Little Busters! (Review)

Most of us here have experienced friendships that have lasted for many years. Seeing the person who’s been by your side since childhood and now still with you as you turn the corner to teenhood and soon adulthood. Anime really enjoys the concept of childhood friends and “Little Busters” is far from an exception. Created by the iconic visual novel studio Key (known for “Clannad” and “Air”), the series started simply enough as a visual novel back in 2007 where it soon spawned several different adaptations including dozens of manga and scoring an anime adaptation provided by JC Staff. “Little Busters” is a series that really embodies the concept of friendship and how those close to us can help us whenever we’re faced with personal issues in our own lives. This anime really took me by surprise since I didn’t think it’d be as great as it turned out to be, but i’m curious as to why I don’t see some folks talking about it much like Key’s other VNs that received anime adaptations. But what exactly makes “Little Busters” work? How does something like this portray friendships and drama? Well let’s see as we take a look into the emotional world of “Little Busters”.

The series starts out simply enough by introducing us to one of our protagonists Riki Naoe, a young boy who’s had a lifelong struggle with narcolepsy that was brought on from the trauma he faced after the death of his parents. Around that time he managed to be recruited by his friends Masato, Kengo, Kyosuke, and Natsume who welcomed Riki as one of their own friends. They soon call themselves the “Little Busters” where they’d often go around solving various problems. Many years have gone by and the gang are still as close as ever with their group name remaining consistent despite them being high schoolers now. The gang decides to brand the group as a baseball team but are sadly short of a few members that could fit the role. Kyosuke (the group leader) decides to let Riki be in charge of recruiting new members to the team which soon become permanent main cast members. Another addition to the plot is the group attempting to uncover the “secrets of this world” after a lone cat approaches them semi-regularly with written notes that instructs the group to do various tasks in order to uncover said secrets. From here on we see the tribulations of several members with some stretching from familial issues, insecurity, accepting death, and many more issues that some of the Little Busters end up dealing with. 

“Little Busters” houses a cast of 9 members who we follow throughout the series. Riki is seen as the more levelheaded out of the cast while Masato is definitely the loudest and considered the dumbest. His brags about his muscles definitely got some great laughs from me and the jokes never got old in my opinion. Natsume was the first female member of Little Busters given the fact she’s Kyosuke’s sister, and honestly one of my favorite characters in the show. Kengo can be seen getting into battles with Masato while Komari blends well with the other members. Kud is the group’s sole russian member with frequent mentions of her heritage and short stature popping up as lighthearted jokes. Other members of the Little Busters such as Kurugaya, Haruka, and Nishizono all provide their own quirks and personalities that makes them stick out from the rest of the group. Other recurring characters that aren’t in the group are typically Sasasegawa and her clique as well as their school’s disciplinary team lead by Kanata Futaki who’s not much for jokes or the usual shenanigans from the Little Busters. 

The artstyle for the series is exactly what you can expect from most Moé looking titles but is also slightly different from what’s seen in the original visual novels. Most of the characters still look very much faithful to the source material despite the updated look. Animation wise it looks rather polished with little in the way of any errors that typically pop up in other forms of animated media. JC Staff really did a great job with bringing the characters to life and some parts of me felt like this was an attempt to make the series look as close to how KyoAni would’ve done it. That might not be the case and it’s just me drawing a comparison, but half of the series felt like something KyoAni would’ve done given that they’ve adapted Key’s works before. I was also a fan of how their school uniforms look with their blend of black and red that separates itself from the usual look of uniforms seen in most anime within a school setting. Once again i really like their approach with the character designs to the series as the 2007 VN looks very much like it’s time according to the screenshots i’ve seen from it. Changing the artstyle from any series comes with it’s share of mixed results sometimes but here you can tell that JC Staff really showed off their talent with this. Riki’s more feminine look despite being a boy isn’t that hammed up while Masato looks like he belongs in a Shōnen series. Everything about their designs makes them stick out as being independent characters that could work in different series if possible and that’s really one of my favorite things about this anime. 

