"Little Busters!" (Anime) Episodes 3-4 Thoughts

So since my last post on Little Busters! I have found out that it is indeed based off of a visual novel; one made by Key in matter of fact. So this means that the creators of the anime will have a lot of freedom when determining who the main character will pursue. This also means that since it is derived from a visual novel, it is a romance…-___-. Now I do not have anything against romance anime or anime based off of visual novels but I was kind of hoping this was going to be a slice of life anime that was not going to be centered on finding love.

After my dreams were crushed, I hoped onto everyone’s favorite web site, Google to find out more about the visual novel. It had some very favorable reviews so I decided to give it a shot and was mildly entertained.Not as good as the Maji de Watashi ni KoiShinasai!! visual novel but not horrible either. So I can say after completing a few of the routes in the VN that I cannot determine Riki (the main character) is going to choose in the anime. I’ve been told the common route in the game leads to Komari but I haven’t seen enough of the anime to say who he is leaning towards the most.

So I’m going to stop bringing up the VN for now because I want to talk just about the show; not how different of similar it is to the source material. Episodes two through four introduce pretty much the main cast of the show (minus one we haven’t met yet). These new characters are Haruka(the mischievous loud mouth), Kud (the Loli favorite), and Yuiko (the cold fighter).  Haruka was my favorite character from the VN and her personality seems intact in the anime while Yuiko is somewhat desirable in the anime. The story so far is the formation of the baseball team and the recruitment of the remaining players for the team. There have been some funny moments so far but overall the show is starting to feel a little stale. While the plot is moving (somewhat) it isn’t being presented very well. Most of the episodes don’t have a lot of “pizzazz”. Hopefully once we get to the meat of the story it will open up and become more interesting because at the moment it just isn’t very interesting.

Real Talk: "Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai! S" Visual Novel first impressions

So recently I have been very lazy with my updates on the anime I am currently watching and it is all because of one thing; Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai S which is the sequel to the previous visual novel game made by Minatosoft. This game takes place directly after the previous installment and continues the story with the choice to pick up right off with some of the cast from the previous game or try your luck with some of the new characters. Right off the bat I will tell you that this is an adult game but I really do not play it for those intentions. Believe me or not the real gold in this game is how great the story is crafted and the sheer amount of content for each route. I can guarantee you that you will spend way more than fifty hours if you try to play all the routes. Please keep in mind that I have not played every single route in the game.

So positives first starting with the huge amount of content. The amount of content is just mind boggling because each route takes quite a long time to complete if you are not skipping a lot of the text. The routes I have played so far are all so well done that I can honestly say that your enjoyment will be entirely up to how much you like the heroin you are seeking. Next on the list of positives are the well written characters. We have the returning cast from the previous plus some new additions that help keep things fresh. Out of the new characters my favorites were Tsubame Matsunaga due to her mischievous attitude and Benkei Musashiou because she was so laid back and by far the most fun to converse with. The routes that I have completed so far are Kokoro’s, Kazuko’s (my favorite character from the previous game), Iyo’s (side route), Monshiro’s, and Tsubame’s. Besides a couple quirks in some of the stories I really enjoyed each one. The character development was very well done and I enjoy seeing how different characters lives played out if I took a different route with one of the other characters. The only character I had an issue with was Monshiro’s route because she is well…a lolicon’s delight and well…I am not at all into that stuff. I liked the interactions with her but when it came to the adult stuff it was quite awkward.  Another small issue I had was that Benkei did not have a dedicate route to follow. I was honestly quite surprised that nothing was unlocked to do some story line with her. 

Next positive is the amazing visuals of the game. This time around Minatosoft included a number of CG scenes that help show some of the action stuff going on in the beginning of the game. The overall quality of the CG scenes is pretty good but do not last more than 20 seconds each. It is overall a nice addition but by no means necessary. The artwork is where this game really shines. Everything is drawn so well and the transitions between scenes flow quite nicely. Compared to the previous game it is a slight improvement which is hard to believe due to the fact that both games are by far the prettiest visual novels I have ever seen. Overall, a very beautiful game.

Sound is also a huge plus because the entire returning cast has their original voice actors so the continuity stays intact. It might just be because I love the way Japanese sounds but all the voices match their character fairly well. Each scene is enjoying and soothing to listen to. Great sounding game in my honest opinion.

So now on to the negatives that I have encountered so far (which is not that many). I already touched upon that Benkei does not have a dedicated route. I was pretty pissed off when I went through so many times picking different options to conversations hoping that some side route would at least unlock. Alas despite my efforts, I was able to get past this because all of the routes were enjoyable. One small complaint I have with the game is that although there still is a ton of content, when playing it might feel less than the previous game. My reasoning behind this is that where this game has more characters than the previous, the previous game feels longer because each route in that game had much more content than a route in this game. I felt that in this game some of the routes almost felt rushed towards the end. It was like “Ok you have gotten to know your character time to **** and oh game is over thanks for playing!” What I am trying to get at is that each route is set up well and you get plenty of character development but once you get to a certain point in the story, there seems to be a mad dash to the finish. 

Despite these issues however I fully enjoyed the routes that I played through. I cannot really give it a grade or score since I have not fully completed the game but what I can do is recommend it to anyone that plays these types of games. Like I stated before I am not a huge fan of the adult material but the character development is just so well done all across the board that it is still worth playing the game even if you are new to visual novels.

Real Talk: "Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai!" Visual Novel

NOTE: THIS DISCUSSION IS DIRECTED TO THE VISUAL NOVEL NOT THE ANIME ADAPTATION.

Throughout my life I have had a certain liking to the Japanese culture with the biggest and most prominent sources of this enjoyment coming from anime and manga. After watching the anime adaptation of Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai!, I felt as if it was very lacking and not very fair to the female cast. I learned from some other people that the anime was biased loosely off of a critically acclaimed visual novel. I also found out that for the most part it had an English translation so I thought to myself I would give it a try.

This being my first Visual Novel game, I honestly did not know what to expect. I thought the lack of animation would make it boring and unappealing in the long run but boy was I wrong. From what I can tell they have the same voice actors as the ones in the anime which was a big plus in the entertainment department. The animation was actually very well done even though most of it was still images of different facial expressions and...positions.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was the ridiculous amount of content in the game. The first half of the game (which does not play a huge part on which route you take) took me at least 5+ hours to complete (even when skipping through most of the convos. When you finally get to choose who to chase after, there is still plenty of content for each character. After playing through almost all the routes, it is very hard to pick one character I enjoyed more than the others. Each character is unique and has very different personalities from the others of the cast. Wanko (the red head) is fun, energetic, and innocent (...lol) while Chris (the blonde) is very uptight and gets embarrassed easily. The short and sweet is that no matter who you choose, you are most likely going to like the end result.

One thing that I was not expecting was the large amount of hentai in the game...It seemed that once you made your confession to the character you choose, it was only a matter of time until the inner sex freak was awoken in all the girls. Yes all the girls eventually get super freaky :D. It's not a bad part of the game...just was very surprised when sweet innocent Wanko suggested some...positions.

I could go on all day about this game but pretty much my base thoughts have already been laid out. Whether you are accustomed or new to Visual Novel games, I STRONGLY encourage encountering this one. Its full of pretty much everything you would want in a quality anime plus some...nice scenes.