List of Little Busters! characters

The main cast of Little Busters! (from left to right):
Top row: Masato, Kyousuke, Kengo;
Middle row: Mio, Yuiko, Rin, Haruka;
Bottom row: Kudryavka, Riki, Komari.

This is a list of characters from the Japanese visual novel and manga series Little Busters!. The main protagonist is Riki Naoe, a young man in high school who is a member of a tight-knit group of five friends known as the Little Busters. The leader of the Little Busters is Kyousuke Natsume, and he is one year older than the other four members; he often comes up with absurd ideas, but almost always follows up with a reasonable explanation along with it. The third member of the group is Masato Inohara, Riki's roommate, who loves to work out and improve his muscle mass. The next member is Kengo Miyazawa, who is skilled in the art of kendo and seemingly has a cynical personality, but his passion for the Little Busters is unmatched by anyone. The final member of the Little Busters is the only female, and Kyousuke's younger sister, Rin Natsume. Rin, who is also the main heroine in the story, does not communicate well and is seen as inarticulate; due to this, she is anti-social, and is usually seen alone.

There are five other heroines in Little Busters!, starting with Komari Kamikita, a very childish girl who takes great interest in fairy-tales, picture books, candy, and clothing with many layers of frills. She is very clumsy, and will often not think before she acts. Next is Haruka Saigusa, a schoolmate of Riki's from a different class, but despite this, always seems to find time to hang around in Riki's classroom. She is a problem child and will start an uproar for her own personal enjoyment. Another heroine is Kudryavka Noumi, is a girl who is a quarter Japanese, and three-quarters Russian. Her grandfather had great interest in Japanese culture, and per his influence on her, she came to know much about the Japanese culture, including the language. Following her is Yuiko Kurugaya, who is seen as an older sister to everyone despite being the same age of almost the entire cast. She is fond of things or people she considers to be cute, such as several of the female cast of characters. The final heroine is Mio Nishizono, a calm girl who is very diligent. Due to having weak health, she is always seen with a parasol when outside.

There are two additional characters which were originally supporting characters to further the overall story and influence scenarios, but were promoted to heroine status in Little Busters! Ecstasy. One of these characters is Kanata Futaki, a girl at Riki's school and the public morals chairman, which means when Haruka causes trouble, Kanata must run after her; Kanata is Haruka's twin sister. Sasami Sasasegawa is another, who is Rin's rival; due to this, she will often get in a fight with Rin. Other characters play more minor roles, such as Miyuki Koshiki, a girl in the archery club who lost her right eye due to an archery accident; Midori, who is Mio's forgotten imaginary sister; and Kojirō Kamikita, Komari's grandfather who lives in a nursing home Komari and Riki volunteer at. A new heroine named Saya Tokido makes her appearance in Ecstasy. She is popular at school, but most do not know is that she also comes to school at night to fight and protect a "treasure".

Little Busters members

Original members

Riki Naoe (直枝 理樹 Naoe Riki)

Voiced by: Tomoe Tamiyasu (game), Yui Horie^[1] (anime) (Japanese); Shannon Emerick (English)

Riki is the male protagonist of Little Busters! and is the role the player assumes in the game. He is the fifth member of the Little Busters, and of them, he is seen as the weakest due to his girlish appearance and physical build, but he is the only one that is straightforward and has common sense among them. His parents died when he was very young, and around the same time he was diagnosed with narcolepsy.

Riki is the weakest of the original five members, but his starting attribute values increase on each play through and can eventually match and outgrow Kyousuke's statistics. He also has above-average values on concentration and judgment attributes, so coupled with some agility and reflex enhancing accessories, he can be a force to be reckoned with during battle. The player can raise Riki's statistics faster by hitting the balls to Kyousuke during baseball practice, which is needed to prepare for Mask the Saitō's battle. It is not very useful during the baseball game, however, since he must play as a catcher. If Riki manages to get Mask the Saitō's mask accessory, it will raise all of his statistics by fifty during battle, making him almost invulnerable unless he gets a sub par weapon.

