What I find most interesting about this is that it seems to confirm three suspicions that some of us had:
1. That animation studios may be reluctant to take on the Little Busters project due to the inherent difficulties in turning its VN narrative into an anime one.
2. That Kyoto Animation is intentionally choosing to greatly limit itself when it comes to how many projects it does on an annual basis.
3. That Key is (or at least was) reluctant to allow anybody but Kyoto Animation to handle its works.
Combine these three factors together, and it's not hard to see why Little Busters has yet to be adapted into an anime.
While there is indeed some creator ego-stroking at play here, I can nonetheless understand why Key would very much want Kyoto Animation to be the animation studio to handle Little Busters.
Commercially, the Key/Kyoto Animation pairing has been very mutually beneficial, and win/win all the way. Air, Kanon, and Clannad helped to cement Kyoto Animation's brand image as a sort of "Master of Moe". At the same time, it's hard to imagine another animation studio doing a better job with Air, Kanon, and Clannad (few would put Toei's Kanon ahead of Kyoto Animation's).
This isn't to say that I think Kyoto Animation is the best animation studio in the business, but rather that their specific talents are ideal for adapting romance drama VNs like Air, Kanon, and Clannad.
However, times have changed a bit. Like Archon_Wing, I think that
today's P.A. Works could solidly handle your standard Key property. Whether they could handle Little Busters specifically is much more questionable, but then that's questionable of every animation studio, even KyoAni, due to the inherent difficulties in adapting Little Busters into an anime.
In spite of all this, though, I'm getting the same sort of feeling from this interview that Kaioshin is getting. KyoAni and Kadokawa do have an... unique, shall we say
... marketing/promotional style, and what Key is doing here in this interview would be very much in the same vein as that.
It does indeed feel like this interview is a way for Key to say to its fans: "Greetings, anime and VN enthusiasts, and take heed of our words pertaining to the unforgettable Little Busters! Be of good cheer, our people, for we still endeavor to make an anime of this epic tale of love and friendship.
Ah, but look at our sad tragic tale of losing the support of our beloved Kyoto Animation. Oh, we still love KyoAni, but how she spurns us so! Can we ever achieve the dreams of a mighty throng of a hundred thousand hoping to see Little Busters adapted?! If so, will it be through KyoAni, or will it be a new partnership where we break with our first love and fine greener pastures elsewhere? To find out the answers to these questions, lend us your support, and champion our glorious cause!"
It's so,
so humorously meta.
So, yeah, we might be seeing the first chapter in the epic real life story about the anime adaptation of the epic VN story.