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NEWS: Little Busters! Refrain Teaser Aired


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RyanSaotome



Joined: 29 Mar 2011
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Location: Towson, Maryland
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:22 am Reply with quote
YES. This is what Little Busters is all about!
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getchman
Space Cowboy



Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 9117
Location: Bedford, NH
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:26 am Reply with quote
RyanSaotome wrote:
YES. This is what Little Busters is all about!


good to know, because Little Busters has been kinda boring
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:30 am Reply with quote
getchman wrote:
RyanSaotome wrote:
YES. This is what Little Busters is all about!


good to know, because Little Busters has been kinda boring
The anime could've been so much better, they did some weird things but overall it wasn't too bad. I could see why you thought it was boring. Refrain should be awesome though. Should be...
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RyanSaotome



Joined: 29 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:33 am Reply with quote
The anime was still above average for a VN adaption, and one of my top 3 shows of the Fall. It coulda been a lot better, yeah, but it was still Little Busters at its core and that could only be so bad.

Really looking forward to seeing how they do Refrain.
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shiranehito



Joined: 27 Dec 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:35 am Reply with quote
Kougeru wrote:
Refrain should be awesome though. Should be...


Actually I don't even care if they animate Refrain or not, because I'm really afraid that JC will ruin it (and so far, as getchman said, it was boring).

If JC fail to deliver Refrain, I guess VN companies won't let JC animate VN anymore
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Myaow



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:36 am Reply with quote
I'm really happy they're trying to be as thorough as possible with this and not just adapting a little bit of the material! Go go go Little Busters!!
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:38 am Reply with quote
Good to hear, now the question is when this will make it on screen.
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opn



Joined: 23 Dec 2010
Posts: 904
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:41 am Reply with quote
Stark700 wrote:
Good to hear, now the question is when this will make it on screen.

The series is re running next week. Fall 2013 is highly likely. Either that or spring 2014.
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RyanSaotome



Joined: 29 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:46 am Reply with quote
opn wrote:
Stark700 wrote:
Good to hear, now the question is when this will make it on screen.

The series is re running next week. Fall 2013 is highly likely. Either that or spring 2014.


I'd guess Fall. Warner Brothers was in a rush to get the first series on air, so I doubt they'll wait for Refrain either.
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:52 am Reply with quote
RyanSaotome wrote:
The anime was still above average for a VN adaption, and one of my top 3 shows of the Fall. It coulda been a lot better, yeah, but it was still Little Busters at its core and that could only be so bad.

Really looking forward to seeing how they do Refrain.


I think the way the story worked doesn't fit as well into an anime format as much as other stories do. I can't blame JC for that. The animations could've been a lot better (bigger budget for Refrain I hope will fix this, along with bluray/dvd fixes). They didn't seem to hit the right notes on the emotional parts. I don't know if it was because they were kind of rushed or if it was something else. Most of it felt kind of rushed to me. I honestly expected it to be a lot more rushed though. When it started airing I was seriously expecting them to end the entire thing in 25 episodes, I feared that. I'm very happy they didn't do that and are leaving Refrain for it's own season.

shiranehito wrote:
Kougeru wrote:
Refrain should be awesome though. Should be...


Actually I don't even care if they animate Refrain or not, because I'm really afraid that JC will ruin it (and so far, as getchman said, it was boring).

If JC fail to deliver Refrain, I guess VN companies won't let JC animate VN anymore


Honestly I can't think of anything they could do to make it less "Boring". LBs itself was about a group of friends that don't really do anything and just be happy (until Riki picks a route of course). Like I said earlier in this post, I don't know what exactly I think they did wrong but the emotion just wasn't there like it was in the novels and I don't know if that's the anime format not working well, or if they just needed better dialogue and a bit more time per character to add more power to their tragedies. Either way, I wouldn't think that even if they did it right it could make it more fun to watch, just more intriguing. In the end, the best and true way to enjoy LBs is the visual novel. It's fantastic.
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Blaziken_012



Joined: 31 Mar 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:57 am Reply with quote
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games2007



Joined: 03 Oct 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 10:12 am Reply with quote
@Kougeru

I know what you mean. I played the VN as well and really enjoyed the anime, but the animation problems killed the series for a lot of hopeful people. Clannad season 1 is similar to Little Busters: a lot of random fun slice of life, but Little Busters spent a lot more episodes on each heroine's routes.
I feel like the necessity for each route to be animated in Little Busters for Refrain to be successful, combined with having to develop each character sufficiently with common route episodes, given 26 episodes for the first season, was a big storytelling challenge.