Rin Natsume (棗 鈴 Natsume Rin)

Voiced by: Tomoe Tamiyasu^[1] (Japanese); Brittney Karbowski (English)

Rin is the main heroine in the story. She is the younger sister of Kyousuke Natsume and is the only female member out of the five original members of the Little Busters. She does not communicate well and is seen as inarticulate. Due to this, she is anti-social, and is usually seen alone. When playing baseball with the others, Rin is an ace pitcher, although she used to be quite a bad pitcher—her throws would go in completely unpredictable directions—until she gets into a baseball stand-off between Sasami, where she demonstrates two "super-power" pitches, where one of them is a fastball and the other one is her own version of a changeup. Rin loves cats and at school takes care of several strays; it is not uncommon for several cats to crawl onto her. One such extremely overweight cat she named "Dorj" (ドルジ Doruji); other, much smaller, cats she has named "Hitler" (ヒットラー Hittorā), "Fabre" (ファーブル Fāburu), "Tezuka" (テヅカ Tezuka), and "Isoroku" (五十六 Isoroku). Rin often has a white kitten named "Lennon" (レノン Renon) with her which rides either on her head or shoulder. Rin's name means "bell", and she wears a bell in her hair.

Rin has only a slightly higher statistics than Riki at the start, but she is one of the characters other than Riki whose attribute values grow after each play through. Though she does not stack much items, she can be made to be one of the strongest characters just by playing through the baseball practice mini game and can even rival with Kengo in strength. She is the only character who can use cat items to summon her cats as a weapon during battle, but it is one of the weakest weapons until Rin gains more hit counts with her exclusive weapon. The cat weapon is also particularly vulnerable against fireworks weapons since they can disable her ability to do multiple attacks, which is the main strength of her exclusive weapon.

During the baseball practice session, players can unlock additional types of pitches for her to use, which include the curveball, shootball, slider, sinker, knuckleball, and a "super fastball". Players can achieve this by hitting the ball to the cats around the field hard enough to knock them out. The exception is Dorj which appears only in Ecstasy; the ball will simply bounce back to the player. After doing this eleven times, one type of pitch chosen randomly will be available for Rin to use during the practice sessions and during the game. The additional pitches gained during practice (with the exception of a straight ball and a changeup) can also serve to give Rin a bonus increase in her statistics whenever that pitch is thrown. While this will help tremendously during the baseball game, it can be a double-edged sword during the practice sessions. Players will face those additional types of pitches that can be challenging to hit, especially if Rin learns the super fastball. Hitting a cat also disrupts any combo streak the player can achieve by hitting back the ball the defender throws. This can be detrimental to the player if trying to achieve five-hundred hits before Kengo joins the team.

Players can also make Rin go on a mission to fight a mysterious creature during gameplay. She must face the creature a total of four times; the last two fights must be done in a single day. Since she will fight with no weapons, her strength attribute will be the sole factor of her damage output, so it is recommended to try giving her some strength enhancing accessories with a high agility attribute to allow her to land a first attack. Once Rin completely defeats the creature, Rin will face a tougher type of creature in the player's next play through. There are a total of three creatures, each subsequently tougher than the previous one. The third type can be extremely difficult to defeat even with Rin in her maximum stats obtained by subsequent playthroughs.

Kyousuke Natsume (棗 恭介 Natsume Kyōsuke)

Voiced by: Hikaru Midorikawa^[1] (Japanese); Blake Shepard (English), Yū Kamonomiya (young)

Kyousuke is the leader of the Little Busters, and is one year older than the other four members. He often comes up with absurd ideas, but almost always he follows up with a reasonable explanation along with it. He suffers from a brother-sister complex, as he wants his sister Rin to call him onii-chan (meaning brother in an affectionate way), but Rin does not want to, preferring to call him by his name. In truth, Kyousuke had planned that Komari, Haruka, Kudryavka, Yuiko, and Mio would eventually join the Little Busters. The plan was that he, along with the help of others, would create the artificial world in order to make Rin and Riki strong enough to face the reality. His methods, however, turn out to be too strong for Rin, which eventually causes her to suffer from a mental breakdown after the time loop. In Refrain, Kyousuke starts lamenting himself after his plan backfires, but before the time loops back, Riki unconsciously vows to Kyousuke that he will become more stronger than before. Remembering this, he starts to act like he is suffering from depression, much like how Riki was when his parents died. This makes Riki to strengthen himself up in order to care for Rin and to re-invite Masato and Kengo, who have gone their own separate ways, into the Little Busters again. In the meantime, he sometimes returns to the real world in an attempt to delay the bus explosion, and also at one time, helps Riki by dropping off a hint. After Riki manages to reform the Little Busters, Kyousuke is invited to back to the group by Riki the same way Kyousuke invited Riki. After Masato disappears during a game of baseball, Kyousuke reveals everything about the artificial world to Riki and Rin, who finally wakes up from the artificial world to face the reality. He is largely hinted to be Shun Tokikaze, the leader of the darkness executives in Saya's route.

