I think if there wasn't so much telling of the crash prior, it would have come across better for a shock value, but how the narrative works i almost don't think it would have been possible. But, regardless if the scenes were relatable they are still sad and moving. I just hope the next episode improves on the novel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BloodyKitty
I don't think the characters engaged me enough for me to care about them like I did with other Key works, except for Kyousuke this season at least.
I agree with this too for the girls. I believe this is due to their weaker arcs in comparison to other KEY games. But I liked all of the male cast and felt they were really well developed.
I also liked Kanon more than Clannad, and the routes I liked in Kanon were typically not the Maeda ones. Maeda historically has always felt emotionally manipulative to me. Besides Clannad AS episode 18, none of his other emotional climaxes ever worked for me. Especially as it pertains to heroines like Fuko.
But not to derail this into a KEY work comparison... The reason Little Busters to date stands as my favorite KEY work is because of, as Enzo puts it, its innocence and purity. You really grow to care for these people in the story like Riki. They're his friends and he deeply loves all of them. Unlike all other KEY works, this connection wasn't so artificial.
Yes the main Little Buster members earned this emotional resonance more than the side girl routes because the side routes suffer from the same issues as other KEY works with their routes, but Little Busters has never felt that emotionally manipulative barring perhaps Komari's route. Maeda was able to earn the emotion in this work so much better, and I really think it's his crowning work on just so many levels.
I understand and respect that you're both trying to convey why you found this episode so effective, but still, some of the criticisms being made here aren't ones that I think are fair or accurate to make of Clannad (Kanon, maybe).
Spoiler for Clannad comparisons:
Nagisa was steadily developed into a much deeper character than just "a typical heroine you met a couple weeks/months ago and happens to have a tragic backstory". This criticism probably applies to some Key heroines, but not Nagisa, and most of the sadder moments in Clannad are tied to her.
I also think that Clannad: After Story is quite innocent, pure, and universal in the story and themes that it presents. At least in its second half.
To each his own. Clannad is the one Key series I see as the most calculating and formulaic of all of them. There are certainly powerful moments, but the whole thing (including the development of the main couple) has a little too much of the contrived to it for me to ever emotionally commit to it.
Kanon was pretty good and I loved Clannad: After Story, while we're discussing Key works in general. I've never watched Air.
Spoiler for Little Busters 11 tl;dr:
I have to agree with basically every single one of the 42 responses to the thread. This was a fantastic episode.
Though I'm not a very critical person in general, I have to admit that sometimes in anime, characters turn on the waterworks too excessively and too freely. It's not something that bothers me or anything, but those types of scenes more often than not leave me cold and don't exactly leave a deep emotional mark on me. Characters don't have to suffer a complete meltdown every time they cry about something, and wailing isn't exactly a successful shortcut to invoking emotion in me if I don't already have investment in the characters or the problems they face. (That's the case with me, anyway - some people are more sensitive than I am.) I've always thought that if anime writers want to include those kinds of scenes, they should build up to them appropriately so that such an intense response from the characters is fitting, to develop things so that we care about the situation just as much as the characters do - because when those two criteria are met, those kinds of moments can be a wonderful, wonderful thing.
There's no doubt in my mind that Little Busters passes that test. All the emotion in this episode was more than earned, the kind of story that leaves the audience wanting to cry with the characters (or doing so, in many fans' cases ) rather than detachedly watching their crying and weeping without feeling much emotion themselves. It was a very cathartic episode, particularly the moment where Kyosuke swirls around and exposes to Riki that he's crying - I watched those 30 seconds where his emotional walls came down a good ten times last night, and I'll probably do so again tonight.
