Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse

I went in knowing nothing about the story or source material. And so should you if possible. Thus I will do this without spoilers. Also, depending on what type of anime you want to watch, you should either start at episode 3, and go to episode 24, or start at episode 1 and go to episode 2. Really I should be writing two separate reviews on here. I watched subbed, and dubbed, and in my opinion subbed is the only one worth watching.

Humm... what to say... Well I'll start with my favorite parts of the anime. Episodes 1 and 2. And parts like when the ... "American" talks in english (I died laughing... probably one of the funniest scenes of bad voicing ever). I much prefer an anime with character development driving the plot and other parts being secondary, but episodes 1 and 2 throw you right into the fray. It was awesome. I would rate them a 9.

Episodes 3-24 get a 5. Much like the visual novel, they revolve around a love story and have less to do with mecha fighting. Not that this is terrible, it just detracts (in my opinion) from the significance of the fighting. Anyways, give it a go if you like mech anime, and try not to throw up as the bodies of the female characters jiggle like gelatin. It worth a watch and hopefully you don't get put off as much as I did if you keep waiting for it to be back like the first two episodes.

Must remember you that this is actually a Side-Story. The most completed story takes place after these events and they are available on the Visual Novel: Muv-Luv Alternative.

What I have to say about this side story? I was expecting they could show a bit more of the true story involving the beta, theres so much things about the "Alternative Plans" and they didn't even mentioned them. This side-story is a little far from the true Muv-luv visual novel story. if you watch the visual novels you will know what I mean.

As a global fan of all Muv-Luv story I was expecting a lot lot more..... ...
My opinion about this anime side-story, which could make sense, is that this is maybe an introduction to a better second season where the Visual Novel takes place.

If you loved this anime I recommend you to watch its Visual Novel which I consider it the "next" season

well i have to say my personal opinion is that with the budget they had they did amazing. though i still do not understand why people under rate this anime
it goes deep if u think about it

To Start off If you haven't read the Muv Luv Visual Novel you for the most part won't understand this world of Muv Luv. To make it as short as possible, this is an alternate universe where historical events played out differently and humans put their backs out during the space age. Leading to humans first encountering the BETA, on Mars, then going to war against them on the Moon, until finally, they landed on Earth back in 73'(at the height of the Cold War). This anime starts in 1998, by this time the BETA have already taken(which means they have eaten everyone and everything ... in their path) the whole continent of Eurasia(and the Soviets retreated to Alaska)

____________Visual novel Spoilers (this info isnt in the anime) __________

BETA:
Are biological machines sent out to planets to collect resources for their silicone-based lifeform creators.

The BETA also recycle everything they eat including dead BETA (so they eat their dead, our dead, The plants, animals, even the dirt, and rocks, and they make more BETA.)

The BETA consume everythin and in the terriortories that the BETA overrun the land is stripped bare to the point where once there was a forest all thats left is sterile dirt.

If your wondering why they dont just nuke the BETA its because beyond the blast and heat Nukes have no effect on BETA(probably because they can operate just fine even in outter space)

If you're wondering why they don't just shoot missiles or use air support. Is because of a BETA type known as the Laser Class, they are able to fire lasers with pinpoint accuracy and can/will shoot down anything(Birds, planes, missiles) in the sky that's going slower than the speed of light from an extreme distance within their firing arc.

If you're wondering why the humans are losing the BETA war.

1. BETA have eaten more than Half the Human Population(to the point where even 12-year-olds are drafted into the military)
2. BETA with their laser class Control the skies
3. In the Alternate universe humans have waged even more wars on each other even after the BETA landing on earth
4. The US is making TSF's that are made to fight other TSFs (dumbasses)
5. The BETA Keep coming in greater and greater numbers
6. The average survival time for a new TSF pilot is 8 minutes
7. It takes BETA only Months to replace their losses
8. The BETA vanguard units(Destroyer Class) are over 20 meters tall and have Armor that's Mohs hardness 15(which is 5 levels above diamond) and run at 170 kph
9. The Height of the BETA is between 2.3 meters to over 100 meters (most of the time they are fighting the ones that are 15+ meters tall and ones just 3 meters tall(though the Tank class is the size of a tank it has the strength to rip off a turret of a tank and eat the goodies inside...))

Fun fact Most TSF use Names from actual Military aircraft (It is an alternate universe after all) the very first TSF was the F-4 Phantom

G-material is mentioned at the end of the series but no explanation is given.

G-Material is what the BETA process gathered material into and is used as a power source
G-Material was collected by humans when the second BETA landing pod touched down in Canada and the US nuked the hell out of them before they could start creating laser class in any number. All that was left was the BETA G-material and most of Canada became radio-active. (which is far better than letting the BETA live)

Humans use G-Material to create G-bombs(basically Blackhole bombs), which are insanely effective against the BETA however their side effects is just as bad as letting the BETA live or worse(nuke radiation is like nothing compared to it)
After-effects include:
- Sterilization of the land
- Complete loss of everything within the blast radius
- Creating Tidal waves Miles high
- Sinking land/raising land from the ocean
- Completely blocks almost any kind of signal
- Gravity anomalies

To put it bluntly, being nuked is far far far far better than being G-bombed
______________________________________________________________

This story takes place during the BETA assault on Japan the first 2 episodes are dark and gloomy, however, after that, the anime becomes far more light-hearted. The real story takes place in Yukon 2 years later, where TSF(giant robots) manufacturers (Argos Test Flight is a Japanese development team, which this story is focused on) are testing and improving weapons to fight the beta. Argos Test Flight is thrown into different situations on purpose or not trying to make the Japanese TSF the Shiranui 2nd into the best TSF it can possibly be for fighting the BETA. If you wanted more of what the first 2 episodes are like watch the spin-off Schwarzesmarken.

The 3D models of the TSFs stand out a lot in some scenes and they work really well in others, The Art style is typical early 2010's. (there's also a very high amount of blood, mainly BETA blood)

The sounds of the TSFs are fairly average and surprisingly unlike most animes with giant monsters that eat people the BETA for all intents and purposes do not make vocal sounds period. The opening theme is also extremely fitting for the tone of the first 2 episodes.

The characters are a very mixed bag.

Yui Takamura - we see her in her first battle then she becomes a hardass at the end of episode 2. However the instant she meets Yuuya Bridges she goes from Bitch to Bitch in heat in less time than it took the BETA to eat her friend in episode 2.

