Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse

Title:Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
Total Eclipse
マブラヴ オルタネイティヴ トータル・イクリプス (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: NAKAHARA Mai
ONO Daisuke
In 1973, Earth is invaded by aliens known as BETA, nearly driving human civilization into collapse. Facing an enormous mass of enemy force, mankind has developed large humanoid arms called Tactical Surface Fighters and has deployed them to its defense lines throughout the world. In 2001, Imperial Japan faces difficulties in the development of a next-generation main Tactical Surface Fighters (TSF), which is desperately needed for the defense of the front lines of the Far East. Yui Takamura, a TSF pilot of the Imperial Royal Guards of Japan, is given responsibility for the project and sets off to Alaska. Meanwhile, Yuya Bridges, also a TSF pilot of the US Army, was heading to the same destination.
(Synopsis courtesy of ANN)

A Summer 2012 series

26 episodes (1-25 + 19.5, a recap)

2:09min Series PV - YouTube Video


See also: Schwarzesmarken
and
Muv-Luv Alternative.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent Stretch [series:2586#628]
(Rent- or Watch+)

(All episodes watched):

I thought that something with a title like 'Muv-Luv' would be a totally inane romantic comedy, but this couldn't have been more different. This is a serious story about a very serious matter—aliens invading the earth—but isn't entirely devoid of comedy. It soon became clear that some alternate history was underway, even before the 'Betas' arrived, since the story begins in 1967 and some sort of Japanese Empire exists. The series starts out with a two-episode prologue arc. At first it looks like it will be a cute-girls-piloting-mecha series, which it is, but men will later pilot also. There is a different tone to this prologue than most; the years drift by as the war against the Beta goes from bad to worse for Earth. These girls are daughters of the aristocracy, apparently, and as such are expected to serve the empire. I was relieved that it wasn't another case of 'this is a type of mecha which only sexy girls can pilot'. They are being pressed into service more because Earth is getting desperate than because they are the particularly outstanding pilots. They have realistic hair colors, too--a sure sign of a serious anime. You get a grim feeling that a crisis is coming, yet the girls hardly seem to care. You would think that the notion that humanity itself may be coming to an end would come up once or twice. At the end of the episode they still haven't been given much personality, and I feel ambivalent about them. The entire first episode is spent setting things up for the girls' first engagement with the Beta. Pretty much all information about the Beta is kept secret (except for a brief glance), perhaps so that the first battle will be more powerful.

Though by no means perfect, I thought that episode two was pretty cool. Things got charged up as a confused and desperate battle broke out between the girl trainees and the Betas. Much as I had expected, Yui's comrades got picked off one by one. There were chilling scenes of girls meeting horrible fates, and the aliens were gross, ugly, and frightening (but why do some use lasers while most apparently have nothing more than their claws and teeth?). for the most part, the battle was handled well and seemed fairly realistic and believable (the 'fish in a barrel' scene was pretty neat). As a result, the action was genuinely exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat. In most shows, the good guys just kick their opponents' asses, and it's hard to believe that they are in much danger themselves; but this battle didn't go the way the humans wanted it to. The way Yui was changed at the end was encouraging; most anime characters' personalities never change at all. The main story begins in episode three.

Afterwards, Yui is sent to Alaska to train with a multinational mobile suit unit. The other pilots--some from unusual countries like Turkey and Nepal--get a good deal of development and will last much longer than Yui's original comrades. One purpose of this unit seems to be to find a use for leftover Japanese suits which foreign pilots are unaccustomed to. The American Ensign Bridges (who is half Japanese by ancestry) annoys Yui as he doesn't like Japanese suit designs. Yui has become a hard, unemotional officer who has no time for complaints. American viewers might be a little offended by Yui's snide comments to Bridges. Then there are the mysterious Russians who operate independently nearby. Presumably some sort of romance will develop, but not yet. Likewise, there's no telling when the pilots will see action against the Betas again.

