Little Busters Discussion Thread

[Draneor]

Little Busters! (リトルバスターズ). Twitter hashtag #LitBus_Anime

Based on a visual novel by Key written by Maeda Jun, Tonokawa Yuuto, Kashida Leo, & Shirokiri Chika

Airs 10/06 22:30 Tokyo MX

Animation studio: J.C. Staff

ANN Entry
Official Site

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[Draneor]

Ending up watching it raw. Other than the flashback, I thought J.C. Staff did a fantastic job. Some stuff was cut, but that was inevitable. More importantly, they captured the feel and spirit of Little Busters! I had a smile on my face the entire time. All is forgiven.

Hocchan as Riki is infinitely adorably moe. By the end of the show, her performance alone may bump my feelings for Riki above other characters.

As far as the music goes, the first episode used the following tracks in order:

Mission possible ~but difficult task~ (Orito Shinji)
Osatou Futatsu (PMMK)
Kakekko (PMMK)
Mezameta Asa ni (Maeda Jun)
BOYS DON'T CRY (Maeda Jun)
Little Busters! (Anime) (lyrics Maeda Jun, vocals Rita)
Hisoyakana Sazameki (PMMK)
Mission possible ~but difficult task~ (Orito Shinji)
Yuusounaru Tatakai (Togoshi Magome)
Mezameta Asa ni (Maeda Jun )
Tick Tock Routine (PMMK)
Alice Magic! (anime) (vocals Rita)

And a couple short tracks that don't appear on the OST. "Mezameta Asa ni" is my favorite instrumental track of the bunch. Let me know if I missed one. I could have sworn I heard "MY BRAVE SMILE" in there at some point.

[Vegard Aune]

Watched the raw too. Thoughts:

So I've been seeing a lot of complaints about the animation apparently being sub-par over on other forums... I think it looks fine. Nothing outstanding, but it's not bad either. They were definitely cutting corners with the battle-scenes though...
The opening: Fantastic. I have nothing else to say about that.
Yay, Kyousuke's incredibly random quotes made it into the anime! I never got very far in the VN, (which is to say, I think I got like two weeks into it or something... At least I didn't get to any of the actual character-routes) but I definitely remember finding those hilarious.
Rin's run-in with Sasami seemed kind of rushed...
Am I the only one who thought the soundtrack seemed a bit repetive? I mean, this is only the first episode and already they've played some of the tracks multiple times...
The end-of-episode cliffhanger is Riki meeting Komari? Seems like kind of a random note to end it on.
...Yeah I don't know exactly how different from the usual Key-fare Little Busters is going to turn out, but I still have a hard time imagining that that ending-theme won't seem horribly out-of-place at some point. For now though, it looks nice and the remix of the song is pretty catchy.

Overall? Pretty good. Not exactly anything amazing, but then again it's not like any of the other Key-series were absolute perfection from the first episode either. And while, as I mentioned, I never really got anywhere with the VN, this seems pretty true to what little I actually played of it.

[Fencedude]

The seiyuu jokes. Why can I not hold them all?!

Anyway, that was entertaining, Kyousuke's "logic" is certainly...special.

[stardf29]

Well, they've got the humor of a Key work locked down, as this episode was hilarious in many ways, especially the "Kyousuke asks for great quotes" part. (Also, their childhood method of exterminating wasps needs a massive "do not try this at home" warning. )

Still remains to be seen if the emotional payoff is as good, but all in all, great episode.

[superdry]

That was a really amusing and fun episode to watch. The flashback was cute to see what they did as kids.

The most important part was OMGHOWUNBELIELABLYADORABLE Rin is. So cuuuute! I wish the fight with Sasami was animated though.

I have a feeling the show will revisit Riki's feelings of losing his parents or losing someone else.

