Attention Little Busters, a new mission is about to begin.
I’m sure many fans of Key or VNs in general are aware of the general consesus of the Japanese communities regarding their visual novels; the idea that their games should stay within the country. This is an idea held by many Visual Novel developers and even the players themselves, but I believe this is an attitude born from unawareness. This underlying negative attitude toward western consumers of the genre is a proving a significant obstacle in the successful localization of Visual Novels in the west. One of the few exceptions of this is the famed Ryukishi07 of Higurashi and Umineko, who is completely open to the western fandom and has even supported the unofficial localization of his games into different languages. Since this attitude is born from unawareness of the substance of the fandom in the west, I feel it’s worthwhile to try and reach out to the Japanese population. The scale of this project could get out of hand, so I’m starting small and specific.
My plan is to create a ‘love letter’ tribute video to Little Busters and the japanese LB fandom to be posted on Nico Nico Douga to raise awareness of the otaku consciousness outside of Japan. And I’m not going to do it alone, this is a project I want to get as many people as possible involved in. It will become a collaboration by fans of Little Busters from all corners of the globe. I’m still mulling over the actual content of the video, but here’s some ideas I have. I’d love it to contain recorded footage of the fans of LB speaking about their love of the game, what it means to them, and all that. I’d love for the video to be spoken in all sorts of different languages, with Japanese subtitles for any parts not spoken in Japanese. And you can bet there will be muscle dancing. I want to send a clear message to Japan that they are not alone in their love of this amazing title, that people from all around the world know and love Little Busters. It’s about spreading the love!
So, the first step is I need to generate interest in this project. I’ll link to this post all around the internet, and I’ll ask that anybody who believes this project holds merit do the same on my behalf. Once momentum has built up enough, I’ll ask for people to translate this post into different langauges to further spread it’s reach. Once a global community of spirited Little Busters has been established, the action phase will begin.
I’ll start recruiting people to take up different jobs for this project. It’d be really helpful to get a Japanese person familiar with the local otaku and Little Busters fandom to help in best communicating the video to the Japanese. I’ll need a skilled individual or individuals to best edit the video. I’ll need people to translate different langauges into Japanese subtitles. I’ll need people who speak Japanese to provide Japanese scripts and probably speak a bit of Japanese. And of course, I’ll require the cooporation of everyone interested in sharing their love of Little Busters on video, or maybe even through text somehow. It’d be great if we could get groups of fans meeting up in different places around the world to record their videos together. I want something that really speaks to the Japanese, to truly convey our love.
But this all begins with you. If you believe this project holds merit, show your support, get the word out there and help me! I’ll need all the help I can get, until this is no longer my project, but OUR project. A project by Little Busters fans from around the world.
This post will serve as the central hub of the project for now, and I’ll probably keep updating it over time. If you support this project, feel free to comment so below! If you want to discuss any of it or have any questions, throw them my way over twitter, @Aspirety. I may make a Facebook group if there’s demand for it, but I’m not sure Facebook is the best place for it. Well, I’m open to any ideas people may have, it’s a discussion on how we can best accomplish the mission! I look forward to hearing from you all. Now then…
First of March! Ueno Zoo! Pictured above is the path through Ueno Park to reach the zoo. Like many sights on our trip, I imagine it would’ve looked a lot better outside of winter. The Animals were all very sluggish given the season, but there were some entertaining sights, like the boss seagull, the loftwing bird and a very old-looking turtle. After that was all done, we went to visit the famous Pokemon Center. Everywhere you looked there were plushies, toys, merch and even food lined up everywhere. And a very surprising amount of Stunfisk. I had no idea Stunfisk was so popular until that day! What are these, some kind of crackers? I even bought myself the most amazing hat I’ve ever owned. Seriously, Stunfisk is crazy here. Japan has amazing taste in Pokemon.
We decided to end that night by chilling in the hostel. We even got to catch some late night Black Rock Shooter and Guilty Crown, ironically probably the only Anime I actually watched while in Japan.
Pretty sure the day after was the day when my welfare payments were stopped and I lost about 10000 yen out of my wallet… Yeah, that was a bad day. I recovered though~ NEXT.