Little Busters does have a lot of emotional power behind it for a series that started off so light and breezy. Though Refrain is often considered the heart of the story (and it is), I think the case could be made for all the story arcs being just as important. The original series is nice in that it displays the Little Busters being the Little Busters, with no real tangible shadow or sense of melancholy looming over them (or at least, that shadow is so vague and its presence so sporadic that it's easy to forget about it altogether until towards the tail end of the season, where things start picking up slightly as a bridge to season two)... but then the sequel ties everything together and is a lot more powerful emotionally. They serve each other greatly as complementary pieces, and if I ever rewatch the first series (which I might, since I forget what Riki was like during the early series - Kyosuke says he's grown stronger, so I find myself wondering if he did come across as more timid and frail early on), I'm sure it will resonate with me a lot differently than the first time around.
If I made a list of my top 10 anime episodes of 2013 (which I won't because I'm lazy, but yeah), I'm sure this would make the list - and I've probably watched a good 500 or 600 episodes since I average about a dozen series per season. Those were a great 25 minutes.
Anime-only watcher, by the way. I might read the Visual Novel at some point; according to the VN Database, the original story is more than 50 hours altogether, and though the anime might be a good adaptation that covers the main focal points of the story, I'm sure the VN is still a significantly different experience (as the anime comes out to about... 15 hours? You have to lose a fair amount of nuance with that much of a difference in length).
First of all, very nice review and summary by Dr. Casey. And I thank Crashmaking Zoomatic, Bloody Kitty, and others for their thoughtful replies. Now, there are a few more comments I want to make since I probably need to elaborate more on what it was I really liked about these last few episodes of Little Busters.
To be fair, there are some areas where I'd put Little Busters ahead of other Key works...
Spoiler for Comparing Little Busters to Clannad and Kanon:
While LB! never had the same emotional impact on me as Clannad or Kanon did, I do find it more intellectually satisfying.
I've spent some time talking about the downsides of the telegraphed nature of this climax, but there's definite positives to it as well. Unless the next episode pulls something that makes me go "...Huh?!", this is the Key anime ending that feels the least ass-pully to me.
The good thing about being so clear and thorough about your show's "magical realism" is that while it might be hard to emotionally relate to, it's a lot easier to intellectually accept and make sense out of. The way "the Secret of the World" was handled in LB! was better than how "the Hidden World" was handled in Clannad, and it was also handled better than some of the supernatural elements in Kanon.
I also feel that LB!'s more lighthearted episodes were largely better than Clannad's more lighthearted episodes. LB! has the best comedy out of the three Key VN-based anime I've seen in their entirety.
I can definitely understand some people liking LB! the most out of all the Key works. Going by "Good Writing 101" it probably has the strongest overall writing.
For me, Clannad and Kanon has higher peaks, but LB! has nicer valleys and fewer swamps.
My thoughts on comparing LB to the rest of KEY works.
Spoiler for Comparing Kanon, Clannad and Little Busters not really a spoiler:
Kanon is much older and the way the story is set up, it works better as a game since none of their stories relate to the main plot. Many supernatural aspects in Kanon deal with cultural supernatural aspects that don't need explaining.
In Clannad, every story is needed for the need. They are are all connected, but work better for a game format. The anime version left out many major points to anime version which made parts not connect well. Many of the stories in the end are only connected by the one major point. The dynamics behind the story are really complicated and many points are left for the viewer to interpret.
In Little Busters the way the story is presented and the connection is much stronger. But, I found the arcs in Kanon and Clannad to be more powerful than most of the LB female cast. Just the story in LB is more rounded and includes everyone.
IMO, as time goes on KEY is focusing on the picture as a whole and finding a way to connect the stories rather than just a main girl and female back stories. The further away they get from that, the more cohesive the story will be.
Spoiler for Comparing Kanon, Clannad and Little Busters not really a spoiler:
IMO, as time goes on KEY is focusing on the picture as a whole and finding a way to connect the stories rather than just a main girl and female back stories. The further away they get from that, the more cohesive the story will be.
Spoiler for No real spoiler here either, just adding more to the comparison:
I'd agree with that, if only Rewrite (Key's next game after LB) didn't use the same "MC+1 girl" plot branching as previous games, with a few (messy) exceptions.
