Little Busters - General Anime Discussion [NO SPOILERS]

[relentlessflame]

I think, because of the heritage, people are more likely to stick around and give the show a chance later on, particularly when the second season (or whatever it is) gets announced. I expect a good number of folk to marathon the first season at that time. That probably won't help that much in the week-to-week discussion for now, though.

And yes, I honestly do expect the discussion to pick up a little bit once the nagging by game players calms down a bit. It is a bit of a deterrent to me as well.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

^ One side of me is saying "good riddance" for those who haven't truly enjoyed the series despite its clear flaws in direction, but the other side mourns the lack of a decent discussion for the series.

I can probably say that Little Busters! is the biggest tragedy of the Autumn 2012 anime season.

I think the big problem with this adaptation is that the adaptation has been very unintelligent, and hackneyed. Translating Little Busters to an anime format requires far more than copy-pasting, rearranging and axing of specific scenes. There needs to be a certain originality for the adaptation to do well.

The second problem is a rather common one. The plot has to build up for a long time, and the problem is that the build up is not anything especially exceptional. When you throw an unexceptional build up, on-top of poorly conceived rearrangements and unoriginal, copy-paste adaptation and sub-par directions, and that's where the problems start. Alot of people can't stand the build-up, and the Anime Medium, with it's Once a Week, thirty minutes expansion of the plot delivers too slowly for the plot to reach it's real meat, and the build up to pay off.

Now, some studios are very good at making excellent build up and adapting intelligently. I'd say that this is actually why many wanted Kyo-ani to do this - it's not just the visuals that makes Kyo-ani good, it's also their ability to do creative adaptations, and expand on the plot and characters of the source material.

We see this K-on (with it's brilliantly written and seamlessly fitted in plot expansions from the manga), we see this with Chuunibyou (with it's reinterpretation of the original Light Novel) and probably quite a few others. This WAS what people was actually fearing, I think. Not Kyo-ani tier visuals (personally, I'm indifferent to the visuals), but whether JC Staff could creatively adapt a story that by all accounts is very tricky to adapt to the anime medium, and requires a good bit of competent originality. It's that "creative adaptation" aspect that Kyo-ani does well that people actually wanted. But LB so far feels uninspired and clunky.

By all accounts, it's seems they have failed to polish up on the plot, expand or modify it well for the slower moving Anime Medium. In other wards, they failed to adapt LB intelligently. Yes, I see that the Komari's arc was an example of JC Staff being aware that viewers today want to be wowed in five- seven episodes (for 2 cour animes, if you got 1 cour, three episode rule applies), or they'll loose interest the show. And the way I see it, Komari's route does not center upon romance, but upon friendship, in the adaptation, and therefore can easily be modified to fit the Common Route itself.

Personally, Komari's VA alienated me to those episodes, but when I look at it on dialogue alone, it isn't actually quite bad, to be honest. It could do with being later, and I think there needed to be indeed, more buildup for it's denouement of friendship to be more credible. But taken in isolation, it's actually quite a nice story, by itself.

But that may be part of the problem. It isn't wowing people. It's just... average so far, at best. And in general, elements like hung jokes (as someone who never read the actual VN, some of the jokes just felt like they were just left hanging, and poorly executed, even if there's a strong story under the execution) only serve to irritate audiences further.

So, LB is probably a mess right now. There are plenty of unintelligent adaptation choices. This stage (which is clearly a buildup) isn't brilliantly or inspiringly executed, at best , it is just... average. Mediocre even. Will the situations change six episodes from now?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by novalysis

I think the big problem with this adaptation is that the adaptation has been very unintelligent, and hackneyed. Translating Little Busters to an anime format requires far more than copy-pasting, rearranging and axing of specific scenes. There needs to be a certain originality for the adaptation to do well. [...] This WAS what people was actually fearing, I think. Not Kyo-ani tier visuals (personally, I'm indifferent to the visuals), but whether JC Staff could creatively adapt a story that by all accounts is very tricky to adapt to the anime medium, and requires a good bit of competent originality. It's that "creative adaptation" aspect that Kyo-ani does well that people actually wanted. But LB so far feels uninspired and clunky.

By all accounts, it's seems they have failed to polish up on the plot, expand or modify it well for the slower moving Anime Medium. In other wards, they failed to adapt LB intelligently.