Kyousuke is the most well-rounded character in the mini games and is one of the most active players on the baseball field. It is recommended that he plays as an outfielder to take advantage of his wide defense area coverage. It is vital to hit the balls to him during practice sessions if the player wants to raise Riki's statistics faster for a battle ranking game.^[2] Ironically he becomes the weakest member of the original five after the player completes all of the heroines' routes. In a battle ranking game, when the player as Riki gets to the first place after being sent to the bottom ranking, the "Mask the Saitō" character will appear, who is actually Kyousuke. He can use any weapon with maximum hit counts except for special weapons like the machine gun, a replica of Muramasa, or science team weapons. His appearance and voice will give the player the impression that he is Kyousuke, but ironically no one in the Little Busters, not even Rin, seem to know about his true identity. If Riki keeps maintaining his first place status, he will get challenged by Mask the Saitō, after Mask the Saitō gets to second or third place. Once Riki manages to defeat Mask the Saitō, he will remove his mask in front of him, thus revealing his true identity and have Riki become the next Mask the Saitō. The mask increases Riki's statistics by fifty, making Riki almost invulnerable; however, the mask cannot be traded.

Masato Inohara (井ノ原 真人 Inohara Masato)

Voiced by: Nobutoshi Canna^[1] (Japanese); Greg Ayres (English)

Masato is a member of the Little Busters, and is Riki's roommate. He has a particular fondness for Riki, which he is more than willing to express out aloud. He loves to work out and improve his muscle mass. His rival is Kengo Miyazawa, fellow member of the Little Busters. In Refrain, he left the Little Busters, thinking Riki is not strong enough to lead the group. After Riki questions him about what he is planning to do after leaving the Little Busters, Masato answers that he wants to prove that he is the strongest, and when he thinks about how he was defeated on May 13 and his will to become the strongest, it leads to his rampage, when everyone in his point of view becomes Masato, which in truth is his state of confusion on what he is living for. After he is defeated by Riki and Rin, Masato has a flashback about his past. He was bullied when he was little; he needed strength not to be bullied so he trained his muscles to be number one, but at the same time he felt lonely, and later wonders about what he is living for. One day, Kyousuke challenged him to a battle and he is defeated. After listening to Masato's story, Kyousuke invited Masato to the Little Busters, and Masato felt that his battle was over as he now had friends. Riki invites Masato to the Little Busters the same way Kyousuke did, and he agrees to join again. During the school excursion, he saves Riki in the real world during the bus accident.

Unsurprisingly, Masato has the highest starting strength and stamina points out of all characters in the game. However, his all other attributes are average or below-average, which play a more important role on the mini games. His low concentration and judgment points mean he is more likely to make tactical errors during the baseball game. Depending on the choice the player makes during May 17, however, his skills during the baseball game can be increased further, though he still has a tendency on making mistakes.^[2]

Kengo Miyazawa (宮沢 謙吾 Miyazawa Kengo)

Voiced by: Yūsei Oda^[1] (Japanese); Leraldo Anzaldua (English), Yū Kamonomiya (young: game, anime season 1), Megumi Han (young: anime season 2)

Kengo is a member of the Little Busters. He is skilled in the art of kendo and seemingly has a cynical personality, but his passion for the Little Busters is unmatched by anyone. Kengo is recruited after Masato, Kyousuke and Rin defeat his father, making him the fourth member of Little Busters. Kengo gets into a disagreement with Kyousuke's method of strengthening Riki and Rin, which eventually proves to be too tough for Rin. In Refrain, when Rin breaks down mentally and Kyousuke's plan has backfired on him, Kengo tries to find a way so that they can keep living in the artificial world indefinitely rather than letting Riki and Rin face the harsh reality in the real world. The arm injury bandage he had in Refrain is a fake. However, after he is defeated by Rin in a baseball game, he realizes how strong Rin has become. He later regrets his action and breaks into tears, remembering how Kyousuke saved him from his eternal path of kendo by defeating his father, and rejoins the Little Busters. During the school excursion, he saves Rin in the real world during the bus accident.

