Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「帝都燃ゆ (前編)」 (Teito Moyu (Zenpen))
“The Imperial Capital Burns, Part 1”
As first episodes go, this was undeniably one of the more… for lack of a better word, ‘varied.’ I wasn’t entirely sure how the series would be starting us off – there was talk about making it more open to viewers unfamiliar with the rest of the franchise and while I can’t attest to how well they actually did, the effort was definitely there. The episode starts with a series of time skips, glancing over the important information on first contact with the BETA (Being of Extra Terrestrial origin which is an Adversary of the human race) and the devastation they wreaked during their arrival on Earth.
From there the episode is content to launch into a rapid condensation of eishi training and Takamura Yui’s (Nakahara Mai) background. This is basically used entirely to attempt to pile any relevant world information on us, through lectures, news broadcasts, phone calls, etc, much in the same way as Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon was wont to do. I suppose it’s effective on some level, but at the same time, it’s an extremely blunt way to go about it and I hope this wasn’t the entirety of their plan to make the series accessible to newcomers. It almost always seems to be more effective when the intricacies of the world are shown to us rather than forced upon us through background exposition.
So much of the episode was spent on rushing us through these time skips that little to no time was actually spent developing the character who I assume is meant to be our focus (it is her back-story after all). I really have very little idea what to make of Yui at this point, though it seems they’re trying to take her down pretty much the same route as Takeru – starting her off as a naive and idealistic solider who wants to get into the fighting as soon as possible only to have the horrors of war with the BETA abruptly thrust upon her. Heck, it seems pretty likely she’s going to be faced with a mercy kill situation next episode, which is definitely guaranteed to either push her down the path of PTSD (to parallel Takeru of course – they seem to be doing that a fair bit so far) or turn her into something badass (hopefully this). I suspect we’ll be finding out by the end of the next episode unless they intend to drag this arc out for three episodes.
In a sense, the first fifteen minutes of the episode played the Unlimited to the second half’s Alternative albeit with next to no fanservice. We had that carefree nature Unlimited used to lull us into a false sense of security, trying to make us see it as a cute-girls-piloting-mecha series (of course, anyone familiar with the rest of the franchise will have known how impossible that scenario was). This only holds true up until the accident, which plainly tells us that terrible things will happen. I doubt anyone watching was particularly phased by the death of a nameless entity, but it does help to cement the idea that it’s not all going to be sunshine and rainbows, even if we still don’t have firsthand experience of the BETA. It’s one thing to hear about the terror the BETA have wreaked on humanity; it’s entirely another to witness it. It’s that feeling of being distanced from the trouble – that it isn’t something that will directly affect you – that made the experience so fantastic in Alternative and will hopefully do the same in Total Eclipse. They’ve actually gone to great lengths throughout this first episode not to give us any direct shots of the BETA themselves – only quick glimpses and partial, often blurred images. I really approve of this since, even if it’s not quite to the extent it could be, it’s still helping to build unease surrounding them. Our proper glimpse of them, I imagine, will come next episode – a lot earlier than I’d originally anticipated! As a fan of the franchise, I’m pretty uh… ‘wary’ about finally seeing the BETA animated. Hopefully Statelight will do them justice.
For a few short minutes (ten to be more specific), I began to wonder at the complete absence of fanservice. Moments later my wondering ceased. For now, there are two primary reasons for watching Total Eclipse – mecha and fanservice. Since the original work was created mainly as a marketing ploy to sell TSF kits, at the very least the mecha should be stellar. Fanservice will also abound, particularly with all those skin-tight eishi suits everywhere (though their female anatomy is uh… unusual. Censoring I guess?). Ideally, given its parent franchise, it will also have a brilliant storyline, but given the series’ original purpose and the side story’s general lack of popularity in comparison to the rest of the works, it’s probably best not to hope for too much.
To close, anyone feel like making bets on how many of the girls survive? Yamashiro is pretty much guaranteed to die in the next episode given the preview… maybe it would be better to place bets on how many actually manage to survive beyond the initial eight minutes? Other than Yui herself, I’m betting none.
Random thoughts:
- I didn’t actually think we’d be getting any cameos from the rest of the franchise, but I was pretty happy to see Yuuhi! I doubt Takeru or Sumika will make any sort of appearance though since this actually takes place before Alternative.