Yuuya Bridges - he's a very different character from most anime MCs. This one a Racists who hates the Japanese even though he's half Japanese. At first, he utterly Hates Yui but then his character shifts just as fast as Yui's, Though he still hates being called Japanese. (he's also a really good TSF pilot( or so they say...))

Then we have the Scarlett sisters. They are just two Soviet girls who were raised together and one of them is an Esper. (and what do ya know they also fall for Yuuya)

Enjoyment - This anime can be intense one moment and totally light-hearted the next. This anime has a decent amount of fan service, and a decent amount of gore, and a LOT of blood(Mainly BETA blood)

Overall if you want to see some fanservice while also fearing that your fav character might get eaten this is the anime for you.

Il start with the biggest problem I had in watching this anime.
If you want to see a mecha anime where they fight aliens to the death and there is quite a lot of blood then this is not what you are searching for !
It has like 10 % or maybe even less fights against the BETA most of the episodes just go in a freaking loop one of them has a problem they become frustrated then help it with help from the others.

Also this is mainly drama every fucking episode it NEEDS to go around the girls that like Yuuya and their fucking love ! ... IT'S FUCKING ANNOYING ! FFS if I wanted to watch a fucking love-com then I would have watched another anime .

You come for a mecha, sci fi anime and instead you get a love-com,drama anime full of the characters personality problems.
They live in a world where humanity is threatened by other life forms yet when they face them after long training they piss their pants .... really anime really ?
Also because of the poor characters they add the so called flash back of their lives where they add why they act like that and many times it's the same fucking flash back with different dialogue from the one talking ...

I think that you should watch this anime if you want to see a drama and a love story anime with some blood and shootings here an there.

At the time when I write this review I have seen 18 episodes of the anime and I highly doubt that the remaining 6 will change anything ...

Edit: I have since finished this anime, and found no reason to change, rewrite, or reupload the following review.

I kept wanting to like this anime, but after the first few episodes, it was just a huge let-down that I ended up not being able to justify my time with.

The first two episodes are really great and a completely misleading setup to what the majority of the remaining anime entails. These two episodes are dramatic, tragic, and have great impact. I was so excited to keep watching, thinking I'd found a hidden gem of some kind in Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse.

I was quickly disabused of ... this notion. The following series of episodes changed perspective both literally and figuratively. Gone were the raging hordes of monstrous aliens hellbent on human destruction, and suddenly present was every garden-variety anime trope you could come up with.

The whiplash was brutal and unwelcome in my case. Female characters who initially seemed confident and independent were quickly relegated to roles of fanservice (eye-candy), and "damsels in distress" for the male lead to rescue from ridiculous situations (like a sprained ankle, falling on a piece of glass, or being ganged up on by a group of rapey upstarts).

The promising female lead that starts it off is sidelined and put in second place in almost every way in less than 5 episodes, after which she suddenly develops feelings for the male lead despite there being clear animosity between them before that point. I sympathized with the male lead for several episodes because he, too, was suspicious and confused about her abrupt change in character.

The only apparent reason given for her behavior swap is because she recognizes the protagonist's TSF-piloting skills after he manages a hit on her in a 1v1. After this happens, she starts blushing intermittently in all their following interactions as if that's all the reason she could need to fall for the guy. You hardly ever see her piloting a mech again, other than in flashbacks, for more than half of the anime (and maybe the whole lot of it; I can't say since I am not going to finish this).

To put this anime in perspective, here's an example:
At one point, in the aftermath of a mild incident that gets them temporarily stranded in their bathing suits on a small island, the male protagonist asks the two main female leads: "What would you two have done if I wasn't there?" as if two battle-hardened elite soldiers would have been completely helpless to paddle a boat and walk across a beach on their own without him. But they go along with his attitude, and afterwards are ordered by their superiors to submit themselves as models in a bikini photoshoot as punishment for their misadventure (which the male protagonist, of course, does not have to participate in even though he was party to said mishap).

I kept hoping this would turn back into a badass mech anime with deep, tragic themes and a meaningful cast of characters, but it ended up being just another piece of fluff, complete with a pseudo-harem, a pointless tournament (in the middle of an alien apocalypse, mind you), and a bikini beach episode. I am willing to bet there's a hot spring in the next 9 episodes, if I could be bothered to endure it. The only reason this anime seems to exist is for the express purposes of depicting anime girls in tight jumpsuits, showing off giant robots with big guns, and boosting the male lead's already oversized ego (and all those who identify with him).

As such, it's a pretty standard anime of little noteworthiness in a deceptively decorative package.

P.S. There was indeed a hot spring episode.

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse is an adaptation of a spin-off of a sequel to a sequel to the adaptation of a visual novel, not to be confused with the billions of parallel universes and other media entities sharing either the same name or variations thereof. I think. Actually figuring out that chain of evidence was a more rewarding experience than watching the show, and I haven’t even bothered to do it correctly.

This review contains moderate spoilers for the first two episodes, and perhaps some very broad spoilers for the rest of the show, but I refrained from giving away explicit details and nothing ... here should impact your overall experience of the narrative.

The first couple of episodes treat us to some of the most slapdash, miserable attempts at background-building and tone-setting you’re likely to see, with a thoroughly uninteresting and uninterested lens shone on brief flashes of antecedent action that become irrelevant immediately after Kyoto gets saturation bombed into a microscopic fragment of a story beat. The show tries to harvest some pathos right off the bat without having earned anything and for the sole purpose of prepping the audience for more violence once the real story begins. It’s sloppy and feels more edgy than meaningful. You couldn’t accurately call Yui Takamura the show’s main character after those first few episodes anyway (one of them, certainly, though the primary protagonist is clearly Yuuya Bridges), so having two whole episodes dedicated to her back story before abruptly shifting into entirely different circumstances only makes the show confusing from the very beginning.

Total Eclipse focuses on test pilots and support staff operating well behind the lines, telling stories that don’t pertain to the main conflict in which the world is embroiled, at least until the final arc. That’s a legitimate approach to take – not every story has to be about heroes in the trenches who win the ultimate victory – but the show vacillates between high-stakes front-line action and whimsical diversions that seem meaningless by comparison. If in the first two episodes Yui Takamura experiences the loss of her friends, command structure, and homeland, engages in highly traumatizing and gory combat, and then suffers physical wounds and an emotional breakdown, it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal if the next few episodes focus on her not getting along with her new subordinates. If one episode throws the characters into a pitched battle resulting in massive casualties and the loss of important territory, I can’t get seriously invested in the inconsequential mock tournament mini-arc that starts the next episode. Instead, it makes me raise my eyebrows and wonder, “Wait, is THIS what this show is about?”

