Forum - View topicREVIEW: Muv-Luv Alternative Season 2
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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I can’t quite tell from this whether the reviewer is aware that the point where the anime ends — at least for now — is not the end of the Muv-Luv Alternative story. The visual novel has six story arcs, and each of the first two seasons has covered two, leaving spoiler[base invasion] and spoiler[Operation Cherry Blossom] yet to be covered. That said, this review does make a pretty strong case that the entire anime has been a wasted effort, from its fundamental decision to leave out Extra and Unlimited (and not rework the adaptation to get that material across one way or another), to ending before the conclusion of Alternative. I recall an interview a year or two back with someone from the Muv-Luv camp — not sure if it was creator Kouki Yoshimune or aNCHOR brand manager Tororo — saying that what they expected going forward was that new fans would get into the franchise through the anime, and then get further invested through the action games. Well, the anime has turned out to be a nonstarter, and the action games were either dead-on-arrival (Project Mikhail), or so bad they couldn’t be released at all (Immortals / Dimensions). After avex spent all that time and money, the best part of the franchise is still the visual novels from 20 years ago. Well, there’s always NFTs, I guess. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2007 |
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Only watched this anime. Started off interestingly... dragged in the middle, at least finished in a somewhat exciting way, but by then you hardly cared... and again, like, what's a Muv-Luv?
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Philmister978
Posts: 308 |
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Being a bit pedantic here, but it's Graphinica, you're missing an 'I" in the name.
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johnnysasaki
Posts: 928 |
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well,at least the visual novels have been localized and are easily accessible on Steam these days. There's that |
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invalidname
Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Sure, but that's no better than where things stood before avex bought the company and started throwing money into the franchise. Moreover, they've accomplished absolutely nothing for the Japanese fanbase for most of a decade at this point. And let's face it: for this franchise, the JP fanbase is always going to take priority over any international following. I saw one comment on r/muvluv the other day that was basically begging aNCHOR "please get Schwarzesmarken and Kiminozo translated before you get shut down." That's basically how low things have gotten. |
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Nate148
Posts: 471 |
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avex are morons when it comes to running this type of stuff hell they put a whole disk of anime songs from acts that failed
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Funchal99
Posts: 40 |
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I'm pretty late for the conversation, but I suppose there's no harm in writing my impression anyways.
I'm a Muv-Luv Original Trilogy fan, and as such my perception will be inevitably biased due to knowing the source material, but it is my honest opinion this anime was good. I'd go so far as saying season 2 in itself was even great, and nailed so many of the moments it needed to nail. The team behind the anime did the very best they could with the resources they had, and it shows, both good and bad. Scenes from the manga got adaptated. There was a conscious effort to try to cram in all the quieter, more dialogue-heavy moments in order to contextualize everything. Flashbacks to try to call out Extra. There were really clever screen writing tricks in order to condense much of the gargantuan amount of information of the VN, and overall I could see through it all everyone involved gave a crap about what they were doing and I can totally see a diligent enough newcomer digging it. That said, it's simply a shame it couldn't get itself into the broader anime audience's conversation. First, because of Muv-Luv's structure itself: it just does it no favors not only when it comes to adaptations, but even in the original VN. Going through hours upon hours of what is essentially insanely long build-up for Alternative tests the patience, but it's because of that Alternative hits so hard anyway. Properly adapting Extra and Unlimited would've been way too much of a risk, and I can't really blame the committee for not greenlighting a full adaptation. This is known as the story that starts bad/okay-ish (depending on who you ask) in Extra/Unlimited, gets good halfway through (first arcs of Alternative) and finally becomes amazing around its last third. It's just too much to ask and production commitee to comit for. Second, the production values. While all the mecha action is decidedly amazing, the 2D leaves a lot to be desired, only stabilizing itself in the second season and even then there's one or two episodes where things get really wonky. It's a shame, because this lack of polish understandbly turns people off, and these animators were clearly working on the tightest of budgets and/or deadlines. Third, the lack of time. What they managed to do here in order to adapt the story was already a small miracle given the circumstances, but 24 episodes without the benefit of prior context and, presumably, time to properly organize and rewrite stuff as necessary while juggling a huge cast of characters whose central development happened mostly in the previously unadapted two arcs is...well, a tall order. Some things had to be rushed, others needed to be outright glossed over, and whatever fanservice references they had there worked mostly on older viewers. All this to say, it is a shame, really, because I think those three points drag the anime down so hard that it leads to its "unfair" judgement. Those problems are there, but I can see all the staff trying to rise above them and largely succeeding on so many key areas. But it is undestandable why critics would eventually not trully engage with it without the context or particular care for the series. I can see why many viewers would just be confused and drop it in favor of other shows (also, tough luck, on BOTH its airings this adaptation was competing with heavy hitters). I would like to believe this project was not a wasted effort. I heard Kouki Yoshimune himself stated it did succeed in generationg more buzz to the franchise. I even know or one two anime onlies that enjoyed it. It's sadly far from ideal, but it's also far from terrible, and I guess that "casual disregard" people use when reviewing or talking about it gets to me because of it. I'm glad this anime exists. I'm sad it didn't make Muv-Luv break out of its niche. I really hope for a season 3, they wouldn't even need to rush the last two arcs to fit in 12 episodes.
It's just how they romanize the Japanese title, Mabu Rabu, which is a pun. An old 80's or so Japanese expression for "best friend" was Mabu Dachi. Mabu = True, Dachi = short for Tomodachi, which means friend. Rabu = Japanese pronunciation of the English word "love". Thus, Mabu Rabu = True Love. For some reason, someone decided to romanize it as Muv-Luv. |
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invalidname
Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Yes, It’s months late, but we were talking in /r/muvluv and I believe I’ve come up with a closer-to-home analogy for what this adaptation feels like: It’s as if Studio WIT decided to adapt Attack on Titan by starting with Eren’s basement and pressing on from there. |
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