Sentai Filmworks has worked out the Little Busters! series pretty well from several years ago but they never got to adding a trailer to any of it to their channel. They’re fixing some of that as they’ve added trailers for the Refrain and EX works to check out below. Both are still in print on Blu-ray but the latter isn’t available for streaming while the former is.
The original Little Busters! TV series aired in 2012 and was directed by Yoshiki Yamakawa based on the series composition by Michiru Shimada, who wrote twenty-three of the scripts as well. Haruko Iizuka handled the character designs and served as co-chief animation director along with Masayuki Onji. JC Staff handled the animation for it.
The Japanese cast includes Hikaru Midorikawa as Kyōsuke Natsume, Tomoe Tamiyasu as Rin Natsume, Yui Horie as Riki Naoe, Keiko Suzuki as Haruka Saigusa and Kanata Futaki, Naomi Wakabayashi as Kudryavka Noumi, Natsumi Yanase as Komari Kamikita, Nobutoshi Canna as Masato Inohara, Ryouko Tanaka as Yuiko Kurugaya, Sora Tokui as Sasami Sasasegawa, Yuiko Tatsumi as Mio Nishizono, and Yusei Oda as Kengo Miyazawa.
The English dub was directed by Chris Ayres and Leraldo Anzaldua with a cast that includes Blake Shepard as Kyousuke Natsume, Brittney Karbowski as Rin Natsume, Shannon Emerick as Riki Naoe, Allison Sumrall as Sasami Sasasegawa, Caitlynn French as Mio Nishizono, Carli Mosier as Yuiko Kurugaya, Genevieve Simmons as Kanata Futaki, Greg Ayres as Masato Inohara, Leraldo Anzaldua as Kengo Miyazawa, Margaret McDonald as Haruka Saigusa, Tia Ballard as Komari Kamikita, and Tiffany Grant as Kudryavka Noumi.
Plot concept: When tragedy struck Riki Naoe as a child, he was rescued from grief over his parent’s deaths when four other kids “recruited” him for their group, the “Little Busters.” Now in high school, Riki and the other Busters are still fast friends, and though their vision of being heroes for justice may have faded, they’d still do anything for each other – which is why Riki is now on TWO special missions.
The not-so-secret one: recruiting new members so the Busters can form a baseball team. Preferably female recruits, as the current dude/babe ratio is an inconvenient 4 to 1. The other mission, though, that’s the strange one. Riki and Rin, the group’s singular girl, are receiving odd messages delivered by cats concerning the existence of a “secret world” and assigning them tasks they have to complete. Were their youthful dreams of being crusaders not so fanciful after all? Or is there something even more vital at stake?
