Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 13 (Completed)

Riki and Rin have chosen to ignore Kyousuke's pleas to live on and prepare to move forward without their friends, but can they really save their classmates?  Before this can even be considered, Naoe needs to overcome his narcolepsy.

To do this requires him to revisit the very start of his troubles - not just the accident that claimed the lives of his parents which went on to cause his first bout of narcolepsy, but all the way through to his birth and the innate understanding that "to live means to lose".  Accepting that living your life means losing things dear to you gives Riki the confidence to awaken and face the difficulties before him, and thus he and Rin can go about trying to rescue their friends from the bus crash threatening to snuff out their lives at any instant.

Between their hard work and quick thinking, the pair manage to extract all of their friends aside from Kyousuke - first, from the immediate danger of the bus, and then up the hill to outright safety.  With Kyousuke's bravery having led to him plugging the coach's fuel leak with his own body, he's the last to be extracted, and not a moment too soon... although this trauma leaves him in a coma, we're ultimately left with a happy ending as the group are reunited and given the rest of their lives to look forward to.

While sudden happy endings often feel less than satisfying in anime, Little Busters actually felt agreeable in this regard - Kyousuke's sudden transition from coma patient to fighting fit aside (which was at least in character), the rescue of the group by Rin and Riki felt like a believable and worthwhile outcome to what had gone directly before.  Whether this strong ending is enough to justify everything that went before is certainly arguable, and the story as a whole still doesn't fit together in as satisfying a fashion as the likes of Clannad, Refrain did at least provide some powerful moments to justify all of its setup, even if it's perhaps the weakest adaptation of a Key work that I've seen.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 12

It's time for Riki and Rin to face up to the harsh realities of the real world to which they're about to be returned - a challenge which is easier said than done.

As promised by Kyousuke, the pair awaken to find themselves in pain and aching all over, but ostensibly safe a suitable distance from the devastating bus crash which seems to have taken the lives of all of their friends.  Having picked themselves up and dusted themselves down, Naoe realises that they need to get away from the area before the bus's leaking fuel catches alight, but having made good his escape with Rin, Riki simply can't followed Kyousuke's instructions and worry only about his and Rin's own survival.

Thus, Riki turns and heads back to the crash site in the hope of saving his friends and classmates - a decision made all the more difficult by what looks set to be an attack of narcolepsy.  Meanwhile, having left Rin alone in safety she has to face her own emotional distress, as memories of how Kyousuke saved her from darkness and introduced her to myriad friends comes flooding back.  From trying to avoid and hide away from the terror confronting her, Rin uses these memories to steel herself and find a more positive outlook as she too returns to the crash site.  But can anything be done to alter the destiny of Rin and Riki's friends?

Having pitched its emotional content pretty much perfectly in its previous episode, I'd argue that this week's Little Busters! Refrain tries a little too hard to expound upon those emotions - it isn't entirely misplaced, but Rin's feelings are readily apparent without spending half of an episode focusing upon them and why they exist.  This results in the show's penultimate episode losing a fair amount of its emotional energy and slowing its pace, which leaves me curious to see where and how it's going to end with only a single episode left to run - hopefully it can find its way to deliver a strong climax, given that it still has a fair amount to work with.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 11

The core of the Little Busters have been reunited, but time is running out as the truth threatens to encroach upon Rin and Riki's world.

With the rest of the school's populace gone and even the sky no longer moving, there's one last thing to be done - to play some baseball, of course.  For Naoe and Rin this is just another opportunity to play with their friends, but for the other trio this is an opportunity to say a last goodbye with a smile upon their faces.

Once Masato vanishes right in front of Riki, there's nothing for it but for Kyousuke to tell him the truth - the horrific bus crash on a school trip wasn't a disaster that befell another nearby school, it was a tragedy that befell them.  As their dying wish, Kyousuke and his friends desperately hoped for a way to allow their two most fragile friends to grow and mature enough to cope with the aftermath of an accident from which only they will survive, with their sheer will creating the world they now reside in - an endlessly looping semester which enabled Kyousuke to try and outfit Riki and Rin with everything that they needed to get along in the world in spite of the horror they have to face.  With the truth out, it's time to say goodbye to Kengo, then Kyousuke, as the world around the group finally crumbles entirely.

I don't think I have to elaborate on how many times my patience has worn thin with Little Busters as a whole, but I have to give it credit where it's due for this strong, emotional pay-off - an eye-catching twist and some heart-rending goodbyes ensures that it has no shortage of ways of pulling at the viewer's heart strings.  Whether this is enough to justify a lot of the less compelling content that came before is another matter entirely, but if the final couple of episodes can further build on the core of the story now that it's finally been delivered in an impressive fashion, at least Refrain has a good opportunity to claim a strong ending for itself.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 10

The core of the Little Busters have been reformed thanks to Riki's hard work, and it's time for the gang to pay Kyousuke a visit...

