As I watched the monologue preceding and leading up to the point where Rin and Riki get into an argument, I kept thinking that the entire premise behind Riki's decision to urge Rin to go is very flawed. Rin did not make that circle of female friends by herself - Riki was the initiator of all those friendships in those cases, and Rin merely tagged along. The only way for Riki's thought process to remain believable, would be for Riki to be remarkably blind as to the dynamics of the newer members of the Little Busters.
The more I think about it, perhaps Riki just isn't that privy to what goes on with the girls, and leads to the assumption that the fact that Rin's friendship with the girls that in truth befriended Riki first, implies that Rin can make friends, without Riki as the initial mediator. It's a wrong assumption to make - perhaps, it also reflects the problem that Riki tends to sell himself a little short, and fail to really grasp that it's not Rin that's holding the girls together as friends. Yes, she appears to have initiated events, but that group of friends was won over by Riki, not Rin. Furthermore, I think that the girl holding the females of the Little Busters as a common clique (and they are, to an outsider) is not really Rin. And it's not completely Riki either, when Riki is not around.
Sometime ago, I commented that Kurugaya takes an analogous role that Kyousuke does among the boys, among the girls However, after looking at some of the Komari scenes, I think the place Kyousuke occupies among the boys (as heart and head) is split into two among the girls, with Komari as the heart.Infact, I am leaning towards Komari as the girl who turns the "friend of my friend Riki" group of females, into an actual group of female friends. I think it's rather unfortunate that they choose such a absurdly childish voice for Komari. Yes, it's meant to fit her character, but a voice closer to her age group would probably made her status as the emotional heart of the female Little Busters, and a elder sister figure in the group much more clearer. I suspect most of the female only Little Busters initiatives got in all the females, because Komari seems to be the one who convened all the girls together for those girls only activities- but that's just a theory of mine, and better informed readers could correct me of that.
It might be, that Kurugaya already takes the Anego status of the Little Busters female, so, the authors decided to make Komari childish in voice and appearance so as not to have a second "bigger" sister figure in the group. Which is the shame, because once you realize what kind of person Kurugaya is, you start realizing that she's not the actual "Anego" Figure, or the leading figure among the girls. Ironically, it might well be Komari instead, despite her voice. Is it also coincidence that she happens to be one of the taller and well endowed of the girls, despite her childish face and voice?
I think it's interesting that in the anime, Riki is an insider to all the girls in the Little Busters, as a friend, but of the friendship between the girls themselves, he's very much an outsider. But while this might be too thin a thread to speculate on, I think from the brief glimpses of the internal dynamics of the Little Busters female, there's appears to be a very interesting parallel story going on here. From the outside, Kurugaya seems to take the same role as the leader of the girls, but inside, between them, Kurugaya isn't really capable of offering the same sort of emotional bedrock that Kyousuke provides for the boys, which Komari somewhat fills.
I think Riki somewhat fails to realize that within the Female Little Busters, Rin isn't the one keeping that group together. Riki's bridging the male and female portions of the Little Busters into one, but the females themselves aren't a collection of independent individuals bounded to Riki, but rather, a second group of female friends with a dynamics running often in parallel to the dynamics between the original group of male friends.
Perhaps Riki recognizes that this second cohesive group of female friendships exist in the new half of the Little Busters, but I think he fails to realize that the fact that such a group exist and that Rin now has a clique of females doesn't necessarily mean that Rin could make friends independent of Riki.
That was much longer than I anticipated. I originally intended to write how stupid Riki's thought process sounded to me, when I started out, and it somehow drifted into a discourse into the dynamics of the Little Busters. But it's a very interesting dynamics here.
And yes. I am aware that there are smaller, one on one relationships between the girls, besides that overarching "clique" that the girls have become. Rin and Komari is one example, and then there's the more special friendship that Kurugaya and Haruka seems to have implied to posses. There's Kud insecurity of whether she really belongs into that group, and unfortunately, the anime doesn't really go well into where Mio fits into that group - only that she indeed is in that group.
You know, you could axe (or genderbend) Riki, and even if this was one of those cute girls doing cute things story, the relations and characters of the Little Busters girl could make it one of those very strong "female-friendship" shows, in the vein of K-on, Yuru-Yuri, GJ-bu, etc, etc. The character depth of the Little Busters girls and their personalities, and even their back-stories can probably carry that show strongly.
But that would take away what makes Little Busters unique, and that's where we really have a mixed friendship group of boys and girls, where the boys actually really matter - and in this day and age of harems where the males are joke characters, or all female friendship stories, it's rather refreshing. Still, I don't think it's Rin that's keeping the girls together. Riki is the central link where the Little Busters relationships is increasingly flowing through.
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