Little Busters Refrain episode 3

YAWN!!! So sleepy. Why do I wait until the last minute to do everything? So behind in my life. The good news is (well for anime) that the next Disney trip isn't until after Thanksgiving. Disney World is tons of fun but really eats into blogging time as Orlando trips are an internet free zone. XD Gotta learn to balance work, fun,...and more fun?

My face the entire episode.

While I learn to do that here is another episode from Little Busters Refrain. Episode 3 and Riki has already lost his mind folks. Not a good sign for this season.

This is Riki's not fun face.

Episode Summary: Riki replays the last few minutes of episode 2 in his head. It is still June 20th. Masato and Kengo are looking at him like he has lost his mind. Riki is like no today is the 21st, think of all the stuff that happened yesterday. Everyone continues to look at him weird, then act like none of this matters. Riki takes off to find Yuiko who is playing her piano. She greets Riki the same way as yesterday and Riki tries piecing everything together, that it is repeating. He tries to verbalize what he is thinking without looking like a crazy person. Calmly. Yuiko faces away from him as she looks rather guilty. She does confess everything does look like it is repeating itself. She smiles sadly, saying she probably won't experience another night like again. Riki goes to say something, like there are more fun times ahead but Yuiko panics, dropping her cup. When Riki goes to pick up the pieces Yuiko flings herself on Riki, asking to staying like for a little while longer. As they sit there all sad like Kyousuke is sitting in the rain looking pensive. That night Riki thinks about how sad Yuiko was and how things aren't adding up. He falls asleep near his little make shift table. Riki seems to dream about the repeating timelines.....and wakes up on June 20th. This time everyone is getting ready to go to class as Riki freaks out on them. Rin comes in and says the only thing that is weird is Riki panicking. All the things Riki says happened yesterday or the 20th really happened a while ago. Rin especially shrugs off Riki's panicking. They hand him his notebook for the field trip and go to class. Everyone acts normal as Riki sits in class knowing this is all wrong. He knows it is June 20th but now things are slowly changing. He starts to snow outside and when Riki points out how insane this is no one cares.

This episode was apparently brought to you by a field trip...

Slowly the world starts losing it's edge? Like a water painting or something. Riki starts to lose his mind as the day keeps repeating and repeating, a little different each time. He feels as if he is slowly falling asleep and forgetting something really important. He tries to hold onto reality as Kengo and Masato seem less and less conscious with each timeline. Riki then remembers Kyousuke. Kyousuke is amazing! He surely can fix anything. Only he calls Kyousuke and gets no answer at all. Riki sorta runs around the school looking for him and finds Yuiko playing the piano again. The world really starts to get special, with the snow taking up reality. Riki wonders how long ago it was that he wished these days would last forever with Yuiko. He seems to think he is the cause of all this madness. Yuiko tells Riki that it is her that is causing the loop and that he can't blame himself. Riki is like what the heck is going on, I don't understand anything. Yuiko said this was her wish, her dream for this moment to last forever. She explains to Riki her sad childhood. She was a high achiever in everything in life. Yet she experienced no emotion at all. Kids thought she was weird and even her own mother cried over the idea of her kid being a robot. Nothing really effected Yuiko. That is until Riki came into her life. He interested her and she soon started to spy on the Little Busters, eventually joining them. This past month had brought out the emotion in Yuiko and she was truly touched. She got to experience new things and have friends. She wished this could last forever....this dream was her last wish. She says that when Riki wakes up he will forget this all. Riki gets upset, saying he doesn't want to forget. Yuiko gets a little weepy, saying she wished she could have experienced love but now she has to accept her fate and Riki must go on to protect Rin. Riki looks like he wants to ask more but it fades to happy times with the Little Busters with a TV screen looking like it is experiencing static. When the static ends Riki wakes up and appears to be happy, like nothing ever happened. THE END!

Poor poor brain.

What the hell is going on?! Do you see my confused face? So very, very confused. Is everyone else confused? Well anime only people. I think the way the episode ends it was suppose to be like TADA everything is fixed, nothing to worry about. Clearly that is not the case.

Answer: Too many.

It is undetermined how many times Riki experienced June 20th. In this episode alone it looked like 4 times but given how Riki was acting it might have been more. Sorta a cross between Endless Eight and Madoka. Only more like Madoka since Endless Eight showed every single timeline with the tiny variations. Having flashbacks, losing my mind. But this episode showed some repeats and some new material.

