Little busters: how to ruin a masterpiece

[Xypers]

after the big disappointment that the first season of LB was, i decided to keep hoping for a great second season, and now while i was watching episode 10 i screamed internally. I think its safe to say that me and everyone here who played the novel could have done a better job than what they're doing...they fucking ruined the Kyousuke episode that was one of the best part in the novel and replaced it with a fucking flashback naruto style and a fucking spoiler of what you were not supposed to know at that point that will 100% ruin the last 3 episodes...and don't get me started of basically EVERYTHING else in the episode...damn...i just wanted an "ok" refrain...i feel almost like they are joking, they are fucking trolling us and they have the real deal hidden somewhere ready to be delivered....does key have anything to say about this? am i the only one disgusted by the anime?

 

[Nosebleed]

This should be in the Fall 2013 anime discussion thread

Also i do agree they're being a bit foreceful with Refrain but after the first season's disappointment i didn't have high expectations anyway.

Yes it's rushed and sloppy and misses a lot of things the novel had but most VN adaptations are like that. It's sad but true.

Also Key is not resposible for the adaptation, JC Staff is mostly in charge.

They haven't revealed the big secret yet they just showed kyousuke lying there on the bus so it's not all ruined. What i find lacking is each character's "arc" is so reduced and rushed it loses all emotion

[Xypers]

LB:

LB anime:

 

i know that key is not in charge, but are they happy with J.C's work?

[Wahfuu]

A lot of the VN's original problems are even more pronounced in the anime. The scenes with Masato/Kengo from Refrain now just seem extrememely silly. It's a shame. I honestly thought a LB! Anime could have been better than the VN, but this is an impressively bad adaptation. I just kind of watch it to laugh now.

[Down]

 

This should be in the Fall 2013 anime discussion thread

 

There can be a LB dedicated thread if there's enough discussion.

 

 

i know that key is not in charge, but are they happy with J.C's work?

 

Key doesn't have much to say once they sell the rights to JC Staff, unless they specifically say they want to monitor the thing as part of the selling contract, which they probably don't care about. There's nothing they can do after the anime has started airing.

 

Also, JC Staff is known for making one good anime every twenty pieces of crap. That's not that big of a surprise, sadly.

[Kendjin]

How to ruin Little Busters! - Play it for 24 hours non-stop

[Nosebleed]

One thing that seems completely out of line is the random "comedy" moments for no aparent reason. I just can't compute this. It's supposed to be the most dramatic arc in the novel and all the emotion is simply not there in the anime.

 

 

How to ruin Little Busters! - Play it for 24 hours non-stop 

And make sure to put extra effort into the pancake party scene so it lasts around 3 times more than it's supposed to

[Xypers]

i remember reading the part with kyousuke crawling...i could feel the despair, i felt something heavy in my guts for the whole time while he repeated even knowing it was all in vain, but he still tried and tried and died over and over again, coming back to the world where nothing happened with barely any strength or even will to speak or do anything...and then again he went back and tried again and again destroying himself and drowning in the darkness...that was intense, in the anime it was a fucking flashback like "oh, i'm crawling while i watch this flashback like a fucking TV show", "oh, its my second try and i'm gonna make it yay".

in the novel you have no idea what the fuck is going on, the only hint is the smell of gasoline and some vague stuff kyousuke is saying, they NEVER spoiler you anything...even if you begin to realize, they wont tell you clearly because they will fucking destroy you telling you everything in the most awesome manner ever.

now in the anime they will try some cheesy stuff to make us cry and they will fail because they already spoiled us everything about the secret of the world since the beginning of the season, with the last streak of spoilers in this episode....fans should just make a kickstarter to raise the money and then buy the rights from key IF they try something stupid like selling them to J.C staff, because even the sloppiest work made by fans would still be better than this crap.

and the worst part is that ppl who don't know the VN will have the experience ruined forever....they should have made a warning at the beginning of every episode "WARNING: IF YOU WATCH THIS CRAPPY ADAPTATION YOU WILL REGRET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE"

sorry for the rant but yea....

anyway regarding key, even if they don't have any powers about J.C staff, what do they think about this? they should have a public opinion about this, at least to save the face right?

