Little Busters! EX

Little Busters!: Ecstasy is an additional (and likely final) eight episode addition to the Little Busters franchise that was coupled with the DVD release of Refrain. Although LB! EX certainly had its moments, its ultimate downfall was due to its script writing. Simply put, the plot was not strong enough to keep the show flowing in a straightforward, unidirectional manner. Before I jump to my criticisms, I want to say briefly that I certainly enjoyed LB! EX. In fact, I watched it twice just to make sure I'm not imagining any of the cons that I listed, but unfortunately, they are there, and there are somepretty glaring issues that I can't ignore. The main issue I had with LB! EX was the same issue I had with the first and second seasons of LB (and pretty much any VN from Key that is adapted). By trying to incorporate a bunch of supernatural elements into the plot line, we are ultimately left with, frankly, a mess that doesn't follow any coherent flow. A good example of this in Saya's arc. Yet despite having the most screen time of the three heroines, Saya's arc was by far the weakest arc simply because there are a lot of unanswered questions that forced us to accept things at face value. For instance, how and why exactly does Saya come into existence? Who exactly are the Darkness executives, and why are they such an integral part of this world? And why was Saya able to make it out at the very end of her arc? Frankly, any creator that leaves so many open questions cannot argue that they have a strong, well-written script, no matter how feels-y or charming it can get. Fortunately, LB! EX is not all bad. The other two heroines, Kanata and Sasami, finally get some much needed screen time. Although the two of them showed up every now and then throughout the first season, they are the stars of their respective arcs and we get to learn substantially more about their past. For Kanata, it's a continuation of the first season - that is, what we learned about Kanata's past in the first season gets even more depth. In the first season, we learned about why Kanata has such a tough exterior for her personality, and LB! EX builds on this by describing the sacrifices that Kanata made for her sister. As for Sasami, we go straight to her past and learn about her bond with a stray cat that she took in at an early age. Unfortunate circumstances separate the two, but it is in Sasami's arc where the two reunite and resolve their differences. The one thing I really liked about Kanata's and Sasami's arc is their consistency (in terms of their plot) to their parent story. As I've already indicated, Kanata's arc was a more in-depth description of her past and carries over some of what we learned about her in the first season. As for Sasami, her arc borrows the concept of the "a new, secondary supernatural world that is controlled by one particular character" from LB! Refrain. Although I still can't follow how such a world gets established (Refrain didn't explain this that well), the more important thing is that it's not a new concept that comes straight out of the blue. As for themes, a lot of what is used is recycled from the previous two seasons. If you're looking for something new, something deeper, something more meaningful than the previous seasons you will definitely not find it here. Love and the testing of one's friendship are all concepts that we've seen not only in this show but in a lot of other anime out there. Although these two concepts are not executed worse than the other two LB seasons, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table either. As for characters, well, frankly put - there's nothing really special here. Saya is your stock-of-the-mill tsundere who falls for Riki apparently because of the amount of time that they spent together during their childhood (this love development certainly could have been fleshed out more, but I'll just set that aside for now). Sasami and Kanata are a bit more realistic, but even so, I'm sure you could name other shows out there where you've seen cold/mysterious personalities. As for character development, it's certainly present in LB! EX - to a degree. It certainly could have been fleshed out more, but you do have to remember that there are only eight episodes to LB! EX portioned into three separate arcs, so nothing truly spectacular can happen within that given frame. Still, Saya begins to open up to Riki towards the end of her arc (as with most tsunderes, lol); Kanata finally realizes the true meaning of sisterhood and friendship and how important the two are to her; and Sasami confronts her past, resolves it, moves on, and carries on with her life. At the end of Sasami's arc, you can see that she is clearly no longer held back by her past as she is more willing to take part in activities that she would have obviously avoided during the first season of LB. Obligatory statement regarding the art: it is well-illuminated, consistent, and well done. J.C.Staff is godly when it comes to art designs and certainly sets the standard high in the anime industry. And sound: I wouldn't say there's anything too exceptional regarding the voice acting. It's consistent, like the artwork. I will say this, however: LB! EX probably has some of the most interesting and meaningful OP and ED that I've seen thus far. The lyrics that they use in each song apply directly to what is happening in the anime. Yes, okay the OP remixes the first season's OP, but it's an electric guitar. Come on. Who doesn't like electric guitars? In conclusion, will you enjoy LB! EX? Certainly. I doubt you'd drop the show. If you're reading this, you're probably thinking about watching the series, which means you probably made it through the other two seasons just fine. But do I think it is the best thing ever? Nope. Actually I take that back, maybe the electric guitar solo is the best thing ever. tl;dr Pros: + Some of the plot is consistent with previous seasons + More screen time to side characters that was direly needed + Some development + Good art + Electric guitars, just because Cons: - Development could have been fleshed out more, but it passes - Some of the plot doesn't really make any sense and leaves unanswered questions - Stock-of-the-mill anime archetypes that aren't really original in the slightest Overall: 4. Although consistent, the plot is simply too weak to stand on its own.

