Little Busters! - 16

"Don't Look at Me Like That"

This is the second time this week I've come across outdated marital customs in an anime.

Unlike Sasami-san@Ganbaranai, however, there are no goddesses or incest to be found in Little Busters! this episode. That's probably a good thing, considering I much prefer the latter series to the former (I have a hard time dropping series, and I've seen worse anyway). Instead we have a revelation that was already blindingly obvious as we move on to our next heroine and arc, Haruka Saigusa. Haruka is usually one of the more spirited members of the group, but as we've seen before, she and the disciplinary committee don't get along. This week those tensions come to a head, as Kanata Futaki, the head of the committee, enacts personal vengeance on Haruka through persecution of her troublemaker "misdeeds". While it's a little weird to get attached to a bench, the fact that Kanata cruelly ordered it to be destroyed in front of Haruka suggests a vendetta, not just a strict adherence to rules, and it's almost as if Haruka and Kanata have been getting on each other's nerves on purpose since the beginning.

Of course, it's pretty obvious that these two are related (they even share the same seiyuu), but we're finally told that they're twins born to a prestigious family with a strange custom; the heiress to the family is given two husbands, and one of these men in Haruka's immediate family became an arsonist and a murderer. The immediate suggestion is that each twin was raised by a different father, and that Haruka was unlucky enough to be given to this particular father. Whatever the case, however, there is definitely trauma involved for both twins and it's caused bad blood to rise between them. Haruka in particular is haunted by her past, and it seems she's been blamed and despised for her father's crimes throughout her life. Personally, I have never understood this particular bit of psychology, in which family members are blamed for the doings of an individual, but I suppose anger and grief are a part of it. In any case, Haruka is a victim, and it's implied that Kanata may have her own baggage, though at the moment she's acting the villain.

As such, watching Haruka be persecuted by the Disciplinary Committee wasn't pleasant in the least, and for whatever reason everyone treated her as a criminal rather than a troublemaker, pronouncing her guilty of crimes she never committed simply because of "the boy who cried wolf" principle; why should they believe her when she's already caused so much trouble? As if driving her to tears isn't enough, Kanata ends up provoking her into a fit of crazed rage, which gives the committee an excuse to restrain her by force. Things only get worse when the next day, flyers are distributed throughout the school denouncing Haruka as the daughter of a criminal, but the question of who spread the rumor remains. It's unlikely to be Kanata, because as much as she and Haruka hate each other, I think Kanata is a decent, though overbearing, person at heart and that she truly believes in justice, even if she has some sort of complex toward her sister. The respite was short and the laughs short-lived, but as is usually the case with Key adaptations, the fun has gone away, and the drama is set to unfold.