Little Busters is easily my favorite out of the KEY VNs because they successfully moved away from that model... well, at least on Refrain. I can't remember the last time that we had as many (plot relevant) males as we did females. I found it much easier to care for and relate with the original Little Busters because they were childhood friends and acted like it. It was a nice and welcome change from the typical "Boy meets girl, saves her from trauma and gets rewarded with a h-scene".
Key really managed to bring a believable group of friends to life. It's something they could try more often.
@Triple_R Nagisa was a good character. My statement was meant to generalize Key heroines, and you just had to pick the exception
Although... I couldn't really get emotionally invested in Clannad anyway...For all the "magical light" farming I was forced into doing to get the good ending, I didn't feel like most of my actions mattered. Plus there were all those "You must cry now" events that kept on happening as we approached the oh-so-dramatic finale.
Spoiler for No real spoiler here either, just adding more to the comparison:
@Triple_R Nagisa was a good character. My statement was meant to generalize Key heroines, and you just had to pick the exception
Although... I couldn't really get emotionally invested in Clannad anyway...For all the "magical light" farming I was forced into doing to get the good ending, I didn't feel like most of my actions mattered. Plus there were all those "You must cry now" events that kept on happening as we approached the oh-so-dramatic finale.
Spoiler for Clannad and LB! discussion:
I should state that I never played the games, so there's not much I can say to how effectively (or non-effectively) interactive they felt. I do feel that VNs in general have a lot of untapped potential, and that's largely due to how most (in my limited experience/research) don't give all that much control to the reader/player.
All of the above being said, did you feel like your actions mattered when playing Little Busters? Did that game give you more choices than the Clannad game did? Honest questions here.
I understand some of the criticisms you're making of Clannad (even if I do disagree with them), but I'm not sure why you think that Little Busters are exempt from those particular criticisms.
Some find Clannad "emotionally manipulative", while many find Clannad very emotionally moving (I'm definitely in the latter group). But even looking at things dispassionately, how was Clannad any more "You must cry now" than Little Busters is?
It seems pretty clear to me that this episode is aiming to make viewers cry. Just because it didn't actually do that for some of us, doesn't mean it isn't clearly going for that. So I don't see where it's any less "emotionally manipulative" (if you want to look at it that way) than any scene in Clannad is.
All of the above being said, did you feel like your actions mattered when playing Little Busters? Did that game give you more choices than the Clannad game did? Honest questions here.
It seems pretty clear to me that this episode is aiming to make viewers cry. Just because it didn't actually do that for some of us, doesn't mean it isn't clearly going for that. So I don't see where it's any less "emotionally manipulative" (if you want to look at it that way) than any scene in Clannad is.
Spoiler for Sorry about that guys, more comparisons!:
You can actually notice Rin's behavior changing as you play through the different routes, since you're forced to play hers last. It's subtle, but it's there.
And I think it all boils down to the ending routes. In Afterstory it's pretty much all about Tomoya and Nagisa, with only some of the girls from the "main" game making brief appearances, whereas in Refrain you have the whole cast involved in the finale. It felt more rewarding to me knowing that something actually came out of playing their routes, instead of having to play them only to hit a reset button at the end.
And yes, this episode of LB was meant to make people cry, because you're reaching the culmination of the story, so it was a natural thing to happen once the mystery was unveiled. And that's fine, I actually got emotional at this part while playing the VN.
Clannad, on the other hand, had a few moments where things were perfectly normal then suddenly, TRAGEDY. Especially towards the end. It really felt like they were trying to make the reader as miserable as possible before getting the happy end. At least that's how I felt, and that's what caused my emotional disconnect from that story in particular.
That said, I still think Clannad's a great work. It's one of my favorite animes and VNs, but I'd place it behind LB for all the reasons I've stated so far.
