Little Busters! Refrain

Following the Little Busters after they lost their first baseball game, the team decides to have a pancake party. It has been almost one semester since the return of Kyousuke Natsume. As usual, Riki Naoe continues to help the Little Busters' members—both old and new—with confronting their inner struggles. However, strange happenings begin to occur, leading Rin Natsume and Riki closer to unraveling the truth behind the "secret of this world."

Little do Rin and Rikki know, their discovery will end up changing the peaceful everyday lives created by the Little Busters once and for all. Little Busters!: Refrain brings a conclusion to the colorful stories of its ensemble cast—forged with the weight of emotions and strengthened with the bond of friendship—as they come to terms with their regrets and weaknesses.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Natsume, Kyousuke Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Natsume, Rin Main

Tamiyasu, Tomoe Japanese

Naoe, Riki Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Inohara, Masato Main

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Miyazawa, Kengo Main

Oda, Yuusei Japanese

Noumi, Kudryavka Supporting

Wakabayashi, Naomi Japanese

Kurugaya, Yuiko Supporting

Tanaka, Ryouko Japanese

Kamikita, Komari Supporting

Yanase, Natsumi Japanese

Saigusa, Haruka Supporting

Suzuki, Keiko Japanese

Nishizono, Mio Supporting

Kawaragi, Shiho Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Fukuda, Jun Producer

Oohashi, Masao Producer

Reviews

May 11, 2022

Aikawa_Yuji

Recommended

This will be the first time I will be writing a review about an anime I had finished watching so I will do my best to deliver my honest thoughts about this story. I've been watching anime for more than 2 years now, I've explored many genres to try and find what kind of anime I will really like and what kind of anime where I can really relate myself into. For such a long time now, there has been no anime which can make me cry so much other than Little Busters! and wished so much that I can also have true friendship which ... Naoe Riki has. Since I'm an only child, for as long as I know I've always been alone dealing with all my problems in life with only myself not relying to anyone because since my childhood, people I've known had never taken me seriously whenever I tried to open up myself, that's why I had chosen to be alone instead and showed a fake mask that I'm always happy. Which is why this anime hit me so much I couldn't stop crying in each episode of this anime. Ahh how I've been longing to find where I belong and to have true friends that can support you but I guess it's already late...

This anime is Key's visual novel adaptation that has 8 routes(happy ends) including the true ending or main route. The VN has additional 3 routes if I'm right, which is titled Little Busters! Ecstasy. The anime adapted all the routes but did not go to the romantic endings of each heroines except for Natsume Rin which is the main heroine, that is why the anime follows only the true ending of the VN if some of you are wondering.At first, I thought that this VN adaptation will be another bad adaptation but I guess I'm wrong. I'm really really grateful that studio JC staff did their best to include all the important parts of the story and even followed each lines of the VN which further surprised me. This kind of adaptation really is the best to deliver the best experience and to make the story/anime have more impact to the target audiences... maybe I'm exaggerating this too much but from my perspective, this is what I call a really good adaptation especially for a VN. I will now rate the story based on my own criteria. Note that I strictly will not include any spoiler and will just give my thoughts in each criteria.

Story - 10 and Characters - 10
Rated by Arcs Rin,Masato,Kengo,Kyosuke,Riki
Rin 10 - in the VN it never showed how rin became so shy around strangers that is why I'm glad that there is a reason in anime which further make the development better.
Masato 10 - an idiot that is playing an idiot? take it literally you will understand what I meant by this once you watch the anime, this will be the very definition of "don't judge a book by it's cover"
Kengo 10 - have you ever thought that for your whole life living you still don't know what it feels to have fun and find what you really want? In this arc it will make you realize that no matter how much you hated wasting time doing something stupid, as long as you have fun make friends that is the best feeling.
Kyosuke 10 - the one I like the most, he is the one that will do everything just for his friends, I kind of see myself but the only difference is I don't have much friends
Riki 10 - here will teach you that no matter how hard or sad you may face in the future, you have to be strong so that you can move forward. "Living means to lose"
- the whole story teaches us many things and force us to face whatever the reality will throw to us and just keep living
- the story also showed what is the meaning true friendship

Ending 10 - It really surprised me how Riki and Rin overcame their fear and weaknesses and became strong which even surpassed my expectations which brought to the best ending I had ever thought. Since this is Jun Maeda we're talking about, I thought I'll really be crushed to pieces but...uh nevermind I've been crushed by all my realization watching this anime.

Arts & Sounds 9 - I don't have much I can say as I love both the arts and music, my favorite song is the ending that is played in ep3 "Song of Friends" and also the ending of ep 13 of course "Little Busters! -Little Jumpers Ver.-".

OVERALL 9.6 or 10
All I can say here between Little Busters! and Little Busters! Refrain. You need to know and understand that Little Buster! Include only the routes of the other heroines and the main character (Riki) solving each of their "regrets" and is not the "true story" if you are familiar of visual novels, the route which is called "True ending / Main route" is real ending or the true story of the series. In my opinion each route is independent to the main route but is also connected to the main route because of the characters.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Feb 21, 2025

AngeVNs

Mixed Feelings

I like Little Busters. I like its emphasis on friendship, I think the humor is generally funny enough, and I think it balances comedy and dark drama fairly well. You know what I don't like about Little Busters? The fact that it continues the Jun Maeda and KEY trend of having a deus ex machina ending—but also how its supposed friendship theme is kind of a half-lie.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Despite that angry first paragraph, I’d still say I overall like Little Busters: Refrain. The core of the series is still there—a friendship-focused story with some surprisingly dark melodrama at times.