As I pointed out yesterday, I don't think the adaptation of the story is being handled by J.C.Staff. The writer was hired by the production committee (the connection was through the Producer at Warner, who previously worked with her on Nanatsuiro Drops), has written the script for every episode so far, and doesn't work for J.C.Staff. She is also a veteran writer, has worked on many, many long-running anime, and by all evidence paid close attention to the game when writing the script and had input from Key. (See the interview in this quarter's Dengeki Visual Art's magazine.) So... is it for a lack of trying?

I think people are operating on faith when they say that any other writer or production team would necessarily have fixed whatever they think the flaws are with Little Busters' story at this point. Perhaps that faith is fair based on past experience, but I don't think the sort of "creativity" being called for is so trivial. I also don't think that even KyoAni was isolated from criticism for their adaptation choices in past Key shows (I remember some of it quite vividly, in fact).

I've said it before, but I think that the Little Busters anime is competing with the show people imagine it could have been, and not necessarily with what it was ever likely to be. Thus it's a competition that the show can't help but lose no matter what.

[Marcus H.]

^ If that is the case, then a Kyo-Ani production or even a SHAFT production of Little Busters with the same production committee might end up as "an eye candy series with a cluster-eff story". Well, based on how many people would end up in Little Busters and how the Komari Arc was handled, it just proves the difficulty (to the point of impossibility) of translating the VN to an anime series.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

^ If that is the case, then a Kyo-Ani production or even a SHAFT production of Little Busters with the same production committee might end up as "an eye candy series with a cluster-eff story". Well, based on how many people would end up in Little Busters and how the Komari Arc was handled, it just proves the difficulty (to the point of impossibility) of translating the VN to an anime series.

Komari's story did only end up getting 2 episodes. It's not hard to figure out why some/most people think why it did not work out.

[Snuffle]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I've said it before, but I think that the Little Busters anime is competing with the show people imagine it could have been, and not necessarily with what it was ever likely to be. Thus it's a competition that the show can't help but lose no matter what.

The problem with this is that meeting (some/most) fans requirement could've been easily been remedied by using a different style of story telling. Putting the scenes jokes/drama/etc aside, the story as a whole is being treated like just another VN.

Unless the story gets twisted in some way to make what happens later believable, I can just see later anime only viewers going "why?" "why is that happening?" "why did this happen?" And that's because it's what I've been saying for awhile... It's because a few very important plot elements are missing!

Originally Posted by hyl

Komari's story did only end up getting 2 episodes. It's not hard to figure out why some/most people think why it did not work out.

IIRC, there were even some anime only viewers that felt it was a bit forced/rushed.

[Marcus H.]

The reason is because there's just too many people with a story, and there's little time to go down each and every one of them. Hell, going through the stories of the main five might need an entire cour by themselves already. Little Busters might need 72 episodes (six cours, including Refrain, excluding Kud Wafter) to cover everything.

[Snuffle]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Little Busters might need 72 episodes (six cours, including Refrain, excluding Kud Wafter) to cover everything.

If done properly (based on the style of story telling being used right now), I can easily picture this being done in 38 episodes.
26 for what we're going through now
12 for the ending arc and it's prelude.
If we get 24-26 for the ending arc + prelude to it, then that would just be awkward... Since things are being so rushed now, slowing that THAT much will just be odd for me. But hey, if done well, maybe it can be stretched into another 24-26 eps.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Snuffle

Putting the scenes jokes/drama/etc aside, the story as a whole is being treated like just another VN.

Unless the story gets twisted in some way to make what happens later believable, I can just see later anime only viewers going "why?" "why is that happening?" "why did this happen?" And that's because it's what I've been saying for awhile... It's because a few very important plot elements are missing!

I think you (and other game players making a similar complaint) need to simmer down a bit on this point. Do you really, really think that all of the people involved with this anime's production (including the people from Key collaborating with the lead writer, who paid careful attention to the game's story and script) don't understand what they're doing or the nature of the story they're adapting? That they didn't carefully think through the implication of the way they're telling the story and how that would work out in the end?

Key said from the get-go that the way they figured out how to handle this adaptation required a compromise between people who understand the secret of the world and those who don't, and that they had figured out how to make an anime adaptation work. I take them at their word that they know what they're doing. I don't know the game info you and others keep referring to, but I will wait to see what the anime does to see if it was conveyed effectively. My take is that game players are being a bit too literal and uncompromising as they keep insisting on this point.

(Once it's all said and done, perhaps I'll understand the issue, and maybe will come to agree with you and other game players. But for now I think we have to assume that they have a plan.)