Ecstasy is an 8-episode sequel/expansion to Little Busters, taking place before, during and after the events of the original story. For various plot-related reasons however, you should not watch this before you've finished the first series as well as its second season Little Busters Refrain, as Ecstasy's plot goes under the assumption that the viewer is fully aware of the events taking place during Refrain. If you watch them in any other order you will end up getting spoiled. Ecstasy adds three new arcs to the Little Busters story, two of which are focused on the already well familiar Sasasegawa Sasami and Futaki Kanata respectively, butone revolves around an entirely new character named Tokido Saya. Therefore you can easily split up the series into three separate parts and talk briefly about them independently which is what I'm going to do here. Saya's route: eps 1-4 Half of the anime consists of Saya's route which is the first one off the bat. Saya is a very energetic and self-torturing mayadere character, which is an extraordinarily rare trope to ever stumble upon, but she's extremely entertaining and funny to see in action. The first thing you'll notice about this arc is how vastly different it is compared to all the other arcs of Little Busters. In fact it's much more similar to Angel Beats by having cute girls, guns and action. The story is about a giant underground labyrinth located beneath the school where mysterious shadows lurk, and a rumored treasure supposedly existing somewhere inside it which Riki and Saya together are trying to find. The only problem with this is that in the original visual novel, Saya's route is actually a dungeon crawling RPG containing a map system, traps, puzzles, shooting games and more, and none of this really translates into an anime format very well which makes the atmosphere feel a bit awkward at times. Overall this route is still very enjoyable and a breath of fresh air compared to what the main series has to offer, but it suffers a bit from adaptation issues and some slight rushing. That being said it's still a very good arc. Final score: 8/10 Sasami's route: eps 5-6 The ever so loveable Sasami finally gets her own arc here, but sadly it ends up being extremely disappointing for the simple reason that the adaptation is rushed beyond belief. Her route revolves around her being transformed into a cat for some unknown supernatural reason which she and Riki has to figure out and deal with together. This is actually a very emotional story in the visual novel, but here it sadly misses its mark completely because there is no time for the viewer to get emotionally attached to Sasami as a character or the story itself because the arc is already over after a mere two episodes. So unfortunately this arc is kind of butchered. Final score: 6/10 Kanata's route: eps 7-8 Last but not least we have Kanata's arc... actually that's wrong, this is definitely the "least" of the three stories as it's actually incredibly bland and boring. Again this is only two episodes long, but in this case that is not the issue; rather her arc is really bad in the visual novel as well. It's basically just a rehash of Haruka's route but from her sister's perspective instead, as Kanata's route is also revolving around her family problems. The problem here however is that there's almost nothing happening in this story from start to finish, and it just feels like the whole thing was slapped on there because they could, not because they wanted to. Final score: 4/10 Overall, if you liked the original Little Busters as well as its second season Little Busters Refrain, then I still encourage you to pick this up. It's only 8 episodes long after all, it's not like it can hurt very much. Just don't put your expectations on it too high, consider this more as a bonus than anything else. Better still of course would just be to play the visual novel as it is a lot better in the end, but at the time of writing this Ecstasy hasn't been fully translated quite yet so you'll have to wait a while longer for that, if you can't read Japanese that is.