Kengo has the second-highest starting strength and stamina, and unlike Masato, Kengo is also reasonably high on reflex and agility. He will not participate in the baseball game during first-time play through, limiting the team to eight members. Once he does participate, he can be a very valuable infielder, and if the player manages to record more than five-hundred hits during practice session before he joins the team, his skills during the baseball game will increase tremendously.^[2] For battle, he has a tendency to stack up stamina enhancing accessories (which, not surprisingly, are protective armor parts from his kendo club) so defense-wise, he can be quite resilient.

Additional members

Komari Kamikita (神北 小毬 Kamikita Komari)

Voiced by: Natsumi Yanase^[1] (Japanese); Tia Ballard (English)

Komari is very childish, taking great interest in fairytales, picture books, candy, and clothing with many layers of frills. She is very clumsy, and will often not think before she acts. She does well in her studies and is also surprisingly athletic, though this is somewhat hampered by the fact that she is quite weak and has never done any sport properly before. This personality hides a past where she was traumatized by the death of her brother. She had blocked out her brother's death from her mind, but remembers it after seeing a dead cat and goes crazy, thinking that Riki is her brother. Players often mistake Komari for the main heroine since she is the first girl to be introduced in the opening video, and the second girl is Rin. In Refrain, after Rin remembers everything in her final dream, she rushes to Komari, who gives Rin her hair ornament, before disappearing, telling her to be strong.

Komari is one of the weakest characters along with Kudryavka, but she has the fastest growth rate of any character in the game, and her bonus increment statistics are quite large for each time the player hits the ball to her during a practice session. If the player chooses to raise her statistics by hitting the ball to her during a practice session, which can be fairly difficult especially while she is running, she can be made into a valuable player in the field.

Haruka Saigusa (三枝 葉留佳 Saigusa Haruka)

Voiced by: Keiko Suzuki^[1] (Japanese); Margaret McDonald (English)

Haruka is a schoolmate of Riki's from a different class, but despite this, always seems to find time to hang around in Riki's classroom. She is a problem child and will start an uproar for her own personal enjoyment, which causes her twin sister, the public morals chairman Kanata Futaki, to often chase after her. She uses marbles as a weapon to distract the public morals committee from chasing her, and when Riki is with her, she drags Riki away, explaining that being captured by the public morals committee means big trouble for her. The truth is, she was abused by her family (not her parents, who were kept away from her and Kanata), while Kanata was seemingly treated very well, though truthfully she was not. She thus starts trouble to bother her sister and shame her family name. She works part-time in the school's cafeteria to get permission to use the oven to bake muffins and cakes.

Haruka is a reasonably agile character, but has poor concentration and judgment values, which often causes her to make poor decisions in battle and baseball games. She is one of the most active players on the baseball field, however, so it is recommended that she is set as an outfielder for the baseball game. During practice, there is a chance that she will fail to catch the ball, though this happens very rarely.

Kudryavka Noumi (能美 クドリャフカ Nōmi Kudoryafuka)

Voiced by: Naomi Wakabayashi^[1] (Japanese); Tiffany Grant (English)

Kudryavka, also known as "Kud" (クド Kudo) for short, is a girl who is a quarter Japanese, and three-quarters Russian. Her full Russian name is Kudryavka Anatolyevna Strugatskaya.^[3] Her grandmother is Japanese. Her grandfather was crazy about Japanese culture and per his influence on her, she came to know much about Japanese culture too, including the language. Despite having a poor handle on the English language, she was able to skip a year in school due to credits obtained through studying abroad. She is Riki's classmate and is in the newly formed home economics club due to an invitation of the head of the dormitory she lives at with the other characters. Kudryavka and the dormitory head are the only two members, and since the latter is often too busy, club activities are suspended and Kudryavka is the sole active member of a club on the verge of being disbanded.^[4] Before joining the home economics club, Kudryavka had been a member of the furniture club before it was disbanded.

Kudryavka has two dogs: a large female Siberian Husky named Strelka (ストレルカ Sutoreruka), and a small Schipperke named Belka (ヴェルカ Veruka).^[5][6] The hat and cloak that she wears were handmade. She spent most of her childhood traveling around the world, and her home country is a small, fictional southern island (called Tebwa, or otherwise Republic of N.T.M.T, a former Soviet Union territory) closer to the equator; this is the reason for her hat and cloak—she finds Japan cold due to her country's climate. Her favorite phrase is wafu! (わふー wafū), much like Ayu Tsukimiya's ugū from Kanon, and Misuzu Kamio's gao from Air. For the two endings, she can either choose not to return to her home country and become overwhelmed with guilt and regret when she sees her mother's public execution on television, which results in her bad ending; or, for the good ending, she chooses to return but gets captured by rebels in her home country (which is in a state of civil war), eventually escaping prison and returning to Japan due to her strong love for Riki.

