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Wouldn't it be great to have a group of friends this dedicated when you really need them?
I heard both good and bad things about Little Busters! when I first decided to watch it. On the one hand, fans of the VN raved about how great the game had been, but on the other, those same fans (or some of them at least) were furious about J.C.Staff's involvement and denounced the anime as a failure from day 1. To be honest, that didn't detract me from wanting to watch the series; I like J.C.Staff's work, even if their animation isn't lavishly gorgeous, and they make good anime in general. I don't even remember the art being all that beautiful in Clannad, another Key work I liked and watched recently, which was animated by the much more detailed Kyoto Animation. However, that's slightly off topic; the thing is, my reservations lay not in the studio, but rather in the source material itself. I like Key adaptations, but they've never been among my favorites. I wasn't sure if a series about a group of kids playing baseball would be fun (clearly I didn't research too much), but eventually I gave it a go. And I liked it. I really really did.
And, to be brutally honest, it's hideously difficult to explain why. The series is littered with anime stereotypes I normally don't identify with, with very simple humor, and with that Key mysticism that throws forced drama into the equation whenever you start getting too comfortable. There's even a couple of moemoe girls who I'd normally cringe at while watching, but even they prove themselves likeable in some shape or form. Perhaps the reason why Little Busters! works so well is that it's not about the little things; it's about the big picture and just how the Little Busters themselves are important to one another. The kids in this group are all genuinely nice people who never had anywhere to belong before, and through their experiences together they've only grown closer and stronger together. J.C.Staff, better than most studios, has a real understanding of what friendship is, and they could scarcely find a better project to fit that strength than LB.
Of course, calling this series a mere story of friends is both apt and oversimplifying things to a terrible degree. It is about friendship, yes, but that friendship forms the basis for the classical Key magic. Something is not right in Riki and Rin's world, and they're the only ones who seem to be mostly oblivious to it. Whatever the secret is, clearly everyone else is trying their best to lead things to the proper route that must be taken (in typical VN fashion), but before that fierce loyalty could be established, Riki had to form bonds with the individuals first. And this, I think, should prove to be a powerful basis for when all hell breaks loose in Refrain. Though it's only a break until then, I will miss watching this series in the meantime; it's been one hell of a conspiracy theory, and equally as fun, and I've come to empathize with it more than I have with any other Key adaptation except Clannad After Story. We'll see if Refrain can't beat that out as well.
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Honestly, i just could not watch the whole series. It felt like something was off, :L people who've seen clannad and angel beats will surely compare it to Little busters, i get how Little busters used baseball to recruit members and introduce characters at the same time, but why does it have to be baseball? They're exhausting the idea of baseball , and a scene where one of the characters were shocked from lightning and broke down after remembering a memory of her past. It reminds me of Fuko's arc, the difference was , i cried in Fuko's arc. Little busters had me frowning, and i cringed the scene.
ReplyDeleteI probably would've liked Little Busters more if i didn't watch it after Clannad.
That's a shame, because it starts picking up in the latter half. Personally, I liked Clannad, but I liked LB more. There's really not all that much baseball in this series; there's exactly one game in the whole show and the whole sport is something of a framing mechanism here. Fuko was actually my least favorite of the Clannad girls; I tend to cry at everything, but Clannad only hit me hard during After Story. That's just me though, I know lots of people weren't too satisfied with LB, and that's fine. I love me a good conspiracy narrative, and besides that it just worked for me, so I'm happy with it.
DeleteNow that you say, it gets better in the second half , i might try watch it again. I did, kind of become judgemental in only 6 episodes . But i cant spend 2 hours waiting for an anime to get good xD
DeleteKamikita is my least favorite of the LB girls too, so that doesn't help much there. If you do watch it, try to see through the Mio and Haruka arcs. Kud's is my favorite but she's the very last one of the second cour. If you don't like it though, there's no point in forcing yourself to watch it!
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