As for the episode count, keep in mind that they said that all the characters in the game would have their stories animated eventually, and implied this would carry into the second season (that was the context when they said that more was going to come after this 26-episode season is up). So that may provide some insight into how they'll spend their time. But any more speculation would have to go to the game spoiler & speculation thread.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I also hope that the constant criticisms get toned down at least by Episode 13. For some reason, looking for a discussion amongst anime-only watchers and stumbling upon six or so episode discussions teeming with negative opinions can be quite disheartening.

I really don't get why you'd say this. If the show is good, then people will say good things about it. Right now, it's a bit more murky and leaves much to be desired.

Though Reckoner has a point with the Kyoani exceptionalism possbility. Maybe people prefer the Kyoani style over Key itself. IMO, despite all the grace people gave Kyoani, Kanon and Air had awful pacing, and Clannad was fine there... only because it was damned long. I would also say the 2nd season, while praised the most, still has rather strange priorities.

Still, considering Air was fairly nothing special til very late in the anime, a great deal of Kanon (either 2002 or 2006) was unwatchable , and Angel Beats was umm... well... not their finest hour, I think Little Busters will take a while to grow and I guess from my point of view....

Spoiler for all:

Regardless of who's doing it, they seem to always put the worst arcs first. In general, I think the first and last bits of Key anime are the weakest.

[Marcus H.]

I really don't get why you'd say this. If the show is good, then people will say good things about it. Right now, it's a bit more murky and leaves much to be desired.

It's probably because they are saying the same things over and over again for, let's say, five episodes in a row.

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

It's probably because they are saying the same things over and over again for, let's say, five episodes in a row.

I can vouch for this. The one thing I keep seeing and not really agreeing with is how it's constantly hailed as really poor animation quality.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

It's probably because they are saying the same things over and over again for, let's say, five episodes in a row.

I disagree.

The complaints are not all the same thing and are coming from various people, of which many had enjoyed previous Key series.

Don't you think that they're not watching the show for the sole purpose of bashing it?

While it's true that some arguments will be too repetitious, I think it would be better if you were to counter with good things about the show.

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

I can vouch for this. The one thing I keep seeing and not really agreeing with is how it's constantly hailed as really poor animation quality.

It's more like the lack of animation that causes problems. You can see this with anything that involves a fight in the series.... which is not much of a one.

At least it's not Deen though.

[hyl]

It's odd that anime-only viewers think that the animation is the main complaint of the people who have read the VN, eventhough i didn't bother reading every thread I actually thought that the pacing and the left out or changed story elements (especially the ones related to Riki and Rin) are the bigger problems.

[bigdeal000]

I have yet to understand most of the complaints. People talk about lack of animation or poor animation quality (the animation looks fine to me) or about how the flow of the scenes is unnatural or how the gags are not funny. The game to anime comparison threads are full of some other complaints I can't post here. I don't understand them. In fact, I do understand one of them, about how the anime left out a certain something, but just like Relentless said, I have faith that they know what they are doing. All this negativity just ruins my mood, so I decided to ignore it. I enjoy the anime for what it is and the moment I realize a post is going to have something bad in it, I just stop reading it. I even learned some names that are most likely to post complaints so I just completely ignore their posts. I'm having too much fun to let it be ruined like that...

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by hyl

Komari's story did only end up getting 2 episodes. It's not hard to figure out why some/most people think why it did not work out.

Originally Posted by Snuffle

IIRC, there were even some anime only viewers that felt it was a bit forced/rushed.

I'm one of them. I thought the Komari arc was Ok, but it lacked much emotional punch for me, and I suspect it's because there just wasn't enough time to build it up properly.

I've seen a fair number of "romance route" VN adaptations now, and I've noticed that one of the keys to success for a unified format VN adaptation is something that may bother some source material fans but is nonetheless true - A major heroine or two has to be shunted a bit to the side. If you try to give each and every major heroine her own arc, each girl will suffer because of it, and the narrative will end up feeling like a mess.

In this post, I'll delve into my reasoning here. Major spoilers below. Only read the sections for shows you've already seen (and/or don't care at all on being spoiled on).

Spoiler for Mashiro-iro Symphony:

The sister and the maid are basically shunted off to the side. So much so that I can't even recall their names off-hand. I do recall the names of the other three girls, though - Airi, Miu, and Sana.

The anime very wisely chose to treat the sister as just a sister, and the maid-girl never rose above the status of eccentric but valued friend that Shingo clearly considered too eccentric for anything more than a friend.