Kudryavka, along with Komari, is one of the weakest character in the game, and since she does not have the growth rate of Komari, her usage can be quite limited. In battle, however, Kudryavka can use dog items to summon her dogs as a weapon, which can often turn the tide of the battle. In baseball, she does surprisingly well in catching balls, and like Komari, her bonus increment statistics by hitting balls to her is fairly large, so she is a good choice as an outfielder.

Kudryavka's route includes an Easter egg ending, called "Muscle Sensation". To watch this, the player must choose to play with Masato every time the choice is presented throughout her route, and generally choose choices that favor Masato, such as who Kudryavka should study with, while going through Kudryavka's route. This ending is not required to progress the game—it is simply there for humorous factor.

Yuiko Kurugaya (来ヶ谷 唯湖 Kurugaya Yuiko)

Voiced by: Ryōko Tanaka^[1] (Japanese); Carli Mosier (English)

Yuiko is Riki's classmate who has a self-sufficient personality. She is sometimes seen carrying a replica of a katana called Muramasa. She is seen as an older sister to everyone despite being the same age of almost the entire cast, and is referred to as Anego (姉御, "elder sister") by Haruka. She is fond of things or people she considers to be cute, such as several of the female cast of characters, especially Kudryavka in particular.^[7] She is also seen as the most invincible member of the Little Busters, having defeated Masato, Kengo and Kyousuke, which traumatizes them. Rin is also afraid of her since Yuiko is the only one who can contain and play around with her, much to Rin's dismay. Yuiko gets high grades in school, especially in math, and is hated by her first year math teacher and several female students, who plan on bullying the Little Busters by first affixing nails and chewing gum to Riki's shoes. She was born outside Japan, but is still entirely Japanese. When she was born, she was given the name Elizabeth (エリザベス Erizabesu) which would often be shortened to Lizbeth (リズベス Rizubesu) as a nickname. Kengo was her classmate during her first year.

Yuiko is the strongest female character in the game until player completes all heroine's route; In which case, Rin can effectively compete with her in terms of statistics. She is the only character that is capable of using a sword or a machine gun as a weapon during battle and she is also the most reflexive and agile character in all aspects. Since she has relatively high attribute values on everything except strength and stamina, which are above-average among the female characters, she is an extremely capable player on the baseball field, whether infield or outfield, and she almost always succeeds in stealing bases.

Mio Nishizono (西園 美魚 Nishizono Mio)

Voiced by: Shiho Kawaragi^[1] (game, anime season 2), Yuiko Tatsumi (anime season 1) (Japanese); Caitlynn French (English)

Mio is a calm girl who is very diligent. Due to having weak health, she is always seen with a parasol when outside. She enjoys reading, especially when the story contains boys love elements, and her room is filled with books. She carries around a book of poems by Bokusui Wakayama. In the real world, she was feeling guilty over having forgotten an imaginary friend she used to have, who comes to life in the artificial world as Midori. She uses the parasol because she is trying to hide that she has no shadow; this is due to Midori using Mio's shadow to materialize her own body. Mio was originally designed by Na-Ga to wear glasses, but this was later dropped.^[8] However, players can still view her CG with glasses during Riki's déjà vu flashback of Mio, though this is meant to be a deception by Midori.

Despite having weak health, Mio's weak body (and consequently her statistics) can be deceiving as she is quite powerful enough to hold a couple dozen of books, as well as being able to chastise Haruka, much to her dismay. She is also the only character that can use special weapons given by the science team during battle, which can be extremely damaging to her opponent. The damage capability, however, is unpredictable in each fight, which is determined by whether Mio's "NYP" ("Nandaka Yokuwakaranai Power" (なんだかよく分からないパワー, lit. "somewhat unknown power")) value measured at the beginning of each fight is high or low. She is also a character that receives the largest amount of bonus increment statistics during baseball practice sessions due to her often being in hard-to-hit at places. It is useless to raise her statistics, however, as she does not participate in the baseball game.