In my opinion comparing this episode with Clannad's ending is comparing whether Lemons and Oranges are sweeter (which scene hits you harder), rather than whether one Orange is better than another. If you want to ask which Orange is better than another, comparing the ending of Angel Beats with this episode is a more proper comparison.
Spoiler for Even more discussion : This time - the evolution of Maeda's idea, from Clannad to Angel Beats via Little Busters:
The Parting of the Boys in this episode is a closer parallel to the Graduation Ceremony of the SSS from Angel Beats. In-fact, I think Maeda had the Parting of the Boys ifrom Little Busters n mind, when he wrote the Graduation Ceremony.
I would like to add on a little further, by considering both Clannad and Little Busters, as well as Angel Beats to be constructed with the same concept in mind.
Clannad is the virtual world of a dying family.
Little Busters is the virtual world of dying friends.
Angel Beats is the virtual world of dying strangers.
I think Maeda really loves to pursue the same themes - it's not just Key , infact, Rewrite is, as far as I can tell very unlike the other Key works done by Maeda.
Little Busters in many way is the missing link between Maeda's development of the concept of "dying dreams", between the dying dream of Clannad, and that of Angel Beats. Little Busters as most know was written before Angel Beats, but I think Maeda was taking the concept of Little Busters, and throwing complete strangers into it. It's a shame that Angel Beats never had the number of episodes needed to really pursue that to it's fullest.
I can see parallels between the parting sequence of the episode and
Spoiler for Angel Beats Comparison:
the "graduation ceremony" at the final episode of Angel Beats.
The main difference is that Little Busters has enough episodes to pull something like this off reasonably well - even with questionable pacing decisions.
Spoiler for Sorry about that guys, more comparisons!:
You can actually notice Rin's behavior changing as you play through the different routes, since you're forced to play hers last. It's subtle, but it's there.
And I think it all boils down to the ending routes. In Afterstory it's pretty much all about Tomoya and Nagisa, with only some of the girls from the "main" game making brief appearances, whereas in Refrain you have the whole cast involved in the finale. It felt more rewarding to me knowing that something actually came out of playing their routes, instead of having to play them only to hit a reset button at the end.
Spoiler for More LB and Clannad comparisons:
While I respect your take here, it's also a bit funny to me, because my two main criticisms of the Refrain anime would probably be...
1. For such an important character with a lot of focus, Rin has felt a bit static to me. I'd actually say that most of the other LB heroines received more character development than she did. Perhaps next episode will rectify this somewhat, though.
2. I found myself missing the other LB heroines at times in Refrain. To be fair, I did at times feel the same way about the other Clannad heroines during the less eventful episodes of After Story.
As for Clannad in particular... I honestly don't recall many "normal, then suddenly TRAGEDY" moments in After Story. I suppose they laid it on a bit thick with Ushio near the end, but given how sickly her mother had been, it never felt "out of left field" to me.
If you want to discuss Clannad's "cry now" moments a bit more, it might be best to take that alone to PMs. I say this because I'll concede that LB never had a lot of "cry now" moments, so if you don't mind the climax being like that, then LB's part in this discussion is pretty much settled.
While I respect your take here, it's also a bit funny to me, because my two main criticisms of the Refrain anime would probably be...
1. For such an important character with a lot of focus, Rin has felt a bit static to me. I'd actually say that most of the other LB heroines received more character development than she did. Perhaps next episode will rectify this somewhat, though.
2. I found myself missing the other LB heroines at times in Refrain. To be fair, I did at times feel the same way about the other Clannad heroines during the less eventful episodes of After Story.
Spoiler for Moar:
1. Oh Definitely. Rin is a very static heroine, not nearly as engaging as the rest of the girls in the cast. But my point was that you could actually see her slowly coming out of her shell as you replayed the common route of the VN. To me it meant that there was a point, story-wise, in playing through all the routes. Something was changing, instead of a reset button at the end of each one.