Airi, Miu, and Sana hence all had great character development throughout the show - Airi dominating the first half, while Miu and Sana dominated the 2nd half. The 1st to 2nd half transition was a bit clunky, I felt, but on the whole, this was a very well put together and nicely coherent/cohesive VN adaptation. It truly felt like one, unified story, rather than a messy patchwork of a bunch of separate stories.

Spoiler for Clannad:

Kyou and Tomoyo never get arcs, per se. They get OVAs later on, but in the unified narrative they remain Tomoya's friends with little suggestion of it going farther than that. Fuko's arc is brilliantly used to help further establish Tomoya/Nagisa - This is due to how a couple episodes make Tomoya, Nagisa, and Fuko seem like two parents and their daughter. The idea of a Tomoya/Fuko romance ending is made utterly unthinkable by the anime.

There's a slight whiff of potential romance in Kotomi's arc, but it also works well as Tomoya simply helping out his good childhood friend.

Tomoya is truly the one-woman man (the woman in question being Nagisa), while Tomoyo, Fuko, and Kotomi never really display romantic interest in him. Kyou and Ryou have a good cry over losing Tomoya to Nagisa, but that's about it on the "harem-y" front.

Spoiler for Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate:

To the degree that this anime is a success, much of is because one of the major heroines is never treated as a serious romance option, hence giving more time to develop the other four.

To the degree that this anime is a failure, much of it is because it tries too hard to incorporate key elements from ever heroine's route into the story, and it's just too much for an one cour adaptation.

Spoiler for Steins;Gate and Fate/Stay Night:

I'm combining both here, because both are arguably more famous for the non-romance elements of their stories than the romance elements. Nonetheless, they are anime shows based on romance route VNs.

With Steins;Gate, there's never any real doubt that Okabe's choice will come down to either Mayuri or Kurisu. He clearly values the friendship of all of his lab members, including the female ones, but you can tell that he has a special attachment to Mayuri and develops a special attachment to Kurisu.


Fate/Stay Night is similar - Saber and Rin are the only two serious contenders for Shirou. I vaguely recall a fanservicey episode or two where other girls hit on Shirou, but Shirou never really shows an interest in any girl other than Saber or Rin.

I think that Steins;Gate and Fate/Stay Night both benefited from this approach. Their sci-fi and gritty action-y narratives could have suffered a lot if it had to compete with several-way romance stories.

So, in conclusion, the best VN adaptations make hard but productive choices. They allow a couple major heroines to slip into "supporting cast" roles, while narrowing the focus to two or three major heroines. This makes the narrative feel more clear and cohesive, while giving enough time to properly develop the chosen girls and their stories.

When VN adaptations (at least of the unified format) fail, it's usually because they get too ambitious, and try too hard to satisfy each and every major heroine's fanbase. Perhaps that's going on with LB!

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Though Reckoner has a point with the Kyoani exceptionalism possbility. Maybe people prefer the Kyoani style over Key itself. IMO, despite all the grace people gave Kyoani, Kanon and Air had awful pacing, and Clannad was fine there... only because it was damned long. I would also say the 2nd season, while praised the most, still has rather strange priorities.

I think KyoAni has one particular strength that makes it ideal for adaptations of long VNs. And that's that KyoAni is very good at sort of "papering over" boring sections of a story.

The clearest example of this is actually not a VN adaption, but rather the Hyouka one.

Spoiler for Minor Hyouka spoilers:

There's a couple episodes of Hyouka that I think would be truly boring if not for the KyoAni touch.

You know the episode with mini-Angel Chitandas flying around all over Oreki? That's one of them. The Chitanda angels themselves are much of what saves that episode.

KyoAni is good at using visual flair and creativity to make even the dullest of episodes at least mildly enjoyable and noteworthy.

JC Staff doesn't have that though, and in fairness, most animation studios don't.

So I think what KyoAni was able to do was make the slow, long build-up of the Key narratives seem as good as they possibly could be. It made their more lackluster moments seem decently entertaining and noteworthy at least.

[Marcus H.]

While it's true that some arguments will be too repetitious, I think it would be better if you were to counter with good things about the show.

I tried (see the threads on Episodes 3 and 6), while trying to avoid speculating (and attracting the attention of the spoilermasters).
I don't think most of the people are interested in my opinions.

It's more like the lack of animation that causes problems. You can see this with anything that involves a fight in the series.... which is not much of a one.

Lack of animation doesn't actually bug me that much. It's when things go off-scale or faces up-close go derpy that my jimmies get rustled.

[novalysis]

Is LB's problem poor animation? Yes, I know I am pounding on old territory when I note the differences in production values between Sakurajou and LB, so I won't go down that lane.

