Riki spends the first half convincing you this is just a warm comedy about five friends trying to form a baseball team. Then it systematically dismantles that lie. Each character's smile has a crack in it, and the show finds them one by one, forcing you to watch people you've grown attached to confront the weight they've been carrying alone. By the time you understand what's actually happening, the entire show has reorganized itself into something that hits like grief in slow motion, and you realize you were never watching a sports anime at all, you were watching five people try to save each other by admitting they need saving.

Riki Naoe has spent his high school years surrounded by his closest friends, the Little Busters, a group that pulled him out of despair after his parents died when he was a child. Now these five inseparable misfits have set themselves a goal: form a baseball team. The obvious problem is they're short on players, especially female ones, so recruiting new members becomes Riki's job. But beneath the surface lies something far stranger. Riki and Rin, the only girl in their core group, keep receiving cryptic messages delivered by cats. These messages speak of a secret world and hand them tasks they must complete. As they pursue both missions, the friends try to work out what this secret is and why it is being hidden. What starts as a warm story about friendship gradually mixes comedy, drama and slice-of-life moments with a supernatural mystery.