As the quartet head to Kyousuke's room, it's the main himself who becomes our guide and narrator for this episode, sending us into a recap of sorts that skims over all of the events of the entire series from his point of view.  In other words, this is the point where we finally get to see some of the wiring under the board and understand Kyousuke's place in proceedings.

As has already been made clear, Kyousuke has been a guiding hand throughout the events that Rin and Riki have been facing - however, it's the true scale of his influence that is revealed here, as he talks of effectively creating an entire world around the two characters and seeding that world with everything required for the pair to learn to grow, mature and outgrow their shortcomings.  When they failed, the world would be reset so that they could start over until they got things right - a plan which seemed to be working perfectly until Kyousuke's powers began to dwindle and his final attempt to ensure that Rin and Riki are ready for the true problems that face them goes badly wrong.  However, Riki's efforts to rebuild the Little Busters seem to have undone all of this damage - is it finally time for Kyousuke to claim victory and move on to reveal the secret of the world to his charges?

Although there's still plenty left to be explained, this proved to be a simple but pretty satisfying episode of Little Busters - sure, it was a little like a recap episode with a commentary track laid over it in places, but there were some striking visuals intermingled with this and narration that confirmed many of our expectations while still holding enough surprises or unexplained moments to keep some intrigue hanging in the air.  It seems as if the next couple of episodes will be the real make or break moment for the series, so we shall have to see what that offers to really pass any judgement, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 9

Having won Masato over from whatever insanity had gripped him, Riki's next target in his reforming of the Little Busters is Kengo.

Just like Masato, Kengo immediately knows what's up when he's approached by Naoe and he wastes no time in warning him off trying to get him to join his merry band.  With no obvious way of persuading Kengo appearing before him Riki talks to Kyousuke, who lets slip one slither of information - that Kengo is lying about something.  A brief look at Kengo's behaviour soon makes it clear what that lie is - either his previous injury has now healed and Kengo is continuing to pretend it's a problem, or the injury was never real in the first place.

Either way, Riki now knows what he must do - that is, to challenge Kengo.  With the thought of playing kendo to decide whether he should join the Little Busters out of the question, it's inevitably to baseball that he turns as the source of his challenge.  Kengo can't say no to such a request, but his determination to win is strong, and perhaps more importantly for the viewer he lets far more slip about the state of the world and the secret being kept from Naoe - in short, events keep repeating, and it seems as if Kyousuke's failed grand plan was an attempt to break the cycle to whatever ends he was hoping for.  In a similar vein, Kengo sees victory over Riki as a chance to move forward, but perhaps fate is conspiring to ensure that this isn't the case...

Although I still feel like Little Busters! Refrain is keeping its cards a little too close to its chest, this week's episode managed to avoid being a rinse and repeat of last week's instalment by letting a few details slip out, thus allowing us to at least start building a picture of what's going on and why Riki and Rin are being kept in the dark.  It has the potential to be some intriguing stuff so hopefully the revelations will keep on coming, as they surely must to keep this series moving now that it's finally slowing glimpses of getting on track with just a few episodes to go.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 8

Trying to recreate the Little Busters from their recent adventures as a baseball team have proved fruitless, but that isn't the end of the matter for Riki, as he sets his sights on going back even further into the group's history to effectively recreate it from the very start.

After quizzing Rin on how Kyousuke started the Little Busters, he learns that his first target is to be Masato, although directly approaching him and asking him to join the gang really doesn't go well at all, with Masato asserting that all he wants to do is to be the strongest while warning both Riki and Rin to stay well away.  This is no idle warning either, as it soon comes to light that Masato is wandering the school randomly punching people's lights out for what seems to be no reason whatsoever.

As a result, Riki takes another leaf out of Kyousuke's book, devising a trap to ensnare Masato so that he can talk to him and win him over.  Even this is reckoning without the full strength of Masato, as he overcomes attempt after attempt to slow him down, leaving Naoe with nothing for it but to abandon using his brains and resort to brawn to get his way.  For his part, it seems that Masato has entered some kind of hallucinogenic state that causes him to see everybody as a copy of himself, because.... oh, I'll be damned if I know, does anything that Little Busters adds to its narrative make sense any more?