The tone of the show is so wildly fickle it boggles the mind. One minute, you’re watching gargantuan alien monsters rip some unfortunate teenage girl to shreds in a very explicit manner, and the next, you’re watching two verified ice queens pout at each other in their government-issued swimsuits over which one of them gets to play house with Handsome Jock Pilot. Cryska’s hammer-and-sickle bikini is truly one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen onscreen. The show starts out in the realm of bloody total war in an edgy sci fi universe based in alternative history, but after a few episodes of knocking out some of the kinks in the back story (and installing dozens of new ones), the show remembers that, ultimately, somewhere down the line, deep in the murky depths of its past, it comes from a romance-based visual novel. I just love seeing characters flirting over secure military channels meant for important communications before and after a pitched, deadly battle. Yuuya accumulates a harem as the narrative bulldozes onwards, naturally, as one does, and there IS a hot springs episode, in case you were worried that was more original than it appears to be. It’s impossible to gauge just how silly this show wants to be, how silly it is prepared to be, and how silly it really should be.

I do think that Total Eclipse needs to reign in its dark side, since the show simply isn’t equipped to handle content of a certain level of maturity, but the show’s major weakness isn’t purely an inconsistent tone; the show tries to do too many things in too little time. The show has a lot of ideas it tries to expound on and a lot of plot threads it tries to follow, but it simply doesn’t have the time for everything; some of the questions raised are too big to address in the time allotted. One arc gets abandoned to make room for another before its resolution; plots initiate and peter out with little warning and never come to fruition. The show always has to move on to the next thing, which means that none of the characters, themes, conflicts, or stories become fully developed, and the show tries to make up for lost time by inflating the humor and exacerbating the violence. The combat and more serious arcs turn gruesome and heavy-handed enough to come off as dumb and edgy, the light-hearted and romance-centered arcs fall back on stereotypes and get ridiculous, and the stuff in between falls short of going anywhere.

I refuse to believe that in the middle of a planet-wide war for the very existence of humanity itself the UN (which still exists and is in charge of the situation?) would shell out to send its most experienced test pilots and valuable support staff to a tropical paradise for a leisurely vacation/bikini photoshoot, even if it IS for “morale-building purposes.” And not the morale of the test pilots, mind – the morale of the other military/general UN personnel who purchase the resulting photographic evidence of said swimsuit competition. Seems a bit far-fetched under normal circumstances, but when Eurasia is dominated by massive, hostile alien hordes and the last vestiges of organized human resistance are reeling on the brink of defeat, it seems downright ludicrous and irresponsible. That’s without mentioning how uncomfortable and creepy it is for the UN to repeatedly exploit its distinguished female officers for various lecherous purposes. Speaking realistically, the show just wants its fair share of fan service, but the in-universe justifications don’t sit right.

The animation doesn’t seem expressive enough to capture the emotions intended to show through, and the setup for each scene bungles the atmosphere perfectly. I often felt that characters were oddly placed in the shots and the visual composition of the scenes never allowed the show to take full advantage of the situations it was supposed to be harvesting for emotions – to say nothing of the fact that learning to like or care about any of the characters onscreen was a lengthy, arduous process only made possible by the sheer length of time I spent with them (24 episodes can be one heck of a long time). The animation, aside from being appended to a horribly unappealing style of art, suffers from a lack of fluidity and a number of poor decisions in spacing, framing, or execution that make some scenes laugh-inducing, including a few that definitely shouldn’t be comedic. Characters’ motions sometimes don’t gel with their vocalizations – not in terms of actual audio-visual synchronization, but in terms of the expressions or actions simply not being animated dramatically or subtly enough to convey the feelings demanded by the performance, dialogue, or circumstances. The animation isn’t terribly consistent and though it manages to avoid being downright ugly most of the time I could never couch calling this a good-looking show. The TSFs and BETA are computer-generated and stand out from the two dimensions of everything else, but while their movements are much cleaner, the fight choreography generally leaves something to be desired, and I’m not a big fan of their designs. In fact, while the TSFs are usually passable, I found the BETA horrendously ugly and could hardly stand to watch them.

The characters all look like plastic, and their personalities and animations follow suit. Nobody has real conversations; every other line is some pointed accusation followed by a grave repartee and a series of teeth clenching, shocked gasps, and dramatic head turns as the combatants try to determine who has the biggest chip on their shoulder. The constant drama becomes wearisome. Despite the fact that a homicidal alien swarm has apparently conquered and devastated a vast portion of Earth and left humanity’s greatest nations struggling to stay their inevitable annihilation, most of the show centers around political drama (those darn Soviets) or standard harem hijinks (because interplanetary war can never defeat the flame of love, or, more accurately, the flame of it’s not like it’s love or anything). Half the giant robot fights are simulated battles between training units that ultimately don’t amount to anything except more excuses for the pilots to get huffy with each other in the bars.

At the very least, the show begins to pick up in the second half and starts throwing out new ideas for story lines that could be engaging. As I mentioned earlier, none of them reach a conclusion and they look silly in retrospect for their abortive meanderings, but I have to credit the show for having some good ideas in the first place. For example, Yuuya Bridges is a Japanese-American pilot who struggles with his liminal status in society and his sense of self-worth as a result of his mixed heritage, for which he faces discrimination. He comes into conflict with Yui, who regards him as an American and reminds him of everything he has learned to hate about the Japanese, and his Japanese-American former wingmate, who deals with the pressures differently. Over time, Yuuya undergoes coherent changes as he learns his way around accepting his heritage and his role in life, and while he still isn’t a brilliantly written character, watching Yuuya deal with racial issues you don’t find too frequently in anime is somewhat rewarding. Similar threads of racial tension and class conflict surface throughout the show under various guises. As I said previously, I don’t believe that Total Eclipse has the space or the smarts to adequately address such weighty issues, even for a main character, but at least it tries, and that’s worth something.

