Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Little Busters! episode 15

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Come along quietly and no one gets hurt ya'll.
See folks? Lots of anime the past few days. All waiting to get posted at once. Because that is how I feel like rollin this week. Just chuggin along. XD Little Busters! episode 15 time! Spoilers for....well the suffering of Riki.
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Good thing they sent the A-team to get Riki....
Episode Summary: Riki answers a knock at his door. It is Komari and Noumi. They tell him that something horrible is happen but do not expand on their sentence. They run off and Riki is like whatever I am spending time with my bros. Kyousuke is touched by the word bros and decides they must make their get together awesome since Riki passed up spending time with the ladies. Kyousuke decides talking about their love lives would be the most interesting thing to do and starts by saying...he doesn't like anyone but Riki has to answer the question. Riki is like I don't love anyone but Kengo says Riki clearly loves Kyousuke. Riki denies it so Kyousuke runs out in tears while Masato and Kengo worry about what would happen if Riki and Kyousuke got together. Riki catches up to Kyousuke outside and says since he loves the Little Busters he must love Kyousuke. Then the two bust out laughing and start chanting about the Little Busters. Riki then gets a text from Rin as she is forced to lure Riki to her room. He sneaks in very carefully and is almost caught several times. Kanata and her crew are seen patrolling the area and talking about how they are going to go down harder on rule breakers. With that said Riki finally makes it to Rin's room to see what the emergency is. Well the emergency turns out to be all the girls having a sleepover and they wanted to invite Riki. Riki tries to call Kyousuke for help but is kidnapped before he can tell the boys the entire situation. The other boys deduce what has happened and decide that they need to rescue Riki. They know that they are bigger than Riki and all can't just break in. So the boys decide that they will hold contests to see who will rescue Riki. This consists mainly of board games and such with Masato losing each time.
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Let's do our nails next! And talk about boys. Well not you Riki obviously.
Elsewhere the kidnapped Riki tries to leave the room but various patrols are taking place thus he has to stay hidden. Yuiko seems to be leading the sleepover fun and the first order of business seems to be showers. Despite this being a harem anime no one besides Rin seems bothered that Riki is a dude. Everyone is like lets shower together! All of the showers finally take place with Riki blushy so slightly maybe he might be bi instead of gay. Then it is Riki's turn to shower and his pajamas are stolen and replaced with Yuiko's uniform. Much to Riki's sadness he looks good in the outfit and Mio the Queen of cute starts snapping pictures away. Haruka and her nutty self decide to steal all of Rin's newspapers and start chopping people in the head. Mainly Komari because she doesn't seem to understand the game. Then everyone starts hitting each other in the heads and the one who gets chopped the most has to confess who they love. Everyone starts swinging away with Komari losing at one point and Rin and Yuiko having a face off. Due to the loudness of all this fun A-chan tries to get them to quiet it down before Kanata lays down the law. But there is way too much fun going on and Kanata with her hordes of followers come to Rin's room to yell. Riki thinks he has been caught but Kanata thinks he is a girl and scolds”her” for being a commuter student in the dorm rooms at night. Everyone sorta laughs and there is some boobie talk and more fun. Eventually everyone falls asleep and Riki is okay with everything as he thinks Yuiko planned this all to make Rin feel more comfortable. Riki does sneak out early in the morning and is greeted by Kyousuke who looks scary and tore up. He has come to rescue Riki if only to see him in the cute school girl outfit. Yay friends. THE END!
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Hiding from the women who don't want him.
What is this craziness? I thought I was watching a harem anime? I don't know what the heck is going on with all these strange people. Could this show be making fun of harems?
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XO A confession!!!!
I say that because it does appear the obvious pairing IS Kyousuke and Riki, no yaoi glasses involved. And Masato seems to really care for Riki as well. Riki goes to Kyousuke for help and advice. Kyousuke is the one who saved him from sadness. Kengo stated Riki loved Kyousuke and Mio stated that she was joking when she could make Kyousuke and Riki work but I don't think she was joking. It's not like a Chocolate, Elections, and Crazy where the gay character was treated like a joke and everything is hilariously over the top. It's more like a matter of fact. Like oh they love each other. Moving on as it is natural.
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GIRL POWER!!!!!
That and for a harem anime there has been NO CHEMISTRY between Riki and any other girl. After this episode I think there is even less. Negative chemistry. It is like Riki is one of the girls and the only way some of them would be interested in him if he cross dresses and pretends to be a girl. Like lets invite Riki for a slumber party because he is our gay best friend and we love him! He will do our hair and we will talk about boys and stay up all night eating sweets. No one wants your penis. You are a nonthreat. The only one who feared being naked in front of you was Rin and she feared everyone. Clearly you are not getting laid in this room. Fail harem is fail.
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Such a heart of gold.....
But if Riki is right and Yuiko invited Riki to the party to make Rin feel better...well I guess that was a nice thought. A crazy idea that made no sense and should have gotten them all in trouble despite the fact that Kanata is being portrayed as a fun killer. But still a nice idea. Rin is going to have to learn to either spend time alone with the girls or just do things in group with the boys as well. She can't really grow as a person if she depends on Riki or one of the boys coming to her rescue. Of course Rin should have called Riki to rescue her instead of him being kidnapped but that would be too silly.
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Have we ever rescued anyone...ever?
I do like the boys actually wanted to rescue Riki...even if that rescue never happened. That is like my friends appreciating the fact that I was only 7 minutes late for our trip to Downtown Disney. I always mean well but something always comes up. Thanks Kira for making momma late by the way. So yes even if the boys didn't rescue Riki at least they thought about it and had enough brains to know that they all couldn't go in for the rescue. Maybe just next time they should pick straws and call it a night.
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No action for Riki.
Despite this being a harem anime at its core (even if Riki saves the girls so he can have Hey Girl Hey time with them) there was very little fanservice in an episode that could have had a lot. We had bathing scenes with very little skin. The dialogue didn't get that insane. And since most girls don't wear bras with their pajamas Yuiko and her giant boobies weren't that outrageous. Yuiko would only find Riki sexy if he was a girl. So in an episode that could have gone very fanservicy things were rather tame.
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At least they didn't start talking about tampons and how ladies turn into serial killers while on their periods.
The girls and Riki did seem to have a lot of fun, some of it as Riki's expense. Was making him a cross dress a little cruel? I would say no...but they took pictures. So that is slightly on the you are the worst friends ever train...but I will get you back one day. XD It probably didn't help that Riki looked pretty good in the dress. That probably makes me a terrible person. The rolled up paper fight was a bit on the special side but I thought it was all in good fun. Yuiko and Rin probably took the game a bit too far but sometimes I get competitive too so that is understandable. And of course I was really feeling the amount of sweets being confused. Sweets for all!!!
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Take the newspapers and beat them!
Kanata is really getting a bad rap and I don't think she deserves it. This episode would almost be fillery but clearly it was there to show Kanata being a bad ass and how Haruka just wants to have fun. Kanata is just doing her job. And the girls were being loud. It is like when you stay in a hotel room and the people next to you WON'T SHUT UP! This is probably worse as it is a school and people might be studying and such. So Kanata...maybe you should punish them in different ways. Writing letters doesn't seem to work.
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I am not sure Kyousuke had the best intentions with this rescue after all....
So despite it being....special and none of the girls seeing Riki as a boy the night was fun. It might have been a little cheesy at times but that is what it's like to hang out with friends. Next week Haruka won't be having much fun when everyone learns that Kanata is her sister/twin but for now...let them eat cake. Lots and lots of cake.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello @Christina

