About

Little Busters! Opening Parodies (Japanese: リトバスOPパロ) refers to a series of parody videos of the opening credit sequence for Japanese visual novel Little Busters!^[1] produced by a Japanese adult game studio Key.^[2] The credit has been a popular template for parodies on the Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga since the Summer of 2008.

Origin

The visual novel Little Busters! was originally released for Windows in Japan on July 27th, 2007 and with several other editions being released in later years. The opening credits were made in a typical style for visual novels, by showcasing the main cast's character illustrations along with it's theme song. The credits have been published as a trailer several months before the release date. A year later, the adult version of the game, Little Busters! Ecstasy, was released in Japan on July 25th, 2008 and with it's opening being shared online as early as May of that year.

Spread

After the releases of both Little Busters! and Little Busters! Ecstasy, the games became one of the most popular visual novel releases among anime fans in Japan during 2007 and 2008. Their popularity soon led fans and MAD video makers to create their own parodies of the game's open sequence. One of the earliest was uploaded to Niconico on May 11th, 2008 by user unknown, where it featured the characters of the anime series Lucky Star. The popularity for these remixes would soon increase three months later when a Gachimuchi all-stars parody was uploaded to Niconico on August 16th.

The video would become one of most popular of the remixes, being watched over 930 thousand times since it's upload. More parodies soon followed suit, with many creators using theme from the Ecstasy version in their videos. Since then, Little Busters! soon joined the ranks of other visual novels such as Figu@mate, Nursery Rhyme and Itadaki Jan-Gari-an R for it's opening becoming a influential subject of remix on Niconico. With them, it helped contributing to the trend of parodying the credits of visual novel, mostly due to it's simplicity for MAD video editors.

Notable Examples

Almost 150 parody videos had been uploaded to Niconico^[3] in its first year and with many more being created in the years since, and with some being re-uploaded to YouTube.^[4]

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.