Little Busters - Episode 16 Discussion / Poll

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by GDB

She's come off as a bitch in pretty much every scene she's in, outside of the ones when it's basically just her and Kud.

She wasn't that bad until now imo. She felt like a stuck-up, but she was tolerable. However, she crossed the line this time.

Same. She needs someone to give her a hug and let her know everything will be okay. I nominate Kurugaya in the shower!

I can get behind that. In all seriousness, I'm hoping Anego will play an important role in this arc.

[Triple_R]

Futaki has always struck me as a fascist, but before this episode, she struck me as... professional, at least. In other words, she was a sincere fascist who simply takes lawfulness to a very unhealthy extreme because she believes that much in lawfulness for its own sake.

But in this episode, it was much more than that. In this episode, she was horribly mean, vicious, and destructive. Totally abusive, and grotesquely unforgiving.

... I think I know who invented the Sibyl system of Psycho-Pass.


And yeah, outside of outright villains, an anime character hasn't angered me as much as Futaki as in a very long time. The sad thing is that, unlike those villains, I doubt we're going to get the satisfaction of seeing Futaki get her comeuppance. And after this episode, I'm not sure I'm all that cool with the idea of Futaki being easily forgiven by the Little Busters! for her horrible abuse (which in turn is a grotesque abuse of her council power) of her own twin sister.


Still, very gripping and intense episode that I liked a lot due to the purposeful feeling it had. I look forward to more of Haruka's arc.

[ThereminVox]

At first I thought Futaki was just power-tripping, even though it was pretty obvious Haruka was her sister. But at some point, it just becomes premeditated bullying. She's probably in a difficult situation herself, but there are some things you just can't excuse.

I don't know for sure that she's responsible for the fliers, but I don't know who else it could be. The only reason I wonder is because she had kind of a complicated look about her at the end when she was reading them.

[Rising Dragon]

Given how Midori turned out (in that her taking over wasn't to be malicious) I imagine we're going to find out something concerning Kanata that'll put her actions into perspective. I'm not saying it'll make her actions towards Haruka any better, but we'll find some understanding in her that'll reveal she's not being a hateful person for the sake of hate.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by ThereminVox

I don't know for sure that she's responsible for the fliers, but I don't know who else it could be. The only reason I wonder is because she had kind of a complicated look about her at the end when she was reading them.

I don't think she's responsible for the fliers. If she is, that would make her completely unforgivable, and it's doubtful that's where they intend to take her character. Not to mention, that flier could possibly hurt her too, if somebody connected her to Haruka.

[Dr. Casey]

Yeah, I've no idea who the culprit might be (I'm guessing a new character that hasn't been introduced yet) but I seriously doubt it's Kanata. She might have been a total thundercunt this episode, but she's not a bad person; she wouldn't do anything that low-down.

Good point on Key openings tending to be uniform, I'd forgotten about that. At least Little Busters' opening and ending theme are pretty awesome.

[Rising Dragon]

I'm glad they're just changing portions of the OP's animation rather than making a new one. I like Little Buster's OP.

[Triple_R]

Perhaps the culprit is one of Kanata's "fans" who wants to earn Kanata's admiration by successfully ruining the reputation of that villainous troublemaker and Kanata archfoe Haruka. After all, that's exactly what Kanata is making Haruka out to be, isn't it? And shouldn't actual villainous troublemakers have their reputations ruined so people are protected from them? <---- (This being the rationale behind the smear campaign)

Kanata learns of this and has a "...I really have turned into a complete monster, haven't I?" moment of profound realization, like Scrooge out of A Christmas Carol. Then Kanata begs forgiveness from the world, and promises to turn over a new leaf, by buying baseball supplies for the entire LB! and pledging to govern like a reasonable person and not like the bastard child of Tojo and Mussolini.

Then Kanata becomes nicer, and three times more moe, and slowly but surely the audience is able to forgive her.

If that's the plot, or close to it, then I'll be giving this arc a total thumbs up!


Also, it might be nice if Kud plays a key role here. Kud is the only person that Kanata seems to act like a normal person around. So Kud's in an unique position to possibly get through to Kanata, and make her realize that yeah, she needs to change the way she handles her power, particularly with respect to Haruka.

[ronelm2000]

So many forshadowing tossed out here and there.

Definitely a biiiiit rushed, but I think the forshadowing last eps were enough.