Additional heroines in Ecstasy

Five heroines from Little Busters! Ecstasy (from left to right):
Background: Sasami, Rin, Kanata;
Foreground: Saya, Komari.

The additional heroines are unlocked when the player completes all the scenarios, including Refrain. However, if the player answers 'yes' when asked if the player already knows the secret of the world, the player can play through their scenarios without any requirements. This question is asked only once, either right after the game is installed or clearing the save data in the install directory.

Kanata Futaki (二木 佳奈多 Futaki Kanata)

Voiced by: Keiko Suzuki (Japanese); Genevieve Simmons (English)

Kanata is a girl at Riki's school and is the public morals chairman, which means when Haruka causes trouble, Kanata must run after her. To help Kanata, Kudryavka offered up her two dogs Strelka and Belka to patrol the school grounds and help in hunting down Haruka when she causes trouble. Kanata is Haruka's twin sister, though this is only revealed later. She acts extremely cold to Haruka, although it is later revealed she is forced to treat Haruka coldly by her kinsmen, and actually made efforts to release Haruka from them. Kanata is annoyed at Riki's close approach to her sister and often tells Riki to stay away from Haruka, wondering why someone normal like Riki would want to approach her twin. Since the only real difference between Haruka and Kanata is their eye color, Kanata uses this to her advantage when she impersonates her sister with colored contacts. Kanata cooks well, while Haruka does not, and this is one of the few ways to identify her when she is impersonating Haruka.

Sasami Sasasegawa (笹瀬川 佐々美 Sasasegawa Sasami)

Voiced by: Tomoe Tamiyasu (game), Sora Tokui (anime) (Japanese); Allison Sumrall (English)

Sasami is a girl at Riki's school and is Rin's rival; surprisingly, while Rin loves cats, Sasami is a devoted dog lover. Due to this, she will often get in a fight with Rin, though since she is the soon-to-be captain of the girls' softball team, she sends in three new team members first before she goes in herself; the three girls' names are: Yukari Nakamura (中村 由香里 Nakamura Yukari, voiced by: Ryō Hirohashi (Japanese), Cara Duncan (English)), Rei Kawagoe (川越　令 Kawagoe Rei, voiced by: Akemi Kanda (Japanese), Nancy Novotny (English)), and Sakiko Watanabe (渡辺　咲子 Watanabe Sakiko, voiced by: Ai Nonaka (Japanese), Juliet Simmons (English)).^[9] Her name is thought to be a tongue twister, which even she manages to mix up. She has a romantic interest in Kengo Miyazawa, but Kengo has no interest in returning her favor. If the player goes for a second play through after the baseball match, the player can see the event when Sasami helps take a group photo for the Little Busters, a photo which helps Rin in regaining her memories in her final dream; this event only happens once. The reason for her avoiding cats is due to the disappearance of her own cat Kuro during her childhood. In Sasami's route, which happens after the events in Refrain, Sasami's cat Kuro created a world similar to the Little Busters! world around the school in order to meet Sasami one last time before dying.

Sasami is the only secondary character in the original Little Busters! game, other than the softball girls, that is given her own statistics. During the first and second play through, her statistics are too high for Rin to effectively compete with her. Rin stands a much better chance against Sasami at around the player's third play through, and when she wins against Sasami, she can obtain an item for Riki to use, which can be a godsend for him during a battle ranking game, especially if he receives an accessory that increases his agility or reflexes. The maximum number of times she can be fought is six, but only if the player decides to go through Rin's path while she is still unsociable. Otherwise, the player would face Sasami five times, but this can be minimized to three if Rin is on the mission to fight a mysterious creature.

Saya Tokido (朱鷺戸 沙耶 Tokido Saya)

Voiced by: Harumi Sakurai (Japanese); Hilary Haag (English)

Saya is a new heroine who only appears in Little Busters! Ecstasy. In the daytime, she is a popular girl in her class at Riki's school due to her attractive face and figure, though is known to be a natural airhead. However, at night, she can be found at the school wandering around in order to protect a "treasure" from those she calls the "darkness executives" (闇の執行部 yami no shikkōbu), and even has to fight them for it.

