Little Busters! Episode 12: Baseball Manager

“…She was smiling.”

Impression

I felt that this episode could be broadly split up into two sections – the happy school days section and the foreboding train crash section where shit is almost certainly going to go down next week. Much like how Little Busters! as a show has progressed so far; when it decides to go with slice-of-life it does so really well, and likewise when they decide to turn on the angst they do it properly and leave us with massive feels.

At least we got off to a friendly start with Komari’s Happiness Spiral theory, in which apparently both the giver and recipient when donating get happiness out of a donation. It’s true that lots of people donate for the feel good factor; to make themselves feel better that they’ve done a charitable thing. Of course, it’s not as negative at that makes it sound, and definitely charitable donations should always be seen as a good thing, no matter what the motive or amount of money given – as Komari said, it’s kindness they’re collecting ^_^ Masato and Kengo could learn a thing or two there.

Mio ended up being recruited as the baseball team’s manager – which is probably the role most suited for her, as she doesn’t go anywhere in the sun without her parasol, and doesn’t look overly athletic. (though I suppose I can’t say differently about Komari or Kud xD) I’m surprised she wasn’t able to use a phone at all, despite owning one and having read the manual – it makes me wonder what kind of life she’s led in the past, as well as the personal circumstances she’s faced with, which I’m sure will turn out to be an important plot point in the future. After seeing her rile up Masato like she’s been doing it for years, it’s easy to say that she’ll fit in fine with the rest of the Little Busters xD The result of that tanka also deserves a special mention:

The wind shines brightly
By your side, as there you run
Ah, to see you run

Wearing those
Bright red bloomers
I am a freaking giant
– Little Busters

HAHAHAHA it’s hilariously obvious who some of the lines were written by – something as poetic as “the wind shines brightly” probably came from Kurugaya, while I’m certain that “I am a freaking giant” could only have come from Masato, despite there not being a single mention of muscles anywhere. However, as pointed out by Riki near the start of the episode, their days aren’t always sunny – and their good times don’t last forever. Whenever he says that, it’s probably right to start assuming that something big will go down soon, and their everyday high school life will turn into something more serious – this time involving Mio.

What’s strange is how Mio’s taking her inclusion into the Little Busters – it’s not that she doesn’t enjoy it, but instead that she’s trying to avoid accepting a new way of life, as she feels she’ll be denying the way she’s lived her life thus far. She’s always been very cryptic to Riki, but to say that it’s too late to accept something immediately makes you feel uneasy, and adding to that we have all these inevitabilities of paper planes falling to the ground and forgetting the real world through escapism via books that sets off alarms that something isn’t right here. And joining them all together is the creepy smiling girl that looks identical to Mio except without a parasol, who appears only when she isn’t around and has a completely different personality to her. I’m guessing that the other girl might be an identical twin or a split personality that Mio isn’t comfortable with exposing? We’ve already suspected something like that from the striking similarity between Haruka and Futaki Kanata, so I might be completely off the mark.