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Hanabee Acquires Little Busters Refrain

As part of the run into Christmas, Hanabee will be announcing a new title every day until the 20th, where they will announce multiple new titles. Today Hanabee has announced the acquisition of Little Busters! Refrain which will hit shelves on the 4th of Feburary 2015, you can pre-order the complete series on Blu-ray or DVD here.

Little Busters! Refrain

At last, the baseball team of the Little Busters! has reunited with many new friends among old ones. However, peace for the fun-loving students would not last forever. As Riki Naoe learns the truth behind his narcolepsy and the other mysteries around campus, he realizes that the dream must come to an end, and everything that had stopped starts to move.

Following on from Little Busters!, Little Busters! Refrain adapts up the final scenario in Key's romance adventure visual novel of the same name, Key also being responsible for Clannad, Kanon and Angel Beats!. The game was originally released on PC in 2007 and was followed with an adult remake called Little Busters! Ecstasy in 2008. Both games have been ported to PS2, PSP, PS3 and PS Vita. The games has also been adapted into 13 manga series, 2 internet radio shows and countless other short stories, light novels and other media.

Little Busters! Refrain was handled by the same creative team as the first, with direction from Yoshiki Yamakawa (Baby, Please Kill Me!, Hatsukoi Limited) at J.C. Staff with Michiru Shimada (Jewelpet Twinkle, Shugo Chara!) on scripts and Haruko Iizuka (Inu X Boku Secret Service, Ōkami-san & Her Seven Companions) handling the character design. Most of the game's original cast returned for this adaptation with Yui Horie (Ayu Tsukimiya in Kanon) voicing protagonist Riki Naoe and Mio Nishizono's original voice actor from the visual novel, Shiho Kawaragi, returning. Suzuyu performs the opening theme song "Boys Be... Smile."

This 13 episode series premiered in Japan in October 2013 with Crunchyroll streaming the series and Sentai Filmworks licensing the show. Hanabee announced Little Busters! acquisition in October 2013 and released the series over two collections in January and May in 2014.

The Little Busters! OAV series, Little Busters! EX, has yet to be released in the west. The short OAV series adapts stories from Little Busters! Ecstasy, a adult version of the visual novel game including an additional heroine and multiple new paths. Little Busters! EX was originally bundled with Blu-ray and DVD releases of Little Busters! Refrain as they were released in Japan.

Hanabee's release will be the complete series, all 13 episodes of Little Busters! Refrain on both Blu-ray and DVD with both English dub and Japanese audio with English subtitles. Little Busters! Refrain will hit shelves on the 4th of Feburary 2014 and you can pre-order the title from Hanabee.com.au.