[FUNiOP]

This is it! As with many, Clannad has been my favorite anime since I finished, and now, over half a decade since it began airing, the next anime adapted from a Key visual novel finally begins. You can tell how important it is for me to watch this because I'm actually watching it despite the lack of a simulcast. I feel bad, but of course I'll buy it assuming it is eventually licensed (by Sentai, I'd assume), and depending on how much I like it and specifically its music, I may have to import a bunch of the CDs (perfect timing, since I just got the last of my Clannad CDs yesterday). And yes, I'm going to be comparing this to Clannad a lot. That's kind of inevitable. What about the other Key shows, you ask? Eh, I didn't care that much for them. So needless to say, I'm keeping my hopes pretty grounded for this, despite being somewhat more excited about this than possibly anything since I finished Clannad. Plus, the previous Key shows had the same companies and staff as Clannad, and this not only doesn't, but while the studio is fine (but spreading itself a bit too thin for my liking considering how KyoAni always focuses on one thing at a time), the staff is remarkably unexciting. Oh well, I'm still going to try to be as positive as possible. It could be another half a decade before Rewrite, and there's no telling who that will go to when the time comes.

The episode was good, but of course it's hard to tell where the series will go from the first episode. Still not as good a first episode as Clannad had, and of course that wasn't nearly representative of the overall quality. But the opening scene of Clannad was an amazing, and this episode didn't really have anything like that. It basically just had the same kind of comedy bits that came after the opening in the first episode of Clannad. But at least those were all good in this.

The flashback scene makes some attempt to introduce the beginning of that emotional sentiment we really love Key for in this show. I still can't help but feel that Tomoya's opening monologue served its purpose far more effectively.

The overall look of the animation is good, but of course not the current level of KyoAni, and more importantly, cuts corners a bit too much. Obviously a lot of this is just fun comedy so it isn't that critical, but there was still enough of that for me to be worried about the overall quality the series will have.

I have no idea what to think of the protagonist. He seems far more like a random little girl who would be listed at the bottom of the list of characters list than the male lead of the kind story based around its male lead. He's with the rest of the group of main characters (which is shockingly male-dominated) for most of the episode, but he's easily the least active member, and while the main heroine is a childhood friend along with all the guys, his interactions with her are as nonexistent as with the rest of the group. Now it looks like he's finally going to go off on his own and start finding the other heroines, but it will be weird to see him interact with them before the actual main heroine, and the rest of the main characters in general. I'd say he's just another (minor) heroine and Kyousuke is the protagonist, but that would mean one route (still the main one, really) would be his sister. I wonder if the anime will give us any idea why the main character has the same seiyuu as his main love interest in the original visual novel, or if that wouldn't apply since he doesn't in the anime. I'm sure there's a reason, but that would sound way too weird to me. It's weird enough to hear Horie as him simply because, again, it just makes him more of a little girl. Obviously since this is Key, they have something amazing they're waiting to pull out at the right time and it will make me eat this whole chunk of my words.

I've spent most of the past 24 hours listening to the music used in the Clannad anime series, so music is definitely something I'm paying particularly close attention to here. So far, it sounds pretty good as expected of Maeda, Orito, and Togoshi (I've never even hard of PMMK), but nothing really stands out as great yet; however, the really great tracks in Clannad don't make their appearance until later (except those first two, again...), so I'm not judging too much on this. Things already sound a little repetitive, though. The opening and ending songs are good. Lia, Riya, Rita... I guess Key kind of has a theme with the names of the singers they choose to use for their stuff. I do hope to hear some from the first two, though. Maybe a probable second season will have some original themes (and/or vocal version(s) of important BGM tracks) that can use them. Might as well continue the trend of original opening themes for Key shows being sung by Lia, written and composed by Maeda, and arranged by ANANT-GARDE EYES. It's definitely yielded some positive results so far.

Oh, speaking of the opening, it doesn't show the girls' names, does it?

I think I'll know that the music has really made its impact on me when it gets stuck in my head as I'm thinking about the series, rather than that song by the Pillows...

Oh, and thank you for listing what tracks are used, Draneor. That will become very useful if I do end up getting some CDs.

[something]

Time for Little Busters!. Been waiting a few years to say that.

