Little Busters - Episode 10 Discussion / Poll

[Marcus H.]

The Melancholy Parasol Girl Mio Hanazono enters the scene, making known to everyone that she is not as interested in making friends as the Little Busters. However, she does recognize that she is lonely, and that she appears to enjoy the company of Riki, who has eyed her as the newest member of the Little Busters.

Surprisingly, the "missing book" case opened the Yuiko route for Mio, which has been shown in the opening. The interactions between the two will certainly be interesting, as both of them have mature personalities, although Yuiko is a boke and she is most definitely a tsukkomi.

What makes me curious is how Mio's hair is depicted as having no shadows or highlights whatsoever. Does this allude to her "shadowless" nickname or merely J.C. Staff cutting corners?



Oh, and on the topic of Little Busters being slow, remember that Steins;Gate is rather slow plot-wise as well.

[s07195]

That was quite a deduction Kurugaya made. I should know better than to question anime by now, but the plot was kind of forced, wasn't it? Probably to fit it all within 24 minutes.

Starting to appreciate the BGMs a lot now. Background music really does go a long way to making an anime, game or other forms of media. Kudos to the person in charge of the BGMs improving the episode a lot.

Would you call Komari and Kud innocent, or childish?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by ~Yami~

now I understand how to recruit people... thanks, Naoe Riki!

Yeah! You look around for relationship points! ("I'll tell you about the book later... When I trust you more. )

when Yui-chan mentioned she found a shy girl who can't ask about the book, my mind is calling Rin! but unfortunately it isn't her...

Same reaction here. But it turned out to be a one-off character (?)

Originally Posted by ThereminVox

Spoiler for long:

Interesting. Mio isn't the sort of character I'd normally gravitate towards in a KEY story, but in this case, I have to conclude that she's exactly the kind of presence this show needed to balance such a... let's be diplomatic and call it a boke-heavy cast. If anything, it feels like it might have been a mistake to bring her in so late, though I don't know if there might be a good story reason why they had to hold off.


- Every scene Mio is in, I can't help but notice the music. I haven't been too impressed by the BGM so far, but each of her scenes had some good stuff in the background. I see someone's posted the music that played both in her first scene of episode 10, and also in her original introduction. That might be my favorite so far.

- I speculated a week or two ago that Mio's parasol indicated that she had some serious aversion to direct sunlight. It seems like that was correct (she sends Riki after it when it gets away from her) though I may have been wrong in thinking that she falls into the Ill Girl category, frail though she may be. This is Riki's first assumption, so it may be too obvious to be true. My guess: It may be something psychological rather than physical. She might have a crippling fear that her isolation has made her so immaterial that she might literally cast no shadow.

- Mio talks about how she selfishly tries to keep birds from flying away to where she can't follow by feeding them. After that, each time Riki comes by, she offers him leftovers. She's lonely.


I've been thinking this for a while, but Riki talking to Kyousuke about how he wants to reach out to people like the LBs did to him reminds me: I think Kyousuke is trying to pass the torch to Riki. The baseball team gives Kyousuke the opportunity to pull a "Dread Pirate Roberts" sort of retirement. He's leaving soon anyway, and all of the new members coming in are seeing Riki in much the way that Riki originally saw Kyousuke; as the central figure behind a group of friends that promise a new beginning for misfits and oddballs like them.

I think that's why he started a baseball team of all things, and why he makes Riki do the recruiting. The old members already have a set relationship with Riki. He needs new people to elevate him to the status of leader. I don't think Kyousuke particularly cares about baseball at all. It was just an excuse to cycle in new members.

Which reminds me, aren't most of the recruited members from Year 2? Then what use would it be if most would be in their graduating year afterwards? Would they try to find more people again? (Assuming this isn't some kind of time loop or something. The foreshadowing of the secret of the world is kind of strong.)

[bigdeal000]

Originally Posted by s07195

Same reaction here. But it turned out to be a one-off character (?)

She made a small appearance in episode 2(i think) as well. Also, she got a few seconds of screen time in some later episode (20 and something).