May 3rd! This was a big day because I got to meet up with a Japanese friend I’ve mine I’ve known for a very long time over the internet. We spent the afternoon in Ginza, one of the hottest shopping districts of Tokyo. She took me to a fancy japanese restaurant for lunch and I got to try some traditional Japanese vegetables. I can only conclude that Japanese does DELICIOUS vegetables, so much better than the boring stuff I’m used to back home. Even got to sit in one of those sit-in tables! Once we were done with lunch, we went off to see the Tokyo Tower, one of the landmarks I’d been looking forward to seeing. On the way we took a bit of a journey through the Zōjō-ji buddhist temple as a scenic route. As much as I love all the technology and geeky stuff about Tokyo, I really did enjoy my time at the different sacred sites we visited. My friend gave me a little tour of some of the sights of the temple, including the Jizo statues which are a part of a ritual responding to stillbirths, the Omikuji which tell people’s fortunes, the Ema which people write their wishes on and even got a look at the doors to the mausoleum. Witnessing the culture first-hand is really inspiring and interesting to me.
And after that adventure, the Tokyo Tower soon came into clear view. After a long uphill climb we took a break in the shopping area before heading up to the observation deck. After getting a view, we decided to hang around until it got dark so I could get a look at the cityscape at night. Definitely a worthwhile experience! Also the tower looks amazing lit up at night. A great day spent with the company of my friend!
May 4th! I decided to venture out on my own for this one. I started the day with something I’d been craving but nobody else really wanted: Dumplings! Got a set of 12 Gyoza dumplings with some tasty sides for somewhere around 600 yen. Breakfast of champions. Then I took a few trains out to a nearby town. Oh yeah, some train stations have gates in front of the rails, I guess as a safety measure. But it boggles my mind that they’re able to so precisely line up the train doors with the gates, it’s crazy. So, where was my destination you ask?
The Kyu-Furukawa Gardens! Or otherwise known as the real-world location of the Umineko Guesthouse. This was a must-see location for my otaku pilgrimage, and as a diehard fan of Umineko. Sadly none of the flowers were to be seen when I arrived, but that didn’t stop me from taking photos of the guesthouse. It almost felt like one of the servants was about to pop out from around the corner. And that was me done for the day, and I even got a souvenir photo of the garden in full bloom
May 5th! Today we grouped up to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum together! We weren’t allowed to take photos for the most part, so I only got these two photos of the Laputa items on the roof, but there was a lot of amazing cool stuff I didn’t snap. My personal favourite was a display that used a fast rotating model and a flashing light to give the illusion of animation, one of the coolest things I’ve seen! The whole place was constructed like a fairytale playground, I was too big for some of the entrances XP Even got to watch a short Ghibli animation in the theatre. A very cool place, highly recommend checking it out if you’re ever in the country!
May 6th! Pretty sure this was just another Akiba day. A mellow day of 07th Expansion displays,table-flipping arcade games, super kami guru figures and SHAKA SHAKA HEY! That table flipping game is one of the most amazing things ever, it should go global! And did I mention the SHAKA SHAKA chicken? It’s way too simple, you choose a flavour and they give you the shake powder and a piece of chicken and you put two and two together and SHAKA SHAKA HEY! Delicious chicken. By this point the others were getting sick of me repeating that phrase, and I was at the point of wanting to go out and buy a tambourine.
Oh yeah, and that happened. Hahaha…
And I think I’ll end it here! Saving the best til last, I talk about all my favourite bits of the trip in the next post, so DON’T GO ANYWHERE! See you in a few weeks.
This post is a reflection, an introspection, a freeform rambling, and a conclusion.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that knows me that I LOVE Umineko no Naku Koro ni. I’m a fan of all Otaku culture, but my love for Umineko isn’t the same as my love for the others. It’s almost a different kind of love, like an affinity. My love for Umineko isn’t because I’m a fan of Anime and Visual Novels, it’s only through that medium that I came to know of Umineko. Umineko, in my eyes, transcends the medium of Otaku culture and exists in a dimension of its own. It isn’t just another story to me – it might just be THE story. The story I was always destined to read. People say that some people are destined for each other, that their encounter is fated to happen, like they’re meant to be together. This is almost how I feel toward Umineko, a work of fiction by visual novel writer and creator Ryukishi07. It’s gotten to the point where I find it difficult to imagine my life having never read it. It’s that important to me. You see, Umineko quite literally changed my life. There’s no particular incident I can think of that might have ended differently had I never read Umineko, but it’s changed the way I perceive the world, how I live. I can’t say that for many things in my life, but when I do, I mean it. Umineko is less comparable to a story to me, and more like a bible. The characters and themes are an inseparable part of me. Whenever I see things in the world, I am reminded of themes in Umineko, and what Umineko had to teach me about the world.
