THE WORLD OF SAITOU

RAHM JETHANI - Writer, 3rd Year, English

"If you don't hit me, then I can't bring myself to return your embrace. Now, hit me!"

SPOILERS FOR LITTLE BUSTERS!, LITTLE BUSTERS! REFRAIN, AND LITTLE BUSTERS! SEKAI NO SAITOU WA ORE GA MAMORU!

As an avid Key/Visual Arts fan, I have seen quite a large amount of their catalog. My watching patterns with Key’s anime often consists of watching a show all the way through, then saying goodbye through each series’ respective OVAs. I usually do this to find some sense of closure from the OVAs, which, in Key’s case, are usually released after the anime finished airing. While this closure doesn’t always come, I have consistently maintained this pattern with my viewings of Angel Beats!, Charlotte, and Planetarian. However, I never got around to watching the OVA of Little Busters! until very recently. Little Busters! and its sequels, Refrain and EX, were the first Key anime that I ever watched, so I was confused as to why I’d never even heard of the existence of Little Busters! Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru!

Having been released after the original series but before Refrain, Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru! was made to be watched without the knowledge that the characters were living in an infinitely repeating, false world. As such, the OVA follows the characteristically silly antics of the Little Busters, while having no relevance in terms of progressing the plot or character progression. At a glance, one could reductively describe it as pointless filler. And, only at a glance, this description would absolutely be true. But, Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru! is more than meets the eye, and its interpretation of Little Busters!’s themes is both simple and retroactively beautiful.

Having watched Little Busters! Refrain beforehand, it was clear that there were a lot of similarities between Mask the Saitou’s authoritative strength in this OVA, and Kyousuke’s cunning control in Refrain. This should be obvious given how they are the same person, but while I think these parallels are intentional, there is a notable difference that should lead to different analyses of these characters. While they each dominate their own environment (Saitou with the school rankings and Kyousuke with the reality of the world), Saitou is operating within the rules of the world. His success, as opposed to Kyousuke’s complete control, is almost entirely determined by what weapons the crowd of students gives him or his opponent. In this way, Mask the Saitou’s “power” is completely dependent on his classmates, and is also essentially random because of this. So then, you might ask, how does he keep winning his fights? While the audience isn’t shown any of his battles, Saitou announces his power comes from his determination to “protect the world of Saitou”. This draws comparison to Kyousuke’s determination to protect his friends, which manifested into the power to create a false world. Just like Kyousuke, Mask the Saitou’s will seems to have an actual effect on the world.

In the final fight, between Riki and Saitou, it appears as though Riki will easily be decimated. However, just as Saitou is about to land an attack, the voice of Komari can be heard. She walks through the fight, along with Rin, in a comedic moment while reading the story of “Run, Melos!” out loud. And, as the literary romantic Kyousuke hears the dramatic conclusion of the story beneath the mask, he begins to cry and says he isn’t able to hit Riki. Mask the Saitou then forfeits the match, and Riki becomes the school’s battle-sequence champion. As the sun sets, Kyousuke hands Riki the mask, telling him that he is now the new “Mask the Saitou”, and that it is his responsibility to protect the world of Saitou.

This ending is reminiscent of the ending of Refrain, where Kyousuke relinquishes ownership of his false reality after he observes the strength of Riki’s will, and the world disappears (comparatively in this OVA, Saitou relinquishes ownership of his mask after he observes human compassion, and the mask literally disappears from the rest of the series). While Riki didn’t need to do anything in the fight, his role as the new Mask the Saitou raises a question as to its significance: what does it mean to protect the world of Saitou?

In my mind, Mask the Saitou’s nature as a transferable, literal mask suggests that rather than literally being Kyousuke’s false world, the world of Saitou is instead an idea that can be “worn” by anyone. And, the idea of the world of Saitou is most likely the same idea that gave Kyousuke’s version of Mask the Saitou power: the reliance on others for strength, and the determination to protect something apart from oneself. This conclusion thematically reinforces the events leading up to Riki’s escape from Kyousuke’s world. At the end of Refrain, Riki had to prove to Kyousuke both his own strength, founded upon the lessons he had learned from others, and his determination to protect Rin no matter what happened. In this way, Riki at the end of Refrain ideologically embodied his role as Mask the Saitou. If one wanted to continue this logic, they could say that once this had happened, Riki’s desire for his friends to live was transposed upon the real world, just like how Kyousuke’s Mask the Saitou commanded power within his fictional one.

Interspersed with the main plot of Mask the Saitou, the Little Busters! OVA also features a comedic subplot about Kurugaya purposefully giving misleading advice to the other members of the Little Busters in order to teach them actual life lessons. I could superimpose deeper meanings onto this section of Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru!, but in truth they’re mainly played for laughs, so I won’t dive into them too much. One small detail worth noting, though, is that the position of Kurugaya and the other Little Busters as side characters makes their comedic antics and subsequent character growth a comforting story element. To know that these characters would be able to successfully live their lives beyond their time spent as ‘Little Busters’ does provide a small bit of closure for series fans, especially given the OVA’s main focus being on Riki and Kyousuke.

As a final goodbye to Little Busters!, Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru! is very aware of its strongest themes, and displays them proudly. While it misses the mark in terms of its narrative cohesion with the rest of the Little Busters! series, Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru! is one of the most effective final OVAs of any of the Key anime released so far.