Worth noting is that this show delivered the first Georgian and Kazakh anime characters I’ve ever seen, and likely the last. They were all assholes. I could probably say the same for a lot of other nationalities, but I’d really rather not. While we’re in that same realm, I don’t believe I have ever been more bothered by a large cast of characters all speaking the same language. Given the vast number of nationalities represented in the show, communication must at least be extremely burdensome to accomplish fluidly and at most utterly impossible. Fine, the Georgians and the Russians can speak Russian to each other, the Japanese and the Japanese-Americans can speak Japanese to each other, and it stands to reason that some number of characters must speak English as a second or third language, but suggesting that a large cast representing a vast portion of Europe, Asia, and the Americas can joke, trade insults, issue commands, argue, banter, read reports, attend lectures, flirt, and perform drills and training exercises in the same language with all the poise and subtlety of native speakers stretches the bounds of plausibility slightly more than an invasion of murderous video game aliens from Mars. Even if all of these individuals have a strong enough grasp of one common language (probably English, unless the UN officially adopted Esperanto in this alternate timeline) to communicate functionally with each other, how can they all speak with such ease and fluidity as to receive orders, make snap decisions, and navigate life-or-death situations on the battlefield in a foreign language? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. What genius cobbled together a squad comprising Japanese-American, Italian, Swedish, and Nepalese members under the command of Japanese and Turkish officers with a heavily international support staff, working alongside units from Russia, China, and America, among other places? It is truly a miracle that anything gets done around here.

The dialogue is clunky and dim-witted. The scene transitions are awkward and hurried. The main characters are all prickly, arrogant, testy, and frustrating, while the side characters are one-note punchlines or space-fillers; their designs are forgettable and about as unlikable as the personalities they are attached to. Nearly all of their interactions, in any context, feel stilted and unrealistic. The “plot” switches gears at the drop of a hat and, for all the backstory and gratuitous gore crammed into the first few episodes, doesn’t seem to have any real bearing on the universe it takes place in (these are the TEST pilots, keep in mind; if they ever see combat, it’s an accident). The action sequences are underwhelming and the animation of the BETA is off-putting. The soundtrack, while actually pretty decent, is often overbearing and too frequently recycled. Were I the kind of person to drop shows, I would have been very tempted to do so early on. I wouldn’t write off the show as a complete wash, however.

On rare occasions, Total Eclipse does manage to hit the mark and deliver something that’s emotional without being melodramatic and just as significant as it should be. You’ll have to dig for these moments, but they are there. Perhaps this has something to do with the length of time it took me to carve my way through the show, as familiarity makes us more forgiving, but eventually Total Eclipse won me over with its incurable stupidity. I began to feel concern for the characters when they found themselves in danger and intrigued by the admittedly realistic way the show portrays international relations in the midst of interplanetary war. Total Eclipse manages to perform poorly in areas where plenty of other terrible shows/films don’t even think to screw up, but it is endearingly dumb; it is, to borrow some of its own stellar dialogue, “extremely fine.”

Humans have made contact with aliens while exploring planet Mars. Now Earth is fighting a losing war against them who they now called the "BETA". The war is going so badly that even new trainees are being sent straight to the battlefield before completing their training. Yui Takamura, daughter of a renown family, is the last survivor from her team. Three years later, still haunted by the cruel demise of her friends she reaches the rank of liutenant and leads a team of test pilots as part of the UN Pacific Force's Project XFJ, an initiative for developing the Japanese Imperial weaponry further so that ... they can get an edge on their alien enemies. Like Yui, the test pilots are comprised of those who lost their home and loved ones to the BETA. Amongst them is rash American born Yuuya Bridges who isn't proud of his half Japanese roots and so can't see eye-to-eye with the native Yui. Yet somehow, they must set aside their differences.

The show starts gets off to quite a rough start. First two episodes felt like a quick crash course on the plot because the direction felt really rushed. Fight scenes were too quick and you didn't really have any time to warm up to Yui's friends to get a sense of her despair other than the gorey scenes. However, the pacing is much better afterwards. Less rushed fighting scenes and more focus on character development.

Other than the first two episodes, the art and character design is generally good. BETA alien designs don't look that impressive and the 3D models style stand out too much from the rest of the show.

Your cast of characters are your cliche Anime personalities but as usual, the clash between them makes them fun to watch. There's a fair amount of fan service during the first half of the show such as scenes showing girls changing into and wearing tight body suits, abundant shower scenes etc which might put some people off. It gets pretty silly as usual with all the girls falling for the same guy. There's even your cliche stuck on a desert island scenario. It's based on a dating sim so I guess you kind of expect it - it's a prequel set 11 years before the events of Muv Luv Alternative.

That said, the story doesn't get on too badly afterwards as we watch the characters grow through a lot of internal conflict amongst the remaining human population. There's suddenly no more fan service scenes either (well... maybe another episode's worth of your obligatory hot springs). Unfortunately the BETA don't get much focus in the show so they kind of feel like an after thought loosely put together. It doesn't wrap-up that great either and feels more like a teaser to go buy the game or read the light novels.

It's not quite as funny but it does kind of remind me of Full Metal Panic. If you don't mind the heavy fan service aimed at the male audience during the first couple of episodes and some brief gore it's probably worth a watch.

I made it 15 episodes in before abandoning ship due to terrible pacing and a plot that goes absolutely nowhere, with the whole series focusing on the wrong character while dragging itself around like an ass-tumor.

Originally, Muv-Luv is centered on Yui, a trainee forced into the middle of a war with googly-eyed aliens intent on making crunchy snacks of humanity. Then, a couple episodes in, everything shifts over to Yuuya, a boring, monotone, useless moron whose sole reason for existing is to be a Mary Sue for the "narrative" to vortex around like a tornado taking an already-wrecked train and wrecking it even more. Yui ... is a character with depth, but Yuuya is just another mopey anime doofus with the personality of a marshmallow that's been farted on too many times. In fact, every single other character is more interesting than him, including the French bartender with gravity-defying boobies who only makes rare cameos.

Not only that, but there are super-long dialogue exchanges at the worst possible times. Yuuya and his blond-haired butt buddy finally get through jammed communications, but instead of immediately relaying the information he needed, said butt buddy swoons over Yuuya's health. Then, magically, the communications are re-jammed right as he starts to finally get to the point. Even worse, Yui gets a boo-boo on her arm, and in the middle of a firefight with thousands of toothy alien booger-legs, Yuuya stops everything to give her a band-aid. The delay obviously causes more issues. This pattern repeats itself in every episode, be it pointless exchanges during battle, or lengthy internal monologues that serve absolutely zero purpose other than extending each episode. The straw that broke me was episode 15, where in the middle of a war that's about to literally wipe out humanity, they decide to hold a team competition for bragging rights. OK, neat.

All I wanted was a cool show with big robutts punching each other, but this is an embarrassment of atrocious pacing. Avoid.