[threepwood007]

...

anyway regarding key, even if they don't have any powers about J.C staff, what do they think about this? they should have a public opinion about this, at least to save the face right?

 

Well, it's doubtful they'll make anything like a public apology. They don't have any rights to the anime production of their IP, and it's probably easier for them to publicly distant from the anime production as a contrast to the critically-acclaimed visual novel.

 

Now, did I hope for something at least approaching the adaptation that Clannad was? (Or even Yosuga no Sora? Say what you will about it, but it kept the format of a VN pretty well.) Yes. Was I disappointed? Absolutely!

 

But adaptations iz hardd, and odds are fans of the novel weren't the ones storyboarding the anime and selecting how the adaptation would proceed.

 

(total nubs here regarding Japan's process of creating an anime.)

[InvertMouse]

I actually dropped the show recently. After being involved for a short time in that 24 hour marathon, the good folks here convinced me to pick it up again .

 

I've never played much of the VN so it's hard for me to see just how much better it is. Hopefully there'll be no flame for what I'm about to say (>U<)... This is referring to the anime only. Please be nice (>O<):

 

 

The Riki x Rin confession scene was one of the most awkward I've ever seen. I get Rin is supposed to be have trouble being expressive around others, etc, but she's acting so out of whack overall that I have trouble liking her at all.

 

There are unnatural scenes that I felt were forced in for drama's sake. Clannad had some fist fight in the rain scene. Please. Kyousuke in a recent episode acted so oddball that it's just... okay (TUT).

 

The "secret of the world" is such a bizarre concept that I have no care to find out what it is. Riki seems to just talk himself into finding out about it. Most normal boys would go wtf is this who cares. Again, he felt this way because he needed to in order for this awesome concept to play itself out in the story.

 

I like Kurugaya.

 

 

*Hides* (>U<)

[Nosebleed]

I actually dropped the show recently. After being involved for a short time in that 24 hour marathon, the good folks here convinced me to pick it up again .

 

I've never played much of the VN so it's hard for me to see just how much better it is. Hopefully there'll be no flame for what I'm about to say (>U<)... This is referring to the anime only. Please be nice (>O<):

 

 

The Riki x Rin confession scene was one of the most awkward I've ever seen. I get Rin is supposed to be have trouble being expressive around others, etc, but she's acting so out of whack overall that I have trouble liking her at all.

 

There are unnatural scenes that I felt were forced in for drama's sake. Clannad had some fist fight in the rain scene. Please. Kyousuke in a recent episode acted so oddball that it's just... okay (TUT).

 

The "secret of the world" is such a bizarre concept that I have no care to find out what it is. Riki seems to just talk himself into finding out about it. Most normal boys would go wtf is this who cares. Again, he felt this way because he needed to in order for this awesome concept to play itself out in the story.

 

I like Kurugaya.

 

 

*Hides* (>U<)

I agree with everything you said honestly, the drama is too forced and out of context. They're just throwing everything into 1 episode arcs and it's all cramped and doesn't feel natural at all.

Rin's confession felt unecessary since they pretty much SKIPPED her entire arc aside from the going to school thing so the romance level in LB ended up being zero.

The rest of her chapter was shoved in a 2 min credit sequence and wasn't mentioned at all later on.

Masato and Kengo's arcs don't have any emotion in them. If it wasn't for the awesome OST i wouldn't even have felt a thing

And then they used Kyousuke's arc as an excuse to recap stuff and explain things because that's the smooth thing to do. It's like JC Staff is taking LB fans for idiots.

They keep mentioning "the secret of the world" and "the terrible reality" thinking it spices the mystery up when it's just feeling like a fad at this point, they stressed it out too much. The first season lacked the mystery and the 2nd one is overdoing it.

I'll just see how things play out in the end, i have no hopes for the series overall though

[seventhfonist425]

and replaced it with a fucking flashback naruto style

Uhh, Kyousuke's episode DID have flashbacks in it. While I didn't enjoy the anime as a whole, (and it's not done yet, yeah) I still found that they had some neat nods and interesting bits that made it at least good or similar to the original. I'll admit, yes, there were times where I too screamed, "YA RUINED IT! WHAT- HOW, WHY." But I honestly thought Kyousuke's was done fairly well. Just like in the visual novel, yes, there were points of flashbacks, from Kyousuke's point of view. While not nearly as impactful, it definitely left a similar feeling.