I can certain appreciate what Refrain is trying to do at this point, but yet again its clumsy handling of its ideas seem likely to hole it under the surface - I'm all for some mystery and touches of the supernatural as per other Key works, but on this occasional subtle touches along those lines have been replaced with a sledgehammer to beat the plot into submission whenever the story requires it.  I keep on hoping that everything will be explained at some point, but there's now so much material in the "stuff that needs to be explained" inbox that it's going to need a full-time staff to keep track of it, again fueling my suspicions that aspects of the story are just making things up as they go along - there's a big difference between not holding the viewer's hand to leave them to figure things out and simply making no sense, and Little Busters is veering dangerously close to the latter right now.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 7

Their attempt to run away ending in failure, it seems that everything has changed as this seventh episode of Little Busters! Refrain begins.

Perhaps the most marked shift here belongs to Kyousuke, who returns from job-hunting in Tokyo a broken man with no interest in his friends, instead locking himself away in his room, reading manga, and generally being decidedly emo.  Things aren't much better for Rin, who has reverted back to a kind of child-like state where she wants nothing to do with grown-ups, or even Masato and Kengo, responding only to Rin and even then in a half-hearted manner.

With Kyousuke effectively out of commission and the rest of the cast missing completely, everyone seems to be looking to Riki to take the lead and find exciting and entertaining things for the remaining group to do - not exactly his forte, it has to be said.  Ultimately, all he can do is focus on making Rin happy, which also proves to be easier said than done in her current state.  When she responds positively to an opportunity to play baseball however - something which to Riki's knowledge they haven't done for many, many years - perhaps he's stumbled on the perfect opportunity to reunite the old gang?  Not so, for both Kengo and Masato want nothing to do with it, leaving Naoe and Rin contemplating the fact that they might just be the only ones who haven't been let in on a particularly important secret.

Although I'm willing to cut it a significant amount of slack for the fact that it's clearly done deliberately, this is certainly a discombobulating episode of Little Busters, throwing us with gusto into the next stage of its story without doing anything to clean up the events at the end of the previous instalment or give us any grounding into where we are now.  This certainly helps to bring us into line with Riki's own experience, which is a confusing existence of half-remembered events, half-truths and things which don't add up in his mind, although I'm not sure even that knowledge makes it a particularly satisfying viewing experience for at least the first half of the episode.  That said, I am now really intrigued as to what's going on, so even if its story-telling is a little flat it's still doing enough to drag me along for the ride.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 5

All that purportedly now sits between Rin, Riki and the secret of the world is a spot of volunteering at school - what could possibly go wrong here?

So, with this final task delivered by Lennon at hand, this new couple steps up to the plate and volunteers when required of them by their homeroom teacher.  It turns out that what they're volunteering for is the duty of escorting an inspector and his colleagues around the school - something which proves a little tricky for Rin given a combination of her shy nature and her tendency to be rather blunt.  Still, everything seems to go smoothly, and even Rin's happiness shines through her dour exterior sufficiently for the inspector to take note of it.

Unfortunately perhaps, Rin's personality proved to be a little too noticeable, as the next thing we know she's been selected to take part in a student exchange programme with a school currently reeling from a bus crash which killed a number of its pupils.  Although Rin has agreed to think the prospect of taking part in this exchange programme over, Naoe is dead set against it and initially gets Rin's agreement that it isn't a good idea.  However, racked by guilt that he's simply press-ganged Rin into her answer, Riki ends up shifting his stance and insists that Rin should go, making a mess of their relationship in the process.  With Rin all set to leave, Naoe starts to piece together the true purpose behinds all of the tasks brought by Lennon, and it leads to only one conclusion as to who was responsible... Kyousuke.

As keen as I am to get more purchase on Kyousuke's character as he moves slowly but surely towards becoming a focal point of this second season of Little Busters, the way this week's episode panned out with a view towards that goal isn't one that I can ignore... and by that I mean that it was almost willfully bad.  Having already felt like the sudden blossoming of Rin and Riki's relationship seemed forced, it was as of nothing compared to the story's attempts to force them apart - the whole "let's set up an exchange programme to cheer up the students of a school where a lot of pupils died" thing I can give a free pass to, but Naoe's monumentally stupid behaviour in trying to persuade Rin to go felt totally out of character.  Having said that he wants to let her make her own decision, why did he then go and effectively force her to made the decision to leave?  It makes no sense aside from as a necessity to progress the plot, and that really isn't good news for a series where creating believable characters and interactions between them should be the key.  Perhaps it can lead on to better things in the long-term, but boy was this a bad way of going about it.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 4

Kurugaya seems to have vanished without a trace, but it's some of her parting words that are playing on Riki's mind as this week's Little Busters! Refrain begins - a demand that he look after Rin.

