First Impressions / Little Busters!

「みつけよう　すてきなこと」 (Mitsukeyō Suteki na Koto)
“Let’s Find Wonderful Things”

Wow – that conclusion sure arrived a lot faster than I expected.

As with just about everything else with Little Busters!, I’m very much of two minds about this episode, and the entire Komari arc (both episodes of it). On the one hand I can very much feel myself being manipulated emotionally, and while Maeda Jun supposedly didn’t write this arc personally it’s clearly written to fit with his style. But on the other, while I wasn’t devastated or anything it did have its moments where it really connected, though more so from Riki’s perspective than Komari’s.

It goes beyond that, to the length of the arc itself. I’m definitely of a mind that a little Komari goes a long way – between the way the character is written and the performance she can be a lot to take – so the fact that her arc was so short might just be a blessing. But the downside of that is that it definitely comes off feeling a bit rushed. The character development got to what felt like a fairly logical place, but there were some obvious shortcuts taken along the way. Given the announcement that the series would be extended beyond 26 episodes in some fort, it’s an interesting decision to cut the first character arc so short.

My general sense is still that LB is a more innocent and straightforward story than Clannad and Kanon, and the very expeditious and direct resolution here plays into that. It was pretty clear where the story was headed last week and there were no surprises on that front, and it was pretty clear from the look in Komari’s eyes when Riki took her to his room that the pilot light had gone out. I appreciated the fact that there were no halfhearted attempts to mine humor from the “girl in the boys dorm” scenario, and that Masato was allowed to behave with some dignity for a change – otherwise it would have felt cheap and inappropriate. From there the point was gotten to with astonishing rapidity – Riki went and got the truth from Koujirou, and devised a plan to try and bring Komari back to reality. And it worked on the very first try, in about ten seconds. If only all of life’s problems could be resolved that way.

The message of Komari’s arc is one I certainly agree with, but it was played out in very broad terms – running away from sad events only makes our problems worse in the long run. The storybook motif that ran through the arc is an apt one, because that’s very much what Komari’s story felt like – a fairy tale, with a moral at the end for all the learn from (and a very un-Mother Goose like happy ending). One might take issue with the fact that the bond among the Little Busters had grown so tight so quickly, and that Rin was able to overcome her anxiety and bond with Komari so quickly, but it’s not as though subtlety and realism were really the point here. The essence of Key under Maeda Jun is to play out big emotions in broad terms, and this was very much in line with that general tenor.

Whether we can make any inference from this as to how long future arcs are going to last I don’t know – we had basically three-and-a-half episodes of introduction and two-and-a-half for Komari’s story. The next in line is Haruka, apparently, a character who barely appeared at all in the first six episodes, so it seems safe to assume she’s not going to be a major player in the ultimate resolution of the story as a whole. Unlike with some VNs (though certainly it was the case with Clannad as well) there seems no suspense at all here as to who the main girl is, unless I’m very much misreading the situation. Perhaps a good deal of the series’ time is going to be spend not on the preliminary routes themselves, but on what happens after Rin has officially “won”. As such, I’m more or less expecting her time in the spotlight to be saved for last as she plays a supporting but significant role in the other arcs.

 

Preview

40 Comments

  7. I still remember getting goosebumps at Komari’s Bad End in the VN, where she remained in her “yandere” mode with those eyes deceiving herself that Riki is her Onii-chan, thanks to Riki deciding to resign himself to being her new Onii-chan forever rather than finding out a way to force her to accept the reality and move on from her brother at last.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

    1. Actually…
      Show Spoiler ▼

      Linkark
      Reply

    2. One of the staff of the anime made a statement confirming that the will have more than 26 episodes, sice the story is too long for the regular 2 cour so they decided for an abnormal number of episodes, how many? that I don´t know.

      haseo0408
      Reply

  14. Pretty much every other route in Little Busters (similar to Clannad) are secondary to Rin’s. The game makes no secret of this. They are side stories leading into the greater scheme of Refrain. Arguably, though, Komari’s route is the most important of the bunch despite its weakness and I’m surprised to see JC Staff blast through it so quickly. I guess at around 2 episodes per route they will still have time for baseball, devote some time for Rin, then save Refrain for another cour.

    Passerby
    Reply

  17. Wow, I almost teared up at the climax…. Something tht is very hard to happen on me… Now Komari can finally move on from her trauma and back to our usual Komari 🙂

    And lol, Masato even mention tht he an idiot. He sure is a good friend when things get grim….

    So…Purple Hair have a twin judging by the preview??

    Just curious, how is the bad end for Komari route? Does it involve killing?

    d-LaN
    Reply

  18. This episode reminded me of a certain rubber boy and a big blue fishman. But I think this didn’t have the same impact. Komari just cheering up at the end like that kinda felt forced and didn’t feel natural at all.

    Just Passing By
    Reply

  19. Pardon for this off-topic post.

    Having posted my last comment before going to sleep, I didn’t notice this before, but may I please ask Enzo again: Just WHAT is your policy regarding posting spoilers INSIDE spoiler-tags again?

    Because right now I’m seeing many posters discussing spoilers INSIDE spoiler-tags, whereas I tried to do the same a few weeks ago, only to have my post brutally edited.

    I now feel like parking a car in a car park where the rules regarding parking restrictions are very unclear, and somehow only my car gets picked on for parking tickets while other cars get off scot-free.

    I’m not having a go at these posters, as I would very love to discuss my spoilers with them under the reasonable conditions of a spoiler-tag, which I was under the assumption was not tolerated by you before seeing the posts above.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

    1. A fair question. To be honest, my policy hasn’t changed – minor spoilers are OK, but I really don’t want WMDs like “The Secret of this world is…” posted, even in spoiler tags. But, to be honest, I’m so swamped at the moment that in most cases, I’m probably not going to catch it. So open the tags at your own risk, I would ask everyone to be considerate and not include huge spoilers, but if you do there’s a pretty good chance I’m not going to catch it.

      Guardian Enzo
      Reply

  20. OPINION: this arc produced the emotion needed ONLY for the arc itself but it didnt surpassed my emotional bench test of fuuko’s arc of clannad/makoto’s arc of kanon’06. AKA not enough emotion to stir me… it didnt depressed me much as those i stated.

    while it’s true that anime dont need tear bombs to become successful, those anime titles i stated become registered greats because they moved the audience (VN players/NON VN players) where most are shaken enough to follow the anime within just few episodes.

    today’s arc, just gave NON VN players a slight push but not enough to move the person. in a sense it lacked IMPACT that was existent in the first arcs of clannad/kanon’06. pardon my rudeness to this great VN title but, i still believe jun maeda has this tear NUKE waiting but i think it will show in the long run. impatient persons like me thought cant wait for that. we need the story NOW even just hints of it would be fine.

    TheLastMan
    Reply

  21. I did feel like crying all through the episode not really because her back story was sad, but because I knew exactly where the episode was going by the end! And by the end, when my expectations were fulfilled, the urge was stronger.

    starss
    Reply

  22. Few times in my life i dropped an anime because of the voice acting. Almost every character of Little Busters sound like a forced moe in my ears, so i decided to stop watching until another element (story) was good enough to make me ignore it. Now my question: Should I take where I left now that the drama developed a little?

    Eduardo
    Reply

    1. ……………….

      I’m afraid to bring up my ethnicity because it may be racist…… but I’m an English-speaking American who doesn’t understand Japanese…….

      ……. is there something I’m missing???? How are these voices bad???????

      starss
      Reply

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