THE STAFF
- Animation is done by studio Satelight. Besides Noein I didn’t like any of their other numerous shows. Their budgets are average to good but they never try too much to create quality shows and anything they do is usually nothing more than dumb fun.
- Directing is done by Inagaki Takayuki, who is a bit known for his work in Desert Punk and Rosario + Vampire. You can easily tell he likes fan service and shits on plot, so you can pretty much guess right away what the show is going to be about.
- Based on the Total Eclipse light novels. Which in turn ... are side stories in the setting of the action/war/mecha visual novel titled Muv-Luv Alternative. Which in turn again is an alternative setting of the plain titled Muv-Luv visual novels, which were typical school romcoms. Amongst the visual novel fandom Muv-Luv Alternative is considered to be the best of what science fiction and action can offer in the genre. I have watched a few scenes of it and I must say it does a fine job for a show based on static pictures and pseudo-motion. Now before you get too excited by reading all that and have thoughts of running to play and read everything in this franchise, let me warn you that they include a lot of erotic foreplay, dating, and occasional sex, plus some really gross rape scenes. But hey, how would it be so famous if it wasn’t like that? This is Japan we are talking about; being deviant is a must.

SCRIPT

Although it appears at first to be an exciting war drama / mecha action / alien invasion tale, in practice the story is as generic as it gets. In fact it is more about girls in sexy uniforms and cool robots doing silly stuff with a harem lead than trying to save the planet from total eradication by aliens. The presentation lacks a lot in terms of pacing, as way too many things happen in the first two episodes, followed by very little happening thereafter. Even storytelling is sloppy and exposition occurs in most lazy and amateurish ways.

For example, it has this explanatory documentary of how the war began and boy, it felt like it was written by a little kid. I mean the aliens attack during the 60’s and mankind supposed tried to fend them off for the first time on the moon. HOW THE DEVIL DOES THAT WORK??? Back then we barely had the technology to send a rocket fuelled contraption with an 80% of failure and now all of a sudden we have a whole army of space mechas? Skip that, why the hell would we waste countless resources to create and send a whole army on the moon, just so to fight on an environment that is not native to ours? And what exactly would we defend there, the rocks? And damn, if the aliens can travel through planets do you think they will give a rat’s ass about the moon? Their goal is to destroy humanity so they would obviously attack the planet directly. And how come there are sounds in space? And why the hell does the show begin by revealing all the backdrop story with a dull monologue instead of gradually showing it through the plot?

You know what, it would all feel a lot more natural if this was taking place in a fictional planet and not Earth. And sure, it obviously is fictional to begin with but they keep mentioning dates and places to constantly tell us this is Earth. Plus they never attempt to explain how in this reality mankind had mechas since the 60’s or why you can hear sounds in space. This totally ruins the plausibility.

So anyways, just like the stereotype dictates all high schoolers in Japan need to learn how to pilot huge robots while still studying history and algebra. Yeah, that is exactly what you are supposed to be doing if mankind is one step away from extinction; we wouldn’t want to survive without being able to solve complicating equations and theorems, right? It would look bad if later on we need to find a proper desk job in those completely devastated cities.

In a similar fashion the whole first episode is spent on getting familiar with the setting by having every single line of dialogue being used to lazily break the fourth wall and explain stuff to us in the dumb style of “Oh you mean Jason of the Tomson family who have their own line of factories and who lives in the northwest of the city, and whose favorite color is blue?” PEOPLE DON’T TALK LIKE THAT!

Also, only the first two episodes and the last ones are actually following the theme of the series, while all the rest are just slice of life with military officers where nothing much happens. Besides the fan service that is.

PRODUCTION VALUES

On a basic level the show looks good. The mecha are cool, their motions are rather fluent and the girls are cute. And let’s not forget the most vivid detail; CHECK OUT THOSE BATTLE UNIFORMS! Are they really used for piloting robots or for cosplay orgy parties? I mean DAMN SON I would gladly fail all my tests if I would get to spend my life in high school protecting humanity and peeping at girls that look like a walking wet dream. A very motivational show for all students out there. Other than that, there is nothing out of the ordinary in terms of animations or artwork. In fact, the whole thing is just a flashier rehash of Sakura Wars.

It occasionally makes some use of its setting and offers cool mecha action. The organic aliens look rather lame but the way the metallic robots fight is close to great. It even has a few hints of battle tactics, although it still boils down to random laser shots and last moment saves by super robots. Plus the pilots constantly forget that their robots can fly, something that leads to them being surrounded by aliens who don’t fly.

As far as voice acting and soundtrack goes, the show is just ok. Nothing amazing in overall, since it never tries to be too serious or deep.

CAST

The show doesn’t hold back in the death count, as it kills many characters in a usually violent and gorish manner. You kinda feel the dread of what is going on to the world and the sadness of having your country and relatives shred to pieces. And I say “kinda” because it’s still not doing it in a great way as earlier titles I know of. Just look at the first five seconds after we see the first characters; they immediately try not to show their pantsu by a gust of wind. Yeah, the first thing they do in order to make us get attached to them is telling us to pull out your peckers. And there is no reason to expect character development by any of them because they are killed off pretty fast.

But then we are introduced to the second cast, which don’t die right away and most of the show is about them training in mecha action so they can defend the planet. There are a lot of scenes where they interact and show various facades of themselves. On a basic level they are all fleshed out. Sadly the characterization is very thin and eventually pointless, since you are never made to believe this is a war setting. They all behave like they are in high-school, worried about their next test instead of having the serious composure of veteran military officers. They are hardly acting like their world is in the brink of destruction. Even later on when mankind starts having internal conflicts, it still feels stupid since you have absolutely no reason to like a bunch of idiots who kill each other instead of teaming up in order to defeat such a major crisis.

Sadly, the show took the route of so many others before it (Gunparade, Regios, Freezing, and Lagrange) and uses some generic alien invasion just to flavor a boring date sim. You get your usual blunt male pilot surrounded by chicks and they constantly find excuses to do dumb things. Just try to count how many bath and beach scenes are crammed in each episode just for the sake of fan service.

LEGACY

Although the first two episodes make you think it’s going to be amazing, it quickly loses steam and turns to another forgettable mediocrity with cheap character fleshing out and lots of tired ecchi plots. It was the action people liked and after a good second episode the whole thing turned into a harem with some aliens and robots in the background.

As boring as Blue Gender may have been as an anime, it still did a fine job at showing what true dread and hopelessness are all about when monsters are taking over the world. And no freaking schools on sight! Also who can forget the amazing complexity of games like Xenosaga? Or the emotional attachment with the characters in Gunbuster? You barely get all that in a show that is mostly about schoolgirls with revealing outfits and miniskirts.