Saya's true identity is Aya, a normal girl with a father as a doctor, who volunteered in various countries that are not well-off. Since they had to move frequently, she did not have enough time for any deep relationships with others or school. During her childhood, she briefly befriended Riki during her brief stay in Japan, playing soccer with each other. One day, when Saya and her father were about to return to Japan and end their traveling, Aya became involved in an accident due to a flood. She was on the verge of death when she, by chance, noticed the artificial world Kyousuke has created and decided to enter it. Inside, she materialized as Saya Tokido, a character from Kyousuke's favorite manga, which incidentally happened to be her favorite as well, given to her by a Japanese tourist. Due to this, Kyousuke originally thought she was created due to his hidden desire, and intended to leave her alone, but after seeing her interacting with Riki, he realizes that she is actually an "interloper" to his world and tries to make her leave, since her existence causes Riki to stray away from the others because of a lot of reasons: Saya is a spy so he has to keep her identity in secret, he doesn't want to involve the other LB! members with the "darkness executives" and of course because he fell in love with her so much that his feelings for Saya remain even after the "resets", at the point that he prefer spend his time with Saya rather than with the others. Also, the head of the "Darkness Executives", Tokikaze Shun (who is actually Kyousuke role-playing the main antagonist from Saya Tokido's manga) tells Saya at the beginning (and each subsequent replay) that if she want to leave the dream world, she just has to pull the trigger on herself.

In one of the last loops, Saya acceded to leave the dream world and Kyousuke promised grant her final wish. In the very end of her route Saya shoot herself in the head and leave the dream world. Her status in the real world after leaving the dream world is uncertain, but most likely she died due to her accident since her situation was very hopeless.

Saya's route can confuse many players due to two reasons. During the "replay" portion, which is in Saya's perspective, it is nearly impossible to avoid death. The player is actually required to die several times, then choose "replay" in the game over screen in order to progress with her route. Also, at the end of the maze, the game abruptly sends the player back to the title screen, which can also cause confusion. To proceed with her route, the player must actually go through Saya's route once again, and the first choice the player makes during May 17 will determine if the player will receive a bad ending or a good one. After her true ending, her route will no longer be playable until the player completes up to the Refrain route. In this case, when the player starts a new game, the game will ask if the player wants to make Saya's route playable again.

Saya is only involved in two mini-games, shooting and baseball practice. Despite this, she has no direct involvement except for the shooting mini-game, which players will be able to play through Saya's perspective during the "replay" portion of her route. During baseball practice, if the player is playing through Saya's route, she will be seen in the field hiding behind a wooden drum. If the player hits the ball to her, she will either snipe and destroy the ball, or shoot the ball back to the player, allowing for more combos. During Saya's route, players will not be able to participate in the battle ranking game midway through, but early on, she sometimes appears to assist Riki during battle. Also, players cannot play the baseball match during Saya's route, so it is largely useless to raise anyone's statistics.

Secondary characters

Miyuki Koshiki (古式 みゆき Koshiki Miyuki)

Voiced by: Yū Kamonomiya (game), Yōko Honda (anime) (Japanese); Nancy Novotny (English)

Miyuki is a girl in the archery club who lost her right eye due to an archery accident. Her family is known for being skilled in archery. Due to being in a similar situation of Kengo, she worries about him. She committed suicide in the real world, unlike the artificial world where Kengo saves her from this act. Kyousuke creates an illusion of her to distract Kengo during a baseball game set by Kengo to thwart Kyousuke's plan, as it is too harsh for Riki and Rin. This angers Kengo to the point where he charges and attacks Kyousuke.

Midori (美鳥)

Voiced by: Yumi Arai (game), Yuiko Tatsumi (anime) (Japanese); Caitlynn French (English)

Midori is Mio's forgotten imaginary sister who comes to life in the artificial world and takes Mio's place. Her personality is the direct opposite of Mio. She materializes due to taking Mio's shadow, so she herself has no shadow, but she does not hide it, unlike Mio.

Kojirō Kamikita (神北 小次郎 Kamikita Kojirō)

Voiced by: Asahi Morishōji (game), Tōru Ōkawa (anime) (Japanese); John Swasey (English)

Kojirō is an old man in a nursing home Komari and Riki volunteer at. He has trouble keeping his room clean. He is Komari's grandfather, although this is revealed later as he refused to tell Riki about his relationship with Komari. He is actually escaping from Komari, after she becomes insane for the first time and treats him like her dead brother.