- Couldn’t help comparing the drill instructor to Marimo… he doesn’t live up to her standards. Not by a long shot.
- There were a fair few scenes with less than perfect art and animation – I hope this merely means they’re saving their budget for epic BETA and TSF battles (I said something similar about Medaka Box but my hopes unfortunately weren’t realised).
- On the plus side, we did get to watch two TSFs duelling with swords which was pretty damn awesome!
Full-length images: 06, 10, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 29, 36.
Note: I’m only covering Total Eclipse for this single week while Zephyr is off travelling (insert Mikoto reference here), he should be back to resume coverage next week!
Additionally, for more Muv-Luv related reading, check out the joint Overview post Zephyr and I wrote a while back!
Finally (I swear this is the last one!), the OP was used for the ED this week.
OP Sequence
 |
 |
 |
OP: 「Go to the top」 by 倖田 來未(Koda Kumi)
Watch the OP!: Streaming ▼
Preview
 |
 |
i see fan-service here, haven’t watch it though
I liked the doom and destruction of Mankind desperate – and losing – struggle against BETA.
Though I am pretty sure in RL high yield nukes would be used against such swarm wave attacks, to devastating effect. Cue the nuke taboo in Japan.
I also liked small differences in the alternative world (Kyoto is Japan’s capital, for example).
Mecha themselves looke d pretty cool, with details like engine air intakes and weapons quite well developed. Bonus points for kendo-duelling mecha!
Last but not least, fanservice – though I might live without it and series would possibly even be better with more heavy and cumbersome pilot suits – is not something distracts too much.
I am not betting on the girls lifespan, too. We will see 8 minutes into next episode, I guess… Oh and death flags can be so misleading lately (Jormungand)that I stopped treating them seriously.
Notice that only Yui was listening to the instructor’s lecture about how the average survival time of a rookie pilot is eight minutes? There might as well be a huge neon-lit sign saying FORESHADOWING.
They could but it would be as effective as you think because the Laser class BETA shot down any kind of warhead you trow at them. They didn’t explain yet the range and effectiveness of the BETA AA weaponry.
Also, the environmental damage is just too big.
The only time nukes worked on the BETA was when America bombed the **** out of Canada. And that only worked because they were still in the early stages of invasion.
Their anti-nuke defense should hardly be strong enough to deal with an concentrated assault on the less defended parts of the front.
>Also, the environmental damage is just too big.
BETA-occupied territories are worse off.
Small spoiler regarding nukes:
Show Spoiler ▼
@Fragb85
Nuking the hell out of the Canadian hive worked because it was independent of the Kashgar hive and hadn’t yet figured out that it needed AA.
As for the Laser-class Beta, the Lux can shoot down anything within 30km, and Maguns Lux can take out anything within 100km. Aside from saturation bombing with naval cannons and artillery (which they do use whenever possible), or the orbital diver squads (outer shell designed to withstand reentry and focused fire), anything that travels through the air to its target is more or less useless. Even the TSF need to use NOE flight to avoid being picked off (as the two pilots in the Gekishin clearly demonstrated for us).
I think within 30 years of fighting humans would get some better sort of technology, and anyways you can always mass-shell with unguided weapons/decoys to saturate enemy defences. Still the explanations seem reasonable. Problem is, conventional weapons, TSF included seem to be completely useless… or at least only marginally effective.
I am pretty sure any such conflict would bring weapon evolution on a scale of WW2 at the very least (from the last biplanes of 1939 to first jets, and from Pz I to the Panther and Tiger), so we could easily see railguns, lasers and rods from god.
Does any sort of “verse-pedia” exist? I’m already hooked on it…
@Ewok40k^
The Alternative universe only diverged from “our” universe at the end of WWII, and they’ve “only” been at war with the BETA since the 70’s (and really, isn’t the TSF enough of a jump?). Standard weapons are effective, though. Just not against the insanely armored front of the Destroyer-class BETA. Further, to paraphrase the VN: “Beyond the combat capabilities of the individual strains, the BETA’s real weapon is numbers.”