For some reason I liked the two-episode bit about the pilots going to the Caribbean for a propaganda event, but Bridges, Yui and Cryska (the Russian girl) getting briefly marooned on an island in their bathing suits. It's a total turnaround from Yui as superior officer giving Bridges orders to being a hot chick in a bikini. A romantic triangle forms, but with only two of the three members you would expect. Then the unit gets it's baptism of fire in a somewhat less pleasant region. Somehow, I thought the way Bridges used an experimental weapon for the first time was very cool; kind of corny, but it works, so why change it? It's like he has almost too much power to handle, then he lets it lose and the results are awesome. I couldn't help grinning. This show seems to have a skill for making battle scenes exciting.

As if the disgusting and terrifying Betas aren't enough of a problem, a conspiracy emerges. Throughout the series I was bemused by how much attention was placed on distrust and deception between different human nationalities instead of on the war against the Betas. I thought Yui's narrow escape from a base being overrun by aliens was pretty cool. The episode seemed to go very quickly, which is a sign that I'm firmly engaged. Another good sign was that the cast of characters had acquired enough life and personality that losing one of them seems almost unimaginable. Even a secondary character had gotten familiar enough that I wondered if he would be sacrificed in this episode. The interesting characters are this show's true strength, along with exciting action. Afterwards, the unit is sent back to Alaska. The Betas seem to be shunted aside and the new main problem is competing with foreigners to prove who has the best mobile suits. This doesn't seem to be as exciting as the deadly combat was, and it feels as if the series has wandered off course. The two Russian girls that Yuuya knows finally start to play a part in the mecha action--it had seemed a little odd that they were played as awesome pilots yet seldom did much piloting. Throughout the series we are sent the message that Cryska will truly amaze us with her fantastic skill when she finally gets a chance to display it. But her potential goes largely unused. The real questions are A)How will the romance between Yuuya and Yui work out? and B)Will the Betas ever be beaten? For much of the show, issue A seemed to get just a little attention while B got none at all.

This show is more about romance than combat with aliens. I assume the Betas will return for a rousing conclusion of the series, but for now they are little more than minor supporting chatacters that appear once in a while. This is almost a harem series as Yuuya finds at least four girls attracted to him--three are serious contenders, one a child. In episode 17 we learn something interesting about Cryska--she seems to be a clone. But again, not much will ever be made of this. Episode 20 was a refresher to bring everyone up to speed about what has happened so far as the series nears it's conclusion. It was interesting in that it served as a sort of revelation of what themes the makers hoped the average viewer had grasped so far. Personally, Yuuya going from ashamed of his half-Japanese heritage to proud of it hadn't struck me as a major point.

The review episode hyped up the approaching, and presumably final, arc of the series with things like a preview of the new OP and ED sequences and assured us of how awesome the episodes to come would be. But when episode 21 finally came along, I was appalled. The enemy isn't the Betas at all, it's some fanatical terrorist organization which is out to seriously hurt the UN. This doesn't make sense: the human race is in danger of being exterminated by aliens, and a secret movement responds by conspiring to throw a wrench into the war effort against the bugs? They're blaming the UN for the work of the Betas. Throughout the series, the makers seemed to think that viewers would be so thrilled with their work that they would gladly eat up any subplot which was served up to them, even if it had nothing at all to do with the main issue, the Betas. But my patience had been stretched thin with all these little human conspiracies taking place when what I'm really interested in is how the war against the Betas would work out. This episode left me wondering if I should even watch the remainder of the series. It seemed unlikely that there would ever be any answer to the question of who wins the war, the humans or the Betas. And if that question went unanswered, I doubted if we would ever find out which girl Yuuya would choose--or, more accurately, exactly why he would choose Yui, because the primary female protagonist always wins in the end.

...and the story kind of fizzles out in the end. "What the hell is going on?" a character asks at one point, and I could only think that yeah, that's what I want to know as well. How did Cryska and Inia become brainwashed (or whatever it was that happened)? What was the fantastic power they supposedly held? Alaska shall not be blown off the map by nuclear weapons, but the Beta are undefeated, international conniving will go on, and there is no resolution of the romantic triangle. I would have been highly frustrated and disappointed if I hadn't already been expecting something like this from the conclusion. Muv-Luv just seemed like a largely unfocused story which wandered about, paying too much attention to less critical issues like spying, and too little to the really important one, the Betas. It told a long-term story, but it did it in a muddled, uninteresting manner, when clearly it could have been sharpened up a good deal.

Last updated Sunday, January 27 2013. Created Wednesday, July 04 2012.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org