After seeing all the 8 episodes, I'm just going to assume that these 3 routes are non-canon. I tried to put this routes in the chronological order along with the first season of LB and Refrain and it's completely impossible. [Story]: (6/10) Little Busters: EX is an anime adaptation of a visual novel called "Little Busters: Ecstasy". Were they on Ecstasy when they made the VN? What's with the name? Anyways, it added 3 "new" heroines. Notice the quotation marks? Yea, 2 of the 3 heroines are not even new. 1 new character that was added is Saya (we'll get more into her in thecharacters category) and the 2 "new" characters are Sasami and Kanata which we have already seen in the first season of LB. There are 3 new heroines, meaning that the show has 3 arcs. The 1st arc which is Saya's arc, lasted for about 4 episodes. No surprise, Riki comes in and helps Saya get the treasure inside the underground labyrinth. There are more things that happened between Rikki and Saya but I don't want to spoil the scenes. The ending of the arc.....well......all I want to say is they tried to make everything dramatic but failed to do so. The 2nd arc which is Sasame's arc, lasted for about 2 episodes. Sasame asks Rikki for help after she finds out that she has been turning into a cat for unknown reasons. Again, I don't want to spoil this arc. The ending of this arc ended on a happy note, reuniting Sasame and her cat. The 3rd arc which is Kanate's arc, lasted for about 2 episodes. If you saw her past in LB then you shouldn't be surprised that this arc will again focus on her past and her family. I mean, it's all the same but the EX goes more in-depth, showing that she has been on her sister's side all this time. The ending of this arc, again, ended on a happy note. Instead of Rikki helping Kanata alone, the whole Little Busters crew helped her. Now my thoughts on the arcs. The only arc that I liked is Saya's arc because of Saya, the romance, and the bad-ass gun action scenes. I didn't really like the remaining 2 arcs that much because of how boring it is. Hell, I find Sasame's arc ridiculous. You'll find out if you see the ending of Sasame's arc. Kanate's arc was so poorly thought out. It's like they run out of ideas or something. Kanate's arc is mostly the same as Haruka's arc except it just goes more in-depth and tried to be more dramatic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Art/Animation]: (9/10) The Animation is exactly the same as Refrain's animation so I'm not going to write my opinions on the animation again. It's on my Refrain review. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Sound]: (9/10) The background themes are mostly the same but there are new ones, used for the action scenes in Saya's arc. The OP theme song used in EX is exactly the same as LB's OP but there's a slight difference. The OP in EX is more of a rock version. I personally love the OP here than the OP in LB because of those electric guitar in the background. There are 4 ED's used in this show but I only liked the first one. I didn't really like the remaining 3 ED's. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Characters]: (8/10) The show only focuses on 3 characters but Saya got a lot more development and a more screentime. Saya is an attractive and a popular girl in school due to her attractive face and her figure. . However, at night, she can be found at the school, wandering around in order to obtain a "treasure" from those she calls the "Darkness Executives", and even has to fight them for it. Just like LB, something tragic happened in her past and I don't want to spoil it. It's kind of dramatic but not that sad, in my opinion. Sasame which we know in LB as a cat-hater is really not a cat-hater. She had his reasons. Kanata is the chairman of the public morals committee and head of the girls' dormitory but you should already know that. The show just goes more in-depth with her character, her past and explains why she "that" personality. Out of the 3 heroines, I personally liked Saya more because she's more of a bad-ass compared to Sasame and Kanata --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Enjoyment]: (8/10) I personally enjoyed EX for the first 4 episodes because of Saya's arc but it just got boring during Sasame's arc and Kanata's arc. I did enjoy the ending of EX. We get to see the Little Busters crew work together to help Kanata. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [OVERALL]: (8/10) If you watched Little Busters and Little Busters: Refrain then you might want to check this out. It's not as dramatic or tear-jerking as Refrain but it's still quite an enjoyable side-story anime. Pros: +Great Animation +Great Soundtrack +Saya's arc is well done +Enjoyable action scenes Cons: -The last 2 arcs are mediocre -Forced Dramatic moments -Character arcs are rushed -Mediocre ending

Little Busters EX ( Ecstasy ) are comprised of extra ovas routes on some secondary characters and a new character they are: Riki Naoe ( main character ) Futaki Kanata ( Main character of the 3rd story ) Sasami Sasasegawa ( Main character of the 2nd story ) Tokido Saya ( 1st main character of the story and new character )All the stories take place at different times the 1st story takes place after Little Busters Refrain , The 2nd Story is Before Little Busters Refrain and The 3rd passes while Little Busters Refrain . My favorite route is the 3rd in history The punctuation that I give is 9.5

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