Little Busters! Episode 7

Now Then, Guess Who!

With the episode starting through a Masato vs Rin battle, it looks like we’ve gone back to the light hearted view of things. The cats verses nail clippers was never a proper battle, and as such, Masato earnt the title of “Trash”, whilst highlighting why Rin’s a pretty enjoyable character to watch…at least, better than Konomari’s fiasco last week.

Continuing on at the odd pace, Rin and Riki end up being sent on a quest to find a new member of the Little Busters, and they end up finding Stripy Stocks girl. Stripy Socks is slightly challenged, almost as if she’s in her own little world, she joins the Little Busters baseball team. I don’t think it’s a success when I only laughed once, despite Stripy Stocks having amazing skills in completely the wrong areas…

Well, it’s an interesting start to a new arc. At least this girl is slightly more interesting than Konomari, but I don’t know if I can stand to watch an entire arc based around Stripy Socks. It’s clear that this arc will focus around Riki’s morals and the way people judge others, i’m starting to think that the show might actually be redeemable (Seriously, who decided to start with Konomari’s arc? It looks like it’s the weakest of the arcs.)

Next week, however, seems to be Kud, the girl who’s also got a really bad voice actor…except instead of being filled with hellium, this one’s got the subtlety of a bag of hammers.

Little Busters! Episode 6

Let’s Find Wonderful Things

Alex is not impressed.

This isn’t how this arc should have been handled. Where’s the major conflict, where’s the worry and doubt, where’s the tears that the viewer sheds? Why is it all crammed into one episode and given so little time that it doesn’t work properly at all? Why does she suddenly recover because of the “power of friendship”? SURELY somebody will have tried this in the past, if she really does suffer from these kind of issues. Riki didn’t do anything special or fabulous this episode, so surely it’s not possible for her to suddenly recover like that just because she was told that there are friends for her.

That is NOT how you overcome a mental barrier. What on earth went wrong here?

Little Busters! Episode 5

To Find What I’ve Lost

You know, i’m not a fan of talking about spoilers. This episode moved at a really fast pace for a drama, presenting situations which other shows would probably take at least two and possibly even three episodes to show off. We get two emotional moments with Riki and Komari, and a psychotic break from the most unexpected of things. I don’t really want to say anything more about the ending of the show, or the plot points of the show for this episode, though…i’m still not sure how i’ll deal with spoilers. I might change the colour of them to blend into the background or something. Highlight the text if you want to read it :L

I’ll give this a try. The big spin at the end where Komari had her mental breakdown was something rather interesting, seeing as it was caused by a dead cat. Does this mean that she’s flat out afraid of death? I don’t think so. I think that the episode and the flashback was orientated towards showing how she’d created a new “reality”, forgetting all about her past, because if she remembers, she becomes “sad” and switches “personalities”. It’s all a bunch of my conjecture at this point, but what with the hug on the boat and that lot, i’m wondering if she’s replaced her dead brother with Riki in her mind…in which case, things could become pretty interesting when her inner mentality unwinds.

Annnd spoilers over. Let me know what you think of that, because whilst i’m not one for conjecture and theories, I think that Little Busters has started to show why it’s got such a huge fanbase.

 

Little Busters! Episode 4

I’ll Make a Happy Sunny Spot

Right now, it’s pretty much clear that Little Busters is willing to bet everything on the likeability of it’s characters and the chemistry that they’ve all got. Whilst it may be a little bit too moe for my own liking, it’s certainly got it’s own charm, and by this point, the start of the first arc is starting to shine through, and it looks like it’ll be a pretty solid arc.

I’m going to assume that all of the characters have been introduced by now, with the second moe character making an appearance this episode as the Little Busters goes on community service at an old folks home. The focus of the arc appears to be the food loving Komari, the first moe character to get introduced into the show. Her story is the first to get some proper background to it; her dreams of a big brother who shouldn’t exist, a picture book being written by said big brother about a hen and a chick, and a relative of hers appearing at the old folks home that she’s been volunteering at.

Little Busters has a huge cast, and I can only assume that they’re going to tick them off one by one…for better of for worse. Lets just hope for the helium girls to get ticked off before the others.

