When it was revealed that J.C. Staff would be the ones to do Little Busters, I had a discussion with a friend of mine. She said that Kyoto Animation would do a much better job than J.C. Staff and that Kyoto Animation should be the ones to do all of Key’s works. For the most part, I do agree with her.
In anime your true friends will always be there for you no matter what, whether it is through depressing times offering you advice and helping you get back up on your feet, to laughing and just acting like idiots.
Little Busters has these elements, from having hilarious fights between Masato and the entire female cast to the more dark tone of the show. However, the comedic essence of the show outweighs how sad each arc (route?) can be making it hard for each character to tug on your emotions like Clannad and Kanon (2006) did. This is in my opinion due to the pointless filler that most people complain about. However, I disagree with it being pointless. True, it is not part of the main story but it is there for a reason, and that reason is to soften the impact (with comedy) of how sad and dark the next route is. It gives you a good laugh before hitting you again. But it might not need it due to J.C. Staff’s terrible writing. Other than filler problems, I had problems with unanswered questions during Mio’s story such as exactly who is Midori and she came to be as a person, and how Kyousuke knew what was going to happen with their team at the end of season 1. Despite Rin being the main heroine she is not the focus of the story nor does it even show that she is.
Despite these problems I didn’t get bored watching the show, and each character was able to develop in each of their routes (which some people might disagree with; but hey it’s my review). The soundtrack from Key was still good and had no problems with it. This show tries its hardest to survive on symbolism much like Clannad did, but could have done a better job because some people I talked to found some of it confusing (like the rain in Haruka’s route or the parasol in Mio’s route). Overall it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t amazing; and if you like works of Key you should watch this and try not to think too harshly of the show because, well, it’s from J.C. Staff.
