hermiston.selina - 2016-11-03 05:26:08

... I honestly decided to watch just the first episode because I was board and didn't want to rewatch or continue any other series. Then I began to watch the next episode, then season and then I found out I had pulled an all nighter and had 4:30 A.M. and I had to be at school in an hour and 30 minutes.
Honestly the story is nothing special if you compare it to FMA or steins;gate, but it's far from bad. The characters are all funny in their own unique way, well rounded and most importantly they develop though out the story. The humor is very unique and fits the story well #fightclub. personally like Kaze no stigma I haven't found another series that has the same feeling like Little busters (besides persona 4 golden (the video game)) and that is a little disappointing

fredrick.kilback - 2014-07-27 07:53:00

If the world is full of things we never wanted to know, is our only option to look away? You won't solve anything by looking away. — Kyousuke Natsume

Little Busters! is an anime adaptation of the Key Visual light novel of the same name. It is the fourth visual novel to be adapted from Key's works, and it is the first one to be animated by a studio other than Kyoto Animation. Does this difference in studios affect the storytelling? Lets find out!

The series follows Riki Naoe and his group of friends whom as children called themselves the Little Busters and played at being Champions of Justice! The group consisted of Kyousuke Natsume, his younger sister Rin, Masato Inohara, and Kengo Miyazawa. When Riki was younger and dealing with the death of his parents, the Little Busters took him in, and he became the fifth member. Now in high school, they realize that Kyousuke will be graduating soon and decide to do one last thing as the Little Busters before they go their separate ways. What do they decide to do? Start a baseball team of course....

Now if you weren't able to make that assumption on your own don't be alarmed, Kyousuke is known for coming up with absurd ideas, but the Little Busters follow in his wake like good little sheep, and the story begins.

Now if the baseball team aspect has you worried that this will be a sports series, don't be. The baseball team is really just a plot device used to introduce new characters to the story. At the start, the Little Busters only consist of 5 members. It becomes Riki's job to recruit other members.

Now here is Little Buster!'s strongest point: its characters. Being based off a romance visual novel, this should come as no surprise, and it is through character interactions that the rest of the cast gets introduced. Each of these new characters has a problem that they are dealing with, most of them being tragic, and along the way Riki helps them overcome their ordeals. Because of this, a lot of the cast members are highly developed, and it helps to round out and give life to the cast.

It is also through these character interactions that another important plot element gets introduced: the notes. Rin and Riki begin to find these notes tied to one of the stray cats Rin watches over. Each one gives them a task to accomplish, and once all the tasks are complete they will learn "the secret of the world." Unfortunately, this "secret" never gets explained nor do we learn who had been writing the notes, but I am sure it will be explained in Little Busters! Refrain.

Animation is done by J.C. Staff who are known for Golden Time, Ano Natsu de Matteru, and more recently Selector Infected WIXOSS. The animation didn't stand out as anything SUPER eye-popping, but it was about as average as what I have come to expect from new anime. 

The soundtrack has many different influences. One reminded me of the theme song from Sims 2, while another invokes awe. If there was one thing i didn't enjoy about the soundtrack, it would have to be the ending song. For whatever reason, it just didn't catch with me. 

I would suggest watching this series subbed because the dub is god awful. All the voice actors sound emotionless which doesn't convey how the characters are feeling in the more tragic scenes. But hey, what else would you expect from a Sentai dub? I know I am being biased here, but there are very few dubs that I have heard from Sentai that were done well.

All in all, I really enjoyed this series. Although i wouldn't say it is the best Key adaptation, it definitely is a series to be watched by any Slice of Life fan. The characters are strong an well written, and the story has enough mystery to keep you wondering what will come next. If you enjoyed this series, I would suggest watching Angel Beats for its similar styled  humor. 

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hayes.brenden - 2014-01-04 10:41:51

Yet another visual novel adaption gone wrong. Little Busters was not as good as it could potentially be. As an avid visual novel reader I knew there was something missing in this anime from the visual novel. Although it may be unfair of me to compare the adaption to the original source material but this is my honest opinion.

The biggest problem I had with this anime is the missing element of romance. Despite being mentioned in the genres, there was no romance at all which is nothing but an insult to the original source. One could argue that adding romance to the heroines routes would change the Riki's character into one different from the vn. But in my opinion J.C staff could have done something similar to Amagami SS or Yosuga no Sora. Even adding OVAs to the series.