My experiences with Umineko began shortly after I finished watching the then amazing Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Anime series, and wanted to look into more of his works. Introducing Umineko no Naku Koro ni: a newly created series of Visual Novels that, as it turned out, would soon be getting an Anime adaptation. Well, we all know how that turned out, but even so, I really got into it. It was a cool story with a very unique premise, it was just poorly presented and left a lot of unanswered questions. So, interested to see the true story that everyone told me to read, I took a glance at the Umineko no Naku Koro ni Visual Novels. What lead was an unmatched fascination that got to the point that I was watching Rosa protecting her daughter from hoards of carnivorous goat-men the night before my final biology exam. Yeah, probably not the best choice, but it really exemplifies how hard I had fallen for this series of extraordinary stories.
Umineko is a mystery story. Like all great mysteries, it portrays a scene of perfectly ordinary people, people who each holds deep burdens in their life, burdens which could potentially drive any one of them to commit a mass murder. It is a story of how friends and family are murdered in front of you, by someone you still believe you can trust. It’s a story of people questioning the foundations of their relationships with others, to survive, and hurting others in the process. And, it is a story about fear, the type of restricting fear that can cause you to abandon the foundations of your very reality, and start believing in the impossible. It’s a story where the boundaries between possible and impossible begin to twist and blur, and even the most impossible things can become possible. A cut-off world where a life of loving trust can be destroyed by one twisted truth, and also a world where an impossible and inconceivable love can be born in a world of inescapable horror and tragedy. It’s this twisted world, painted with an incomprehensible web of conflicting truths, where the true beauty of life remains hidden under its cold, menacing appearance.
It’s something only those who have read and understood the story can possibly understand. Each of the characters has been perfectly imprinted into my mind. I lived with these characters and their stories for a few years, with the release of each successive episode adding more layers of depth and complexity to the story, and the characters themselves. When it gets to the point that you’re reading a story about someone reading a story to someone about someone playing a game about a series of murders which were communicated through a series of letters in bottles and brought to the attention of the world, and mixed up with forgeries written by the woman who was having the story of the game read to her, you know you’ve hit something amazing. It’s an endlessly recursive ladder of fictional layers, mysteries within grander mysteries. And with each layer, it’s own characters and stories to tell of. Unravelling this endless spiral of mysteries is the fun part of Umineko for me, something I’ve engaged in endless debate over with my different contacts across the internet. Trying to unravel the mysteries of a fictional universe, while trying to understand the characters within it, to better understand the true meaning of the story. It’s all such a delight, and something I never get tired of.
As I keep mentioning, it all keeps coming back to the characters. The characters, even though the story has ended, have remained immortalised in my mind. Every time I see a child try their best to create happiness with their imagination, I am reminded of Maria. Every time I see those with great financial ambitions, I am reminded of the siblings. I see George in every rebellious lover, I see Jessica in every teen pressured by their parents to be something they’re not, I see Kinzo’s madness in the hearts of everyone with a deep passion, I see Natushi’s dedication reflected in strong mothers and housewives. I see Kanon in the self-questioning youths, I see Gohda’s love for cooking in every meal lovingly made by my family, Kumasawa’s caring nature in every loving grandparent, and Battler’s foolhardy yet well-wishing demeanor in every class clown.
And then there’s entities of illusion, the demons and witches that bleed into the closed island of Rokkenjima through an unseen world. The beings which embody concepts and ideas of our world, the creatures of imagination, permitted to exist in this world where anything is impossible. Were these beings to exist in the real world, they would perish under the toxin that is human rationality. When all the basic paradigms that make up our existence are shattered in the dark of night, these beings will come, and take over our world. Even these characters have left their imprint on my mind, where I allow them to exist. Ronove’s peerless fortitude in the face of any adversity, Virgilia’s compassionate guidance, the goats, Ange, and Erika, which all reflect the cold, uncompassionate individuals we can become out of our relentless hunger for truth. I think of Gaap every time something disappears from my room, I think of eiserne jungfrau whenever I see people remaining dutifully loyal to a cause they may have trouble accepting, Lion whenever I see someone coping with a misaligned gender, and also whenever I see someone who is truly thankful for their incredible fortune.
Will’s peerless chivalry and unrivaled desire to never stop fighting for the sake of love, and his compassionate attention to the hearts of others inspires me deeply, and continue to motivate me to this day. He represents my ideal, the kind of person I aspire to be like. Lambdadelta’s flippant attitude after living for an eternity intrigues me, and her interest and curiosity in the lives of humans reminds me just how special humanity can be. Contrasting that, Bernkastel is no less than a rapist who takes the utmost pleasure in ripping apart everything she encounters, including toying with humans and disgracing them for her amusement. She, who may have once been a human full of hopes and dreams like us, represents the most terrifying potential in every one of us. And I see Beatrice, the golden witch, in every poor person who is unable to understand her own feelings, and desperately tries expresses them in the most erratic and incomprehensible ways.
