Little Busters!

As a child, Riki Naoe shut himself from the world, thanks to a diagnosis of narcolepsy following the tragic deaths of his parents. However, Riki is saved when, one fateful day, a boy named Kyousuke recruits him into a team who call themselves the Little Busters. Accompanied by Masato, Kengo, and Rin, these misfits spend their childhood fighting evil and enjoying their youth.

Years pass, and even in high school, the well-knit teammates remain together. Kyousuke decides to re-ignite the Little Busters by forming a baseball team as it will be his last school year with them. They have a problem though: there aren't enough members! The tables have turned, for it is now Riki's turn to reach out and recruit new friends into the Little Busters, just like Kyousuke had once done for him.
Then, an omen surfaces—Rin finds a strange letter attached to her cat, assigning them the duty of uncovering the "secret of this world" by completing specific tasks. Just what is this secret, and why is it being hidden? It's up to the Little Busters to find out!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Natsume, Kyousuke Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Noumi, Kudryavka Main

Wakabayashi, Naomi Japanese

Kurugaya, Yuiko Main

Tanaka, Ryouko Japanese

Natsume, Rin Main

Tamiyasu, Tomoe Japanese

Kamikita, Komari Main

Yanase, Natsumi Japanese

Naoe, Riki Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Saigusa, Haruka Main

Suzuki, Keiko Japanese

Inohara, Masato Main

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Nishizono, Mio Main

Tatsumi, Yuiko Japanese

Miyazawa, Kengo Main

Oda, Yuusei Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Oohashi, Masao Producer

Dohi, Noriko Producer

Reviews

May 18, 2013

Veronin

Recommended

Over the past decade, visual novel studio 'Key' has seen much success for their work on titles such as Kanon, Clannad and Air. If you have watched or read any of these series, you will likely be familiar with Jun Maeda's distinctive form of dramatic storytelling.

Do not expect another Clannad: After Story. You will not find it here.

At first glance, there is one startling difference in Key's latest adaptation. It is not animated by Kyoto Animation, the studio responsible for handling the majority of Key adaptations. Instead, the esteemed and beloved (not really) J.C. Staff is at the helm. For many this is ... a name that will undoubtedly be a cause for concern. In Little Busters, it is.

The story follows the misadventures of Riki and his four childhood friends. Set during the leader Kyousuke's final year in high school, the group of friends decide to make something of their remaining youth- not by overtly rebelling, but by practicing and playing baseball together. They cannot form a team with only five members though, which is why Riki and Rin are set to recruit more people from their school. Preferably females, as Rin is the only young lady in the group.

Little Busters' cast of characters is its strongest trait. No— not because they are especially well-written or unique, but because they are endearing- because they are entertaining. It isn't easy to make a group of anime characters feel like genuine friends with one another, but Little Busters manages to achieve this feat with its wonderful group dynamic. Even the later members contribute to the show in a significant and believable way. The characters truly do make the lighthearted segments a joy to watch.

Being part comedy, it's a good thing that the jokes are often fresh and clever. Of particular note is Masato. If you remember Sunohara from Clannad, he is a bit like that. Masato and all his muscular glory (and utter lack of brain cells) are the cause for many jokes. Usually at his expense. And usually met with a kick to the face from Rin.

It's a shame, since any appeal the show has is frequently pushed aside in favour of cringeworthy melodrama. The individual character routes were not very good in the visual novel and they are most certainly not any good here either. It would be one thing if these arcs were merely mediocre, but with J.C. Staff's lack of directorial talent they are made absolutely dreadful. The omnibus format also does little to help the rushed pacing, resulting in a format that feels highly formulaic and superfluous. One of the girls has troubles, Riki helps them to overcome it, one or two episodes of comedy follow— repeat, repeat. Thankfully the lighthearted segments are so entertaining, as otherwise you would probably detest each character by the end of their route. It is that bad at times.

The two worst offenders are Mio's and Haruka's routes. In Mio's route, the viewer is treated with illogical and contradictory character actions further complimented by a hilariously contrived deception on the writer's part. Plotholes? Everywhere. And it does not even attempt to answer them with anything besides equivocation. The climax could maybe be explained if the characters were taking psychedelic drugs at the time, but looking at it from a realistic perspective it does not make any sense whatsoever. Watching Utena may be less confusing.

Haruka's route will also make you want to scream in frustration. Her tragic backstory is implausible (why the hell were the people taking care of her not convicted of abuse?) and the motivations of the antagonist, Kanata, are silly at best. The rest of the route is comprised of more cheap plot twists and embarrassingly cliche melodrama. Heck, there's even a scene where the weather changes from sunshine to storm as soon as Haruka starts crying. How much more cheesy can you get? Little Busters seems to experiment with the limits.

Things do improve, though. After a decent start and two terrible arcs, the last third of the story provides a satisfying dénouement showing how each of the characters have grown over the course of the series. The last episode in particular is quite nice, with the long-awaited baseball game being played in high spirits. Some might argue that this improvement is too little too late. They might be right.

One area where Little Busters does not disappoint is with its soundtrack. There may not be anything on the same level of "Dango Kazoku" to mess with your emotions, but the soundtrack as a whole is solid and surprisingly memorable. Then again, it's pretty hard to make mistakes when you are deriving almost all music from the source material.

Little Busters' endearing characters are complimented by a highly talented cast of seiyuu. Yui Horie provides a convincing role for a male character (though does little to make Riki any less bland) while Masato's seiyuu does a wonderful job at delivering the comedy. Rin and Kud on the other hand will probably kill your heart from how adorable they sound.