Episode 1:

- Kyousuke's idea of mediating a fight is... turning it into a brawl with infinite weapons available. Including cats.
- Staff vs eel pie. Staff wins. Go Rin!
- Animate the flashback, JC. Anyway, "This is how we met." Shortly before one of my new friends was set on fire.

- Man I cannot get Clannad's Yuusuke out of my head when I listen to Kyousuke, for obvious reasons. But hell even their personalities are incredibly similar at first glance.
- Baseball. This will be deadly for Masato. But most things seem to be.

- Heh, like the quotes.
- Nekomimi Rin!
- "Mission failed." Kyousuke and Rin are definitely selling this show so far. Masato isn't growing on me yet, Riki is just kinda there, and I have no opinion of Kengo.
- Ahahaha oh god, Rin in the dorm is hilarious. Also, ojou-sama character in Sasami. But not a down-to-earth ojou-sama so I don't anticipate liking her as much.
- Finally at the end, Komari! I love her already.

Pretty good. Not blown away, but given that the cast was stacked 4 guys to 1 girl for most of the episode, I'm not surprised I'm still warming up to it. Need more girls, and I know they're coming so it's fine. As mentioned, the Natsume siblings are pretty great, and Rin's recruiting debacle was comedy gold. Riki could be okay after he does more, but Kengo I doubt I'll ever like much. Masato has the potential to be amusing but I'm really not sure. Will know more about the other girls as we see more of them.

As for production values? Competent. Obviously multiple tiers below what KyoAni would have done (didn't help that I wacthed this immediately after Chuunibyou), but really that ship has long since sailed and I'm just happy this looks decent. Some really nice character art, which is the most important visual aspect by far, but very "average" animation. Balances out to the point where I don't think I'll be complaining about it.

OP is good, ED might grow on me.

[HitokiriShadow]

Well, I can see why this was getting mixed reactions from people on the visual quality. On the one hand, its "fine". It's not bad, but its... pretty average. Which is positively awful compared to Clannad and Kanon. Rin's kick in her intro scene made me think of Tomoyo.... which does this show no favors. Frankly, it even looks mediocre compared to some other JC Staff shows, like AnoNatsu, Railgun, Index, and Toradora. And that barely animated flashback was kind of painful to watch.

This is clearly NOT a top budget JC Staff show. It's not a low budge one either, its just.... middle of the road. Average or slightly above average.

Anyway, the visuals are, as I said, "fine". There's nothing particularly wrong (other than the severely distracting lack of animation in the flashbacks). It's disappointing but I don't have a particular problem with it and it won't have any real impact on my enjoyment other than things like that flashback scene.

Unfortunately, this episode had other problems. It was a jumbled mess as far as character introductions go. It was also weird because the apparent main/player character had a very minimal role. The guys certainly have some potential, but this episode didn't do a good job of getting me into things or the characters. I could barely keep the characters straight.

Another problem.... it wasn't very funny. There were a few mildly amusing moments (mostly involving Rin) but by and large, the jokes fell flat. This is much more worrisome than anything else, because Clannad was absolutely hilarious and I have no doubt it still would be if I went back and watched it again. So I figured if nothing else, this episode should be funny.... and it wasn't much.

I also have some other concerns that this episode added to, and it relates to something I was worried about coming in regardless of the studio doing the adaptation as its related to Key itself, though a sub-par adaptation could certainly make it worse, but I'll wait a few more episodes before I worry about it too much. Especially since it could be an issue with me being tired or in a bad mood after that horrible SAO episode or otherwise being out of it or something. Maybe the visual disappointment subconsciously affected how I received the rest of the show. In any case, if there was something else going on, maybe that won't be an issue in future episodes.

Also, not nearly enough Rin.

Rin's mission to recruit new members was cute and amusing though. I'm really hoping things will get better as it moves past an awkward attempt to introduce things.

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by Fencedude

The seiyuu jokes. Why can I not hold them all?!

Seiyuu jokes? I didn't even recognize most of the seiyuu names.