Beatrice’s tale, and the tales of many others in the world of Umineko, are the tales of the people we meet in our daily lives, brought to life. Sometimes these tales reflect the darkest parts of ourselves, but they also reflect what makes humanity and the world so beautiful. Seeing Battler surrender to the witch in Episode 2 may highlight his weakness, but it also shows how much he cares for and trusts others. Rosa’s relationship with Maria may highlight the cruelest of parent-child relationships, but before the end, we see that even she can wake up to her own madness and truly love her child. Eva herself is capable of killing everyone, and becomes an enemy to Ange, but she could have been putting on that act all those years just to protect her. Without love, it cannot be seen. Umineko illuminates that, by having love, and by trying to understand the hearts of others, we can lead better lives and be better people. It may end in tragedy, or it may end with no answers at all, but leading that kind of life can’t be a bad thing. That’s just one of the many answers I’ve come to as a reader of Umineko.
Through the other door, is the side of those who pursue the truth. One fundamental trait of humanity is our endless curiosity. We want to know everything there is to know. It doesn’t feel natural for things to be left unknown, for questions to be unanswered. Only when questions are answered do we feel satisfied, or so we believe. Many people are unable to contain their curiosity, the types that will skip to the end of the story just to find out who the culprit is. Umineko was not written for those people; Umineko is a story where you can only come to an answer yourself. But there are many, many people who play the role of detective themself, and try to reach the truth through their own hands. While this pursuit is noble, and to engage in the game of truth-hunting is fun, I believe Ryukishi meant to tell us that we cannot let our curiosity get in the way of more important things. The truth of what really happened on Rokkenjima will never be closed, and so infinite possibilities continue to exist. But trying to solve that mystery is not the point of Umineko. People are free to construct their own realities for as long as they wish, but I believe coming to an answer will only leave the detective with a sense of dread. Because, to form an idea of the culprit, one must incriminate one of the people we’ve come to know and love. We are free to theorize, but it’s not necessary. The game boards of Umineko are the frosting on the cake, and the extra layers of the story are perhaps the cake itself. The reality of Rokkenjima is the plate the cake is served on. We are not invited to eat any more than the cake, and to do so will probably only hurt your teeth.
At least, this is the conclusion I have reached.
Exploring the ocean of fragments has broadened my perception of the universe. Not only have I gained such a deeper understanding and appreciation of human nature, but I’ve come to some conclusions about the nature of existence and reality. If anything, Umineko’s depiction of worlds beyond our human existence is more believable than most religions I’ve heard of. The cat box of Rokkenjima has further opened my eyes to the concept of infinite universes, endless possibilities, both within our world and even possibly beyond. The idea that when I die, I depart from the game board of life, is more believable to me than a concept of heaven or hell. I was quite literal when I said Umineko is like a bible to me. It’s further opened my mind to the idea that our consciousness can transcend our physical bodies, and exist in a realm of thought. These are all pretty new-age pseudo-spiritual ideas, but they’re a big part of my belief system, which has only been further reshaped and reinforced by Umineko. Even if witches and magic doesn’t exist in this world, who’s to say it doesn’t exist outside of our world? Anything is possible – there is no such thing as red truth in our world. And of course, these kinds of fantastical philosophical concepts are things I’m free to imagine. The canvas is my mind, I can paint whatever I want in it, and I trust that others won’t play Bernkastel and try to trample on the golden truths I’ve constructed for my own self.
Umineko has taught me so much. It’s taught me valuable life lessons, it’s taught me philosophy, ethics, how to solve a mystery, how to expand my fantasies, it’s taught me how to treat different kinds of people, to respect their heart, to view the world with love, to seek the truth, but not too zealously. It’s taught me the value of never giving up, taught me the horrible unforeseen consequences our actions can hold, and how to avoid them. It’s taught me that there may be many things that exist beyond our limited human experience, it’s taught me not to believe everything I see, and it’s taught me a whole new way of utilizing logic and reasoning as incredibly powerful tools. Umineko has helped me understand exactly what is important to me, and what I should fight for. There’s just so much you can get from Umineko, and I’m sure everyone who reads it will get something different. It would take me an eternity to list all the things that Umineko has given me, but I think I’m able to give everyone a glimpse of just why it means so much to me – why it’s more to me than just a book, why it’s the story that I’ll likely hold dear to my heart for many, many years.