The script overall I felt was excellently written, and those who played the VN and pay attention to the details dating back to even the first few episodes can see tons of subtle references to the Secret of the World, including word phrasing like saying "this world" and "there's no god, we only have each other here", etc.
The goal of animation is to seamlessly convey sincere storytelling, that can go beyond words alone, and the animation in Little Busters detracts from that. If you haven't played the visual novel, I'm afraid it's difficult for most people to take every ordinary and comedic slice of life event to heart.

So, for the drama. Overall, I felt like most of the routes were handled well given their episode amount. If you played the VN, definite feels will be had, although the storytelling for some routes is rushed.

I believe this is a problem with the VN vs. Anime format. In the VN, you've already played the entire common route, hung out with the specific heroine who you've hopefully come to enjoy, before learning about their past during their route. Komari's route spans from episodes 4-6 and we barely know her! We've had less than 3 episodes to even develop her character before her drama happens.

In Clannad season 1 routes were cut out or put to OVAs, and season 2 being primarily about Nagisa pretty much ignores all the previous routes, except for the Light Orb explanation, and the Robot+Girl part, etc.
Clannad season 1 had like 7 for Fuko's arc and 4 episodes for Kotomi's arc. Kotomi also appears somewhat prior to the start of her arc, and there are less characters in Clannad to develop than in Little Busters. Combine that with KyoAni's directing and animation, and of course the drama is going to be better executed. They did 2 arcs in the time Little Busters had to squeeze in nearly 4, when the source material for each arc was comparably close in depth and reading length.

Little Busters has to incorporate all the routes within the same timespan before Refrain.
It would've been nice if there could've been better animation, but from a time length standpoint, the routes would've still be pretty melodramatic for anime viewers even if KyoAni did it. Many people would probably still have feels for the characters, but it'd stay rushed nonetheless.

Regardless, the script for the Little Busters, coming from a VN player, feels undeniably full of quality and details. It was looked over by Key, and I think there's consistency in the quality of the story, although the first cour of Little Busters' animation quality suffered huge budget issues.

I think that people who took in the main story of the Little Busters anime, and weren't completely annoyed by the animation issues in the first cour, will enjoy season 2 if it packs the quality of some of the recent episodes of the series. (Eps 24-25 at least)
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shiranehito



Joined: 27 Dec 2011
Posts: 793
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 10:44 am Reply with quote
@games2007
I honestly think that the animation script was badly written. Some are good (and I think better than the VN), but overall is pretty meh.
It's like what you said, Komari route went too early and too fast. In comparison to the VN, Riki doesn't enter heroine's route until the baseball match. In the anime, Komari met Riki only for 3 episodes and suddenly she asked him for a date (that escalated quickly)

Most of the heroine's route feel pretty rushed, and a lot of details (especially for the heroines) were lost. And I really hate it that spoiler[Miyuki] appeared just right before spoiler[the suicide incident] (while in the VN her first appearance was long before that).
Maybe JC staff did that so people won't go "Who's this girl, again?" if she appeared in early episode, but then... spoiler[what about Suginami? She appeared from the very first episode, appeared again in Kud's arc, and later in Refrain she will confess to Riki]

Sorry, maybe I protest too much as the VN player. Of course the adaptation won't match the original source, so... Sorry.


Well, more than the script, actually the animation quality is the one that bugs me the most.

The trailer for Refrain is already out, but it doesn't look any better.
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firedragon54738



Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 3113
Location: wisconsin
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:17 am Reply with quote
Well more Little Busters is all ways welcome
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FLAZE35



Joined: 24 Mar 2013
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:30 am Reply with quote
I'm unsatisfied with the anime. While I understand that Little Busters! is probably one of the most difficult vn's to adapt, I still think it could have been done better. The anime feels like a boring slice of life show where every other day, tragedy befalls one of the heroines, and the only one who can possibly help the heroine is Riki. (I know there are explanations to this, but that's how the anime, as an independent work, felt to me.) Also, like some other people said, the animation quality wasn't great.

I hope they adapt Refrain properly. spoiler[It shouldn't be as hard, since a lot of Refrain has a linear story.]
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