I'm biased in this though. I've always loved the awkward types such as Rin, so I paid extra attention to her.
2. Well that's fair. Little Busters was about the girls and Refrain's about the core group They weren't forgotten though, and the part they played during their individual routes still stands. That's the kind of continuity that I feel makes Little Busters a more engaging story.
Besides, the story's not over here
That was really intense as I felt rather drained by the episode; Kyousuke's world fading away, seemingly parallel to his own end as well as the fates of the other Little Busters was pretty heartbreaking indeed, but you have to face reality and of course when you're gone, the only hope you can have is leave something you did behind, and that would be to where Riki and Rin are running into. But it seems like this is not over yet.
The appeal of Clannad as compared to Little Busters is very diffrent.
Spoiler for My opinion on Key:
Clannad mostly focused on developing the leads with everyone involved contributing to their growth in the narrative while Little Busters is focused in its cast as a whole to make the story whole. There's really only a few truly contrived waterworks buttons for Clannad I'd say and those points are frequently used for criticism.
Of course, further detail might make this thread to be useful.
In any case, I think every Key work is "emotionally manipulative" to some extent and honestly I don't think subtle and Key belong together for the most part. In the end though, my final conclusion is that it really doesn't matter. But I don't really watch Key anime for the plot-- but for the adorable interactions between certain characters!Though Little Busters ended up with few such moments, I'd say it did very well anyways in sincerity.
It's also intresting of Triple R's discussion of peaks and swamps. I actually think ...
Spoiler:
Little Busters to me had a lot of peaks and swamps. I mean holy crap I remember bits of season 1 I was just like >.> but Refrain's been really good. Clannad seems to be the most consistent one to me, while Kanon was like a giant muck (I mean holy shit, half that series is unwatchable) but with the tallest mountains. And Air is sorta there.
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I would say from all the people who have watched all Key anime, I saw very few people who share the same view when comparing the works (in the order of their favorite works, and in how they view each series) . To each their own, I guess, but despite all the works sharing the traits that make people recognize "Key" anime, each series has its own charm and structure that make each title stand as its own, and all of them appeal to different kinds of people.
From my own viewing experience, Clannad would be the most consistent to me. Even with the tearjerker buttons that some like to criticize, some of them were the highest peaks for me in all of my experience, and the series as a whole was a thoroughly enjoyable journey for me from start to finish. Air was like a warm breeze that ended with an impacting blow, though I consider the ending to be a "happy", beautiful one rather than a tragic one. Kanon was more rocky with swamps here and there, since I didn't really care about the first 1/3 of the series, even somewhat annoyed by it, and indifferent towards 3 heroine arcs, but it has certain high peaks. Angel Beats was full with swamps with the exception of a few valleys and one peak. Little Busters for me is the one that it's "just there", with a lower general standard than Clannad, but it does have some high peaks and emphasizes a theme of youth and innocence fairly well, making it a more genuine and believable story than others.
I really wish we could have Planetarian animated, since it was the only older Key works that hasn't gotten an anime, and I rank it very near the top of Key works to date.
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The fact that you cry
The fact that you lose your temper
The fact that you get angry
The fact that you hate
The fact that you scream
The fact that you suffer
The fact that you mourn
The fact that you despair
Or the fact that you come to a resolution
Cannot prove that you are right. ~Everybody Has the Right to Make Mistakes~ - Quoted from Kino's Journey Vol. 12
Really interesting how everyone has their own favorite KEY work.
I don't have one because I love them like children, all equally.
If someone asked which one I liked better, I wouldn't know how to respond!
I like them all for many and different reasons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BloodyKitty
Spoiler for Key anime comparisons, do mention LB:
I really wish we could have Planetarian animated, since it was the only older Key works that hasn't gotten an anime, and I rank it very near the top of Key works to date.
