President of Visual Arts Understands Little Busters Fans' Anxiety over J.C. Staff

by dtshyk
Apr 9, 2012 12:03 AM | 408 Comments

Baba Takahiro, the President of Visual Arts, tweeted on his Twitter account that he and the staff of Visual Arts shared the anxieties and expectations among the fans over the production studio of the Little Busters! anime. However, he made a decision when he saw the enthusiasm of J.C. Staff and Warner Bros. Japan for producing the TV anime. He said J.C. Staff and Warner were great companies and asked the fans to trust them.

On the official twitter account of Key, one of the staff explained the production policy of the Little Busters anime. Although the order of the events might be different from the original game, there won't be alterations in the story nor anime original characters. He said the length of the TV series is significantly long, but still it was necessary to shorten the original story to adapt it to the limited number of episodes. He added that the relationships among Rin, Komari, and other new members of the Little Busters team might be described more in detail than in the game.

Sources: Baba's tweet, Key's official Twitter account

Updated on Apr 10th
According to the official blog of Visual Arts, the OP and ED themes of Little Busters anime were announced to be "Little Busters!" and "Alicemagic", same as the original game.

Source: Visual Arts Staff Diary

20 of 408 Comments Recent Comments

I would have hated it if Nichijou was only 12 episodes, I fucking loved every second (except the OVA), I kid you not I laughed at everything they did.

Nov 11, 2012 8:15 AM by mitch3315

Progeusz said:
@symbv, as you know both anime and manga - which do you consider better? By how much?

To be honest, the anime and the manga can be almost a different beast. This is what KyoAni does, it takes a title and molds it into its KyoAni style, and in the process add or change quite a bit of elements inside. This happens to K-On, Nichijou, Hyouka and culminate in Chuunibyou, where they even get half of the main cast as anime original characters. The manga is sparse and quiet in presentation, whereas in the anime it looks hyperactive and full of cute effects. The manga can pretty a dry and austere read, but that kind of fit its dry humor well in my opinion. When you watch a KyoAni anime, you look for the KyoAni characteristics and you get plenty of them, as well as very high level animation and sound/art production. In summary, if you love a good anime production, KyoAni anime is still a wonder to behold, although personally I would say that the humor, as delivered in the sparse and dry manner in manga, works better in the manga.

Progeusz said:
I think Nichijou could do much better if it was one-cour series with most of questionable (more likely to miss) gags cut out.

Actually I think KyoAni realized that too. Nichijou was later rebroadcast in another TV station, the public network NHK (this does not happen often at all, so it is surprising that it happened), and the series was actually cut down into 1-cour. Feedback seems to be better there.

Interestingly Amazon Japan is doing a wagon sale now with a bunch of BDs in deep discount. Those Nichijou BDs now got at least 65% off its listed price. Not sure if it is an indication that Amazon (or Kadokawa) stocked up too many Nichijou BDs and failed to sell them.

Nov 11, 2012 7:43 AM by symbv

@Nichijou - nobody's perfect, some flops are bound to happen. Still, KyoAni looks much better than any other studio when you consider difference between source material and final product.
Sorry, I just treat Kotenbu as LN to make things simpler.

@symbv, as you know both anime and manga - which do you consider better? By how much?

Personally, I loved Nichijou OVA (ep 00) but in anime good gags were mixed with bad ones and because all of them are extremely long, people (including me) were really bored during missed gags while they would easily go over them if they were shorter. I think Nichijou could do much better if it was one-cour series with most of questionable (more likely to miss) gags cut out. I got behind quite a bit and when I heard from friends that things aren't becoming better, I simply dropped the series. After watching some vids on YT which showed better scenes from later episodes, I started to doubt this decision. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with other otaku and they rented Nichijou from stores/friends later instead of buying it. And maybe bought it afterwards but Oricon didn't report it. That's all theorymon but I think it's possible to some extent.

When I was talking about gold, I meant both sales success, actual quality and also relative improvement over source material. I'm not sure if it changes anything but I wanted to specify now.

Nov 11, 2012 6:18 AM by Progeusz

Progeusz said:

Sa-chan_ said:

Inver said:

Leon-Gun said:
You can't make a diamond out of shit.

KyoAni can.

Yeah right because any series directed by KyoAni can turn into gold.

*Facepalm*

Of course. Look at K-ON!. Manga is below average 4koma. Anime is masterpiece.

Hyouka was average, forgotten LN. From what I see, anime is one the best selling mysteries and probably #1 if you don't count those with action (Drrr!!) plus it boosted LN's sales to high tier.

If anything, I would say KyoAni specializes in turning shit source into gold anime.

And that concludes they're overrated just because being a KyoAni show.

Nov 11, 2012 6:10 AM by Tennouji

insan3soldiern said:
I realize that you are probably talking purely about sales here, but Nichijou was still a pretty solid comedy.

I have nothing against Nichijou, but we are talking about the thesis of "KyoAni can turn anything into gold anime", right?

As I said before, KyoAni loves a challenge. Their decision to animate Nichijou surprised many when it was first announced because while some people love its surreal humor, many do not see how it can become a big seller - its humor can be really an acquired taste (I also read the original manga so I know). KyoAni tried hard, really hard, to make an entertaining anime filled with moe appeal out of the manga, and it also managed to attract good amount of buzz among anime fans when it was aired. But at the end the anime slowed turned into an "air anime" that people felt indifferent about, and its sale was very disappointing (and it was not helped by the over-expensive Kadokawa price of the BD). Personally I find Nichijou has very high production and animation quality, but the humor is something that does not work for everyone (I myself find perhaps slightly more than half of the jokes funny).

