Little Busters!

As a child, Riki Naoe shut himself from the world, thanks to a diagnosis of narcolepsy following the tragic deaths of his parents. However, Riki is saved when, one fateful day, a boy named Kyousuke recruits him into a team who call themselves the Little Busters. Accompanied by Masato, Kengo, and Rin, these misfits spend their childhood fighting evil and enjoying their youth.

Years pass, and even in high school, the well-knit teammates remain together. Kyousuke decides to re-ignite the Little Busters by forming a baseball team as it will be his last school year with them. They have a problem though: there aren't enough members! The tables have turned, for it is now Riki's turn to reach out and recruit new friends into the Little Busters, just like Kyousuke had once done for him.
Then, an omen surfaces—Rin finds a strange letter attached to her cat, assigning them the duty of uncovering the "secret of this world" by completing specific tasks. Just what is this secret, and why is it being hidden? It's up to the Little Busters to find out!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Natsume, Kyousuke Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Noumi, Kudryavka Main

Wakabayashi, Naomi Japanese

Kurugaya, Yuiko Main

Tanaka, Ryouko Japanese

Natsume, Rin Main

Tamiyasu, Tomoe Japanese

Kamikita, Komari Main

Yanase, Natsumi Japanese

Naoe, Riki Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Saigusa, Haruka Main

Suzuki, Keiko Japanese

Inohara, Masato Main

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Nishizono, Mio Main

Tatsumi, Yuiko Japanese

Miyazawa, Kengo Main

Oda, Yuusei Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Dohi, Noriko Producer

Yamakawa, Yoshiki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

May 27, 2023

Ninnkigal

Recommended

In Short, Little Buster is a pretty good anime and a decent adaptation, but it's still nowhere as good as the Source Material (Little Busters VN).

The Story isn't that Complex, it's a friendship themed, slice-of-life story. Or at least that what it is on the surface. Along the anime you'll get to know more about each character while uncovering the mystery of the world that was hinted by a mysterious person.

Common Route is clearly the best part of the Anime. The dynamic and relationship of each characters are really good. They remove, add, and combine some stuff from the Visual Novel, but overall it's really ... good and make you care with each of the characters.

About the production value I think it's quite good. It's definitely better than Clannad, and I like the art style much more. The song and ost are all really good (since they're straight from the VN) but they kinda recycle some OSTs a lot (For sample, Haruka theme song always play when she's on screen which can get tiring).

Normally Character is only one aspect that can be remedied by another but like any other Key project, Little Buster live and die heavily depends on it's characters, so let's see them and their routes one by one from what works to what doesn't

First is Rin. Contrary to what my profile picture & favorite may suggest, I love Rin as a heroine. I think she's the best Key "main girl" and they did a great job with her. Her route isn't adapted here, but she's an important character kinda like the second protagonist. Rin is much more fleshed out character In the anime. Her romance with Riki doesn't feel forced (which I always feel in the VN). But most importantly, I liked how they emphasize the importance of her relationship with Komari (which isn't that apparent in the VN until the very end). We can clearly see how she grows from an extremely shy girl, to someone that able to stand by herself and how Komari plays a crucial role in that.

Next is Kud. For some reason, the anime decides that Kud need a lot of screen time and gave her route 4 episodes (the other only get 3), while also adding some other scenes of her route to the common route part of the anime. And well, it works. Kud in this anime is better than in the VN. Her route is probably the strongest, unlike her VN counterpart which arguably is one of the weakest.

Kyousuke, Masato, and Kurugaya are all perfect replication of their VN counterpart. They gave Kyousuke a bit more depth but it mostly didn't do much since her VN character are already really good. Here, Kurugaya is more on the supporting role since her route is adapted on Refrain. They're still all amazing character

For Kengo, while he mostly a good adaptation. They did take away one part of his personality. In the VN, he's kinda a superhero kind of character, a man who hold the title of "100 Battles - No Defeat". They tone this down a bit by having him struggle in the baseball scene. It kinda lessen the impact of her best scene in Refrain. Aside from that though, he's the same old Kengo.

Nishizono is a curious case. Her route never really stands out in the VN and can be confusing to some people. But it's even more apparent in the anime. It's somewhat rushed, with a lot of mystery that isn't explained. Her Tanka plays an important part on the VN but here, it's only seen as a passing reference that didn't really explain everything. By removing the romance aspect it also kinda worsen the route since there's no explanation why Riki is the only person that remember her.

Komari route is extremely rushed. She only get 2.5 Episodes for her route, which while still include the important parts is a bit off-putting. Aside from that Komari herself also feel much more airheady than her VN counterpart. She, however, did get more important part in other routes (mostly to show Rin growth).

Haruka character in common route is a gem, but her route is a different story entirely.... Her route in the VN includes several of the best and most emotional moments from Key but in this anime, it's pretty bad.

It pains me to say this, but Haruka route (not Haruka herself) is one of the worst part of the anime. It's extremely toned down, rushed, most of her scene are completely removed (the adaptation start by the bench scene which already halfway through her route) and the action of the characters in that route make little sense. Most of this is due to the effect of removing the romance aspect (since in her route romance is a crucial part) and not replacing it with something believable. How the problems resolved in her route is really bad, totally removing her agency as a character by her being told what to think instead of discovering it by herself (which how it got resolved in the VN, dunno why they change it), which bring me to my next point.

