#Little Busters! Spin-Off Kud Wafter Gets New Trailer, May 14 Release

Kud Wafter, an anime movie spin-off of the Little Busters! series, has received a new trailer. The movie will premiere in Japan on May 14. 

The Kud Wafter anime, which was produced to celebrate Little Busters!’s 10th anniversary, was funded via crowdfunding, with a domestic campaign on Campfire and an international campaign for English translation and “worldwide distribution of crowdfunding rewards” on Tokyo Otaku Mode. The trailer’s YouTube description states that the anime mustered 78 million yen (~USD 718,244) in crowdfunding. 

The staff includes Kentarou Suzuki (Little Busters! and Little Busters! Refrain episode director, Angels of Death) as director, Kai (Rewrite assistant scriptwriter) as scriptwriter, Haruka Iizuka (Horimiya) as character designer, Masateru Tanigawa (The Quintessential Quintuplets animation director) as chief animation director, Kyousuke Ishikawa (Little Busters!) as color designer, Eiji Iwase (Tamayomi) as art director, Takahiro Akatsuki (Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?) and Yuki Hirose (Skate-Leading Stars) as photography directors, and Satoshi Motoyama (Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki) as sound director. Key and Visual Arts are in charge of the music, while J.C Staff is in charge of the animation production. 

Most of the cast from Little Busters! are reprising their roles in Kud Wafter. The second season, Refrain, saw the role of Mio Nishizono being played by Shiho Kawaragi instead of Yuiko Tatsumi, and the spin-off will maintain that casting. Meanwhile, the spin-off will also introduce new characters like Yuuki Himuro (Mikumikumi) and Shiina Arizuki (Nanae Nakano).

Kud Wafter is based on the 2010 visual novel of the same name by Key. According to the Tokyo Otaku Mode crowdfunding page, the movie will be 40 to 50 minutes long. The story is described as: 

Welcome to an alternate version of Little Busters! The field trip ended without incident, and Kudryavka Noumi and Riki Naoe are now a couple. 

Due to an issue with the boys’ dorm renovation, Riia is left without anywhere to stay over summer vacation. He’s at a loss until Kud tells him…

“I’m, um, still looking for a roommate…”

Thus begins Riki’s summer with Kud, which brings them all sorts of new missions. What impact will these experiences leave on them…?”

In 2019, it was announced that shipments for the anime would be delayed, and that Suzuki would replace Yoshiki Yamakawa, who directed both seasons of Little Busters!, as director.