Even though the story is over, and the characters put to rest, Umineko will continue to remain a part of who I am. It’s helped me find myself and my place in the world in so many ways – it’s almost shocking how much of an influence it’s had on me. Ryukishi is an unrecognized modern-day genius, and I am so thankful that he was able to impart so much of his precious wisdom onto me, and to all the people who have had the pleasure of experiencing Umineko no Naku Koro ni. It’s by far one of the most entertaining reads I’ve ever had, and being a part of the fandom has been truly rewarding. I’ve even made a lot of friends through people who love Umineko as much as I do! Trying to unravel the plot with everyone has been an amazing experience, and even now I still get in the occasional truth battle with a friend over some of Umineko’s unanswered questions. And every time I listen to its INCREDIBLE soundtrack, I think back to all the amazing memories I’ve had with this game. It’s not just a story… It’s an experience that sticks with you wherever you go.
My last wish, before putting this game board to rest, is that more people take the time to experience Umineko no Naku Koro ni. I want to introduce as many people as I can to Umineko, in the hopes that they’ll get even a fragment as much out of it as I did. I will continue to make it my mission to induct people into the world of Umineko. This will be my continued effort, as a fan of this work. This is something that can’t remain unread – it’s something that people everywhere should give a chance. Escape from the medium of the Visual Novel, you’re a literary masterpiece Umineko, and I want everyone to be able to realize it too.
It’s been a very long week or so since the announcement of the Little Busters! TV Anime. I myself have been working hard, navigating droves of news and discussion about it for both myself and for you. It’s probably the most excited I’ve ever been over an Anime series in my life, so I feel it’s something of my duty to dig deep and learn all I can about this adaptation, to form my own stance on it in the face of a maelstrom of strong opinions, and to provide my readers with all of the established information in one convenient location. It’s getting crazy, and I’m just barely keeping my head above water, but I’ve gone the extra yards and stayed on top! Allow me to provide you all with a breakdown of what I know so far about the Little Busters Anime, and what I think about it so far.
First, let me begin with the PV, our first little glimpse into the Little Busters Anime. The PV featured the characters Riki, Kyousuke, Rin, Komari, Kud, Kurugaya, Haruka, Mio, Kengo, Masato, Saya and even Mask “The” Saito. Only characters really missing are Kanata and Sasami. Shortly after, the cast and crew behind the Anime was revealed, all on the official website. It confirmed that most of the voice cast of the original Visual Novel would be returning to their roles, except for Riki and Sasami, but more on that later.
We now know who is behind the Anime. Now is when the discussion heated up, and when more and more information started to leak. I departed for Twitter, the Fluffy IRC and the Animesuki thread to start tapping into the discussion and get all the info I could find. Oh boy, so much rage I had to search through.
Back to the PV. In my experience, reactions to it seemed to follow a curve. First people were in awe to see an animated Little Busters, but then after a while more people started commenting that the Animation looked rough, and not so aesthetically pleasing. Opinions, opinions, opinions started clashing, mad meets madder…
Opinion: “The PV for the Little Busters Anime looked poor quality.” Fact: “The PV was not animated by J.C. Staff.”
“To be clear (mostly in case anyone else might be confused), they already explained that the animation in the PV was contracted out and assembled by Key (just to show some of the game CGs animated), so we shouldn’t assume that the animation shown in that PV has anything in common with the real production.” -relentlessflame on Animesuki.
The source of this info is tweets by the head of Key, Takahiro Baba himself.
Q: @baskebu I like the fact that the same cast has been chosen for the anime! By the way, which studio created the promotion video that came out when the anime adaptation was announced? Is it the one in charge of producing the anime series? A: @vavasyatyou I think the video is a quickie work done just for the announcement. I heard they (JCS) sent us a series of pictures as TGA files, and we animated them.
“Let me make something clear here. When I said ‘a quickie work’, I meant the quality of how we made the video, not the quality of how they drew the pictures used in the video.”
To be fair, they did say that the original pictures that the animation was based off were drawn by JC. But thinking that the PV is any valid indiciation of the final quality of the Anime series is a pretty baseless assumption. We’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out.
Pictured above: The background of the LB Anime official teaser site.
And now, another counter.
Opinion: “J.C. Staff has done some pretty poor quality adaptations of stories before, there’s no way they can adapt Little Busters well.” Fact: “The one in charge of Series Composition, Shimada Michiru, has never worked with J.C. Staff before.”