However, gone is ... basically all the lighthearted slice-of-life comedy from Season 1. This 13-episode season is all about reaching the conclusion and finally revealing the very heavily foreshadowed “secret of the world,” which has been teased since the first few episodes of Season 1.

Because of this, Season 2 focuses much more on the childhood friend group, especially main character Riki and main heroine Rin. Due to how the secret of the world works, these two need to go through some pretty notable character development—some of which they already got in Season 1, but there's still more to go through before they can reach the proper conclusion.

There is that small side story about Kurugaya that was kind of interesting and vaguely ties into the main ending, but ultimately it just felt like a forgettable side quest, similar to most of the main heroine drama from Season 1.

Thankfully, I’d say the emotional drama is a huge upgrade over Season 1. As I mentioned earlier, Season 2 is much more focused on the original five childhood friends, and their bond is extremely important to the secret of the world. A lot of character development and backstory for these five are put front and center. This season really tests how close they are and what they’re willing to go through to get to the "true ending."

Some of these moments are more emotional than others, but I think the major points for each of the main five are generally well done, well-developed, and fitting for their characters—which is more than I can say for the weird drama that happens in the other heroines' stories from Season 1.

Sadly, one of my biggest pet peeves with Little Busters: Refrain is how the other heroines who joined the friend group in Season 1 basically stop mattering by the second half of this season. I thought this was supposed to be a story about the power of friendship, but when the non-childhood friends get completely sidelined and don’t directly contribute to the journey to the best ending, it just feels like a slap in the face to fans of those characters. It also makes you wonder why they were introduced in the first place if they were just going to be irrelevant to the friendship theme. It’s like Maeda suddenly decided that only childhood friends were allowed to be important to the plot.

But that pet peeve has nothing on my biggest complaint of this season—what is arguably my least favorite deus ex machina plot twist in any Key work. A common trope Key and Jun Maeda love to use is vaguely hinting at some supernatural subplot while focusing mostly on resolving the heroines’ personal drama. The supernatural stuff is only mildly hinted at early on, just enough for the writers to claim there was proper buildup before the big reveal in the main ending.

Sadly, Maeda and Key repeat this exact same trick in almost all their long titles, with only a few exceptions (Rewrite and Angel Beats). The supernatural elements are never explained well enough, especially early on, to justify their existence in an otherwise down-to-earth setting. It doesn’t help that the supernatural is usually there just to create intense drama—only for that same supernatural element to then magically ensure that everyone gets a happy ending.

Look, I’m all for happy endings after tough journeys, and to be fair, the characters do put in effort to reach at least a decent conclusion. The problem is that the supernatural elements always end up negating any real sacrifices. And in Little Busters: Refrain, it’s easily the least justified "everyone gets a happy ending" twist, especially considering the way the supernatural setup ties into the start of the series.

I just can't stand how Key fans keep falling for these deus ex machina tricks over and over again. I thought the point of magic tricks was that they lose their impact after a few times, but I guess for Key fans, as long as MUH THEMES hit hard enough, they'll accept anything as long as it leads to a happy ending they find "worthy"—even if it’s not properly explained.

I still like the characters in Little Busters. I still like some of the personal drama. Heck, I think a lot of the struggles the characters go through are pretty relatable, and I wish stories like this were more common in anime and visual novels. I’m just really sick of Key and Jun Maeda falling into the exact same tropes—resolving drama in the most convenient, unexplained way possible while fans continue to eat it up.

When Little Busters Refrain is good, it's really good. It just fumbles at incredibly important moments, souring my overall opinion of this second season.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 22, 2020

cameronrb24

Not Recommended

Quick Thoughts:
I strongly dislike the type of storytelling that's reliant on some plot twist or info-dump at the end for the story to make sense, and Little Busters!: Refrain was no exception.

Story:
The pacing was incredibly off this season. The first few episodes were fine; the typical 3 or so episodes were spent developing Kurugaya, which is about the same amount as the other characters. However, the next 3 episodes blaze through what I thought was a pretty important arc, with one notably climatic moment being condensed into just a four minute outro. Then there's the ending, which I felt gave many more questions than answers. ... It also makes a lot of what happened throughout the series seem pointless and unnecessary. The motives behind the key characters of this season were questionable at best. There's one bit of foreshadowing that I thought was pretty neat, but that doesn't make up for how unsatisfying this ending was.

Characters:
In the moment, I kind of liked seeing the main cast develop, and their motives become clearer as Riki slowly figures out the "secret of the world", but as mentioned before, I felt the ending invalidated a lot of this. Rin is probably the best example this, but it applies to most of the cast. Several main characters get much less screentime, and the reasoning for this seemed arbitrary at best.

Enjoyment:
I'll say it again and again, the ending really did suck a lot of enjoyment out not just this season, but the series as a whole. Some non-story related elements were enjoyable though; The art/animation maintained its quality, and soundtrack hard-carried the emotional tone of the season.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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