least favourite words are “moral”, “justice” and “objectivity”, I can hardly express how much this appealed to me.
However, though my favourite character to begin with, Kurugaya doesn’t really have staying power, and past the bullying arc, her route didn’t really improve (or change at all) my opinion of her. She does have emotional development, but to me she never felt like anything more or less than what was immediately obvious.
Getting past my opinion of her, I wanted to address the last scene of her route, when she’s playing the piano and says “I hope he comes soon.” Notice how they make her seem more… girly? The wistful look on her face and how she’s not wearing the jacket, even the tone of her voice. At first, I thought it was kind of a nice touch, something like a “maiden in love” image. But looking back, I’m not sure how to feel about it. This is pretty much the only part where what I said earlier doesn’t apply, the only part where she isn’t really the same Kurugaya we know. However, it actually feels like they’ve taken it too far. It feels like she’s lost a lot of what we loved about her, she gives a completely different impression from her usual cool, sexy demeanour.
I should have realized it on my original post, but…oh well.
I realized that talking about it, as interesting it might be, would totally be looking backwards. But not forward, as we are taught to do by herself and the route in general.
I think it’s because she’s no longer the Yuiko we’ve come to know. She is not the cool, witty, and confident woman who seems to know everything and be one step ahead of others. She is a woman in love who puts her newfound feelings above the rest of herself, desperately clinging to her true, new self, because she never wants to forget what Riki helped her become. That’s my takeaway from that scene, anyway.
I don’t disagree with that, but I don’t think it was necessary to change so much about the rest of her character. I think this is a good way to put it: she stopped being “anego” and awakened to her inner “Yuiko”. But I don’t think those two are irreconcilable. I think she can still be
without taking away everything that made her “anego”.
Believe me, I agree with you - I want her to be the anego we’ve come to know and love. I hope that is still the case, because I have yet to know the full story. Perhaps the true ending will satisfy that desire, but this is all I could glance from what we’ve given here.
Light hint at a spoiler… I can say is that there’s a reason for you to discover in future playthroughs. It isn’t just an unaddressed change (or at least, it isn’t unaddressed as of EX.)
I mean, I’ve cleared the game, so I know what happens, but I was thinking of this under the context of being a standalone ending.
Oh, I don’t even bother to think of this portion of the route as a standalone ending; the route is blatantly incomplete without the refrain+true end. There’s a good reason for why almost everyone places it right before refrain in a play order.
Well I’m admittedly a little salty about it, because the first time I played LB about a year ago, I had no idea there was a true ending to her route, and only found out about it when I just so happened to replay the route. And there are bound to be others who did/will do the same, so there are surely people who think this actually is her “true ending.”
Gotta use them guides man. These are modern Visual Novels; you either miss out on loads of impossible-to-guess endings, or you look stuff up.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I think the biggest changes are the bullying scene (anger), confession scenes (fear + happiness), and the final scene (sorrow/loss). So I initially thought I didn’t have much more to add without repeating myself and/or boring everyone in the process, and wasn’t going to comment.
However, I’m really glad you asked this question. Upon retrospect, I think a bigger, yet more subtle, change occurs a lot earlier (and oddly, haven’t seen much mention about it in “new” part of the bookclub quite yet. That being said, I did avoid many of the older posts since a lot of the seemed to have Refrain spoilers, so apologies if it actually has been dug into already): May 22th. The lunch they spend together in the broadcast room. To confirm this, I decided to go back and re-read it, and boy, from beginning to end, this scene is filled to the brim with subtext, details, and of course, loads of foreshadowing for what is to come. In fact, there’s more to break down here than I thought, so another long-winded post incoming, if you’ll humor me. As always, I tried to stick with the biggest bits and avoid too many tangents.
If my memory serves, this is the first time Riki is actively seeking Kurugaya out, and this time, it’s not because he’s trying to recruit her for the baseball team, get help with math, or just happens to run into her while getting juice. He actually wants to spend his lunch with her. She notices, and almost seems surprised, but plays it off really well.
As usual, some teasing happens. But Kurugaya’s response to Riki’s question was a rather vague/misdirective for someone established as so forward, blunt, and confident as she has been up to this point. It’s almost like we could skip right into the Love Hunters bit from here, but not enough time has been spent to build from this point. I also think this lack of time is what allow Kurugaya to so easily sidestep all the pitfalls here, as although we learn a lot in this scene, it still happens pretty early on in the route, so we don’t know entirely what to expect yet.
