Little Busters - Anime Pre-Airing News and Anticipation

[Reckoner]

Well Riki getting his own new voice always seemed to be pretty clear to me...

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by TJR

Without spoiling too much, the challenge is in dealing with a long story designed around repetition. VN readers can skip previously read text; however, a perfectly faithful representation would mean hours of reused content.

Conspiracy theory inbound!

What if the reason KyoAni turned down the Little Busters job, was because of the reception they got for Endless Eight?

[Randrak42]

Li...Little Busters...anime...

Why am I crying? I can't stop...make it stop...I need to see a doctor, my tears won't stop!

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

Li...Little Busters...anime...

Why am I crying? I can't stop...make it stop...I need to see a doctor, my tears won't stop!

Just because of J.C Staff ? These quotes absolutely makes me laugh !!
These people like you can't stop whining how J.C does this one.

[Randrak42]

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

Just because of J.C Staff ? These quotes absolutely makes me laugh !!
These people like you can't stop whining how J.C does this one.

Wha..da..mah...wha...what!?

I never said anything about staff or whatever? I don't even know who J.C is! I'm crying due to cheer, uncontrollable joy that my all time favourite VN is finally getting an anime...

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

Wha..da..mah...wha...what!?

I never said anything about staff or whatever? I don't even know who J.C is! I'm crying due to cheer, uncontrollable joy that my all time favourite VN is finally getting an anime...

I thought you whines. But I learned that you cries for joy.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

Just because of J.C Staff ? These quotes absolutely makes me laugh !!
These people like you can't stop whining how J.C does this one.

Well you are being a hypocrite yourself for typing that, because of one of your previously made post.

Originally Posted by MisaoFan

They also animated another VN : Tantei Opera Milky Holmes and they also destroyed it. Usually, J.C Staff is so bad with video game adaptations.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by hyl

Well you are pretty much being a hypocrite yourself for saying that.

I'm very sorry for being a hypocrite, but I don't know how I read that quote. I thought he whines, but after re-read it, I learned he cries for joy. I just hope I won't be a hypocrite anymore so everyone can like me.

[Randrak42]

D: Why shouldn't any fan of LB cry for joy!? It's LB...even if they butcher the anime...I'll watch it religiously cause that's how much of a blind LB follower that I am.

[MisaoFan]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

D: Why shouldn't any fan of LB cry for joy!? It's LB...even if they butcher the anime...I'll watch it religiously cause that's how much of a blind LB follower that I am.

Thanks ! But I hope everyone can love me for being a savior.

[Vegard Aune]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

D: Why shouldn't any fan of LB cry for joy!? It's LB...even if they butcher the anime...I'll watch it religiously cause that's how much of a blind LB follower that I am.

Well, as we've seen a lot of people seem to have absolutely no faith that JC Staff can possibly do the story justice... Personally though, while I am also a bit disappointed that KyoAni isn't the studio behind it, (What with Clannad being my all-time favourite series and I think all the Key/KyoAni-series both looked gorgeous and had a fantastic atmosphere, they just set such a high standard that I'm not sure an adaptation by a different staff would be able to live up to it) I'm still happy that we're getting an anime at last, and I'm definitely still looking forward to this.

[Mura]

President of Visual Arts Says KyoAni is Too Busy To Produce Little Busters

According to Dengeki Visual Arts magazine, Baba Takahiro, the President of Visual Arts, said he wanted to ask Kyoto Animation to produce Little Busters! anime, but Kyoto Animation has been quite busy in producing other titles and Visual Arts could not wait for their turn to come. When the TV anime of AIR was produced, the staff of Visual Arts didn't know how to involved in the anime production. Baba said that at that time Kyoto Animation was the only studio which could produce such a wonderful anime without the help of the original creators. However, the great advance in the production of bishoujo anime and years of experiences of Visual Arts with anime producers have convinced Baba that the production studio of Little Busters anime is not necessarily Kyoto Animation.

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.

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".

Source

[Aspirety]

Finally finished clawing my way through a good 15 pages of posts since I last came here! It's been interesting to see how the discussion has evolved.

In response to your post, Mura, hearing Shimada Michiru's experience with Little Busters made my grin silly, and gives me that bit more hope in this adaptation.

That quote from Rita seems to indicate that she'll be re-singing the themes for the Anime. Interestng..!

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

Wha..da..mah...wha...what!?

I never said anything about staff or whatever? I don't even know who J.C is! I'm crying due to cheer, uncontrollable joy that my all time favourite VN is finally getting an anime...

Which, as a long-suffering fan of several properties that may never be adapted, is exactly how I think you should feel. Stop and smell the damn roses already. Good for you.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by Aspirety

That quote from Rita seems to indicate that she'll be re-singing the themes for the Anime. Interestng..!