Little Busters! Episode 3

I Like Cute Things, you See

I wish that shows would stop doing this to me. “Oh, i’m not blogging you anymore.” “Here, have a really fun episode to make up for it!”

If you understood my rambling, this episode of Little Busters was actually really fun, with the slapstick humour appearing to have improved a little bit. Focusing on getting the final four members of their baseball team, they focus on Kurugaya appearing this week. Whilst she may be a Mary Sue, she does her job of being perfect pretty well, and I feel that she’s a pretty good addition to the team, not being afraid to point out that Riki’s moe AND male, and although she has a katana with her, she’s got the most edgy sense of humour in the group, a really welcome addiction to the lowbrow humour the others have. She may be mean and cruel to Riki, but she likes cute things, after all.

…but uh, I can’t help but think i’m enjoying this for the wrong reasons. I respect that some animes would much rather tick all the boxes for the routes in a VN rather than focusing on one, but this almost feels like a direct adapation from the VN, doing everything all the time. It doesn’t help that i’m not really convinced about Little Busters yet, either. I’m told that this gets really good, but…is it just a slow burner, or have they failed to light the candle in the first place?

Little Busters! Episode 2

If You’re Happy, I’m Happy!

Ok, so here’s the thing. I don’t want to leave this show uncovered, but I don’t have the room to cover it. Everything it’s doing so far is being a carbon copy of Key, and not actually going the extra mile to make things work. This episode had a nice idea, but the voice acting of the blond girl just made me want to cry and hurt my ears after a while…not to mention how her clumsyness was funny for like, five minutes. Rin worked pretty well in this episode, actually trying to break away from the cliche that her role has given her, and the foreshadowing was nice, but Riki really didn’t his “illness”…unless it has a bigger meaning later on.

This has been confirmed for 2-cour, and I have no doubt in my mind that the build up is going to pay off and that this will be amazing, but I have the problem of covering too many shows. Bakuman 3 is good enough to be covered now that the pace has picked up, on top of covering Robotics;Notes, Magi and Sword Art Online and covering Best Wishes 2 when subs are released, there just isn’t time to cover everything on top of my busy schedule. SAO seems to have taken a nose-dive, so it begs the question: Do I blog Sword Art Online, Little Busters! or Bakuman 3?

Autumn 2012: Round Two!

Fighto! >o<

…

In all seriousness, now that we’ve seen almost everything, here’s the finalised version of who’s covering what, with, rather spectacularly, almost every good show being covered this season.

Alex, after removing all his jokes,  is covering Sword Art Online, Magi, Little Busters

Mimi,currently overjoyed with her new headphones, is covering Shin Sekai Yori, K and Sukitte Ii na yo.

Dusk, won her quest for justice, is covering PYSCHO-PASS, Tonari no Kaibutsu-Kun and Jormungand 2

Doofus, recently exposed as a tsundere, is covering Hunter x Hunter, Gintama 2012 and Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure (Triple helping of Doofus, everyone!)

Liam, after baking everyone a nice cake, is covering Zetsuen no Tempest

Justin, living happily ever after in Canadaland, is covering Space Brothers and Code:Breaker

First Impressions: Little Busters!

Little Busters

When Naoe Riki was upset and depressed as a kid, following the death of his parents, he got caught up in the activities of a group of people called the Little Busters, and they cheered him up and showed him that there was still fun times ahead of him. Just like that, the group of unlikely friends are still together nowadays, with them all in high school. By premises, it’s nothing special…I mean, I like the childhood thing, but that’s nothing special by today’s standards, heck, it’s not a remarkable scenario or setting or anything, a group of friends living together and having fun together. To make up for it, there’s  pretty nice chemistry between the bunch of them; there’s the straightman, the comedic one, the violent one, the tsundere female and the silent one.

I’m a fan of Key’s works and the like, but I have to admit that Little Busters never interested me. Clannad After nailed the growing up thing, and it never seemed to me like this show has anything special. I’m looking forward to the rest of it, but that’s not to say that I expect something groundbreaking or gravity defying. I haven’t read the source material so I don’t know what to expect, but to judge from the opening episode, this looks to be bottom of the barrel Key; like Kanon and Kanon 2006 was.