News

Hanabee Adds Little Busters

Hanabee made the announcement today through their YouTube channel. They will be releasing the 26 episode series in two parts on both Blu-Ray and DVD. Part 1 will be released on the 8th of January 2014 with Part 2 to follow in the near future and both releases will include the English dub and Japanese audio with subtitles.

_{©VisualArt's/Key/Team Little Busters!}

Little Busters

Riki Naoe has had a tough life, left orphaned at a early age he grew into a depressed young boy who shunned contact with the outside world. However after finding a group of friends called the Little Busters, Riki been able to deal with the grief of losing his parents. The series opens on this group including Kyousuke Natsume and his sister Rin, Masato Inohara and Kengo Miyazawa, wanting to field a baseball team but they don't have enough members, so Riki and Rin are tasked with finding students to join the team. But talking to so many students won't be easy with Riki's narcolepsy and the crippling shy Rin having to discover the cryptic secret of their world.

Little Busters! is based on Key's romance adventure visual novel of the same name, Key also being responsible for Clannad, Kanon and Angel Beats. The game was originally released on PC in 2007 and was followed with an adult remake called Little Busters! Ecstasy in 2008. Both games have been ported to PS2, PSP, PS3 and PS Vita. The games has also been adapted into 13 manga series, 2 internet radio shows and countless other short stories, light novels and other media.

This anime adaptation was directed by Yoshiki Yamakawa (Baby, Please Kill Me!, Hatsukoi Limited) at J.C. Staff with Michiru Shimada (Jewelpet Twinkle, Shugo Chara!) on scripts and Haruko Iizuka (Inu X Boku Secret Service, Ōkami-san & Her Seven Companions) handling the character design. The most of the game's original cast returned for this game with Yui Horie (Ayu Tsukimiya in Kanon) voicing protagonist Riki Naoe.

The first 26 episode series premiered in Japan on Tokyo MX on the 6th of October 2012 with Crunchyroll streaming the series from January 2013 and Sentai Filmworks picked up the rights in North America. The series has been followed with Little Busters! Refrain that has just started screening in Japan and will be followed with an anime adaptation of Little Busters! Ecstasy titled Little Busters! EX at some point in the near future.

If you would like to view Hanabee's press release for Little Busters! you can do so here