9/10.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Also, it might be nice if Kud plays a key role here. Kud is the only person that Kanata seems to act like a normal person around. So Kud's in an unique position to possibly get through to Kanata, and make her realize that yeah, she needs to change the way she handles her power, particularly with respect to Haruka.

It is kind of odd how she just rips into Kud and her friends collectively as a group, yet she's totally friendly with Kud individually. And she seems to respect Kurugaya (which is... incredibly odd, since she skips class pretty much every day, and as such should be pretty high on her shit list for breaking the rules).

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by GDB

And she seems to respect Kurugaya (which is... incredibly odd, since she skips class pretty much every day, and as such should be pretty high on her shit list for breaking the rules).

lol just noticed that. Futaki fail...

[Kirayuki]

Originally Posted by GDB

It is kind of odd how she just rips into Kud and her friends collectively as a group, yet she's totally friendly with Kud individually. And she seems to respect Kurugaya (which is... incredibly odd, since she skips class pretty much every day, and as such should be pretty high on her shit list for breaking the rules).

Oh, you wouldn't want to mess with Anego

And unlike Haruka, Anego is not the kind of troublemaker that cause problem to other students. She skip class pretty much, but she doesn't seem to have any problem with her grades.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GDB

It is kind of odd how she just rips into Kud and her friends collectively as a group, yet she's totally friendly with Kud individually. And she seems to respect Kurugaya (which is... incredibly odd, since she skips class pretty much every day, and as such should be pretty high on her shit list for breaking the rules).

Kanata is able to trashtalk Haruka and get away with it, because Haruka is not particularly smooth and witty (Haruka's not dumb, but she's not particularly skilled with words). Anego, OTOH, would probably have a few effective choice words to say to Kanata if Kanata decided to tangle with her. So Kanata leaves Anego well enough alone unless Angeo was to do something that was problematic to other students.

To be fair, Haruka's no angel (the opening sequence of this episode makes that clear ), but nor does she deserve anything close to the incredibly harsh treatment she received in this episode. Honestly, in a darker real world setting, what Kanata is doing to Haruka could drive the poor girl into a Mio-esque shell, if not worse...


Kanata may rationalize to herself that she's only being just and fair in applying the rules, but the truth is that she is being excessively harsh on Haruka in particular, and I think that's due to a deep-seated resentment towards Haruka that Kanata has allowed to get out of control. And I think that biases Kanata a lot, particularly against the Little Busters since they decided to befriend her hated sister. So the Little Busters as a whole Kanata dislikes as an extension of her hatred of Haruka. Kanata can be nice to Kud individually, because when it's just the two of them in their room together, Kud is no longer tied to Haruka this way in Kanata's eyes.

[Rising Dragon]

Kanata's also probably familiar with the original Little Busters' penchant for causing mayhem with their battles, so that's probably influencing her opinion of them as a whole with their association with Haruka.

[molitar]

I hate the hateful, spiteful, jealous bitch Futaki! I would of slapped her in the face and called her just that! More than that I would of jumped in front of them swinging the hammers and got hit by them!

Oh we will prohibit you and your club! I would of said in her face prohibit it all you want as an official club we will remain unofficial you can't stop us having any fun just because you are hateful spiteful bitch that likes to destroy anyone's fun get the _____ out of my face you ugly bitch!

She has done nothing but target them and blaming them for everything what a bitch.

[Zankoku12]

I'm surprised no one even bother about the whole 1 wife with 2 husbands and

Spoiler for Spoiler:

Kanata and Haruka are twin with different father...

[Kirayuki]

Originally Posted by Zankoku12

I'm surprised no one even bother about the whole 1 wife with 2 husbands and

Spoiler for Spoiler:

Kanata and Haruka are twin with different father...

Frankly, I think the execution is pretty weak during that revelation. Maybe next episode when things are elaborated more ?

[broken270]

Originally Posted by Zankoku12

I'm surprised no one even bother about the whole 1 wife with 2 husbands and

Spoiler for Spoiler:

Kanata and Haruka are twin with different father...

Spoiler for Speculation:

The most logical answer for that would be that both Kanata and Haruka are twins from the same mother and father, but were separated by birth, meaning one was given away to the other husband. Most likely than not, they realized that they were twins as they grew older. Based on Haruka's flashback, it is possible that the villagers do not even know that the two are twins, given the harsh words they have given to Haruka as a child but not to Kanata, thus the idea that they were separated by birth. This was most likely kept a secert from everyone. It also does not help that the two harbor different last names, making their identity as twins even less reasonable.

