Forum - View topicREVIEW: Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse 1-6 Streaming
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23856 |
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You bastards! No maple syrup or bacon for you, one year. |
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LordByron227
Posts: 158 |
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Well, we only made 1/2 of Canada uninhabitable. But pretty sure 1/2 of Canada was already uninhabitalbe so its OK :thumbs:
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navel fluff
Posts: 3 Location: Massachusetts |
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Because in this world, there is still quite a bit of political competition and "them vs. us" going on between the remaining major world powers (at this point, basically Japan, America, and the Soviet Union). The original VN does a good job of illustrating ways the three of them tend to cross one another, particularly America and Japan. I don't think it has anything to do with actual real-world racism bleeding into the writing, though, because in the Muv-Luv world, it's damn near a universal opinion. All three major powers think the other two are plotting to get a monopoly over any given resource, up to and including TSFs and even manpower. Of course they're suspicious of one another; all life on Earth is in very real danger of being wiped out, so humans are going to crack and start getting paranoid they'll be backstabbed while they're most vulnerable. That happens in large-scale wars, and TSFs are designed to combat not just the BETA, but human troops as well... that should be pretty telling in itself. All the infighting and intrigue is something even the main character in the VNs, who is from our world and thus has our "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST COOPERATE FOR A COMMON GOAL ALREADY" perspective, gets frustrated with time and time again. People do that under pressure. And also because, as someone said before, America has that little... "insurance policy" in case the Soviets decide to start taking too many miles for America's inch. On another note, someone before made a gripe about the timeline of WWII and everything afterward being changed, and it is a little jarring to think about, especially if you don't hear the full explanation that's given in Muv-Luv Unlimited about how the altered world history went down and affected things to the year 2001. It seems contrived, but even so, it effectively sets the stage for the kinds of drama Muv-Luv and Total Eclipse both touch on. Although the political drama can be really drawn-out and tough to sit through, it still helps illustrate the state of the world and how that shapes the people in it. If the Muv-Luv franchise has any strengths, one is absolutely in worldbuilding and depicting exactly how different this world is from ours, and why. ...I'd argue it has a lot more strengths than that, actually, but let's stick with that for now. Personally, I'm happy with TE so far except for the fact it is spreading itself a little thin on introspection, as the review pointed out. Not thrilled, but I'm okay with it so far. I still maintain that it's best enjoyed once one has already played the original visual novels and/or read the TE light novels, though. It's not like other series haven't done similar condensations in their anime adaptations -- Umineko and Fate/Stay Night come to mind. There are probably tons of others that only make sense and become enjoyable once you've experienced the original incarnation of them, too. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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[quote="navel fluff"]
Which makes them failures as stand-alone adaptations. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Perhaps it does, but they're not so stand-alone when in the context of being an otaku in Japan, for whom these are made. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14795 |
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Hey, wouldn't it be similar if the US started making shows where it did not lost the Vietnam War or the South won the Civil War................ 
Yeah, but which half was nuked?
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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The BETA hive landed in Saskatchewan, so the middle half
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navel fluff
Posts: 3 Location: Massachusetts |
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Objectively, yes, though if I'm frustrated enough with an otherwise promising adaptation's ability to explain itself, I usually seek out the source instead. 99.999999% of the time, the original is better fleshed out. But this isn't anything new with anime based on VNs. |
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1872 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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You mean like Watchmen? 
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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They aren't "superpowers" if they've lost their country and survive because another country took them 
Muv-luv as a franchise is predicated upon radical shifts in how World War II was resolved. Shifts so radical that they really do need to be explained as there seems to be no way that they would have happened. America's nuclear bombs were first designated for Germany, but we were able to win conventionally before they were ready/needed to be deployed there (our nukes weren't even famously tested until after Germany surrendered). What does Muv-luv say to explain how Germany managed to hold out long enough that our nukes were ready for them and how they managed to put up such a strong defense that we were forced to employ them? How Japan managed to come out of WWII without having to unconditionally surrender or be soundly defeated really needs to be explained as it is not plausible currently. The USA had Japan cut off from the world, the so called "home islands" were on their own, with little food and resources. While Japan did still hold resource-rich parts of Asia (like China) they were unable to reliably ship those resources back to the home islands. Not only that, but their forces on mainland Asia were getting their asses handed to them by the Russians. We had them under siege, they were running out of supplies and food, and we were poised to crush them militarily. We've seen Grave of The Fireflies, and the country depicted within that movie was not one that had the ability to resist the Allies. If they didn't surrender, we would have crushed them. The American government was dead-set on an unconditional surrender. What happened to change that? If they don't come up with a plausible historical fiction then there was no point in even trying, they could have saved money and time by just giving us mechs fighting aliens with a fair dose of fanservice. I don't want to see Total Eclipse become another poorly-constructed, illogical Japanese historical fiction like Zipang, especially when it started out with such promise. |
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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I'm pretty sure your questions are outside the scope of Total Eclipse anyway. If you want the answers, go play MuvLuv Extra/Unlimited/Alternative |
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LordByron227
Posts: 158 |
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If I remember correctly, even though the Imperials didn't unconditionally surrender, the way several characters talked about the 2nd World War in game, it seems as though the conditions were still quite harsh. One could only assume that the "conditions" of the conditional surrender were similar to the ones the Japanese were pursuing prior to the Atomic Bombings. Namely, cotinutation of Monarchy (and in this series the Shogunate) and not much else; i.e. they would still have to give up their spoils of war and all.
Also, Japan was not given US land in this "universe", only the Russians (and I don't think there are any specific details saying what the conditions are so one could assume its a lease of part of Alaska the US doesn't find particularly important). There is a particular timeline which would result in most of the world getting ruined/flooded (because of AMERICA fukyea) and we've given/leased land for the Japanese refugees. |
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Lynx Amali
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And people would still complain about that. 
Let me guess: You're going to rant on Gundam next because it doesn't establish it's fictional setting? Do you even Google? Here. First link. There are spoilers abound on that wiki but that page should be enough to answer your complaints about the setting. |
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LordByron227
Posts: 158 |
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Wait, the timeline said that Japan accepted unconditional surrender "contrary" to IRL? That makes no sense since they did accept unconditional surrender.
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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This series has a plethora of media fleshing out its backstory, and it strikes me as a franchise that wants to be more than just fanservice with no regard for a serious plot/backstory, yet its backstory in the show is full of holes and none of its other media plugs them. Seems to me that this show is trying to rise above other fanservice mecha shows like Infinite Stratos but is falling short. If they weren't going to do historical fiction right, which they so far aren't, I don't see why they wasted the time and money half-assing it. One other thing: How does America "lease" its land to the Soviets? They have no country, few resources (and none of note), and no money. I wish I could lease a property for free... I wanted to get into the show, the "historical fiction + Blue Gender" seemed kinda cool, but as a mild history enthusiast, I sadly can't. Not when they're being less historically accurate than Hetalia, combined with a slew of other plot implausibilities. It trolled me 
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