If there’s two things that shine in “Little Busters” that isn’t about the artwork, i’d say it’s within the writing and how it explores friendships. The writing within the anime is honestly some of the best i’ve seen in an anime centered around schools. “Little Busters” adds in a dash of drama to the mix as we see various members deal with their own issues with Riki’s narcolepsy occurring several times with him describing it as his connection to the world becoming shattered. Like i stated at the beginning, we see characters battling issues such as Komari learning to cope with the passing of one of her family members and Nishizono having issues with pushing past her own shyness. Others can be a bit on the dark side with one of the members being in a family that isn’t too welcoming of her due to the circumstances surrounding her father. Friendship and adolescence is a recurring theme in not just the anime but the series as a whole. Many coming-of-age issues are dealt with in a pretty good manor with nothing being held back. There are a few moments within the anime where things can get emotional but personally I wouldn’t say they’re the kind of moments that can get you choked up like in “Anohana”. I’m mostly speaking from the perspective as someone who’s never shed a tear while watching a single anime that’s aimed to have the viewer going through a tissue box after sobbing a lot. That doesn’t mean there weren’t moments where i felt extremely bad for some of the cast since the writers did a good job at giving them some believability to their core. 

“Little Busters” is yet another anime i’ve seen that lacks any issues with pacing so there isn’t a whole lot that i can really say here. Despite the motif of the series aside from the baseball element is that a cat is supposed to regularly give them notes that instruct them to do various tasks to learn the secrets of the world, this doesn’t happen too often as you’d think. Half of the time we’re treated to episodes that range from members battling past and present traumas to lighthearted moments of the gang helping out others. The dub for this anime might leave some of you feeling mixed about it but in it’s defense I don’t think it’s all that bad. Sure i think the dub is kind of good but there’s moments where certain lines can be a bit cringe at best. Maybe this is an instance of watching this series in it’s subbed format in order to get a better experience. The show’s opening theme greets us with some stellar guitar work before diving into a more pop-driven sound with visuals that help illustrate the kind of anime the viewer is getting themselves into. It’s a great opening but not something i can really consider to be a top-tier favorite of mine by any means. “Little Busters” in general is just the kind of series that manages to work well in about everything it does even with some minor flaws to it. 

Given that this is an anime adaptation of a visual novel, many things that happen in the game either take place in the anime or were cut entirely. This means that romance routes seen in the VN are mostly gone from both seasons of “Little Busters” which i can assume drew some mixed responses from those who are fans of the VN. I myself have never played it so I can’t exactly make a more detailed comparison to both. The lack of romance within the series isn’t something i’d consider a bad thing because I don’t completely believe in the idea of it being implemented into every genre or demographic since not everyone can give us compelling romance stories. “Little Busters” in my opinion works best as it’s own exploration of a young friend group navigating one another through high school as adulthood slowly creeps up around the corner. It really brought me back to a time where i had a reoccurring friend group that i hung out with before personal stuff came in and changed things. “Little Busters” just feels like the kind of show you can throw on whenever you’re bored or generally not that happy with how things in your life are panning out for you. 

In short, “Little Busters” is one of the best anime that i’ve seen all year and one that i can definitely recommend to those of you who want something both lighthearted but also dramatic. From friendship to navigations of youth, this anime manages to accomplish quite a lot within it’s two season run. The final verdict for “Little Busters” is a 10/10 which makes it yet another title that’s been able to gain a high review from me this year. Like a lot of anime such as this i had this one on my PTW list for a long time and finally took the time out of my week to sit through the whole show. I went into this with no expectations other than this being a typical school anime until it threw me a curveball and became a new favorite of mine. But enough about my thoughts, what are YOUR thoughts on this anime? Do you think the series is a great title that you can recommend to your friends? Or is this a poor piece of fiction to you? Let me know in the comments! Make sure to like and share this post with your friends as well as to check out my other blogs where i make anime/manga reviews, chronicle anime history, discuss anime related news, and make opinion pieces regarding the medium and the industry itself. See ya~!!