Completed: Little Busters!

not that it matters cause eventually they will make a season two... great.

two things about this review.
i'm going to be comparing it to other Key/visual art titles (just calling it Key from now on) is it unfair? yes but i feel i can't explain my opinion without comparing it.
I'm going to be spoiling most of it... casue i can't explain my opinion without outright spoiling things.

if you are curious about the show go watch it before reading the review.

So.... lets first bring up the order chart for Key titles.

1. Clannad/clannad after story
2. Kanon 2006
3. Air - but it only gets this high cause i enjoy the episodes that take place in the past.
4. Angel Beats... which maybe should be on the list cause it's not really Key but it kinda is so it's here.

Where does little busters sit based solely on it's first season?
5. Little busters!

now i should make it clear that i don't dislike any of these titles. Angel beats had great music but wasted potential that ended up being a rushed ending that kinda spit in the face of the series as a whole.

Little busters is worse then wasted potential... in fact this show had no potential for great thought provoking plot by the way it's set up... no this story is worse simply because everything is so bloody easy.

so... at a base level the story is about Riki, a boy who made friends while he was in the hospital dealing with the loss of his parents and the appearance of his Narcolepsy. This group is known as the little busters and they fight evil... you know as kids do.
so far i thought this was a really cute premise for a story and considering none of the other key stories deal with the childhood friends growing up and possibly going different ways story.. .though clannad kind of touches on is cause they leave highschool but still... i thought it was a different route from their other stuff.
and to be fair in season two that may be where they go.... sure as hell was not where they went for this.
instead now the little busters are in highschool, and they want to make a baseball team cause the leader deems it so.... but baseball teams need 9 members and it's just the 5 of them... and one wants to play kendo cause that's what he's trained for and one cannot possibly play two sports. (only saying that half sarcastically cause i happened to play Basketball and Volleyball and I was on the track team at the same time through Elementary school and i would have through highshcool but i moved a bit through the year and that made things tricky... anyways sarcasm over) '
anyways so they need to fill the team all the way to nine... but the little busters still kinda just wanna have fun so they invite friends they make along the way.
and by friends i mean Moe girls.

now i can hear you say, how can you bitch about Moe girls when you stated you liked all the titles key has done including clannad which is moe as hell.

The difference between Clannad moe and LB! Moe.

Nagisa vs Rin
Nagisa: a sickly girl who is a bit shy since she had to repeat a year due to missing a lot of school. She desperately wants to join the drama club but currently it doesn't have enough members to be considered a club... she in in fact the only member, with Okasaki and the others help she makes the club possible and gets to preform on stage. She feels guilt over her parents havign to give uptheir dreams because of her constant sickness but she still tries her best, in the end it costs her more then anyone was expecting but through hard work and torutre and tears everything works out in the end.

Rin: she's afraid of people and likes cats.
she enjoys fighting with the old little buster memebers since she's not afraid of them.
and she's a good pitcher.
...
NEXT

Fuko vs Komari and Kudryavka (Kud)

Fuko: the ghostly apparition of a girl who lies comatose in a hospital, she makes starfish sculptures as pseudo invitation to her sisters wedding. okazaki and nagisa help her make and spread the sculptures around school even though even those who have gotten them or are helping out seem to be forgetting fuko as her condition worsens... one character even goes to see her in hospital and forgets her completely.
still they fight it and in the end even though they don't remember why they all end up attending the wedding at the school and Fuko gets to congratulate her sister and eventually she may even wake from her coma.

Komari: She enunciate every single possible syllable to every character in every word, she had stars in her hair bands which are apaprently wishes and she has a mental breakdown every time she sees something die/dead.
but then Riki talks to her her and draws her a picture book and cures her PTSD....

Kud: Kud is a Russian girl raised on a little island nation that had a space program and her mom is a cosmonaut, she's named after one of the dogs that went into space so she sais Wafuu all the time (not the first character in key to have some stupid sound they make but this one grated on me as much if not more then Gao) and she is obsessed with space... however despite her genius level intellect she cannot understand english.... i don't blame her it's a stupid language.... anyways... tomorrow her mom is oging into space off that tiny rocket.
i don't need to say what happens next cause think of the most cliche plot point dealing with astronauts and trying to make the viewer cry...
so anyways she goes to the island to see if everything is okay, get kidnapped and hung in a cave naked with only her cape and then through the power of MAGIC NARCOLEPSY Riki sends her an item that helps her break free, she sees the southern cross and then shortly after is in japan cause you know.... we want to be told all that interesting stuff like seeing family in flash back...

are you seeing my point? Clannad is moe, i cannot deny this, but they moe is a side trait to make them more cute.... they are well developed characters first.

and don't even get me started on the obvious twins.... ah screw it i'm gunna anyways.

Kyou/ryou vs Haruka/kanata

K/R: Both like okazaki but one is much more friendly with him because she isn't as shy... still she tries to help her sister get with him even though they aren't the best match... they are too shy and awkward together.... in the end the friendlier twin wonders if theres more she can do even though part of her is happy the relationship is failing, it makes her feel bad so she ends up just avoiding them both, not for pity but because it makes her feel guilt. still she wants to be with him and even if it' just as a friend thats okay.

H/K: they know they are each others twin and we know they are twins cause thei have the exact same hue of Fuscia hair, are the same hieght and same age.... they do have different fathers and one was a scumbag and one wasn't... and one ofthe girls was treated horribly but the other one was shunned but in comparison led a happy life.
then they decide they don't care who's the bums daughter... end plotline.

yeah i'm not a fan of the twins in clannad but they have more depth then "omg who's my dad?"

i could compare the rest... not going to bother... it's similar... they are defined by their plot not my their emotions. I like characters that are driven by the life they have led not the traits that define them... so one more caprison.

