Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 20, 2013

Little Busters! is one of those properties where the adage “don’t judge a book (and/or Blu-ray) by its cover (or even its main menu)” springs instantly to mind. The cover of this first collection might lead some to conclude that this is either a harem property or at the very least a shōnen outing focusing solely on females, while the main menu at least alludes to baseball. Little Busters! is based on a visual novel that focused on romance, hence the glut of female characters, but rather ironically the main character (not even shown on the Blu-ray’s front cover) is Riki Naoe. Riki’s social circle does include a few girls, but his main support group, nicknamed the Little Busters, is decidedly weighted toward guys.

This first half of the anime’s 26 episodes takes a while to finally divulge what’s really up, and that means that viewers will have to have a bit of patience going into this offering. The Little Busters is a quintet of teens who first banded together as kids, at least partially to help Riki overcome a personal tragedy. Now, however, there are more pressing matters at hand, including forming a baseball team (hence the main menu), including finding some available females, and, somewhat later, a series of increasingly odd elements, including Riki’s narcolepsy and the intrusion of some overly sentient cats (yes, cats, which seem to be a new recurring motif in a bunch of Sentai anime releases). Little Busters! seems to be hinting at a sort of metaphysical underpinning toward the end of the first half of the series. As it stands, the first half plays as a kind of odd mash up of slice of life and more playful, fantasy laden elements. The second half of the first season will hopefully help to clarify the direction this amiable series ultimately takes.

Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Little Busters! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a nicely cheery looking anime, with bright, vivid primaries really erupting very nicely in virtually every episode. The character designs, while not hugely innovative, are nicely differentiated and provide at least a bit of visual interest. Backgrounds are quite nicely animated in the series, with some really nicely lustrous blue skies and deep green foliage. Line detail is sharp and overall the series looks great in high definition.

Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Little Busters!' sound design isn't especially ambitious, and so the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes (in Japanese and English) suffice perfectly well for what is ultimately a dialogue driven show. There's not a huge difference between the Japanese and English mixes aside from the voice work. Fidelity is just fine in both of these tracks, with no problems of any kind to report.

Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 3:04)


• Clean Closing Animation (1080p; 1:32)

Little Busters!: Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Little Busters! is a patently odd little series that takes a while to get going and even then doesn't seem to fall into any one prefabricated genre. That's probably good news, but it also means this first half of the series' first season may leave a few people scratching their heads, wondering what exactly is going on. The series is visually quite bright looking, and the characters are enjoyable enough to stick with this enterprise even if it's a bit confounding at times. Recommended.