If they did, I wonder if they would include the drama CDs with the extended story. I also want Tomoyo After and ONE re-done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Faith
Spoiler for No real spoiler here either, just adding more to the comparison:
I'd agree with that, if only Rewrite (Key's next game after LB) didn't use the same "MC+1 girl" plot branching as previous games, with a few (messy) exceptions.
Spoiler for Just a reply:
I haven't played Rewrite yet, I plan to soon though. That is a shame that happened. Though, with Angel beats coming out it sounds like there are many changes happening so I can't wait to see what they do
I haven't played Rewrite yet, I plan to soon though. That is a shame that happened. Though, with Angel beats coming out it sounds like there are many changes happening so I can't wait to see what they do
Spoiler for Musing on Little Buster's "Sucessors":
The thing is, feel that Angel Beats is way more of a Little Buster's spiritual successor, than Rewrite was. Rewrite, as I understand it, is quite a bit different from previous Key Works, starting from premise.
I feel like Rewrite is a branch off from Key's usual style in so many things, not just a bit, since Maeda Jun step out of the writing and only do supervising, while letting one writer from Key, Tonokawa Yuto, and the outside writers, Ryukishi07 and Tanaka Romeo free to do their own job. This lead to distinct differences between the routes that each writer work on, and many tend to use this to criticize Rewrite of inconsistencies. Discussing more would be spoiler territory, but I tend to treat Rewrite as 'none-Key-works'
I heard from my friend who is a hardcore Key fans in Japan that with Angel Beats, the VN structure will be very different from other Key works. This would be a multi-part game splitting to 6 volumes, with each part consisting routes of different characters. The first part would have Iwasawa's, Matsushita's and Yui's routes, with Otonashi as main character. Maybe Iwasawa would have romance path with Otonashi in this game, but I doubt Yui having romance with Otonashi, since it would anger a lot of Hinata x Yui shippers. Matsushita (the male character who had the largest build in the cast, later went slimmer) would likely get a friendship route. Don't know if there would be any "true route" in the last volume like most Key works have, but if there is, I would really want them to put more emphasis on the whole group and the mystery at hand rather than the romance, like LB is. And if there is romance, they better write them well. I felt that the romance in the anime to be poorly written and put me in disbelief.
Quote:
If they did, I wonder if they would include the drama CDs with the extended story.
Spoiler for some planetarian related stuff:
I really would love it if they can do that! The Drama CD "Snow Globe" was a nice prequel, and "Hoshi no Hito" was a proper conclusion to this little but great works. The other Drama CDs are spin-off, but would be nice to have anime.
I think Planetarian suit with a movie format, and Drama CDs could be OVA materials, though "Hoshi no hito" could be nice to have a movie as well.
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The fact that you cry
The fact that you lose your temper
The fact that you get angry
The fact that you hate
The fact that you scream
The fact that you suffer
The fact that you mourn
The fact that you despair
Or the fact that you come to a resolution
Cannot prove that you are right. ~Everybody Has the Right to Make Mistakes~ - Quoted from Kino's Journey Vol. 12
Angel Beats was, in premise, idea and concept, but the execution flopped badly, partly because there wasn't enough time with a One Cour Anime for the premise to work- it can be seen by how the whole story went to hell in a handbasket after the first arc, which I found was actually better than all but the very best LB routes. And in-fact, I'd also say the humor in AB was actually consistently better than in the LB anime at least, partly because in AB, all the characters know they are in a "dreamworld", unlike LB, where Kyousuke, and to a lesser extent, Kurugaya was able to manipulate LB's "dreamworld". If Little Busters anime had a challenge to make the Parting of the Boys resonate even with 30+ episodes to play with, there was no chance in hell Maeda could have repeated that with Angel Beat's miserly 13.
The evolution line goes from Kanon-Clannad- Little Busters - Angel Beats. Rewrite is something rather different.