She talks “normal” on the broadcast because she knows no one is listening. When she is talking to someone directly (see first quote from the next screen shot), she puts her usual persona back on. Riki points out this disparity, but it is also subtly alluded to later, when she refers to the afternoon broadcasts and playing the piano both as hobbies. The afternoon broadcasts are treated like work and determined months in advance. The song is haunting, moody, and played on a whim. I don’t think its much of a stretch to say the only reason she is in the broadcast club is because it has a piano, which is the real hobby/point of her interest.
This is the most convincing bit for me. We all noticed how she runs when her feelings start surfacing up later on, but she does it twice here, and this is early days for the route. This is why I believe Riki triggers the genuine anger during the bullying scene; he purposefully begins spending time with her for the simply for the sake of it, and the seed of mutual care is planted between these two exclusively after this point. The anger is no longer motivated by obligation, but a real desire to protect, and from there, the snowball that gets made on May 22th starts rolling down the hill and causes an avalanche. No one else in the Busters is on that level to garner that kind of reaction from her.
I think the choice to simply tell her about the bullying shows this perfectly, and the fact that all the other Busters attempt to convince Riki to not shoulder it on his own multiple times or give up entirely. In fact, I’m wondering if anyone else here felt Kyousuke was not exactly himself in this route, as he’s not nearly as supportive overall as opposed to the others. He practically swaps places with Riki at points with his negativity.
I actually had a similar impression initially, but I think that is intentional. For me, I think the line of believeability for it would be based on how much time has passed since the dream world ends and this scene. If it’s almost immediately after (and I think it is), then we are seeing the “new” Kurugaya still attempting to come to terms with her newfound feelings/emotions, which again she has had very little experience with. We are also under the assumption that her mind has forgotten, but her heart remembers. I can’t relate directly to an experience like that, but I can assume that it would cause a massive change in her perspective and demeanor, which is what we see in that scene. If not, then it is who she becomes, the opposite of what she was trying to be, and simply what she is, going forward. Someone who is driven by the wants and desires of their own heart, rather being driven by what they think they should be based on their appearance or talents. It’s possible she could regain some of that old self with time, but it makes more sense to me for her to be a seemingly smaller, unsure, less confident version of herself, since her confidence was tied to her fake persona in the first place, which has now been lost.
While I also miss her old self, the question I am asking myself is: Was Kurugaya actually right? Was her projected image from before actually what made her as likeable/interesting as she thought it would?
For my part, the reason I might be fine with the result is because I saw the progression unfold, the rise and fall, and can appreciate how far she has come and am ready to accept the transformation, whatever that may end up being.
I wouldn’t ask a question if the answer was just a recount of key events 
There is, as you’ve well noticed, a lot of subtle and downplayed progression in both Riki and Yuiko during this route.
This is the basic summary of how I’d explain it. The Yuiko at the end is different to the Yuiko from the route, whether that is from changes in memory or progression of time or some of the other possible factors. The Yuiko we all know still exists, but so does the Yuiko we never got to see.
I’d disagree that her “fake persona” has been lost for the very reasons stated in your own post previously - She is in the broadcasting room and she is alone.
Even ignoring that, I’d argue she was small, unsure and less confident whenever she was in that position, but no longer is by the end. For evidence, just look at your CG gallery. Every CG that features Yuiko next to a window stays true to two rules: Have a dark/brooding appearance, and appear from within the building. Even when a CG could have been shot from outside, it is specifically locked within the bulding, such as in this one:
The reflection exists to enforce this rule. To relate the idea of a girl lonely and enclosed.
The only pre-refrain exception to this - The only CG that features a bright Yuiko next to a window - is the final one in which the window is open, and the shot is framed from outside the building.
(Side note: The entire image sequence of the CG I posted is super interesting in regards to the reflection motif of the route, as well as with the “mask” idea.)
(Oh, second side note, there is another “bright Yuiko” CG, which is resulting of the various dreams Riki witnesses.)
So I remembered just now that the scene at the end happens in summer, so of course Kurugaya isn’t wearing her jacket, but I think the fact that she’s wearing the pink ribbon is pushing it.
I have to say that I take issue with this idea that the way she acts for most of the game is a “fake persona.” I think it’s fair to say that what we saw at the beginning was her true self, and so was what we saw at the end.
Needless to say, I learned my lesson.