Takuya Kamikita (神北 拓也 Kamikita Takuya)

Voiced by: Yuu Kamonomiya (Japanese); Connor Leach (English)

Komari's older brother. He has a weak physical appearance and because of his long stay in the hospital, he is always seen wearing pajamas. Despite being sick, he was still a friendly guy who liked to draw and create stories, and always taking care of his younger sister. Because of his illness, he lived in a hospital room that was close to his house where his sister would visit him as a child. It is unknown what illness he suffered from, but it was presumably serious as he was confined to staying within the hospital, The night before he passed away, he told Komari that she might not be able to see him when she wakes up in the morning, but that she did not have to mourn for him, because it would be a dream. He hoped that by telling her this, she would not grieve too much over his passing, and that she would retain her smile.

Chernushka Ivanova Strugaskaya ((チェルヌシカ・ストルガツカヤ Cherunushika Sutorugatsukaya / Чернушка Иванова Стругацкая)

Voiced by: Naomi Wakabayashi (Japanese); Tiffany Grant (English)

Kudryavka's mother, and the daughter of Ivan Strugatskaya. Chernushka is half-Russian, half-Japanese. Because of this, she has black hair and has the nickname "Blackie". When she was younger, she used to wear a hat and cape just like her daughter.

Yumi (由美)

Voiced by: Aya Suzaki (Japanese); Allison Sumrall (English)

A five year-old girl. She is one of the children Rin meets and does the puppet show for; After Rin gets a mission from Lennon to "do the puppet show", she meets Yumi and her friends. Tarou accidentally broke Yumi's doll while playing baseball. Ami wanted to give her a puppet show for her birthday but can't anymore; so Rin promises the kids she will fix the doll and do the puppet show.

Ami (亜美)

Voiced by: Mariya Ise (Japanese); Nancy Novotny (English)

A nine year-old girl and a friend of Yumi.

Tarou (太郎)

Voiced by: Tomo Muranaka (Japanese); Johnny Delacerda (English)

An eight year-old boy who has a bandage on his nose and is a friend of Yumi and Ami. He likes to play baseball.

Jirou (二郎)

Voiced by: Yukiyo Fuji (Japanese); Connor Leach (English)

Another eight year old and is a friend of Tarou's.

Saburou (三郎)

A nine year old boy. He is another child that Rin meets at the puppet show.

References

1. "Little Busters! Anime's New Promo Streamed for October Debut". Anime News Network. July 29, 2012. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
2. "Little Busters! flag data" (in Japanese). Retrieved October 30, 2007.
3. Katakana: クドリャフカ・アナトリエヴナ・ストルガツカヤ
   Romaji: Kudoryafuka Anatorievuna Sutorugatsukaya
   Russian: Кудрявка Анатольевна Стругацкия
   "Little Busters! screenshot featuring Kudryavka" (in Japanese). Key. Retrieved September 27, 2007.
   Key. Little Busters! (in Japanese). PC. Visual Art's.
4. Untranslated quote: 部員も一人で、廃部寸前だったらしいんですけど
   Translated quote: "Since I'm the only staff member, the club is on the verge of being disbanded."
   "Little Busters! screenshot featuring Kudryavka" (in Japanese). Key. Retrieved September 27, 2007.
   Key. Little Busters! (in Japanese). PC. Visual Art's.
5. Untranslated quote: ストレルカは見たところ、シベリアンハスキーっぽい犬だ
   Translated quote: "Judging from Strelka's appearance, he is a Siberian Husky."
   "Little Busters! screenshot featuring Kudryavka with Strelka" (in Japanese). Retrieved September 27, 2007.
   Key. Little Busters! (in Japanese). PC. Visual Art's.
6. Untranslated quote: ・・・はい？　あぁ、はい、スキッパーキは尾断尾をするんですよ。無尾の子も多いのですが
   Translated quote: "...Huh? Ah, yes, the Schipperke has a cropped tail. There are many dogs like that."
   "Little Busters! screenshot featuring Kudryavka, Strelka, and Belka" (in Japanese). Retrieved September 27, 2007.
   Key. Little Busters! (in Japanese). PC. Visual Art's.
7. Untranslated quote: 可愛いものは好きだよ、私は
   Translated quote: "I like cute things."
   Key. Little Busters! (in Japanese). PC. Visual Art's. Taken from the opening video.
8. Dengeki G's Magazine (in Japanese). MediaWorks. March 30, 2006. p. 130.
9. "Little Busters! Development Diary" (in Japanese). Key. March 14, 2008. Retrieved March 14, 2008.

External links

• Official Little Busters! visual novel character profiles (Japanese)