Your no eyes tell me differently.

Before the end of the episode I was going to question if Youko knew what was going on. I was always going to assume yes but now I am unable to determine how much she knows. She seems to think she is the cause of everything but we the viewers know it is really Kyousuke calling the shots. It has to be Kyousuke. Yet Yuiko claims it was her doing. Each timeline Yuiko was giving Riki more and more information. When Riki experienced the second June 20th (the one he was aware of that is) he questioned Yuiko if she knew what was going on. She had the no eyes on. No eyes means the character is so depressed their eyes sink into their skulls for the sadness/truth of the matter is overwhelming. Only we the viewers saw the no eye face. During the first repeat Yuiko claims (after Riki begged forever) that this day has repeated itself. But instead of making Riki feel better she was like forget about the fireworks. THANKS FOR THE HELP!

Oh Riki....me thinks more than just this arc is repeating...

And that was basically it. Like...what the hell is going on? See this is why I am assuming Kyousuke is the timeline resetter. Either way though I found it super odd. If Yuiko wanted these happy times to last forever....where was she? If she wanted to be with Riki and experience love and that was her wish why was it Riki seeking out Yuiko? Shouldn't she be taking advantage of this timeloop, whether she or Kyousuke caused it? Like look Riki let's do this and let's do that. Instead Riki spent the most time with the boys. How was this beneficial to Yuiko? Riki was just losing his mind. He and Yuiko weren't growing any closer and Riki wasn't enjoying this time of never ending FUN! So it all seems pointless. Yuiko wasted her wish and Kyousuke was giving Yuiko a chance to...have her love. So I have no idea what is going and even if I did it would make no sense.

Ya think? Kengo and Masato are passed out in the background.

How did everyone else fare in this repeating timeline? Well....interesting. The other girls didn't act any different. Just life as usual for them. Even Noumi which I think is weird as she should know something after that conversation with Kyousuke....Rin seemed better as most of the conversation about Youko never took place. If that was the point of the repeats, to make Riki forget about his happy moments with Yuiko, it didn't really make Rin closer to Riki. But she isn't angry now and Yuiko did say take care of Rin so........Masato and Kengo seem to have fared....not so well. This might have happened to everyone and we just saw Kengo and Masato more. Like maybe the others were acting tired and drained too. But Masato and Kengo looked tore up. Like they weren't aware of what the time loop but the toll was still being taken on their bodies. Like too tired to do this again....

Not weird enough for Rin to care that much of course.

This is all confusing. Why weren't the kids more concerned about Riki?! They have no idea about the loops. So they were lalalaing like normal. But Riki was acting insane. Like distressed and upset and all the other words for that. So people brushing Riki off when he was acting this way was...surprising. The rest of the time anyone is the tiniest bit upset everyone is like ARE YOU OKAY?! You aren't?! Riki got fix them!!! But since Riki does the saving no one is there for him? It just felt sad. Like everyone is on drugs. Like what, Riki is upset? I can't see anything wrong with this. Snow is normal in July ya'll.

Where you be Kyousuke?

Oh and where is Kyousuke? Kyousuke where are you? Does anyone care about him either? Riki almost forgot too. Which would be easy to do if all Riki was doing was losing his mind and staying his room/classroom the whole time. Kyousuke usually bursts in with some crazy idea. Which is slightly confusing. If the 20th is pancake day we should have seen Kyousuke. That wasn't Kyousuke's idea. Kyousuke's idea was the fireworks to thank the girls/get Riki with Yuiko. Unless Kyousuke planted the ideas in the girl's heads...So each timeline is super different apparently. Super different. So...there was no Kyousuke. Riki thinks a lot of Kyousuke, saying that Kyousuke knows everything. Oh how close Riki is to the truth. Maybe Kyousuke wasn't around because he wasn't up to seeing people. Like Mason and Kengo bad. Passed out from all this mayhem. But why would a timeline that was about forgetting Yuiko involve Kyousuke being forgotten as well?

In class instead of being at the pancake party? Also SNOW!!!