Spoiler for weapons tech:
Show Spoiler ▼
Regarding shelling, here’s a screenshot from MLA that shows what happens when you try to do it anywhere near a laser species(rods from god would likely have a similar fate): http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Naraal/Snapshot_33.png
And finally, here’s the ML wiki: http://muvluv.wikia.com/wiki/Muv-Luv_Wiki
thx for the link to wiki! BETA plushie made my day!
oh and all those TSF’s mirroring real life aircraft made my military otaku side salivate…
“the orbital diver squads (outer shell designed to withstand reentry and focused fire”
So they HAVE armor that can protect a projectile briefly as it rapidly passes through effective engagement range then, why are they loading these pods with mechs instead of 50 megaton nukes and just torching the hives?
Because a hive is embedded deep underground with tunnels that stretch for miles. Not to mention the fact that any attempt to map such tunnels has failed. The only group who actually succeeded on mapping ONE hive were a bunch of Russians (who all mostly died). Precision nuclear strikes are not practical.
Regarding the use of nukes in MuvLuv:
Show Spoiler ▼
Also, I feel the need to point out something important. G-Bombs ARE NOT nuclear weapons. They ARE superweapons, but NOT nuclear weapons. Why then are they used despite their level of power? For a number of reasons (which are mostly spoilers in their own right), but the most notable reason is because the BETA can’t shoot them down.
Also, they have conventional warheads with the strength of tactical nukes anyway, so nukes are kind of a waste of precious fuel.
Haha, love the Mikoto reference eh. Greetings from LA here (well, Vancouver in a few hours). I see the episode wasn’t as awesome as I hoped it’d be… (from what I’ve read) but at least the info rush might reduce the amount we get later. Guess we’ll see eh. 😛
Thanks again for helpin’ cover btw! 😀 Life-saver!
No problem! I’m also hoping the info dump will help ease the burden – more than that, I’d like to know if it actually helped any of the people who were unfamiliar with the series.
Halfway through the show, I was thinking, “why do I have a feeling that I am watching Saki…”
Cast… Teru and Saki…
I bet my money that all the girls will die within this arc (next episode). Except Yui and (hopefully) Yamashiro girl.
Based on the preview, who requested to be shot? Yui or Yamashiro?
I’m fairly certain it was Yamashiro based on the voice. I would quite like her to survive but I get the feeling they’ll kill her off to try and put more stress on Yui.
Hands off…
I was thinking that the person is Yui.
So sad that Yamashiro is getting kill of… T^T Really like her character T^T
The suits….!!!! <3
I look forward to despair and suffering next episode. How about you guys?
My reaction to the First episode.
Show Spoiler ▼
It’s pretty obvious anyway, just taking a glimpse at MAL and none of the characters in episode 1 are listed there 😀
All this makes me sorry for poor seiyu that are voicing one-hp redshirts…
this sereies will definitely be a contrast to generally more upbeat “Rinne no Lagrange”
just like GUNPARADE MARCH or GUNPARADE ORCHESTRA at glance.
Strange that they start the series with what is essentially a prologue detailing Yui’s past. The main character Yuuya hasn’t appeared yet, and TE is supposed to take place in Alaska. Still, I supposed it was made this way to get new audiences into the Muv-luv universe by introducing its basic plot elements.
Oh hi cute/hot/moe teenage girls! I’m sure NOTHING awful will happen to them for the sole purpose of giving Yui a dark, tragic past. NOTHING. AT. ALL.
Its so blatantly obvious that the entire squad is going to bite it. Yui is the only character who is part of the main cast, and the rest of the girls might as well wear Red Shirts.
Are we guessing how many of them are gonna kick their buckets?
If those “no face elites defense force” got killed off screen.
I’ll be surprise if any of them survive.
– Haven’t fully complete their training.
– No live combat experience.
I hope the heroine doesn’t get a “super saiyan form-like” and save the world.
You know the rules on stuff like this (generally, with main characters anyway); as long as you DON’T complete your training and have NO previous combat experience, then you’re pretty much guaranteed to quickly become a kickass character, lol.
I’m with you on expecting the majority of them to die. I don’t think you need to worry about Yui going super saiyan and saving the world – it seems extremely unlikely.
Seeing how this is muv luv verse I’m pretty sure majority of the cast will die.