Disappointing! It is impossible to take it seriously and I never watch non-hentai anime to jerk off. So, it’s a failure of a show.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 6/10
General Artwork 1/2 (generic)
Character Figures 1/2 (generic)
Backgrounds 2/2 (basic but fitting with the feeling of the series)
Animation 1/2 (basic)
Visual Effects 1/2 (basic)

SOUND SECTION: 7/10
Voice Acting 2/3 (corny but fitting with the feeling of the series)
Music Themes 3/4 (not great but fitting with the feeling of the series)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)

STORY SECTION: 1/10
Premise 1/2 (typical)
Pacing 0/2 (loose)
Complexity 0/2 (none that matters)
Plausibility 0/2 (none)
Conclusion 0/2 (dull and open)

CHARACTER SECTION: 3/10
Presence 1/2 (hentai cardboards)
Personality 1/2 (hentai stereotypes)
Backdrop 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)
Development 0/2 (random bullshit)
Catharsis 0/2 (random bullshit)

VALUE SECTION: 1/10
Historical Value 0/3 (none)
Rewatchability 0/3 (no reason to rewatch)
Memorability 1/4 (generic alien invasion theme)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 1/10
Art 0/1 (looks typical)
Sound 1/2 (nice songs)
Story 0/3 (an alien invasion that turns to eroge, lol)
Characters 0/4 (I only remember the sexy uniforms, lol)

VERDICT: 3/10

Seriously, I almost dropped the series because unfortunately I have a glass heart and it was very disturbing. I stuck it out hoping disturbing parts would subside, which it did. I admit that watching it happen to a man is far less disturbing to Maine show not really sure what that says about me. The story was good enough to keep me watching some other characters turned out to be very interesting. Political turmoil between countries seemed a little bit odd since you would think the entire planet would Unite against an alien invader but perhaps that's just wishful thinking. So, ... you may ask why did I drop a series that I felt to be interesting? The answer is because I have a glass heart, I was worried about future events so I went to Wikipedia to scout ahead because I cannot take terrible surprises sends me into a depression. While I did find the ending of the anime to be somewhat acceptable, the ending in the entire story was completely heartbreaking so and felt that I had no choice. Knowing that made me sad and I can no longer enjoy what was turning out to be a rather good series. So, if you are one of those twisted people who love heart wrenching endings and do not mind gratuitous death, then you may enjoy this show but as for me, I could not finish it. For the life of me, I do not understand people who enjoy crying over a show of any kind that seems totally wrong to me. I do not expect the moderators will let this review remain so read it while you can if you wish.

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse is sort of a mixed bag. How you rate it will depend on your expectations.

To put into perspective, Total Eclipse (TE) is a spin-off of the Muv-Luv Alternative universe. Strangely enough, an anime adaptation of the Muv-Luv Alternative VN will be airing on October 2021, 9 years after Total Eclipse aired on TV.

Total Eclipse is NOT an adaptation of the Total Eclipse VN (as MAL has wrongly put it). Rather, it is an adaptation of the LN of the same name. The six-volume LNs came out first before the VN and judging from the LN release dates, it seems that the ... anime is based on the first five LNs. The VN itself is supposed to be a concluding sequel to the LN.

The Muv-Luv Alternative universe itself is set in an alternate history timeline where several key events have changed. New viewers of TE may be confused as to the changes in this alternate timeline, so I scoured the net (including the wiki, most of which is based on the Muv-Luv Alternative Integral Works) and I believe these key background events should suffice to help viewers understand Total Eclipse better:

(Quick Disclaimer: The following events are not spoilers because the series barely addresses these at all. If you want to read my review only, you can skip this part. I'm only putting it here so that viewers don't have to spend hours looking at different websites trying to understand the premise of this alternate universe.)

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

- Japan and Germany both lost WW2, but Japan surrendered conditionally in 1944 and avoided the atomic bombings. Nazi Germany gets those two bombs instead.
- Japan remains an empire but still under substantial pressure and control from the US. Nationalism remains a strong force in the country.
- After WW2, many countries accelerated their space programs and made technological breakthroughs in space much faster than our real world counterpart, going so far as to establish permanent lunar bases.
- Aliens known as BETA were discovered in Mars. The BETAs would later attack lunar bases in The First Lunar War.
- After losing the first and only extraterrestrial war, the BETAs invade Earth, starting at India and PRC, and soon the whole Eurasian continent would fall to the BETAs. Casualties are presumably in the billions and whole nations in the Eurasian continent are displaced, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis.
- The start of the BETA invasion prompted new developments in weaponry and equipments. One of those weapons would be TSFs (mechas) frequently featured in the series.
- The BETA invasion causes major geopolitical changes. Many nations form regional blocs to represent them in the UN. Some of these blocs are both political and military in nature. Both PRC and ROC form a new united front.
- The US would lease Alaska (at least half of it) to the Soviet Union for 50 years. After the BETA invasion, the Soviet Union's major institutions would relocate to Alaska and remain there ever since. The Soviet Union's territory is subsequently reduced to the northern half of Alaska and some islands close to the Eurasian continent on the Far East.
- After the fall of Korea, Japan lost half of its territory to the BETA invasion, including the imperial capital of Kyoto.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Now, allow me to give my short review of Total Eclipse.

* Story: 6/10

Don't get me wrong. The alternate history timeline provides for an interesting background. This is exemplified in the first two episodes of TE about the defense and fall of Kyoto during the BETA invasion from the perspective of Takamura Yui.

These two episodes are so good that if I were to rate Total Eclipse on the two episodes alone, I'd give a 9 or perfect 10 out of 10.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Yui will be the main star of the series. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. From the third episode onward, the story shifts to the present where Yuuya Bridges takes the spotlight.

The story itself is nothing like the first two episodes. It basically turns into a generic Shounen series involving Yuuya and his new teammates in a collaborative project for developing new TSFs. The story itself is divided into several arcs, none of which are remarkable.

Total Eclipse does bring up interesting questions and challenges. It doesn't, however, explore them deeper. To me, it's basically just scratching the surface without digging into it. This, I believe, is the source of my frustration.

Then there's the fanservice issue. Depending on your preferences, it might or might not be a good thing. The series occasionally features nudity in shower scenes.

Putting everything negative aside, I think the story is still good enough to give it a go. Some arcs are considerably better than others in storytelling. The political tensions between different nations, groups, and factions did contribute to getting me continuously hooked up with the series.