And personally, I find the adaptation so far... just watchable, to be blunt. I think I can sort of understand what they were trying for, in the Komari route, and that was to try to drain romance right out of it (and I think they did manage to do it, decently, since by the end of the route, I cannot see a Riki X Komari being even remotely possible.) So, if the Common Route was friendship oriented, then yes, perhaps it DOES make sense to adapt the Komari Route earlier on, though I'd have rather had seen the cast fully assembled first.

It actually is an interesting hint : could it be that they intend to diffuse all the early routes, and construct them as "friendship", "Platonic" routes, while the later routes would be more romantic focus? If this is truly the Haruka route (as opposed to a continuation of the common route after a Komari Route interlude) , could it be that once again, the next few episodes would touch on the theme of Friendship, in another way? Will they assemble all the cast before going onto the specific routes, or will they clear the easiest routes that can be converted or presented from a platonic angle of friendship instead, before the full cast is assembled?

[Snuffle]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I think you (and other game players making a similar complaint) need to simmer down a bit on this point. Do you really, really think that all of the people involved with this anime's production (including the people from Key collaborating with the lead writer, who paid careful attention to the game's story and script) don't understand what they're doing or the nature of the story they're adapting? That they didn't carefully think through the implication of the way they're telling the story and how that would work out in the end?

Key said from the get-go that the way they figured out how to handle this adaptation required a compromise between people who understand the secret of the world and those who don't, and that they had figured out how to make an anime adaptation work.

This is the thing... This so called compromise seems too extreme to me. For all the crap that happens in the end to make sense, a proper narrative is necessary. The only way I can see this change making sense throughout the final arc is if they have decided to drastically change how it is played out.

Originally Posted by bigdeal000

I have yet to understand most of the complaints. People talk about lack of animation or poor animation quality (the animation looks fine to me) or about how the flow of the scenes is unnatural or how the gags are not funny.

Whatever complaints you're seeing about animation or art style is the extreme minority. I personally only notice one or two at best about that per week. So I really don't understand why there are so many counter complaints about it.

About the flow, I'm just going to stop talking about it among anime only viewers since most/all of them don't really know where me or others are coming from.

But do you seriously find most of the gags funny? Sure there are a few nice ones here and there, but I find most of them flat.

Originally Posted by hyl

It's odd that anime-only viewers think that the animation is the main complaint of the people who have read the VN, eventhough i didn't bother reading every thread I actually thought that the pacing and the left out or changed story elements (especially the ones related to Riki and Rin) are the bigger problems.

Which is what I've been trying to say... (without being as specific as you).

This makes me wonder about what people look for first.
Do people that look for animation and art style notice complaints about those things more?
Also, do people that look for a proper narrative notice complaints and concerns about those things more?
I think people are just focusing in on what they're most interested in and getting annoyed by it.

Originally Posted by novalysis

It actually is an interesting hint : could it be that they intend to diffuse all the early routes, and construct them as "friendship", "Platonic" routes, while the later routes would be more romantic focus? If this is truly the Haruka route (as opposed to a continuation of the common route after a Komari Route interlude) , could it be that once again, the next few episodes would touch on the theme of Friendship, in another way? Will they assemble all the cast before going onto the specific routes, or will they clear the easiest routes that can be converted or presented from a platonic angle of friendship instead, before the full cast is assembled?

Isn't this the standard for any VN adaption? Make all other girls friends and usually the canon one goes last. I see no reason to think about it since it's pretty obvious, unless they decide to do some radical change...

[bigdeal000]

Originally Posted by Snuffle

This is the thing... This so called compromise seems too extreme to me. For all the crap that happens in the end to make sense, a proper narrative is necessary. The only way I can see this change making sense throughout the final arc is if they have decided to drastically change how it is played out.


Whatever complaints you're seeing about animation or art style is the extreme minority. I personally only notice one or two at best about that per week. So I really don't understand why there are so many counter complaints about it.

About the flow, I'm just going to stop talking about it among anime only viewers since most/all of them don't really know where me or others are coming from.

But do you seriously find most of the gags funny? Sure there are a few nice ones here and there, but I find most of them flat.

Yes, I do find the gags funny. Let me ask you something instead. How do you know the extent of that certain compromise? You sound like you know everything about it. Ok, something you wanted to be hinted at was not hinted at yet. But there's plenty of episodes left to do it. Is it enough to already judge the direction of the story and say that certain plot device will be ignored in the anime? To me, it's not. So, am I missing something?