I have a question for both you and Eternia (if she's reading this episode): Is this another filler episode?

I hope not. Because if it is, I might rage at the moon! We already had a filler episode with the ghost hands and eagle! What's wrong with the animation company?! They need to advance the plot/character development with the other girls! They can't afford to screw around when we have another set of girls to explore their typical sad past! Are they really going into a second season? Or are they cramming all the girls from the games into this show? To the moon with filler episodes! >:(

Yes. I agree with you, Christina. This show is heavily implying that Riki and Kyousuke are more than bros--like beyond bromance! And you're right that the girls treat Riki like he was their cross dressing, gay best friend. If the writers were indeed making a mockery of the harem anime, then they succeeded at Riki's expense. I don't feel any chemistry between Riki and the other girls either. To me, he will always be the girls' best gay friend or in the friend zone.

Can we please get back to the plot? Little Bustah ain't Bleach or Naruto.

That's all.







eternia said...

For as long as I know, filler episode(s) means the anime studio is inserting an anime original plot which is not present in the source material. By that definition, Little Busters have never had filler episode(s). All of them are present in the visual novel, in the common route.

You should know how most visual novel works, first. They always start with common route, which is a part of the novel which you have to read / go through no matter who's the girl you are going after. By selecting correct choices in the common route, only then you are going to enter a specific girl's route.

They are running out of episode, indeed. No matter what, it's impossible to cram the remaining material into the remaining episode. The visual novel is really damn long, you know. Let's see how JC Staff deals with it. But it's almost confirmed that there will be second season / ova / special of some sort...

Christina said...

Anonymous- It did feel pretty fillery as the usual "plot" plot of saving a girl didn't happen. But unlike a filler there was some potential important stuff going on. Like oh look someone is patrolling the halls and generally ruining fun. How will this affect Haruka later? That kinda thing.

It's like we are watching The Real Housewives of Crazy Anime Girls and Riki is the gay hairdresser that all the girls go shopping with and talk all night about boys. Not that anything is wrong with that but it is not feeling like a traditional harem anime. Sorta like that train wreck Starry Sky where all the guys liked each other more than the girl. XD Laying it on very thick indeed.

Eternia- Thanks for weighing in on this being a filler episode or not. It certainly felt like one but I guess if Riki jumped from one girl to the next fixing their brothers that would be really depressing and...well would make him seem like he doesn't care about each individual girl. At least this way everyone can have fun together in between the sadness.

A season two....well it worked with Clannad so maybe it won't be a bad thing. Nothing good can come from rushing and there are way too many girls for it to be 24 episodes sans the "fillers".