This request is brought into relief yet further by a stalker of Naoe revealing herself before dealing him an impromptu confession to ponder.  Happy though he is to find a cute girl telling him that she loves him, all he can think about in the aftermath of this confession is Rin...could this mean that his romantic feelings are, in fact, dedicated to her?  This seems to be further cemented by Riki's sense of concern when Kyousuke tells him that a boy confessed to Rin not so long ago before being promptly shot down, but while Naoe spends his time fretting it seems that the object of all that worry has no such qualms and straightforwardly suggests that they should start going out.  Well, that's that then, I suppose.

With that agreed upon, all that remains is for the pair to tell all of their friends, all of whom are happy for this new couple, albeit tinged with a little regret and jealousy here and there.  It's Kyousuke's reaction and subsequent actions which garner the most interest, as there is clearly more to this actions, responses and knowledge than meets the eye.  With cat-cum-messenger delivering Riki and Rin a supposedly final task to handle however, perhaps all of these elements are finally coming together.

In spite of some pretty hefty tonal shifts throughout this episode of Little Busters, it actually worked pretty well - its foreshadowing is blatant but offset pretty well by a continued sense of mystery, and Riki and Rin's relationship just about manages to come off as feeling like something that would actually come about rather than purely being foisted upon them by the show's narrative requirements.  I'm still not enjoying this series anything like as much as other Key visual novel adaptations, but I have to admit that my curiosity on where this show is headed has been well and truly piqued by this point.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 2

Naoe's latest bout of narcolepsy seems to have brought with it a strange sense of deja-vu - not that this is his major concern, as he awakes to find that Kurugaya has been taking care of him during his sleep.

Being the person that she is, it seems that Kurugaya can't resist teasing and flirting with Naoe, making him increasingly flustered before telling him that she likes him.  Naturally, this confession of sorts plays on Naoe's mind greatly - was she being serious, or was it merely part of her teasing?  Unfortunately, his easy to read nature ensures that soon Kyousuke and company are also teasing and probing their friend on what he's pondering, and before he knows it they've engineered a plan to help him confess to Kurugaya under the light of fireworks, much to the irritation of Rin.

Cheesy it may sound, but it's a plan that is executed upon almost flawlessly, and before we know it Kurugaya and Naoe are left alone in a classroom watching the fireworks together when Naoe dropping his phone gives away the grand plan.  This, however, is where things become odd - the next thing we know we seem to have returned to the beginning of the day once again, and while Naoe has obvious recollections of what has occurred nobody else around him seems to.  Was it a dream?  Or further déjà vu on his part?  Something is most definitely not as it should be here.

Although you've probably noticed that I'm not exactly a huge Little Busters fan for the most part, I am at least intrigued by where this story arc is headed and what it intends to deliver next - as long as it isn't Endless Eight all over again hopefully it'll be something worthy of that intrigue.  That aside, this was a pretty decent episode, that mixed its mystery and confusion with just the right amount of goofy comedy to keep things moving and entertain - something that this series has forgotten to do too frequently in the past.  Maybe things are looking up for Refrain after all, although perhaps it'll simply get stuck in a loop of flattering to deceive.

Little Busters! Refrain - Episode 1

Just as Clannad had its After Story, so Little Busters has its Refrain, meaning that this autumn sees this Key visual novel adaptation continue as it reunites its cast of students and their baseball team that isn't.

Despite suffering from a strange dream in which someone seemed to be crying out for his help, Naoe awakens to find some fun times ahead, courtesy of the first ever Little Busters pancake party - cue far too much eating and lots of goofing around as the gang have fun together for the first time since the baseball match which closed out the first series.

Of course, this series being what it is drama is never far away, and this time Kurugaya is the centrepiece of it all courtesy of some fellow students who seem to have taken exception to her demeanour and past behaviour and are determined to make her pay.  To get their revenge, the two girls at the forefront of their plot seek out not Kurugaya directly, but instead her friends, targeting Kud and Komai for maximum effect.  The game is soon up however, and to say that Kurugaya is none too pleased at someone trying to bully her friends would be an understatement.  Such is the viciousness of Kurugaya's temper that she and Riki have to run to avoid the attentions of a teacher - an escape which takes them to the broadcasting club's room, in turn triggering a strange memory which Naoe simply can't reconcile as her drops into another bout of narcolepsy.

So, Little Busters is back, and judging by this first episode Refrain still feels like it's inherited a lot of the same problems as its predecessor.  In an opener that feels a little rushed at times, the tonal shift between its light-hearted moments and drama are simply too severe to the point of being jarring, and because of that aforementioned fast pace nothing really has time to sink in to have any impact.  That said, Little Busters did at least have some notable moments within its first season so it's far from a complete write-off, and perhaps if it can recapture some of those more successful efforts over the course of Refrain my early concerns will prove unfounded.