 

Other than that, yeah, I kinda have to agree with most things said here. Like, Rin's route getting blown over in the span of, maybe it 3 or 5 minutes? That was bad. Or maybe the complete lack of love in the Kurugaya's route (because, seriously, the love there made the route.) I don't understand why they had Rin crying when seeing that part. Wasn't she part of that group shooting off fireworks in the VN? What HAPPENED!? Hmm... I was mostly okay with the first season. I figured, it had to be similar to Clannad, where the there would be no love, so I lowered my expectations a lot... but I kinda do agree that they're screwing up most of Refrain.

 

So yeah, I think that, what people need to do, is just read the VN first, then if you wanted to, watch the anime. The anime is at least beautifully done, in terms of animation, mostly in Refrain... Still disappointed by the whole thing. And uhh, I figured I ought to throw in my own thoughts on the subject, considering how much I enjoyed the VN itself.

[Gavisi]

Well after the first season I came into Refrain with no expectations of anything good, but honestly I feel like it's been getting better every week. It's not as strong as the VN no, and there's still this awkwardness between all the dialogue that I can't quite describe, but I don't feel that Masato/Kengo/Kyousuke's routes were ruined. 

 

As for the foreshadowing completely revealing the ending - while I don't like it at all, I'll add that I completely spoiled myself on the ending to the VN, before I even touched the VN. And yet it was still a really strong ending. There's more power in the story than just the big reveal of the Secret Of The World.

 

So I dunno. It's not the adaptation it could be, but I still look forward to it every week.

[seventhfonist425]

Well after the first season I came into Refrain with no expectations of anything good, but honestly I feel like it's been getting better every week. It's not as strong as the VN no, and there's still this awkwardness between all the dialogue that I can't quite describe, but I don't feel that Masato/Kengo/Kyousuke's routes were ruined. 

 

As for the foreshadowing completely revealing the ending - while I don't like it at all, I'll add that I completely spoiled myself on the ending to the VN, before I even touched the VN. And yet it was still a really strong ending. There's more power in the story than just the big reveal of the Secret Of The World.

 

So I dunno. It's not the adaptation it could be, but I still look forward to it every week.

Hmm, I suppose. I honestly had nothing to really comment on for Kengo's. I somewhat liked Kyousuke's... but I dunno about Masato's. Somehow, I feel like a lot of things weren't quite how they were supposed to be. So, "ruined" is probably going too far for me.

Some spoilers, if anyone minds:

It might have been how I imagined it, but when Masato and Kyousuke fought, I recall things more, well, intense in their fight. I recall Kyousuke having big explosions, rather than tiny smoke bombs that went *pop*. If I remember correctly, didn't they use those big explosion sound effects when they fought? I was like, "Whoa, this is actually pretty dangerous, isn't it?" They kinda blew over the fight between the two, making it really short and kinda underwhelming. I suppose it's partly that it's because how I interpreted it and their interpretation was simply different. But I will say I enjoyed the VN's a lot more.

I do have some hope for the animation though. I don't think they can salvage it to make it like the VN or better, but it is somewhat nice to see how they animate it all.

[Flutterz]

I had my hopes up until about halfway through the first season, at which point I realized that having any kind of high hopes for this adaptation would be silly. I still watch it because it's not too bad, but comparing it to the VN is an exercise in futility.

[Nosebleed]

I actually got a bit emotional in the first season and hated it less than the second one but the latter just feels like it's dragging on and on and has no essence.

Well VN adaptations fail miserably more than half of the time. Mainly because transforming something that's non linear (routes) into a linear storyline is a complicated thing to do. Unless you go for the omnibus format like Amagami SS or Yosuga no Sora but in LB's case that would defeat the purpose of the show. Still i feel like they focused on all the wrong aspects and it feels like they're taking LB fans for idiots.