* Art: 6/10

The animation is pretty average to me. The mech battles are animated properly, but elsewhere, the animation quality isn't anything premium.

Considering this is a 2012 anime and that TE is just a spin-off, I might still be able to overlook the average quality. I'm hoping that Muv-Luv Alternative does much, much better with regards to animation quality.

* Sound: 7/10

The OP and ED songs aren't really my style, but still fun to hear compared to many other OP and ED songs from other animes.

I haven't really noticed the sound effects, but I still think they're OK.

* Character: 5/10

I'm rather ambivalent about the nature of the characters in TE and their growth.

TE features four main characters: Yuuya Bridges, Takamura Yui, and the Scarlet Twins - Cryska Barchenowa and Inia Sestina.

Of the four, Yui was my favorite mainly due to her temperament and strong moral convictions. The first two episodes really did shape Yui. She also exhbits Tsundere-like characteristics.

Her uncompromising attitude towards Yuuya really made for a good conflict. The constant back-and-forth between the two could have easily been the focus of the entire story. Unfortunately, a quarter way through the series, Yui's attitude suddenly became more shy and less confrontational towards Yuuya. I presume this was done to allow room for romance, but the way they did it was rather abrupt and sudden. I personally think this ruined Yui's character for the rest of the season.

Yuuya himself was not a very interesting character. He had a difficult upbringing and shady history in the military, but the way his background affects him is inconsistent. Sometimes, he hates certain people due to his past, and sometimes he just doesn't really care at all. His character did grow considerably in the first half of the season, owing much of it to the conflict between Yui and him. After that, his character growth stagnated, replaced by underwhelming storytelling and fanservice.

The scarlet twins, Cryska and Inia, do add some interesting dynamic between Yuuya and Yui. Their backstory isn't really fully explored until near the end of the show, and even then there's not much to know about the two other than being known for their impressive piloting skills.

For supporting characters, Yuuya's pilot teammates are Stella Bremer, Tarisa Manandal, and Valerio Giacosa. The show doesn't really give much to learn about them, and I was kinda disappointed about that. I wished the three be given a few episodes of their own due to their diverse backgrounds, but they weren't given the chance. I actually found these supporting characters more interesting than Yuuya himself. To sum it up, Stella, Tarisa, and Valerio didn't have any character growth because the show considered them grown already. They were already the best versions of themselves.

* Enjoyment: 7/10

Having laid out all my criticisms of the show, I still enjoyed it, probably more than most reviewers here.

* Overall: 6/10

Total Eclipse had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, TE began as more of a side series than a main one, and it started out as an LN series. It's not unreasonable to believe that with better development and less focus on the fanservice, TE could have easily been a masterpiece.

That being said, I'm hoping TE's anime adaptation would provide a valuable lesson to Muv-Luv Alternative's anime adaptation that's going to air in October 2021. As a parent story to TE, Alternative has a rather low bar to surpass in terms of quality.

Ok, i'll start off by saying that this is probably going to be more of a rant than an actual review and to get into the depths of the things that really pissed me off about this abysmal anime i'm probably going to have to go into spoiler territory so with that in mind and that this may go on for a bit the tl;dr: Watch episodes 1 & 2 of this anime and then throw the rest in the bin, DO NOT WATCH THE REST! (unless, that is, you crave disappointment.)



Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, imo, is a failure of an anime! This is not ... necessarily due to bad sound, art, voice acting, soundtrack, characters, plot or any of the other parts that you would normally attribute to such a failure. In fact, in many cases thruout many of these qualities could even be thought of as good. It's just they've all been thrown together in an almighty mess that not only doesn't work at all together but the anime as a whole suffers from a complete identity crisis. Ultimately tho there's an even greater crime this anime commits and that is to completely fail to live up to what it shows you it could have been.

***SPOILERS START HERE***

Episodes 1 & 2 open this anime with exceptional promise. A dark world where earth is being invaded by a vast horde of huge flesh-eating aliens, the BETA, humanity is on the verge of extinction as little can slow down their relentless swarm and around about two 3rds of the world is already lost by the opening of the series. We're introduced to a group of girls undergoing heavy training to become Tactical Surface Fighter Eishi (pilots), you think you're in for your bog standard schoolgirls and Mecha anime but instead the training is largely passed over in a sort of montage. The main character thruout this is Takamura Yui, we follow her as she shows off her skill, befriends a rival, helps her friends with their training and discuss their views on current events. One of the key things learned during this part of the story is of the "8 minutes of death", which is that in battle with the BETA the average life expectancy of an Eishi is only 8 minutes. Once the training is done (again this is over very quickly largely covered as it is by a series of montages) we see her say her goodbyes to her family and sent off to duty.

From that point it is not long before Yui and her friends are thrown right into the action as defensive lines a broken by the BETA. This proves to be action packed but also grim as you see friend after friend of Yui killed by various means, often quite gruesome. It gets to the point where the girls are so overwhelmed they must retreat and they begin a fast pace and high tension run as they fly incredibly fast and low in an effort to avoid being shot down by the BETA. Unfortunately more of the girls are shot down until it is just Yui and 2 others left eventually even the three of them are knocked down as well. After Yui crashes we see her emerge from her TSF and descend down some stairs, into what i assume is an underground system of some sort, armed with only a pistol. Here we see our first look at the Solider Type BETA (the smallest of the BETA but still roughly twice the size of a human) and they are devouring one of Yui's friends (we see this in quite graphic detail), Yui descends further to find the last of her friends still trapped in her TSF. The Soldiers come and start ripping apart the TSF to get to her and Yui's friend begs her to shoot her but Yui can't do it and so she is torn apart in front of Yui, the last we see of her is her head catapulted out and it rolls across the floor towards Yui. The Soldiers turn towards Yui and she is saved just in the nick of time by a TSF. In one of the final scenes we see Yui recovering in a medical tent with some pretty serious injuries and struck silent by the horror of what she has witnessed and the remorse of being the only survivor out of all of her friends.

Now you may be wondering why i went into so much detail about what happened during those two episodes, well i wanted to make it quite clear that there was a serious tone thruout, i also wanted to point out how horrific some of the imagery was.