First ep was freaking awesome! As someone new to the series, it did an amazing job of detailing the universe. I finished the episode thinking these girls are all going to be primary cast until I started reading the boards -_-. People hate a good prologue for some reason *shrug*. Haters should seriously just drop the show now plz, for the sake of us newbies to the universe.
What story/anime/manga was this anime spawned from? I Googled:
Muv Luv
Muv Luv Alternative
Muv Luv Alternative Manga
and all results point to this anime as the only story in the franchise.
Its from a VN trilogy.
See here for more details.
I’m virtually certain that, with the exception of Yui, they’re toast.
That said, seeing the Type-77 and Type-82 in action, even for a little while (or just the launch sequence for the Zuikaku squad) had me grinning like an idiot. I can’t wait for next week, when they actually fight the BETA.
I agree, seeing TSFs and the BETA actually animated is pretty damn awesome! Hopefully we’ll get to see a lot of the different models in action too. It would be really nice to get to see an early prototype, or even a glimpse of the Susanoo, but that seems pretty unlikely.
Probably not the Susano’o, so I’ll console myself with the Show Spoiler ▼
when it eventually shows up.
I’m completely new to the franchise (and didn’t get any of the references you put there!) but I really enjoyed this first episode. The OP song sounds awesome too.
The “ending” was actually the opening, just so you know.
Mmm, you may be referencing the visual novels too much Moomba.
Good lord. The mecha, and those female pilot’s DANGEROUS CURVES. Must watch this episode and apply the three episode rule.
I think there’s some pretty solid potential for the anime to blossom within three episodes. Depends on how much time they spend fleshing out Yui before introducing us to the rest of the cast.
Rewatched the first episode, and I am convinced I must watch this beyond the three episode rule, for these reasons:
1. “Mankind vs. Aliens”-theme has always been a good theme in my book
2. Cute female pilots who suddenly become buxom babes in their skin-tight suits
3. It’s so GRIMDARK – it feels like Warhammer 40,000 but with moe~
4. “Real Robot” Mecha Action
Is this anime have only heroine but no male protagonist?
Its technically a harem. The first two episodes are a prologue detailing Yui’s past. The actual protagonist is guy named Yuuya Bridges.
Is he gonna be someone like Ogami from Sakura Wars?
Form-fitting pilot suits and cool mechs aside this episode felt kinda average. Maybe it’s just because they have to get a lot of exposition out of the way, or they’re just building up our anticipation for when things start getting good. A lot of people have said “Just wait, it’s gonna get really good,” and the article you guys did on Muv-Luv definitely got me excited so I’m just gonna be patient. This looks like it’s gonna be a good season for mecha with Total Eclipse, Rinne no Lagrange 2, and Code Geass.
You’re right, it is a pretty good season for mecha, hopefully in quality if not in quantity. Here’s to hoping all three live up to expectations!
So many lose of Lives. And they know their weapons have no affects. It just Cannon fodder to buy time, until someday they find a Weapon that can hurt them.
No, not my style of Anime. But i must say, really tight Flightsuits
Starship Troopers include Mechas on earth? Let’s see
okay, what i see in this “World is about to get Doomed, but Lucky Japan/Nippon hold his Line and take back Earth!” Animes is only fights…
But you see, if you take some thought in count…well, lets just say “Life support”
How they survived until this day? Food, Water. All Lands are Overrun. so basically Japan/Nippon producing Food and all other kind of War Machines and Weapons, on it’s own Resource. I must saw pretty impressive 🙂
okok, i know this rule. Dont mix Real life Laws and Animes Laws together. But, i wish. they take this into account too.
To be fair, not all the lands are overrun – America for one is pretty much unharmed, as is Africa (I believe), the British Isles, Australia and a few other places. Eurasia took the brunt of the BETA attack and is pretty much entirely lost, which is why the front line is in Japan (there’s also the Eurofront but we don’t generally talk about that).
As for food (extremely minor spoilers): Show Spoiler ▼
I’m fairly sure they’ll mention that somewhere at some point.
The Muv-Luv Alternative universe is actually extremely well fleshed out. There are answers to most of these ‘minor’ details a lot of other series neglect entirely.
okay, then i give this show my usually 3 Episodes Hook? or Drop?
right now, it’s not high hopes. I wish they have show that this Aliens can bleed and die, too. Sure they still has their Mass. but right now.. is just Slaughter
You won’t see
Show Spoiler ▼
in Total Eclipse. Under the conditions in TE (i.e. without Alternative IV), it’s not even possible.