I guess I should talk about that more. How the timelines were different. Because they were super different and it doesn't really make much sense. What was the change that caused everything to be...well random? This was after the baseball game. This is a fact. There should have been a celebration of some sort. Even if it changed day to day. Like cupcake party, pizza party. Because I was in disbelief that all this happened on the same day. Like the Noumi and Komari bullying happening THE NEXT DAY would make more sense. But I don't think I am wrong. I think it was all in the same day. So when none of these things happened I was confused. Still am. Like everything is so beyond different. Just another day at school. No fireworks. No party. No bullying. The only thing consistent was Masato spilling soda on the notebook for the field trip. What was up with all that? Field trip on the board, on the notebook. Is this a hint or something?

Riki is at his breaking point.

Well after Riki panicked and couldn't find Kyousuke (although he wasn't looking very hard) he went to Yuiko again. Even though he really had no reason to as the bullying didn't happen. Good thing he went there too as the entire....timeline was falling apart. Maybe I would have found this all more believable if Riki had asked all the other girls if they thought the timeline was repeating and only then would he go back to Yuiko. But what can you do?

Wha....what about Kyousuke?

Coming back to the beginning of my blog post....Yuiko claims this all was her doing. Her dream when in reality Kyousuke is the one resetting the timeline. Maybe he let her have her moment though? It's very confusing. Because at the end of the fireworks things were going well. Even if Yuiko didn't get what she wanted. Riki was her friend. She was with him. By resetting each day I don't see how she got closer to Riki. Only...only if this was a messed up timeline. Maybe Kyousuke set up this whole day in episode 1 and 2 so Yuiko could have Riki for herself. But the cost would be having Riki forget this all. Which...seems rather complicated. Was resetting the day a million times the only way to do it? Like we have to make Riki so confused that taking out this firework memory will become easy? I don't know...this is all so confusing (for the 943 time). Why if Kyousuke knew how things were going to work out would he allow this to happen if it just made Yuiko upset?

No trauma to explain this?

This seems to be Yuiko's whole arc though. This is how Riki is going to save her. There shall be no more later. No seriously there might be no more Yuiko later. But for now she needs to explain to Riki why they are trapped in her dream and why Riki is okay with this. In case no one was paying attention Yuiko sorta...always hung back from the group. She participated sure. But often times she was the observer. There really isn't any real reason why Yuiko was...robotish. She was born with no emotions. I am glad that her mother wanted to see some expression and didn't focus on Yuiko being the best at everything. Also not explained was why Yuiko suddenly got better. Surely she must have seen other group of friends laughing and having a great time. But for some reason it was the Little Busters that broke through to her. Gave her the ability to use her facial muscles. To feel apart of a group. And that is all she wanted. No Riki healing required?

Err that doesn't sound positive....

What is up with this arc? Riki has to do something to make the girls better. But all Yuiko wanted....was Riki? Something has gone wrong though. Or right. It is really hard to tell with Yuiko. There were tears falling from her face and she said she wanted to fall in love with Riki. But then she said that she wanted him to forget it? Then what was the point of having this all happen? Why does Kyousuke have the ability to reset timelines? Because I believe that is still going on despite Yuiko trying to say this is all HER dream and that everything else in Riki's life is normal. This was just...the weirdest thing yet. You know, with Yuiko wanting to be with Riki and having him forget it later. This is all a dream. Thanks for the memories but I have to accept my fate now and I wish I could have experienced love even though I didn't put much effort into making these fun times last.

And then everything is okay?!

This is how the episode ends. With Yuiko saying a tearful goodbye to Riki and making him promise to take care of Rin. X____X Like the entire screen was being erased by a kid, that Yuiko was going to be gone forever. Accept her fate? What is going on here? Given what kind of anime this is, based off a game with sad girls having sad things happen to them...it could be a lot of things. But the way Yuiko was talking this was her last day on Earth. That the reason June 20th is so important is that Yuiko DIES the next day. What the hell. Does the bully girl kill her or something? If Yuiko DOES die how can Riki possibly save her if she doesn't explain the problem or spend the repeating timeline WITH him?! How does this make sense? Accept her fate? Riki wakes up all smiling because it is the 21st. Does that mean he has forgotten Yuiko or just the fireworks? Was Yuiko being dramatic and was giving Riki to Rin? Is that what she meant and she was having her one moment of teenage girlness? I mean...could Yuiko be dead? Dead people dreams are obviously strong......so I guess we need to stay tuned to episode 4 to see what is going on with Yuiko? NO IDEA FOLKS. X_X Did I mention I was confused enough times?