Saturday, 7 December 2013

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.

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