Riki. I mean, even in the VN Riki has never been a strong protagonist like Tomoya (Clannad) or Kotarou (Rewrite) but he does have his quirks. In this anime, Riki is just a one-tone character like any other generic protagonist. What I hate however is how the anime always use a flashback scene of him being saved by Kyousuke and Little Busters. Once or twice is fine, but he repeat this in EVERY SINGLE HEROINE ROUTE to solve their problem, and what worse, it always works.

I'm not kidding, they repeat it for Komari, Nishizono, Haruka and Kud, sometimes multiple times. Even though their problem have literally nothing to do with how the Little Buster save Riki. Haruka won't stop cursing herself just because of that little pep-talk. Komari won't stop her delusion because of that. And I don't even know what it have to do with Nishizono problem. Yeah, it's power of friendship BS...

I think they added this because they need to replace the romance part from each route, but come on, you could do better than that (which to be fair they kinda did in Kurugaya route in Refrain).

That being said, Little Buster is still worth watching it's a good show and a decent adaptation, but if you want the full experience you should play the Visual Novel, the character and story are much better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 11, 2023

cringeylazy

Mixed Feelings

Some stuff right a lot of things wrong.

This is a spoiler free review from the perspective of a fan of the visual novel that rewatched the anime a year later.

Positives:
-I'll start off by saying I like the choice of voice actor/actress change for Riki as I find that Yui Horie fits the role a lot better than the original casting in the VN.
-The main cast (Riki, Rin, Kyousuke, Masato, and Kengo) share the same chemistry as the VN, which is very well adapted.
-Mio: Mio's route is adapted fairly well as they give it enough time. It's missing some key scenes, but overall, it's a good ... enough adaptation.
-The slice of life sequences, especially the episode where Riki visits the girls dorm, are very well adapted and fun to see animated.
-The opening and ending music from the VN is still present, as is the brilliant soundtrack (albeit used oddly at times).
-Extra insight into Rin and Komari becoming friends is a nice touch for fans.

Negatives:
-Haruka: One of the worst adaptations I've ever seen. Now, I don't think Haruka's route is any masterpiece, but the adaptation is absolutely awful. It makes Haruka and Kanata look like complete nutjobs because of the weird focus on the wrong scenes and the fast pacing because of the time constraints.
-Komari: Her ending completely ruined, the original story of overcoming internal trauma by looking at it from a different angle.
-Animation is only serviceable, lacks detail, and clearly isn't made with much passion.
-Art style change is very odd, looks a bit generic, and loses a lot of the charm of the VN.

To conclude, the anime is an ok adaptation... I originally liked the anime when I watched it; I still thought Kud and Haruka's arcs sucked, but I enjoyed the rest of the story and liked the characters. But upon rewatching, it's an extremely mediocre, barely serviceable adaptation of the visual novel. I think if you're never going to read the visual novel, it does something at least, but it's most definitely a worse experience.
I've seen a lot worse adaptations before, so I don't want to be too critical, but it's a very flawed show on its own, and now that I know how mediocre its adaptation is, it makes it a lot worse.

My Anime vs VN ratings for each arc:
Komari - anime: 4/10 VN: 8/10
Haruka - anime: 1/10 VN: 8/10
Mio - anime: 7/10 VN: 8/10
Kud - anime: 3.5/10 VN: 3.5/10

Overall rating: 5.5/10
(If you would like to see my short review of the VN check out my backloggd or vndb)

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 14, 2014

Lambda-kun

Not Recommended

Funny

Oh god I hate this anime, the game was refreshing but the anime...

You can't talk about it without being seriously enraged. I didn't really care about Key's works before, but this time I had to react. Let's start with the characters: they're all a bunch of stereotypes patchworks from the previous Key's works. I didn't find any girls interesting except for Mio and Rin. Mio's arc from the season 1 was the best one in my opinion, Kud's arc was the worst piece of shit ever.

The music was inspired by Wii Sports it seems, it didn't really bring me any sadness or whatever, and the ... comedy-performance was really poor. I swear, I've never seen worse except for Clannad. And the story in general was very poorly written, this is really a generic harem except for some artificial extensions like baseball which brings this to a sport anime.

Let's talk about the few arcs, the first one was about Komari. I really find the concept interesting, but in the end you get the loli's artificial crying and it made me fucking angry.
I remember the pink haired twins being probably the worst after Kud. And the pseudo-vice-president or whatever was playing tsundere so bad that it makes Haruhi Susumiya looks like a god. Mio's arc was really a piece of art, this character was credible because she reminded me of myself, the stuff about the self-preservation, the cultivation books and of course the yaoi was the best part.

Something really sucks about this show and would be the main-protagonist Riki: he's supposed to build a harem, but in your mind you'll think he's a girl (his voice is the most girly compared to the others girls); this is truly laughable. Of course the others guys are the essential factors for developing his "virility". Good luck in whatever they are doing!

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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