Story 7/10

- Since the story was the major element in this adaption I will give them props for not ruining it. The character stories were the same as they were in the vn which was nice to see. Unfortunately because it was missing the romance and interrelationships between Riki and the heroine the impact of the arc was missing and so it obtained a somewhat decent 7.

Animation 8/10

- I have no complaints with the animation since the original source material was nothing but stationary images transitioning. Unlike other Key productions the character did not have eyes covering half their face which was nice to see. The animations were quite smooth and the art was great. The animations were at their peak during the comedic shenanigans, which is important when attracting the audience's attention. The animation was the best thing about the series so it recieved an 8.

Sound 7/10

- I have no complaints with the sound either since it follows the soundtrack of the original source material. The seiyuus of both the series and the vn were great. To be honest I for one didn't think there was anything special about the soundtrack both the series and the vn. Despite being a biased mark It received a 7.

Character 5/10

- Unfortunately due to the absence of romance the interrelationships were not great and were actually quite dissappointing. Despite Riki getting closer to the heroines during their arcs it seemed like he would distance himself right after and pretend nothing happened with that heroine as soon as she joined their group. These superficial connections gave it a measly 5. In this situation It normally would have received a 6 but because this series was supposed to have "romance" but instead the main character has dull moments with the heroines it received a 5.

Enjoyment 6/10

- This mark is somewhat biased but because I express my opinion I couldn't help but give it a 6. But this may be different for the other audience and those who have not seen the original source material.

Overall 6/10

- Despite having good animations and decent sound and an average story adaption it was unfortunately brought down by the character and missing elements from the original source. I recommend this to those who have not seen the original source. However to those who have seen the original source, don't bother watching this.

uwiza - 2013-11-11 18:54:28

Ah Little Busters, where to start . . .

I suppose I am a fairly "new" anime fan, and I often find that anime I really liked are branded as mediocre by reviewers. But you know what, I think this is a good thing - I try to keep my reviews as uninfluenced as possible by other reviews.

Little Busters is of course, made by Key. It receives a lot of negative reviews because it doesn't live up to other Key productions, such as the masterpiece that is Clannad. I don't think it is fair to compare it to something so good, so I try not to let that cloud my judgement.

The story is pretty light, nothing major happens. It's about a small group of friends who want to form a baseball team, and the group slowly grows as they enlist more members for their team. All the new members happen to ridiculously cute girls. Overall I liked the story, it is a charming, funny tale.

Animation quality is very high. The style is very similar to Angel Beats. Everything looks very nice, I was happy.

Ah the soundtrack. I really liked it. It was very very cheerful music, added a great happy atmosphere.

Onto the characters. All the girls are extremely cute. Very likeable. The lads are funny as well. My least favourite character was the main character, Riki. I like him, he's just my *least* favourite.

I enjoyed it this show very much. It is cheerful, feel-good show. Definitely worth the watch.

bailey.demetrius - 2013-08-15 00:49:47

Bear with me Little Busters! VN and Key fans. Bear with me.

I haven't played the VN at all, so I would like to keep the anime and VN as separate entities in this review. All my critiques are directed towards the anime, and not at all meant to condescend on the legendary VN counterpart.

I like the slice of life and comedy genre a lot. I also like cute girls. But there's comes a point in time when the amount of cliches and the melodrama weigh down on you, and you slowly clench your hair. And after a long 15 episodes of hair pulling and frustration, I witnessed a dramatic scene of a student council president breaking a student's favorite bench. And that's where my toleration for the show ended.

Little Busters! desperately tries to combine sports, slice of life, melodrama, comedy, and a whole array of concepts, and to be quite frank, it doesn't work at all. Our main character Riki is your "I had a terrible past as a child" type of deal but quickly made friends with a group known as the "Little Busters" that helped him through his tragic times. Riki is essentially as bland as you can get. He's weak, indecisive, but when girls are in trouble, he'll magically gains confidence and become a legendary savior. Yeah, one of those guys. Anyway, the group has some pretty interesting characters that weren't all that bad, however, things pretty much go downhill from there.