“Suffice it to say, though, that the lead writer/story planner for this show does not work for J.C.Staff and has never worked as lead writer on a previous J.C.Staff production. So the value in comparing to past works is limited.” -relentlessflame on Animesuki. (Your posts sure are proving helpful~)
I have personally verified this by looking her up on Anime News Network. By this, we can conclude that J.C. Staff’s track record of Anime adaptations is no indication on how this series will turn out. It’s starting to seem like all the hate at J.C. Staff is misdirected. I have more to say about Shimada, but I’ll save that for later in the post.
Many people are still questioning how the story will be handled, though. Without going into too much detail (spoiler territory), the way Little Busters is told is in such a way that it is completely impractical to retell the story in a 100% true-to-the-original way. Changes must be made for it to become an Anime series; this is just common sense to anyone who’s played the entirety of the game. Officials have reported that there will be changes made to the story, and things will be cut down to fit the structure of the series, but that the series will continue to remain loyal to the original.
“For instance, Komari’s route begins much earlier than in the game. However, it doesn’t make any difference to the events that occur afterward or to how the story develops. Everything goes the same way as the game.”
dtshyk on MyAnimeList posts: “On the official twitter account of Key, one of the staff explained the production policy of the Little Busters anime. Although the order of the events might be different from the original game, there won’t be alterations in the story nor anime original characters. He said the length of the TV series is significantly long, but still it was necessary to shorten the original story to adapt it to the limited number of episodes. He added that the relationships among Rin, Komari, and other new members of the Little Busters team might be described more in detail than in the game.”
Most of this stuff is to be expected, but it’s reassuring to hear nonetheless. Here we have word that the series will be long (how long we’re not entirely sure), and that changes will be made to the story, but nothing too damaging. All in all, good news.
An article by Anime News Network details some new information taken from a magazine scan. “New voice actors for the game’s protagonist Riki Naoe, as well as the character Sasami Sasasegawa will be cast.”
Before I go on, this makes me a bit sad! I mean, I know that Tomoe Tamiyasu originally did the voices for all three of Rin, Riki and Sasami, but they were great performances! I had no idea until the credit roll that they were voiced by the same person. It’s going to be sad to hear the voices of Riki and Sasami be replaced, but I can only hope the new seiyuus are able to perform as much a touching performance as Tamiyasu once did.
Continuing on that article, “The same set of interviews also revealed that the background music for the series will be taken from the original game. Similarly, it was announced earlier that the adaptation’s opening and ending songs would be taken from the game.”
“Game singer Rita announced in her official blog that she will sing the OP theme “Little Busters!” for the TV series. She had been frustrated because she couldn’t have an opportunity to sing a theme song of an anime. She sang many theme songs for PC games but the theme song singers were always replaced by someone when the games got anime adaptations. (e.g. Yosuga no Sora) She said the song “Little Busters!” is the most precious song for her and thanked Visual Arts and the anime producers for choosing her. The ED theme of the TV series will also be Rita’s “Alicemagic”.”
Your opinion may vary, but I’m very pleased by the news on the music front. The official website was also updated with the confirmation of the OP and ED. We’ll get to re-experience the amazing and timeless music from the Little Busters OST all over again. Some people criticise that the choice of Alicemagic as the ED may be too much of a contrast to emotional scenes at the end of an episode, but there’s nothing to say that Alicemagic will be the only ED used throughout the entire series. Either way, it’s an amazing song and I can’t wait to hear it used as the ED.
Only question remaining now is, will they be remastered, remixed or re-sung? Or will they remain as the originals? Only time will tell.
And now, a little something that may be a bigger hint.
“Mangaka Zen, the author of Little Busters! Ecstacy complained that she had been preparing for the April Fool’s joke of “Little Nya-sters” anime but Dengeki’s premature leak spoiled her effort.Zen’s joke illustration of “Little Nya-sters” anime It says “The mission will start this autumn.”She said, “Yeah you’re right. They leaked the information! I sacrificed myself to prepare the joke but our plan was completely ruined. It’s so funny huh? You can ridicule me! Hahaha! (sob)”"
It’s a big vague, but do you think this is hinting at a Fall release for the Little Busters Anime? Again, only time will tell, but it’s certainly interesting nonetheless.
I’ll leave a space here for updates. I’ll post more info as it comes to my attention.
Now that I’ve established most of the facts, I’d like to go a little more into how I feel about all of it so far.
I’ve made it quite abundantly clear that there’s been a lot of negativity circulating around the communities regarding the news, most of the negativity directed toward J.C. Staff’s involvement. It’s not KyoAni, it’s not the same, the masses announce. The project is doomed to fail, many express.