Nov 11, 2012 5:13 AM by symbv

symbv said:

Progeusz said:
Hyouka was average, forgotten LN. From what I see, anime is one the best selling mysteries and probably #1 if you don't count those with action (Drrr!!) plus it boosted LN's sales to high tier.

Just to be clear, Hyouka is not considered or categorized as LN in Japan. It can be said that KyoAni deliberately took it as a challenge to animate it just to see how well it could use its KyoAni style to adapt this non-LN novel.

And it is not always successful turning everything into gold anime. Just look at Nichijou. Despite all the stunning sakuga/animation and moe tricks it deployed, the anime sold miserably.

I realize that you are probably talking purely about sales here, but Nichijou was still a pretty solid comedy.

Nov 11, 2012 4:31 AM by Ston3_FreeN7

Nov 11, 2012 4:24 AM by symbv

Sa-chan_ said:

Inver said:

Leon-Gun said:
You can't make a diamond out of shit.

KyoAni can.

Yeah right because any series directed by KyoAni can turn into gold.

*Facepalm*

Nov 11, 2012 4:14 AM by Progeusz

Inver said:

Leon-Gun said:
You can't make a diamond out of shit.

KyoAni can.

Yeah right because any series directed by KyoAni can turn into gold.

*Facepalm*

Nov 11, 2012 3:30 AM by Tennouji

Leon-Gun said:
You can't make a diamond out of shit.

KyoAni can.

Nov 11, 2012 2:46 AM by Inver

jmal said:

RyanSaotome said:

Leon-Gun said:
Kill Me Baby was horrible to start with. You can't make a diamond out of shit.

In before Jmal

Eh, I dropped Kill Me Baby too. Don't think it's "shit" though. And the bits of the manga I read were okay. I think it works better as a 4koma than 24 minute episodes.

Kill Me Baby sold badly, but I think it indeed helps to boost the manga sale.

And it also achieved something that was not expected before the season started. It indeed got people to watch it, a lot of them through the whole series, and talked about it. The worst that can happen to an anime is arguably to become "air" (in Japanese words) when nobody pays any attention. Kill Me Baby not only avoided this but managed to become a talk in town, from the OP/ED to art and style in the anime proper to the seiyuu and characters. So on that regards, KMB was successful.

BTW I am a fan of the manga though, and I own all the 4 volumes of manga....

Nov 5, 2012 8:53 PM by symbv

Oh, I thought you were a bigger fan of it. I remembered you really pumping up the manga when the anime was announced, saying it was one of your favorite manga.

Nov 5, 2012 2:35 PM by RyanSaotome

Leon-Gun said:

Progeusz said:
MagicFlier, it would be wiser to look at more recent works - Kill Me Baby was terrible adaptation

Kill Me Baby was horrible to start with. You can't make a diamond out of shit.

In before Jmal

Nov 5, 2012 1:57 PM by RyanSaotome

Progeusz said:
MagicFlier, it would be wiser to look at more recent works - Kill Me Baby was terrible adaptation

Kill Me Baby was horrible to start with. You can't make a diamond out of shit.

Nov 5, 2012 1:27 PM by Leon-Gun

MagicFlier, it would be wiser to look at more recent works - Kill Me Baby was terrible adaptation

Nov 5, 2012 4:08 AM by Progeusz

*leaves this here and walks off*

markusholdings said:
All right, lets get some things straight.
I keep hearing all this stuff about how the staff behind Little Busters! is a bunch of no names who can only hurt the adaptation. So, I decided to do a little background check on the bigger names of its production.
The Director: Yamakawa Yoshiki. He’s going to be running the animation that occurs in the anime, how certain characters are drawn, how many characters are in each scene, etc. Granted, he is not very experienced in Directing anime, but he has been a huge part of some very successful anime, such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Azumanga Daioh.
The Writer/Storyboard director: Michiru Shimada. This is arguably the position that everyone is worried about. Will the anime be adapted well? Will the storyboard function? This is the same script writer who wrote Ruroni Kenshin, One Piece, and the original Dragonball series. All those anime that we grew up with and enjoyed immensely is going to be handling Little Busters!.
With the knowledge that Key will be working closely with these two, I don’t know about you guys, but I think LB! is in great hands.

Nov 4, 2012 2:35 PM by MagicFlier

ClannadIsLove said:
since they aren't Little Busters!

LOL!

Anyway, this is before the current news that we are discussing so there's no point of discussing about this. But still, that phrase is totally hilarious which is blatantly stupid.

Also, FYI, adapting Sasami's story was ALREADY PLANNED before this anime airs.

Nov 3, 2012 6:42 PM by Tennouji

as expected... even kud cant make it and the story is still yet to be seen.

hmmm it seems that JC staff plans to introduce 1 girl per episode. sigh boring... but, i have decided to give little busters up to episode 9 since kanon and clannad solidified their status as one of the greats in their time at around episode 9.

Oct 28, 2012 7:27 AM by TheFactSheet

RyanSaotome said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMsu2G7NWJ4

Yeah, thats why Saya is in the promo trailer, right?

She's gonna be in the series.

There may be a reason for her to be shown only in her back though...

Oct 27, 2012 11:27 PM by symbv

ClannadIsLove said:
EDIT: You forget that the common route mixes in with the girls' routes. So one episode can both forward the common route and one of the girls' routes. And they won't do any shit after Refrain, so Sa-whatever her name is and Saya are out, as well as Futaki.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMsu2G7NWJ4

Yeah, thats why Saya is in the promo trailer, right?

She's gonna be in the series.

Oct 27, 2012 7:14 PM by RyanSaotome

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