Fast forwarding to high school, well if you call it high school. J.C staff decided it would be smart to omit the whole school genre and therefore threw out all school related material. All the Little Busters! do is fight in the classroom, eat lunch, and recruit baseball members for their team. And speaking of recruiting baseball members, this "baseball" team basically gives our boy Riki an excuse to walk around campus and talk to random girls, because obviously a manly baseball team would suck. And you guessed it, he definitely picks up quite the amount of females. The female cast that's introduced doesn't bring anything new to the table, we have the perfect cool beauty, the short little adorable girl who shouts "wafu!", your silent, unemotional bookworm.

It's just an array of multi-colored hair cute girls, so I guess Little Buster succeeds in this aspect.

And sure enough, each of these females has some terrible awful past that totally seems out of place. Now we suddenly shift from recruiting baseball members into a full blown melodramatic case involving unbelievable sob stories complete with cheesy Key production supernatural twists. Riki, being our main character, is obviously devoted to helping all these females out with the best of his abilities, and of course, he always manages to fix everything. And in the end, they all go back to playing baseball and happy story all over again.

Sounds simple right? The problem is, J.C. Staff didn't flesh out Riki or any of the girls before or during this scenes. The characters felt too one dimensional and static, and thus caused these melodramatic scenes to be cheesy and generic. An example is what I mentioned before, the horrid smashing bench scene.

The smashing part takes place at 8:10. If that kind of melodrama brings you to tears, then congrats. Little Busters is an anime for you and you should stop reading this review.

There's also some "secret of the world" plot while all of this goes on, that apparently is supposed to be really important. However after 15 episodes, all we know is these secrets are notes tied to cats, and the slips say your generic ambiguous "what the hell does this even mean" quotes that in the end, you honestly don't care about this secret of the world.

Enough on the plot and characters though, let's talk comedy. The comedy is at best mediocre, revolving around character personalities. Gags get repetitive and used over and over. Most of the comedy is focused on the muscles freak show Masato, who is always losing in fights due to his stupidity and getting himself in silly situations. Our little adorable character Kud offers some Engrish and adorableness that isn't exactly innovative, but still provided a few bright spots here and there. Our recruiter Riki gets himself involved in all sorts of situations with the ladies (involving sleepovers), and Rin becomes catlike and scared of people who try to befriend her. Besides the fact, these happy carefree episodes in between the serious dramatic episodes feel really awkward and out of place.

I have nothing against the technical side of Little Busters! I think the opening song is great and I like the character designs. Nothing to complain about. It's just that it doesn't compensate for everything else.

The flat characters, the generic and supernatural melodrama, and the random ass baseball theme behind it didn't connect with me. As a big school comedy fan, Little Busters! was a huge letdown. That being said, I personally wouldn't advise watching this. I'd say play the VN, and stay far away from this.

But hey man, there's cute girls and melodrama. If you like that, go for it.

Thanks for reading my review, and as always, please leave any comments on my profile so I can improve my future reviews. Thanks!

alycia98 - 2013-07-28 23:07:46

Key, Key, Key . . . What do we have here?Little Busters! eh?If you're searching for stories like Clannad, Angel Beats, Kanon or any other Key work. This is something that you should watch. The Anime ver. is not as good as the Game ver. .. Because there are a lot of information withheld here. Though it feels like cheating since I know the story through the game, which actually made me cry more than Clannad.So for the objectives ... Story 8 / 10Frankly speaking, the Anime version toned down the "Tear Meter" a lot, it could have made more impact if the last episode had shown the person who knows the "Truth" of the world. But the anime did a great job on the Comedy scenes, no problem with that.Art 10 / 10Key's art is one of the best IMHO, Still improving and going strong.Sound 10 / 10No, really. Since there is no more score higher than 10, the music here has a lot of meaning, same with Clannad and Angel Beats, though if I was asked which music is rated higher, then there is a clear distinction of #1 for Clannad #2 for Angel Beats and #3 for Little Busters! ...Character 10 / 10One of the elements that keep the story going, being true to one's nature no matter the circumstances are, to improve throughout the series and make the watchers think about their own characteristics.Enjoyment 10 / 10It could have been better but it easily made 10 for me. Every episode gives you another meaning of "Watching" though it is as expected because it is from Key. Crying, Laughing aren't the only feelings you'll feel when watching this, especially in the Refrain! part.Overall 10 / 10Story may not have as much impact as the last two latest anime of Key but I swear that Refrain will make it up. Really, everything in the anime has a meaning (Well, maybe except for some comedy parts.). If you stopped watching this because you didn't like how it started. Heh~ I'm telling you... You really need to watch this in order to know what happens in the Refrain.