In Alternative, which takes place a few months after the end of TE (spoilers for Alternative’s ending)
Show Spoiler ▼
And yes, the BETA can bleed and die. However, the Destroyer-class (the ones with the armored heads) are all but indestructible from the front, which is why the artillery just bounced off their shells. Fixed artillery is too slow, but TSFs can make it around to their backs, where they have no protection. Most other BETA strains can be killed with standard munitions, with the exception of the Fort-class (not shown so far).
Second, the BETA are like the Zerg. A best-case battle would be one where the odds are about 20:1, and in some cases, the numbers are more like 100:1. When the numbers are that lopsided, even if you kill dozens, or hundreds of BETA, it’s still very easy to be overrun. At this point in time (late 1990’s), humanity is barely managing any form of containment, which is why there is so much talk about moving defense lines. Humans don’t have the weapons or numbers to push back (at least, not until Operation Lucifer in 1999, and even then, that’s a very minor gain).
I see, to understand this Anime background, i must known the “games”?. but i am just an simple Anime only Viewer, without access to this kind of stuff.. Well, hope they took that into account, too
btw, you are some kind of spoiling the 2nd episode…
I don’t know how much accommodation will be made for non-VN viewers, but they seem to be setting things up decently. You’re missing some of the additional trivia that the VN readers would have, though. Stuff about the history (covered in brief in the clips at the beginning), BETA (covered in great detail in Alternative), or TSF (also covered in detail in Unlimited/Alternative) will have to be picked up in comments or from the show.
For spoilers… I don’t think I put anything relevant to the second episode in there… Unless you mean referencing the Fort class? If there were any, they’d have made a huge deal about it (explicitly stated within the episode that the BETA scouting group was made of Destroyer, Grappler and Laser class).
Shaping up to be AWESOME MEGA Awesome DAMN i love giant robots. Im singing this whilt typing it
I was sitting there, watching the generic girls, (those 3 around Yui), and instantly thought, “Well, none of them will make it past episode 3.” Then when I saw Ueda Kanna’s character, I hoped for a moment she might be a good foil to Yui… but I’m not going to hold my breath on that one. *Sigh*
@Germanguy I’m with you on physics. Seriously. If I was going to take over a planet, I wouldn’t bother to invade it on the ground– too messy. I’d just hurl a few asteroids at it and let the Big Rocks do all of the Dirty Work. Momentum is a cruel thing, and the ensuing floods, earthquakes, and perpetual winter would kill off most “inconvenient” life forms. Whatever was left wouldn’t have 2 sticks to rub together.
Minor main-series spoilers.
Spoiler for why the BETA didn’t do that:
Show Spoiler ▼
Spoiler for what the BETA are:
Show Spoiler ▼
Anyone know what happen to the ending of Muv-Luv Alternative, not Total Eclipse but the actual storyline, did the human manage to survive in the end, still at war, or we left the planet and Beta won. I just never got a chance to finish the story, so what happen in the end of Muv-Luv Alternative?
Make sure is in spoiler tag.
(mild spoilers)
Show Spoiler ▼
Show Spoiler ▼
About Takeru
Show Spoiler ▼
About character deaths
Show Spoiler ▼
Comment regarding MLA end
Show Spoiler ▼
Show Spoiler ▼
minor, negligible correction
Show Spoiler ▼
minor nitpick
Show Spoiler ▼
Nitpicking the nitpick
Show Spoiler ▼
Just wanted to point out that you did full-length images on all the wrong pictures. YOU KNOW WHAT WE WANT(ecchi)!!
It’s sad but none of the ecchi scenes had possible full-lengths ;_;
Maybe next week!
Those tights…*gasp*
For people who haven’t known the parent story :
Don’t judge anything too fast (why didn’t they use X to fight the aliens? why did Japan survived? Why didn’t BETA blablabla?), they just managed to briefly introduce you to the world. Your questions about world settings should be answered, quick or late. There’s no way they could make everything explained in a 30 minutes (even less) episode, even if they made the entire episode into infodumping. Be reasonable.