Having watched those two episodes my expectations where high, i was vastly impressed by the way that had handled this dark story and how they had maintained the serious tone without giving in to moeness, comic relief or fan service (there's one scene in those two episodes that could be considered true fan service but it's over so quick that you could blink and miss the fan service... and i think i did), i was happy to lay all the concerns i had had about the series to rest and settle down to a action packed and seriously dark sci-fi anime (lord knows it often seems that there's too few of them out there these days) following Yui as she devotes herself to fighting the BETA to find both redemption and salvation for herself and the world... little did i know that what i was in fact going to get was the complete mess that suffers from an complete identity crisis and pretty much dumps all over what it could have been.

Let's tackle the problems one at a time.

First off Yui: She's not the main character. You might be mistaken thinking that she's the main character seeing how we had spent two whole episodes setting up her backstory but she's not. She barely even qualifies as a secondary character as little she has to do with the plot most of the time.

Instead we get Yuuya Bridges, whom i might have been more inclined to have liked if i hadn't gone thru the jarring experience of having the main character switched on me after only 2 episodes! Also his backstory is more of a kind of whiny "i'll do whatever i want cause i was bullied as a child" which kinda pales in comparison to Yui's "I failed to protect all of my friends and watched as they were torn apart and eaten before my eyes and stared death in the face myself" in trying to garner our sympathy, he's never even fought against the BETA in combat so knows nothing of the horrors of the war, or it would if Yui wasn't a completely broken character.

Yui displays none of the psychological issues one would expect from someone who had gone thru such a trauma as she had. During the first few episodes she's rather harsh on Yuuya and the team, so you think that she's keeping every body at a distance so she doesn't have to go thru seeing another friend die, but no, it disappears incredibly quickly (almost as if the writer forgot about it) and Yui pretty much becomes the lamest example of a Tsundere i've ever come across (this is also due to the result of her falling in Love with Yuuya in a ridiculously short amount of time). We only see 2 examples of her struggling with the memories of what had happened to her and her friends but as soon as they're over there's no sign that she's even upset or shaken by these memories she just gets on with what she's doing. Yui's completely broken personality, a personality which would be appropriate in your bog standard slice of life harem anime but doesn't fit this character and her backstory at all, is a constant issue which prevented me from enjoying any of the scenes she appears in.

The tone: It takes a dive! Not straight away admittedly, for the first few episodes it still maintains some seriousness tho things are much much lighter than the first two episodes none-the-less, however when you get to episode 6 (an episode that should live in infamy for anyone who's watched this series) it takes a dive right off the deep end, so much so in fact that you will have a hard time taking anything the anime does seriously from that point onwards!

It's your bog standard fan service beach episode which is presented to us on the most flimsy and ludicrous of basis, not just in real life (i seriously doubt any military anywhere would set up such a situation let alone the events that happen during it could happen) but also in their world where humanity (as i remind you) IS FACING EXTINCTION!!! And it is largely after this point that you just get the sense that the whole anime is taking a much more light hearted approach to the theme that the first two episodes lead you to believe it would. So much so that even when it's being serious you kinda feel that there's a levity to it that feels wholly inappropriate from everything that you've learnt about this world. Now this may not actually be the case but this is how badly it colours your perceptions but dumping in comedic sketches and fan service episodes in something that started off on as similarly a dark and gory scale as bloody Elfen Lied!

The Story/Plot: Now essentially it's good, the basis at least is interesting and it provides a lot of action and conflict, the problem is with the implementation. This is an anime where i honestly believe the writers/producers/whoever didn't know what they wanted to do, they just knew they wanted it to be popular and so they went and took a look around at what else was popular at the time and just tossed as many of their elements as possible into the mix.

I'll lay a few down for you: There's, tsunderes, fan service, mecha, harem, a Big F*ckin' Lazer Canon, cloned psychics, government conspiracies, competition between squads, a tournament, a hot springs episode (even more fan service), more conspiracies, terrorists, and a big bad villain whom either wants to rule the world at the expense of it's defence (so an idiot) or wants to destroy the world by compromising it's defence (still quite a idiot). All of those were just the things i can remember months later, there's more and worse i remember thinking the same thought quite often thruout the series "Yet another new element that feels like it's from a different anime!".

And while we're on this topic i want to point two things out that are pertinent to the overall story:

1. The tournament - THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!!! "This world is facing extinction so lets all throw on a TSF vs TSF competition to inspire unity and improve moral as well as test these weapons!" WHAT?!! Two 3rds of the world is gone to the BETA, you can barely hold your front lines and you want to throw a sports day?! Also it obviously fails to inspire unity as every squad is competing with each other to win! (to the point where several of them start actively sabotaging one another) No unity inspired there!

2. The conspiracies - Now i'm not so optimistic to think that when humanity's on the edge there won't be people out for themselves or government agencies putting their own interests above everyone else, but what i can't accept is that ANY human (aside from the completely insane) would ACTIVELY sabotage one of humanity's defensive lines just to get their grubby hands on a piece of tech a rival "ally" is developing! They try to justify it by saying over and over that once the BETA are dealt with whomever has the technical advantage will rule the world, but seriously! The BETA are a serious threat now! I can't over state this: TWO THIRDS OF THE WORLD GONE! I think the priorities would be a little more kill the BETA than try to fuck over the competition, at least until you've started to push them back a bit.

And that's it basically... well it is right now cause i've gone on for so long i've kinda forgotten if i had any other points... . -.-



Anyway, the facts are that this series shows you, it SHOWS you, in the first two episodes everything it could be and then from episode 3 onwards it not only consistently fails to live up to that but it also constantly tries to add in new and unnecessary components that don't quite fit, don't really make sense and just mess with the anime further turning it all into a huge mess that doesn't know quite what it wants to be.

It's at it's best during the 20% when it's focus is on fighting the BETA, which is where it's focus should have always been from start to end (tho even then it never recaptures the dark thrill of the first two episodes), and it's at it's worst the other 80% of the time when it's doing anything but... oh and Yui, whenever she's on screen after episode 2 that's when it's truly at it's worst.

The first 2 episodes are really good.

Skip the rest.

I watched this show after completing the visual novels.
I was really disappointed.
There is nothing unique or interesting about this anime.
Characters are boring.
Story is boring.
Music is generic.
... The robots are not that interesting.
The BETA are not scary because they do not kill any important characters unlike in the original novels where they were actually creepy. here, they are just bullet sponges and do not pose a threat.
It is a really generic robot mech anime with lots of boobies.
While the visual novels are a masterpiece, this show is boring.
It is like the Phantom Menace. A boring spinoff to a masterpiece trilogy.
Just watch the first 2 episodes and don’t watch the rest.
You are better off replaying muv-luv or watching some other anime.
I have warned you