Okazaki and Riki

Okazaki: his mother died when he was small, he and his father haven't gotten along especially since it's his fathers fault that he sustained an injury that stopped him from playing basketball, with no way to let out pent up stress and rage he spends a lotof his time fighting and starting over at his friends Dorm. He hates his school, he just wants to grow up and move far away from this town that seems to have cursed him. However one day he meets a girl at the bottom of the hill and finds he feels better of using all the pent up energy for productive measures instead of destructive ones.... however letting people into you life is never easy and the more he lets her and his other friends in the more he has to deal with his feelings instead of pushing them aside. The shit hits the fan and he fidns he's not able to follow through with his resolve... he misses out on the most important part of someones life and ends up following in his fathers footsteps... until he works his ass off to change it.... it gets sad but in the end it's all happy.

Riki: i already said his parents died and that he has narcolepsy (WHICH aside from being MAGIC at point only ever appears in episodes where he mentions it... i can think of one exception to this but every other episode it happens.... and in the exception he mentions it in the episode before....so... yeah...) and he prety much solves everyones problem and makes the little busters into a baseball team good enough to beat the coaches of all the other sports teams... to be fair they ahven't been practicing in baseball so i kinda buy it but he didn't really work for it...
and again.... defined by plot points and character traits instead of life experience.... okay so he sees himself as weak... great is he trying to change this? not the they very end? then why not just skip to that?

again it's unfair to compair two things that only sahre a tiny bit of similarity... i don't care.... i really looked forward to little buster cause the characters were colourful and nicely designed and there were more then two male characters.... and i was treated to this lazy excuse of a plot.

i said around the time of magic narcolepsy that if his narcolepsy is cured by the power of friendship i would greatly consider flipping something.... not a table cause honestly i'm too weak to manage that one. So far it hasn't happened but at the end of this season they teased the next one.... so probably another 26 episodes to cure the narcolepsy with the power of friendship.... great.

this show bugs me.... no one has to work for anything....
even the "if you do these i'll tell you the secret of the world" tasks they get are done with easy.... feed the entire school? it's tricky but no problem... put on a puppet show even though you never have and you need to make the puppets and it needs to be done tomorrow? no biggie!
considering how indepth and how small things were clues to everything in clannad and kanon to see this which is not subtle about a single thing.... i mean "oh it'll be bad luck if i watch my mom who i promised to go to space with rocket launch" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? we ALL know where thats going... and whats worse.... whats is SO MUCH WORSE... somehow they managed to get out.
um.... pretty sure they seal you up pretty tight in those... and even if you did get away.... it happened on the launch pad.... and the force when outward...... RAWR i cannot describe how mad i was at this.
even getting away from being kidnapped was simple.

but.... but it's not all bad right?
no....
so yeah...

The good:
I adore the intro song, it is so much fun to sing along to and it's just got this nice intro bit before the song starts that for some reason i don't know makes me smile.
the ending song is decent.
um... the ending preview has cute little sprite versions of the characters playing baseball as the spoilers for the next episode run.
the character designs are decent though their hair is getting a little ridiculous... looking at you twin with the ponytail.

the preview for season two looked good... mostly cause it had some drama.... but this looked like it had drama too and yeah... it doesn't.

the not so good:
the plot sucks
friends get together and play baseball even though they are terrible at it does not make for a good plot... it can be the side plot... adn they try to make it.... but honestly riki solves everyones problems thought magic narcolepsy is a much worse plot...
why couldn't they just go with The friend you have as kids may not be the friends you have as adults and how do you deal with that.... it looks like season 2 will touch on this but honestly i am not holding my breath. you had 26 episodes to have some semblance of plot that would make me give a shit about at least one of these characters... but i can't... cause they aren't characters... they are placeholders for character traits that instantly vanish after being helped so they just kind stick around but do nothing.

The bad:
i think i've been pretty clear on most of the things that would make the show conisdered bad.
except one.
The animation is terrible.
i'm sorry but maybe i just don't like J.C staff animation... it's just.... it has all the floaty qualities of moe with all the where do i plant facial features derpyness and it just doesn't look good at all.
Clannad looked stunning but clannad was done By kyo-ani and even though it's there fault a certain other moe style has come into exsitance they still have gorgeous animation.
so yeah everything i said above plus bad art.... ugh this show.

so why did i watch to the end?
i love all of key's other things even angel beats which is just kinda mediocre in my mind is still a good show... i had hopes this show would get better.... and it kinda got worse... whenever season 2 comes out i may give a few episodes a try but if something doesn't change then i'm sorry but i just cannot care about these people for about 26 episodes.

Between this and hakkenden and finding out how usagi drop ended i'm feeling super negative today... not to mention my wrist is in pain so i gotta slow down the drawing.... it's driving me nuts cause i wanna work on my new estelle piece but i can't even hold the tablet pen.... i need something to life my spirits....
yay for Virtues last reward and insanely pretty cases for my 3ds.

i think... this may be the last show from winter i need to review... except the ones that continued into the spring season of course. i wish i could leav winter 2013 on a higher note cause even though it had one of the worst shows i have ever seen it had a few gems...
spring 2013 doesn't look that hopeful unfortunately....
i'm going to be using the word moe A LOT during my first luck.
but until then thank you for reading to the end you crazy masochist.... i better get back to watching the eden of the east movie so i can properly finish my review....