Also, Total Eclipse is a spin-off adaptation, not the adaptation of the original Muv-Luv trilogy. Be prepared to see many things left unanswered since this is basically a kind of sidestory AND prologue.
For people who have known the parent story :
Don’t drop too many spoilers here. I know there’s an urge to answer all of the questions, but still, don’t overkill.
For Moomba :
Good job for covering Muv-Luv TE while Zephyr is gone for Mikoto-ing. But honestly I prefer if you make references to the parental story as less as possible, to encourage new viewers. Also, with the low budget they had and insane difficulty to adapt TE into a newcomer friendly TV series, actually they made a pretty good job. I have a feeling that you were expecting too much from TE :p
Voice of Reason, is that you? What’s the meaning of life?
Hmm, Zeroyuki? and that gravatar.. Zeroyuki from genshiken ITB?
Yeah, correct. Err… But who are you? o_o
Argent Solbright A.K.A falah:)
Thanks, I somehow got the impression that Moomba assumes that everybody reading this episode post has played the game.
I don’t even know who that Takeru person is. Probably the main chara of the games? If references are needed, an explanation (in brackets) would be very much appreciated.
Takeru is the main protagonist from the original Trilogy, but in Total Eclipse the main protagonist should be someone named Yuuya Bridge. Well, Marimo, Yuuhi, Mikoto, Sumika… All of them are also references to the original Trilogy.
You may want to read the original trilogy, though. It’s the number one VN in VNDB, leading with a large margin to other popular (and also epic) VN (Clannad, Steins;Gate, Fate Stay Night, etc)
Standard harem VN bore me, so it’s difficult to find the motivation to overcome the hurdle of that first game, but I’ll sure give it a try if I like this spin off anime.
The first episode didn’t blew me away though. Probably will have to wait until episode 3 when the flashback of Yui is over and we meet the main chara.
those tight armor suits ;]
Having played Muv Luv Alternative and Muv Luv, I am expecting a Show Spoiler ▼
and since I haven’t seen a good one of these in ages i hope this show won’t disappoint me.
Really hate to see really cute girl die, but it seems to be unavoidable…
Since this is yuis backstory does that make her the protagonist? because i thought it was going to be a male protagonist.
As far as I’m aware Yuya Bridges (the guy we haven’t met yet from the PVs) should be the real protagonist.
Ya that’s what i heard but it just seems weird not to.have the protagonist in the 1st episode if the guy is the protagonist because
Well I know nothing about this series so I guess this episode was meant for me. It made me hopeful for the show. But I’ve been disappointed by virtually every Mecha type show I’ve ever seen so I’m not going to get my hopes up to high.
Over all I liked the sense that everything is going horribly wrong for humanity but I was confused by the school girls in sailor outfits who are in military school? Why aren’t their uniforms at least some sort of army green color? I guess maybe they meant to have Japan be in a state of denial or ignorance (propaganda?) about the real state of the war. Hence why she asked her uncle how the war was going and he said badly like it wasn’t obvious. But I suspect they just wanted fan service school girl uniforms. It could have been handled better.
Also a pet peeve of mine showed up. The main character have custom colored mechs while everyone else has standard colors. Why? Just think about that for a moment your in a mech fight everyone has the same colors except this one guy. Who do you think everyone is going to unload on? The guy with the custom paint job because he is probably the guy in charge. Logic matters not if it looks cool.
Regardless I’m interested enough that I’ll tune back in next episode. I’m hoping her whole squad gets wiped out. I’m look for something like the 1st part of Soukou no Strain, you know where all her friends got killed right in front of her by her brother. Then she got bitter and determined. Well at least for half the show…
i’m not really sure but I think the clothes has to do with their rank or whatsoever.
Well that makes sense in a normal war setting, but the BETA don’t really react to different colors or etc, so I guess the army is more laid back about such things. The color’d custom mecha does appear a lot though. Hahaha Char and his 3x faster red paint job.
Japanese Imperial Army have numerous color for their Royal Guard, from uniform to mecha paint. Purple is for Shogun Family, then Red, Blue, blablabla to White for common family. Well, it has a lot to do with Japanese Feudal hierarchy and system (that still exists in MuvLuv universe due to slight different way of Japanese defeat).
Yes, there’s a lot of propaganda. The public and even cadets don’t even know how BETA look like, see how they trained with BETA silhouette.