In Clannad, all the dreamers are asleep and unaware of the dream. No-one is apparently able to exploit the dream
In Little Busters, Kyousuke is the master of the dream, but some of the dreamers are aware of the dream, and gradually, some of the characters learn they are in the dream - this is what happens in the Mio Route, what Kud remembered by the end of her route, what Kurugaya learned and manipulated to create her route... infact, it's interesting that it's Haruka, Rin and Komari that shows the least awareness of the dreams in their routes. Some at least are able to exploit the dream.
In Angel Beats EVERYONE is aware of the dream. And it's exploited to hell and back, and milked for humor non-stop. Everyone is exploiting the dream.
In-fact, I think that comparing LB with Clannad is really comparing Apples with Oranges, and asking which is sweeter. Comparing LB with Angel Beats is asking which Apple is sweeter. Comparing LB with Rewrite is comparing Apples with.... Mashed Potatoes.
I think people compare to Key's series, because that's their best frame of reference to judge what LB Tried to do against, especially in this episode. That's why all the Clannad comparisons are going up. LB was always going to be compared to Clannad, never-mind that LB's premise is quite a bits different from Clannad in many ways - and broader.
If there's one thing I would slam the episode for (and this is not a problem that was native to the anime but rooted in the very structure of the VN itself ), it's the shutout of all the girls in the final parting sequence. The Farewell was only between the Boys, which might make sense, but I think shows that LB's problem is that while it's based on Friendship, it's big flaw was the segregation of Male and Female into Refrain, and the normal routes. And it shows - the segregation is one of the big reasons why Rin is so passive - there simply is no narrative space for her in the Farewell of the Boys. Which is really, more precisely, Farewell of the Male Half of Little Busters. I really think the only way for Rin to be included was for her character to be completely different, or for the whole Little Busters to part in the very same occasion. But that means the whole of Refrain and indeed, LB would have been different, for that to happen.
So I'm afraid that the scriptwriters could do nothing about Rin's passivity in this scene, as much as it is annoying. There are other reasons, which I can't say right now, that's going into spoiler territory, but there are very strong narrative reasons why they can't fit Rin properly into the farewell. It starts with that huge Firewall that is the segregation between male and Female routes in Little Busters, and unfortunately, Rin falls on the wrong side of that Firewall.
The more I think of it, if Riki was female in Little Busters, this show would actually make far more sense - infact, all the friendship routes won't even have to have been changed that much for Riki to be different, although Refrain would have been quite different . Except that it won't have even sold to begin with - or it might have sold, by making this an Otome Reverse-Harem, since this seems to be the automatic instinct when you make the MC of a VN Female.
But given how crazily well quite a few Otome harems have done in recent years ever since LB's release, if LB was written today, there's a strong chance Riki would have been a female. He's extremely androgynous to begin with. In-fact, LB played with the concept with all those jokes about Trap Riki and Kyousuke x Riki - I really wonder how close Riki was to having 2 X Chromosomes.....
That's what I mean when I say that LB needed to have been written significantly differently, to give Rin more of a role. The parting in this episode is an all Male Affair -if one does not have the Y chromosome, one is an outsider. And this is unfortunate, but it's very hard to avoid such an outcome ever since the start of Refrain. I charge that LB unfortunately fell into a Gender Dichotomy with the strict delineation of routes between males and females,friendship and romance which really showed itself when Rin had no presence in the farewell.
Spoiler for Angel Beats BIG Spoilers open at your own risk:
I suggest you look at the Graduation episode of Angel Beats, to understand how such a parting including both males and females could have occurred -it's also written by Jun Maeda, and written after Little Busters, and it's much freer of a Gender Dichotomy, but it spoils the ending every bit as much as watching Episode 11 of Refrain without watching the rest of the Little Busters spoils the entire Little Buster series
Author
) rather than detachedly watching their crying and weeping without feeling much emotion themselves. It was a very cathartic episode, particularly the moment where Kyosuke swirls around and exposes to Riki that he's crying - I watched those 30 seconds where his emotional walls came down a good ten times last night, and I'll probably do so again tonight.