christopher26 - 2013-07-05 02:33:24

From the makers of Clannad and Clannad After Story comes the story of group of childhood friends who form a baseball team in a last ditch effort to create lasting memories before they all graduate and go their separate ways. The main character Riki is tasked to find more members (preferably girls) to join their team The Little Busters. However, beyond this simplicity lies much deeper subplots. These subplots concern the insecurities and hardships of the new female members of The Little Busters. Some are much more simple to comprehend immediately, while others are shrouded in mystery which isn't revealed until the last minute.To me, the story was interesting and unexpectedly good. This wasn't an anime that you could predict where it was going. It had unique scenarios that were believable and emotional. Where the anime stood the best was in its subplots.As far as main characters go Riki is one of the first likable main male characters to exist in a show like this. Usually, the main character has a mediocre personality and the viewer wonders why girls are so obsessed with him. However, Riki is kind, honest, calm, and caring to others. He puts other peoples' concerns in priority to his own concerns. Moving beyond the main lead character, I believe the other main characters were great to. It was good to see that the main lead didn't just have that "one guy best friend". He had three others with outrageous personalities. The main girls were great and had a lot to offer in the show. Although at times I thought the voices of a couple of them were a little unbearable, each girl was unique and special.The only objections I have to this show is that it didn't close some extremely interesting plot holes. Who is sending the letters? Why is Riki's narcolepsy so significant? What is the secret of this world? If the anime closed some of those holes I would have gave it a better grade, but ultimately I still think this is a good anime. I would suggest it to those who are looking for slice of life, deep character development, and unique subplots. I would highly recommend it to people who liked Clannad and Clannad After Story.

wilburn24 - 2013-06-28 03:40:12

A lot of people seem to blatantly hate it for the fact that it doesn't follow the original source material or won't even try watch it based on other people's hate towards it or because it's adapted by J.C. Staff and not traditionally KyoAni. I can't blame you guys, even I was surprised. But you see, I think J.C. Staff did quite a good job at adapting something that's partially romance from each heroine to something that's following it's true message. This does not mean that it won't have any romance, It's just a slightly different interpretation to focus on the plot. I'm sure for those of you who played the VN, remembered the words that popped up during the opening sequence:- What "Adolescence" do you have? - Do you remember "Childhood"? and most importantly"The irreplaceable one existed here" or for those who played the expansion it also adds the lines "This will remind you that you have to recollect 'Adolescence' " these words while they don't exist in the anime's opening, oddly play an important role as opposed to it's VN counterpart where it's partial towards it (unless you want to count Refrain, which in this case, it fits the category.) In the anime, it sacrifices the romance but focuses on friendship. now mind you, that's the one element that displeases fans of it's source material. As Riki meets all the members of the Little Busters, they progress towards personal problems, misunderstandings, and a lot heartbreak. That's where Adolescence comes in and how do they come to a closer bond with each other? with recollections of unfortunate childhood pasts, doubtful thoughts, they form a strong friendship, henceforth "The irreplaceable one existed here." Sound: 9Key makes the most excellent composed music that fits each route, whether depending on the character who shows up or staring into the background immersed a long each track. Character: 9Each character is lively and connects so well that you wouldn't tell much of a difference compared to it's VN. with speculation, you would be surprised and think "Ah, so THAT'S how this one scene works." and the way that particular character who's in it expresses their emotions quite well. Art: 7 I am strongly mutual about it's animation. It's kind of bland, but tolerable and during the beginning you might feel an "Angel Beats!" vibe going on. the environment is nothing short of awe-inspiring and bright. Enjoyment: 8It was a fun ride and yet it's not quite over is it? I personally connected with the characters so well beyond their struggles and how they resolve them. It might take you quite awhile to get a hold of things, but before you know it you'll start to cherish and create a wonderful memory of them. All you need is patience and a set mind of things which will all be worth it in the end. We're only just getting started. Overall: 9/10 It reflects and reminds you on life, It's about friendship and all heart.