Colors: BETA do not think as humans (do they even think?) and camouflage isn’t necessary because it doesn’t work. So, the color is meant for other humans to notice. In the VN, characters laugh at the idea of a “personal custom TSF”.
By the way, I’m quite sad that there’s no JAM Project music in here… like MLA’s opening song
why is that captain wearing sunglasses when it’s so dark… ._.
While I was capping it, my first thought was of this. Hiding them manly tears!
This is like Gundam mixed with Macross, robot fight alien and shit happen, but it is just not up to par with them… I am completely new to it, but it just give me this feeling…
hmm early to yet unless next ep pull like ga rei zero’s rocks fall nearly everyone get “whack”?
yet still few more eps to convince to put in my list.
This episode was fair, nothing really to complain about. Although I wish they could have combined episode 1 and 2 for a 48 minute special like they originally planned. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.
I imagine next week there’s going to be a lot more discussion going on when the “suffering” kicks in.
I think the big question that’s going to set the tone for the rest of the series is just how they’re going to show that ‘suffering’ – will they go for the shocking graphic violence most fans are hoping for, or will they tone it down? Toning it down seems likely since it’s a TV broadcast and all.
It finally started. I’m a big fan of Muv-Luv I waited eagerly for this show since i knew that there will be an adaption. This show will be great, even if it is only half as good like Muv-Love Unlimited/Alternative.
*takes a deep breathe*
I can smell it: The blood of the fallen, the burnt flesh and fuel, the cold stink of steel, lead and uranium(or plutonium, whatever they used for nukes)…
I can hear it: the future screams of pilots dying in the battlefield, the explosions of… well, explosives like an orchestra of death in the air!
I hope this will live up to my expectation: “The Gundam show with an all-female pilots”. I have no real contact with the game other than reading about it though.
except this is not like Gundam and the main character is a male pilot.
Pretty good episode methinks. On one side, I didn’t mind the exposition. In fact, I hope there will be more. On the other I wish they had develop the characters better (you’ll feel more grief with characters’ death when you are invested in them after all).I think the Yui-Yamashiro relationship can be made a bit deeper.. ah well.
On TSF training, while mecha kendo is fun to see, they should just have made the trainee do that in simulator. Such close combat practice would damage the mecha too often and too much. And the instructor commented earlier about avoiding damaging them in field training…
Question for VN players: I read somewhere that there are good explanation in setting for the skin tight body suit. And… I’m never sure about this, was it a bit transparent in the first game or it just the color that made it looks like that?
On the transparent suits (minor spoilers): Show Spoiler ▼
They were in fact originally transparent, but in the All-Ages version they became more translucent instead.
I see. Thanks
I’d imagine that they would have logged a fair amount of hours with simulators before being allowed to pilot the real thing. They’d have to get used to using the real thing in combat before being sent out or its just asking to die. Simulators might be close to the real thing but there’s always something different. Also I’m pretty sure the mecha they were using are training types.
They do log lots of simulator hours. However, as Takeru noted in Alternative (not actually a spoiler, but since I’m talking about Alternative, it’s in tags anyway)
Show Spoiler ▼
If you actually look, the TSF swords are actually covered in foam and are therefore blunted. There wasn’t any any damage done at all.
Blunt weapon can still do significant damage.. but yeah, it will be a different thing if it was from soft material like foam.
those plugsuits!
that aside…. i realise i should’ve not read the spoiler tags in the comments. truly makes me dread watching next ep
i’m quite alright with death and violence in anime but to see hot cute girls being killed or potentially be killed…. its too much
damn i hope jam project will do the second opening
we need more sci-fi anime out there!
pretty serious tone for fanservice
Never read any alternate versions of MLA cause I don’t think I could sit through another serving of something that brutal, so I have been looking forward to this series for quite a while.
Why is this the first post on the blog? It should be on the second page.
Was expecting some other military technology than tanks and TSFs that are cannon fodder. Hell, these BETAs can probably just sit and watch as those greenhorn TSF pilots destroy themselves.
Anyway, preparing my notepad and my funny bones for the body death count next episode.
I’m new to this franchise. Can someone please tell me why the pilots are all females? I don’t have any problem about it, I just want to know if there’s any particular reason to it besides fan-service.