But I ask you, why? As I’ve sought to prove, most of the cynicism over J.C.’s involvement is unfounded. All of you who have opted towards cynicism are choosing to ignore the possibility that this could become something beautiful.
Key is a name associated with peerless quality. In their lifetime, just about everything they’ve created is golden. The adaptations of their works are pressured to uphold Key’s status, and many have succeeded. True, most of Key’s Anime Adaptations up to this point have been handled by Kyoto Animation. But just because Kyoto Animation has rejected Key’s offers to do Little Busters due to being too busy on higher priority projects, you dismiss the possibility that anyone else could do it justice?
Little Busters is getting animated! This is something fans and supporters of Key alike have been praying for for years! Many of us were starting to believe that it would never come, but Key didn’t want to let down its fans. They knew what everyone wanted – hell, they wanted to see it animated just as much as us – so they took the steps they most strongly believed would lead to a successful and worthy adaptation of Little Busters. I believe Key has a strong relationship of trust with their fans, trust that’s been earned over consistent quality across all their works. But now I see so many people so eager to throw away all of their trust in Key over this announcement, believing that they’ve completely disregarded the fanbase and can never regain that loyalty again. And this is only when it’s just been announced.
I’m sure many of you have trusted Key to produce quality before, why can’t you trust them again?
“It’s not Key I don’t trust, it’s the staff behind the Anime.” I hear many say.
And yet you so fervently reject Key’s choices in who will produce the Anime?
“Baba Takahiro, the President of Visual Arts, tweeted on his Twitter account that he and the staff of Visual Arts shared the anxieties and expectations among the fans over the production studio of the Little Busters! anime. However, he made a decision when he saw the enthusiasm of J.C. Staff and Warner Bros. Japan for producing the TV anime. He said J.C. Staff and Warner were great companies and asked the fans to trust them.” -dtshyk on MyAnimeList
It’s fair to be skeptical, I won’t deny you that right. But here is Baba himself asking the fans to trust their decision, to trust in the production team. This wasn’t a decision that was taken lightly. Key have had years to deliberate the best course of action to please the fans, and this is the decision they chose.
“Baba revealed that the series composer Shimada Michiru had completed the original game including the hidden episode with her daughter. After finishing the game, she checked if she missed something by reading 4.7 MB of the text data of the game scenario.”
-dtshyk on MyAnimeList
This last piece of info may not mean much to some, but it means everything to me. The series composer, Shimada Michiru, is a big fan of Little Busters! To me, this speaks incredible volumes, and reassures me more than anything that I can trust in their work. This gives me hope.
Allow me bring it all back to the motif of Kakera Complex. Played Umineko? One of the biggest quotes throughout the story of Umineko is very relevant here, you may have heard of it.
“Without love, it cannot be seen.”
I love Key. I trust them. And I can see that a lot of love is going into the development of this Little Busters anime. That’s no objective fact, it’s something that I feel. I believe in the love being put into it, it lets me believe that this adaptation can become something amazing.
And even if it isn’t as good as the original Visual Novel, it’s still an animated Little Busters, I mean how cool is that? I don’t believe this anime is going to soil people’s perceptions of Little Busters, all it’s doing is bringing it to the more mainstream otaku consciousness, which as far as I’m concerned is a good thing! Even if it’s terrible, which I don’t believe it will be, it will just get LB more attention as people will flock to the Visual Novel to see what the big deal is really all about. Only good can come from this. But even still, I’ll remain faithful.
25th Feb. Really not much to say at this point! The weather was pretty miserable and I don’t remember us really doing anything. Just stayed at the hostel eatinglots ofsweets in ridiculous ways. At this point there was more expedia drama which almost had me forced into a women’s dorm (or otherwise being homeless in Japan), but thankfully it was all resolved under the condition that I spend a single night in a neighbouring hostel. It all turned out fine in the end, but we’ve learned never to go through expedia ever, ever again. Next day was more of nothing, me waiting for a few hours out in the freezing weather before I could check back into our hostel. Ended up sleeping in a cafe while the Tokyo Marathon took place outside. There sure were a lot of people gathered to watch it! Nothing to really interest me though, but it sure seemed like a big deal; people were really getting into it. I guess that’s the Japanese team spirit.
For our next major outing we went to Shinjuku! Namely, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. The view from the observation deck was amazing. As you can see in the photo above, the cityscape just seems to continue into infinity, like some kind of science fiction planet covered in city. Really cool to see, a mind-blowing experience coming from Australia. But that wasn’t all – actually visiting the building itself brought a lot of Anime to mind, specifically Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was the main setting of that saga, and seeing itall inperson felt like I’d just taken one big step closer to the stories I love.