Well, they did do a remix on Mag Mell for the CLANNAD anime... though I was far more enamored with the original version because of that guitar.

However, I don't think they changed the vocal track at all, so that wouldn't explain that implication...

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Mura

President of Visual Arts Says KyoAni is Too Busy To Produce Little Busters

Source

It's taken them this long to get it an anime, but they couldn't wait any longer? Either KyoAni has a really freaking long queue, or there's something missing from this story.

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by GDB

It's taken them this long to get it an anime, but they couldn't wait any longer? Either KyoAni has a really freaking long queue, or there's something missing from this story.

Their partners in the production committee for all four titles, TBS and Pony Canyon, have been occupied with another anime franchise that has been much more profitable for them than the Key works: K-On!. That franchise has taken their KyoAni priority over Little Busters being animated. With Kadokawa's Haruhi, Nichijou, and Hyouka franchises being animated and KyoAni choosing to animate one of the award winning entries in their light novel division, they have been quite busy since Key started talking about Little Busters since they work on one/two titles at a time.

Since Key's anime titles have been idolized as being some of the best VN adaptations, they wanted to have more publicity with Little Busters as soon as possible from a marketing decision. I imagine being told "We're working on something else" over and over again began to get frustrating and as such, they decided to go with a new production committee with Warner Brothers/J.C. Staff. Perhaps KyoAni/TBS/Pony Canyon would be free next year if no more K-On! were to be animated, or perhaps those three have decided on another title that wasn't Little Busters, but Key chose not to wait and hear "we're working on something else" again.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

I imagine being told "We're working on something else" over and over again began to get frustrating and as such, they decided to go with a new production committee with Warner Brothers/J.C. Staff. Perhaps KyoAni/TBS/Pony Canyon would be free next year if no more K-On! were to be animated, or perhaps those three have decided on another title that wasn't Little Busters, but Key chose not to wait and hear "we're working on something else" again.

Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to be a bit cynical, if a company keeps putting you off and putting you off (for something that ostensibly stands to make them money too), it means two things: 1. they have other priorities, and 2. they're not too worried about losing you as a customer (either they don't figure you'll leave, or they don't mind if you do). So from a business negotiation standpoint, it was a perfect time for someone like Warner to come in and make them a good offer.

If you read through the lines of the bits quoted (by Mura) above, it paints a pretty clear picture: back in the day, Key didn't know what it took to make a good anime, so they had to give their trust to the top experts in the business. (Keep in mind that even Toei was one of the most-respected anime studios at that time; they never went "small fry".) And now, having been through that experience many times, sat through all those meetings, and seen first-hand what works and what doesn't, they're now in the position where they can be the experts and tell others how they want things done. So this is why they feel they no longer need to depend on KyoAni's help (and other studios can handle it), because they have a pretty good idea of what KyoAni would do by now and can apply a little more force from their end to make sure things get done the way they want.

This is all actually good for the industry, because it means that, gradually, KyoAni's techniques for adapting stories get spread to others, and the overall capability of the industry goes up.

[Randrak42]

Ok, I'm overjoyed that my favourite VN is getting an anime...however I wonder about how they'll go about it.

I know this may have been discussed before, but I'm not going to read through 40 pages to find out D:

Anyway, in VNs like LB you usually have:

1- The game has a true route. In which case the anime follows the common route and the true route, giving only as much focus on the other girls as necessary.

2- The game has no true ending, only multiple endings for each love interest. Here the anime usually follows the common route and then either goes with the harem ending or goes with the girl closes to the MC or most popular girl.

LB is different...because while in other VNs, each route ain't canon, in LB each route are actually canon. It is actually explained in refrain how it all worked and while the other routes DID happen.

The game is too big...so...are they going to ignore the other routes, show the common route, Rin routes and then Refrain? Will they change the plot to fit number of episodes? Will they even touch upon the VN's plot?

I'll admit that I wouldn't mind if the anime was like the 4-koma, just short stories after refrain...or something.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

The game is too big...so...are they going to ignore the other routes, show the common route, Rin routes and then Refrain? Will they change the plot to fit number of episodes? Will they even touch upon the VN's plot?

What Key has said before is that they puzzled with this issue themselves, but came up with a solution that involved a "compromise" between people who understand what's going on and those who don't (yet). They've also said more recently that the anime would be faithful to the game, and would be given enough episodes (though, of course, some stuff will have to be cut). Anyway, I am inclined to think that they figured out a way to do it, though of course they're going to keep it to themselves for now.

To go into more detail or speculation probably requires game spoilers, so should probably be discussed in the game thread and not here (which is a spoiler-free zone).