Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「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
 |
 |
 |
haruka is my favorite chapter once you finish her arc you will understand why
The great weakness of this arc was not the plot nor dialogue. The plot was excellent, the dialogue was acceptable. What made this arc terrible was the Voice Acting.
C’mon, at least Komari’s VA did her best! I mean, she’s the one who provided some voice on some of the sexy moments in Ecstasy version. (even though I didn’t play a single Key game in my life)
If I had to name a problem I’d probably say it’s that we don’t care enough about Komari yet.
Show Spoiler ▼
I still couldnt get used to the seiyuu of the female character and Riki(Yui Horie). Kyousuke’s seiyuu is the best in Little Busters
aww yeah!
the twins.. >_<
Dang, this arc was weak for KEY standards. It was way too predictable, maybe she’s not that big of a heroine on the VN?
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.
does it come with benefits ~_~
But her Grandpa said she would snap out of it in a few weeks
Onii-chan o.O?
The thing about Little Busters! compared to other KEY games is Show Spoiler ▼
Actually…
Show Spoiler ▼
I know that part but the level of intimacy isn’t like Tomoyo X Nagisa sans Ex ofc I still think it is as innocent as what GE mentioned.
There was alot of romance in the exctasy version, heh heh heh
As far as it is concerned
Show Spoiler ▼
So, how many of you think that they will animate Refrain as well?
Excellent question.
Show Spoiler ▼
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.
I took the producer’s comments about the announcement at the end of episode 26 as a coded message that Refrain was going to be animated.
nice episode, at least i not gonna drop this anime.
So next time is Haruchin turn. At first i don’t like her very much but after playing her route i have more respect to her now. And when is they going to introduce Mio.
Yay! Komari is back to normal…
7.5/10
Still not impressed but was good.
The art somehow lacks the expression to say it but I guess this will do.
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.
Even though this arc was a bit weak for Key. I still found it better than Air (Which I personally felt had a very weak story altogether)
A bit slow on the first episodes, but this show has good potential, especially if the final route is Show Spoiler ▼
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?
Kinny Riddle commented on Komari’s bad route above.
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.
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.
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.
Show Spoiler ▼
I really can’t help myself when the letter of the law leads itself to absurb logical conclusions. I am a firm believer that test cases are the fertiliser that nurture healthy legal systems.
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.
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.
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?
……………….
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???????
I simply don’t like how they sound. It’s not the quality is bad, it just sounds forced IN MY OPINION.
Especially Komari and Rin for me.
BTW. I’ve already grown accustomed to their voices.
my eyes were bursting and watery with this episode, even though the music was transitioned to a happy one with Komori smiling at the end, I was already tearing up to the point that the music couldn’t pull me back…