Well maybe not 100…
Allow me to sidestep everything and reflect on the STREETPASSES for a second. For those that don’t know, the Nintendo 3DS has a feature named Streetpass, which will allow you to exchange small bits of data with every person with a 3DS you pass while out and about. It’s one thing doing this in Melbourne, but in Tokyo it’s a completely different experience. Everywhere you go, somebody has a 3DS in their bag. You need to keep checking it every 20 minutes to clear out the queue and keep reeling them in, especially in a place like Akihabara. I wasn’t there for it, but I heard the story from the others about a huge conglomeration of Japanese playing their 3DSs at Akiba one day. “JUST ANOTHER DAY IN AKIBA.” We cleared all our Streetpass puzzles within the first few days, and completing Quest 2 multiple times while we were there. I can see that the feature was definitely intended for the Japanese public before anyone else.
The next day we went back to Shibuya for some clothes shopping, and also checked out the nearby town to see the Clannad School Courtyard! The others weren’t as easily impressed, but I was mesmerised by it. Checking out real life locations featured in Anime was at the top of my to-do list in Japan, and it didn’t disappoint. I never did get to visit all the locations I wanted to, but I visted some of the most important ones to me. This stop was just a small one of many more to come.
29th February: Leap Day! And it was snowing all over Tokyo! This may not seem much to most people, but coming from Australia, this was the first time I’d ever seen so much snow anywhere! It was cold and wet and painful to walk through, but it was strangely beautiful and amazing. It was a really big deal for me, and now I’ll never forget the first time I saw the snow. Despite the weather, we were for some reason determined to explore Akihabara that day. Everything was still open and busy despite the weather; even the poor Japanese girls were still energetically handing out pamphlets to this or that Maid Cafe despite the weather. Finally tried some Japanese Sushi, but it was filled with wasabi so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked, hahaha. Following that we went to check out some more locations in Akiba.
The main destination was the big Akiba-zone building, which hosted an anime cafe place area in the basement that was surprisingly empty, yet still open. I ordered a bubble milk tea! I’d been searching bubble milk tea everywhere in Japan but that’s the only one I remember finding. The place was decked out with a bunch of figures and stuff. The most amazing thing about the whole experience though was that I heard the Rune Factory Frontier OP playing over the speakers. Such a chill place that’s buried into my memory.
Then, rising to the top of the building, we hit the GoodSmile cafe! At the time they were holding a Madoka Magica exhibit, with Madoka displays everywhere and a Madoka-themed food and drink menu. If I recall correctly, I got a Homura drink, along with a Kyubey Curry! While waiting for the meal we had a look at the displays and all the GoodSmile figures, it was really cool to see! Lots and lots of Madoka art on display as the Madoka soundtrack played through the speakers. Definitely worth the visit. And it was hilarious getting to eat Kyubey’s face.
Next stop, another landmark I really wanted to see: Super Potato! Quite possibly the largest retro gaming store in all of Japan, if not the entire world. Aside from the games, oh my god GAMES, the first thing I noticed was the playable Virtual Boy in the middle of the store. Nintendo’s horrible secret; I’d never got to play one myself. It had Wario Land in it, the most critically acclaimed Virtual Boy game ever (not that that’s saying much), but I only played a room before I moved aside – it was very cramped, as Japanese stores are. The store was lined with hundreds upon hundreds of Japanese video games, from famicom to some more modern systems. TVs everywhere display game demos – some even playable. And even modded video game consoles, like a portable super famicom (SNES) were on display! It was so cool to see. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it was heartwarming to see that on the shelf of their ‘best videogame soundtracks’, there was the Clannad soundtrack. Oh you guys, you have such great taste =3 Last notable stop before leaving was a small little crane game store that chose an interesting theme and name: Luck You, with photos of Billy Herrington and his lovable sidekick ‘asian guy with no name’ on the cranes. Feels good.
I'm an Australian born in the world of 1991 with a passion for Novel Writing, Video Games and Otakuism. I study Psychology and Philosophy at University and I blog and post about Anime and Otaku topics, rants and ramblings, occasional philosophy and whatever else is on my mind. I'm just here to enjoy life with everyone.
So, the first step is I need to generate interest in this project. I’ll link to this post all around the internet, and I’ll ask that anybody who believes this project holds merit do the same on my behalf. Once momentum has built up enough, I’ll ask for people to translate this post into different langauges to further spread it’s reach. Once a global community of spirited Little Busters has been established, the action phase will begin.
