Everything is over… and now, everything will begin.
Impression
KYOUSUKE ;_;
Oh god, the suffering… it pains my heart. It’s been blatantly obvious that Kyousuke’s held some sort of hidden agenda this entire time, but after learning his side of the story, it’d be an error of judgement to give him the sort of flak Riki did during Rin’s arc. Sure, they suffered – but Kyousuke had to go through a fuckton of despair cleaning up after them, somehow maintaining his mental willpower without breaking. He worked so hard, went through all that suffering and played the bad guy… what a fucking hero. If I ever doubted you, I’m sorry.
Accompanying Kyousuke’s monologues were answers – and I’m glad to see that everything’s finally fitting into place. Everything seems to have been conjured up in response to this bus crash (presumably related to a school trip) in which there were clear casualties, as seen from all those items scattered around the crash site. In knowing Riki’s inability to withstand their cruel reality, Kyousuke decided to turn back time and create a dream world which began on the first day of the story, May 13. By making Riki and Rin go through all sorts of ordeals, he’d facilitate their mental growth – which would help them respond properly to the tragedy awaiting them. While this was less of a shock and more of a sagely understanding and realization of everything that’s happened so far, there were still things that surprised me.
One of them was that everyone knew about this – they had known all along. Yet they still acted out their roles perfectly; it’s hard to believe that Masato’s been playing the idiot instead of genuinely being one (though that may be the case, too). And in hindsight, it’s pretty chilling that almost everyone laughing in all those slice-of-life scenes knew deep down about their cruel reality – the secret of the world. A second was that Kyousuke had hand-picked the girls who would join the Little Busters (even Mio) instead of them happening to be Riki’s friends. While it’d be effective for Riki’s growth to choose girls who had existing problems and regrets, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s rather peak to do so. Finally, I’m surprised that there were so many bad ends – it turns out we only ever saw Riki at his very best during all those character routes; in reality he failed over and over again, and each time Kyousuke took one for the team and rewound time for him. What a bro… Riki doesn’t remember at all, but it must have been so painful for Kyousuke to watch Riki’s heart break continuously, not being able to interfere until he succeeded.
I think Riki’s failure in Rin’s route (i.e. running away from his problems) was what broke Kyousuke completely; after he looped time back to May 13 again, he just died inside (which culminated in Masato and Kengo’s hostile stances towards Riki’s recruitment attempts). There’s only so much a guy can take, after all. Not that we know how exactly he created (and ran) an artificial world while crawling around half-dead. I’m guessing that the dream world ran concurrently with his ordeal in the real world, as he tried to find and stop the gas leak. Look at all that blood… being Kyousuke really is suffering ;_; I’m sure his efforts were represented both literally and metaphorically by his painful struggle amongst the wreckage – a struggle that’s now ended at last.
Everything is over… and now, everything will begin.
the revealing of the secret of the world is coming, i can already sense it from next door QwQ
“One of them was that everyone knew about this – they had known all along. Yet they still acted out their roles perfectly; ”
I don’t remember Kyousuke saying this… In the episode, I only remember him saying that only the original members knew everything from the start + hinted Komari also knew as well. Only then is it after a few resets to solve the girl’s regrets that the other girls noticed (maybe ONLY noticed, not actually remembered everything). I know that Kyousuke said that Kud was the first to notice after a few resets, but I don’t know about Haruka nor Mio. Don’t think Kyousuke said anything about Kurugaya as well… Well I think Kurugaya first noticed from when she tried to make her ‘wish’ for her love for Riki to come true. Her wish then looped the world back in time and fluxuated the world. So she probably tried to stop the loop one last time but failed and disappeared from it; leaving Riki determined to protect Rin.
I might have to rewatch the episode to see if I missed any other important dialogue.
Folks with long memories (or who watched the first season more recently, like me) may remember Kud waking up after passing out from the shock of seeing her mother’s rocket explode, and saying “I remember everything… I was in prison.” Also her conversation with Kyousuke, where they both acknowledged that she was doomed to repeat the same thing over again. She had clearly gone through her bad route at least once and forgotten with the reset, but the shock restored her memory, and with it the memory of the secret as well, because while she was captured he focus was on getting back to help RIki and Rin.
:O Good call! My memories of Kud’s arc are definitely very hazy. If one digs deep I think they’d find all sorts of foreshadowing everywhere, perhaps most blatantly in this season’s OP (both the visual sequence and the lyrics now make a lot more sense). We also now know what Kyousuke meant in the pilot episode about repeating things “as many times as it takes” during his short monologue in the darkness.
My bad! I assumed all the girls knew (at least by the end) given the way they departed from the artificial world a few episodes ago. If it was only Komari, then I assume she’s special somehow – especially as she wasn’t an original LB member. Wonder if there’s significance in how she spends all her time stargazing at night… I recall hearing somewhere that she’s got an important part to play in the future?