From here, a lot of things can be branched out. For example, their father is actually the criminal, and Kanata was lucky to not have that as her father growing up. Conversely, They were born from Kanata's father, and Haruka unluckily got the criminal husband as her father. There is obviously much more than just being lucky or unlucky, of which maybe later episode(s) will cover.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Kanata is able to trashtalk Haruka and get away with it, because Haruka is not particularly smooth and witty (Haruka's not dumb, but she's not particularly skilled with words). Anego, OTOH, would probably have a few effective choice words to say to Kanata if Kanata decided to tangle with her. So Kanata leaves Anego well enough alone unless Angeo was to do something that was problematic to other students.

There is a glaring difference between Haruka and Yuiko: Haruka is a known troublemaker for quite a long time, and regardless how funny looking it was, some of her actions are really a bother or even downright dangerous (spreading marbles purposedly so people trip on them is hardly something that can be qualified as a nice prank, regardless how goofy it was shown).
Even Kengo and Masato don't particularly like hanging around with her when she is in her trickster mood (in fact, as slightly implied in the anime, both treated her like a PITA for good reasons).

The anime didn't show that quite well, but Haruka's non sense and pranks are quite numerous and daily to put it buntly, so it is no wonder that the discipline commitee members got the bias when a known troublemaker keep doing their own stuff. Haruka is also known as a prankster feigning ignorance, so by her reputation and previous offenses, it is no wonder they wouldn't even trust anything she says (a bit like the boy who cried wolf).

Yuiko on the other hand is on a complete different league: even if she does skip classes, her grades do not falter. To the contrary, she basically has the skills and competence to let her own teachers turn a blind eye, to which the commitee doesn't need to take any action, especially if she isn't disrupting public areas (her antics only involves the LB so far, and the only possible issue was her fight with Masato, which occured far away from Kanata's group area).

Kanata may rationalize to herself that she's only being just and fair in applying the rules, but the truth is that she is being excessively harsh on Haruka in particular, and I think that's due to a deep-seated resentment towards Haruka that Kanata has allowed to get out of control. And I think that biases Kanata a lot, particularly against the Little Busters since they decided to befriend her hated sister. So the Little Busters as a whole Kanata dislikes as an extension of her hatred of Haruka. Kanata can be nice to Kud individually, because when it's just the two of them in their room together, Kud is no longer tied to Haruka this way in Kanata's eyes.

Actually no, Kanata doesn't particularly goes against the LB ever since they befriend Haruka. It only happens when they involve themselves with Haruka's antics. Otherwise, you could be sure that Masato would have the utter end of a short stick quite quickly.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

There is a glaring difference between Haruka and Yuiko: Haruka is a known troublemaker for quite a long time, and regardless how funny looking it was, some of her actions are really a bother or even downright dangerous (spreading marbles purposedly so people trip on them is hardly something that can be qualified as a nice prank, regardless how goofy it was shown).
Even Kengo and Masato don't particularly like hanging around with her when she is in her trickster mood (in fact, as slightly implied in the anime, both treated her like a PITA for good reasons).

The anime didn't show that quite well, but Haruka's non sense and pranks are quite numerous and daily to put it buntly, so it is no wonder that the discipline commitee members got the bias when a known troublemaker keep doing their own stuff. Haruka is also known as a prankster feigning ignorance, so by her reputation and previous offenses, it is no wonder they wouldn't even trust anything she says (a bit like the boy who cried wolf).

As you said, the anime doesn't show this well, and some of us (including me) are working strictly off of the anime.

But beyond that, if you present the antics of Haruka and the Little Busters! in this fun slapsticky way where there's no real, lasting consequences to all of these wild fights (for example), it's hard to take Haruka's pranks as serious problems.

Basically, Kanata's Disciplinary Group comes across more as (at best) overly legalistic killjoys than as invaluable people keeping the peace because there's no real sense that the peace needs to be kept for basic safety and security reasons.

There's a price to having a lot of slapstick comedy in your show, and part of that price is that it's going to make it harder for viewers to sympathize with characters like Kanata.

If you want me to take Haruka's pranks as serious problems, then they have to be portrayed as serious problems, and not as something to laugh about.


Oh, and Kanata has gone out of her way to verbally lambast the Little Busters and some of its members. She has threatened them as a club in a way that I haven't seen here threaten any other club or group in this school.