There isn't much to praise about the art, but it certainly isn't bad. Just average. Just middling. For a TV anime it is passable, but when comparing it to previous Key adaptations you will definitely notice a significant drop in quality. Off-model faces are frequent and many scenes are reduced to panning and 'talking heads': devoid of any animation besides the character's mouth flapping. For an adaptation of one of the most successful visual novels, you would normally expect the artwork to at least be above-average. Not here.

As an adaptation, it is worth mentioning how it compares to the source material. Is it a bad adaptation? It is. If you want to experience the story as it is intended, it would be in your best interests to give the visual novel a read instead. On its own merits and as a condensed version of the story, however, J.C. Staff's adaptation is merely passable. It doesn't completely butcher the story but with the rushed pacing, poor characterization (especially with regards to Riki), lackluster art and incomplete story— most of the charm that made the visual novel so beloved is nonexistent here. At least there's more cute Rin scenes, though! Maybe that is the one and only good thing.

Little Busters will not be winning any awards for its writing or production qualities, but when taken as an entertaining comedy with likable characters, it is at least worth a watch. Putting aside the expectations, you will certainly find some enjoyment in Key's latest animated venture.

Hopefully, too, J.C. Staff won't let us down too much in the sequel. I can think of few things that would be more disastrous.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 27, 2013

Historia-Li

Mixed Feelings

Little Busters!

If you're like me and you're thinking about watching this because the visual novel was made by Key, don't. Watch it with an independent mindset, free of Clannad, Kanon, etc. If you don't you're just gonna find disappointment.

Story: 6/10

The story was definitely not as good as Key's previous works. Yes, it followed the general plot of a high school boy helping multiple girls cope and effectively saving their lives in one way or the other, but it simply was not as engaging. There were many story elements that could have been left out. For example, Riki's narcolepsy. So what? It did not influence ... the progression of the story whatsoever. There was also no romantic interest, but the friendships gained throughout the series filled in the hole nicely for those who don't mind the absence of romance.

Art: 10/10

As expected, it was beautifully animated. No complaints.

Sound: 5/10

The music lacked variety. There was probably one tune that played in every emotional scene throughout the show. Variety is always good when the anime is only about friendship and nothing else is going on. Otherwise the show becomes drab very quickly. Also, the female voices were THE MOST annoying I have ever heard. I was relieved when Kurugaya would speak as she was the only normal sounding female voice in the series. This anime is not for people who detest whimpering, crybaby voice work that sounds like Asian porn.

Character: 7/10

The characters were good with each having his/her own unique personalities. Each fought their own battles, emerging as victorious, developed characters. They were funny when they were supposed to be, and emotional when it was expected. However, I could not get around how they acted like 5 year olds throughout the whole show. If the producers were aiming for a moe approach, they definitely failed. I saw nothing cute in these characters at all. Maybe it's because i'm not into that stuff. But panty shots of bears and ducks on teenage girls aren't really my thing. I found it awkward and completely unnecessary to the story.

Enjoyment/Overall 5/10

It was definitely not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. Towards the middle of the season, I was struggling to keep watching. I have a policy to watch an anime all the way through once I reach a certain point, so there was no going back. The story was boring and the characters were annoying. As usual, Key was aiming for an emotional tale that would grip our hearts and make us feel the pain the characters felt but this simply was not the case this time. It was just, meh. I would recommend this like I would recommend SAO: I wouldn't. Unless you like mediocre anime that relies solely on fan service to get viewers.

So if you just finished Clannad and want to watch another one of Key's visual novels animated, do yourself a favor and skip this one and watch Angel Beats or something instead.

There is a second season titled "Little Busters: Refrain" and i'm going to be watching it when it airs toward the end of 2013. Who knows? Maybe it will pull an "Afterstory" on us and crush our hearts to bits before an amazing ending. Hopefully it isn't as painful to watch as Season 1 was.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 14, 2014

Lambda-kun

Not Recommended

Funny

Oh god I hate this anime, the game was refreshing but the anime...

You can't talk about it without being seriously enraged. I didn't really care about Key's works before, but this time I had to react. Let's start with the characters: they're all a bunch of stereotypes patchworks from the previous Key's works. I didn't find any girls interesting except for Mio and Rin. Mio's arc from the season 1 was the best one in my opinion, Kud's arc was the worst piece of shit ever.

The music was inspired by Wii Sports it seems, it didn't really bring me any sadness or whatever, and the ... comedy-performance was really poor. I swear, I've never seen worse except for Clannad. And the story in general was very poorly written, this is really a generic harem except for some artificial extensions like baseball which brings this to a sport anime.

Let's talk about the few arcs, the first one was about Komari. I really find the concept interesting, but in the end you get the loli's artificial crying and it made me fucking angry.
I remember the pink haired twins being probably the worst after Kud. And the pseudo-vice-president or whatever was playing tsundere so bad that it makes Haruhi Susumiya looks like a god. Mio's arc was really a piece of art, this character was credible because she reminded me of myself, the stuff about the self-preservation, the cultivation books and of course the yaoi was the best part.

Something really sucks about this show and would be the main-protagonist Riki: he's supposed to build a harem, but in your mind you'll think he's a girl (his voice is the most girly compared to the others girls); this is truly laughable. Of course the others guys are the essential factors for developing his "virility". Good luck in whatever they are doing!

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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