[Xypers]

Uhh, Kyousuke's episode DID have flashbacks in it. While I didn't enjoy the anime as a whole, (and it's not done yet, yeah) I still found that they had some neat nods and interesting bits that made it at least good or similar to the original. I'll admit, yes, there were times where I too screamed, "YA RUINED IT! WHAT- HOW, WHY." But I honestly thought Kyousuke's was done fairly well. Just like in the visual novel, yes, there were points of flashbacks, from Kyousuke's point of view. While not nearly as impactful, it definitely left a similar feeling.

...

 

it may sounds strange but i have to agree with you, the kyousuke episode even with the recap was still very good COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE SHOW....and this is the point.

Even if they fucked up the whole anime, if they made just the last part (masato/kengo/kyousuke and the final part) as good as the vn, i would have been happy with it, i was mad because even if the kyousuke's episode was good, it shattered my hope of watching the LB ending animated...now its gonna be a piece of crap...they failed in conveying the emotions in EVERY SINGLE SCENE, so for sure they will miss the target in the ending too...

i think an adaptation amagami style would have been much better, with the little mistery of riki falling asleep at the end of every route and then waking up, maybe with the waking up part at the end of the last episode of the arc instead of the beginning of the new one, just to make you think after kyousuke starts talking about the secret of the world...

the beauty of these kind of stories is that they never tell you everything, they show you small pieces and bits here and there so you can try and guess....instead here they fucking went over and over this secret of the world, like very episode there is at least 1 reminder...and then kyousuke break the forth wall with all the spoilers....i have no words on how dumb jc staff is.

[Kaguya]

Honestly, I started watching the LB anime to see Kurugaya's kick combo on masato, and I left after they did that offscreen T_T

That said, I never watch animes that have VNs. At best, they will be faithful to the VN and won't add to the experience of reading it, they'll just reproduce it to the best of their abilities- and succed at it (like Steins;Gate). At worst, they'll make you rage with all your soul.

[Xypers]

i wonder what was the point in ruining all the routes by removing the love component and replacing it with some bullshit friendship thing where the sentences that riki was supposed to say are said by everyone 1 sentence each....the whole group acted as riki in the vn, becoming unbearable to watch...also 

kengo was not supposed to be with the group for the first part of the anime, and yet he was there every single time....he just didn't join the training until later but for everything else he was there like a statue

[TotalDereMan]

Mathematically speaking, adaptations are almost always poorer than the source material...

 

...but when it's to this level, it's most assuredly caused by human error.

[Hentai Meido Sachi]

Well, it's JC Staff. Remember Yumekui Merry? I don't. At least, I don't try to remember what they did to the anime anyway.

[Nosebleed]

It's interesting that both are full works of fiction, you can do anything in anime just like you do in a VN, yet anime always lacks that impact the VN had.

[Xypers]

It's interesting that both are full works of fiction, you can do anything in anime just like you do in a VN, yet anime always lacks that impact the VN had.

i think the problem is that the ppl in charge of making the anime adaptation may not be fans of the real deal...even if they play the vn it will just be for work so there is no passion and no real willingness to make other ppl experience what they did in the vn...because they didn't experience anything in the vn in the first place.

they are no different from dubbers who destroy what the original anime feels like by being bad, changing the original emotions of the characters etc...

this is seriously like the mona lisa i posted before, we need something like a scanner more than an hand drawn copy of the original

[Nosebleed]

I agree, but you can't really blame the people. When you're forced to do something repeatidily years in a row it gets tiring and you lose passion, it sucks for us but it's the reality of things. You can like something but if you're shoved with that something everyday for the rest of your life you'll get tired of it.

But changing staff every time would also be a hinder so they just decide to stick with mediocre stuff. Of course in the end the fans are the ones that are left out.

[Xypers]

I agree, but you can't really blame the people. When you're forced to do something repeatidily years in a row it gets tiring and you lose passion, it sucks for us but it's the reality of things. You can like something but if you're shoved with that something everyday for the rest of your life you'll get tired of it.

But changing staff every time would also be a hinder so they just decide to stick with mediocre stuff. Of course in the end the fans are the ones that are left out.

if you lack passion you have to compensate with your skills....j.c staff lacks both