Review for Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse Part 2

Introduction

Why did MVM have to go and change their schedule? The first three weeks of October originally had Captain Earth Part 2 separated from Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, by Outbreak Company. That was going to be my reprieve, my breather, my escape. If you think that this reflects poorly on Captain Earth and Muv Luv, you’re probably right, as looking back at my August anime reviews, neither show’s first part set my world on fire. Both shows left me cold for completely different reasons, although both have held out just enough promise that they might claw something back with their second halves. Captain Earth had some very likeable characters, but just couldn’t keep control over its ridiculous story. Muv Luv on the other hand had the beginnings of an intriguing story, if constantly interrupted by inconsequentialities, but its cast of characters were a wholly unlikeable, irredeemable bunch. I recently took a look at the end of Captain Earth, and alas it didn’t pull anything back from its first half; in fact it got worse. And now I jump straight to Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse Part 2, once again hoping that its second half will significantly improve on the first. That thump you hear is my heart hitting the floor of my chest. I really needed that reprieve.


In an alternate history, mankind’s first contact with aliens happened in the sixties on the moon. It wasn’t a peaceful encounter. In 1973, the Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin that are Adversaries of the human race, BETA invaded the Earth with overwhelming impact. In 1997, Yui Takamura was a high school student, in the Japanese Imperial capital of Kyoto, looking forward to graduating and joining the military with her friends, piloting the TSFs, the Tactical Surface Fighters against the BETA. The giant robots are the pride of the Japanese military, and embody all that is brave and honourable. And then in 1998, having overwhelmed East Asia, the BETA landed on Japanese soil... It was a bloody, disastrous rout.


In 2001, the American Yuuya Bridges heads north to Alaska, to join an elite unit made up of refugees of the lands already devoured by the BETA, which will train on the latest model TSFs, sharing tactics and intelligence, all to turn the tide against the alien menace. But he’s been training on the brute force machines of the US military, and he is unaccustomed to the touchy controls of the Japanese machines that they will be flying. Worse, the commander of his unit is the native Japanese Yui Takamura. Yuuya doesn’t like the native Japanese; as a 2nd generation mixed blood, he’s always got abuse for his Japanese side, and he’s come to resent that part of his heritage. Meanwhile, Yui isn’t too pleased to see this impure Japanese American either.


At the end of the previous collection, there was quite the cliff-hanger, when a training exercise in the Soviet Union went horribly wrong as the BETA attacked en masse. What’s worse is that factions in the Soviet military had designs on a bit of Japanese technology that meant that they were happy to sacrifice all and sundry on the base. Yui stayed behind to ensure that bit of technology was destroyed, facing certain death from the BETA, but then Yuuya arrived to rescue her. But as this collection starts, it seems that it’s Yuuya that needs rescuing more.


The concluding 12 episodes of Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse are presented across 2 discs from MVM.

Disc 1
13. The Price of a Choice
14. An Eishi’s Honour
15. Cross to Bear
16. Pale Blue Flame
17. Dark Recollection
18. The Sound of Twisted Wings

Disc 2
19. Deep Green
20. The World Bares Its Fangs
21. The Future Tears Open
22. Untainted Revenge
23. The Victory Song of the Dead
24. White Darkness

Picture

Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these dual layer discs. It’s a native PAL transfer, coming the usual route of Sentai via Hanabee to MVM. The image is clear and sharp, and the show gets a strong, effective colour palette that reflects the drama of the story well. The world design is certainly well-considered, although the alternative history of this world isn’t too different aesthetically speaking, except for the giant robots. A fair bit of effort has gone into animating the mecha and the alien beasts that they fight, and the action sequences certainly look good in the show. The same can be said of the character designs, which are appealing if consistent with the mainstream anime feel, and there’s a whole lot of fan service. The skin-tight plug suits that the female mecha pilots wear leave little to the imagination. The character animation on the other hand is comparatively lacking, and while the characters stay on model for the most part, the animators take a lot of shortcuts with the animation.

Sound

Muv Luv gets a choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese with optional subtitles and signs on this DVD release. These being Hanabee authored discs, the default is Japanese with English subtitles; what I’d choose anyway. The Japanese audio was fine, with voice actors suited to their characters, and the action sequences coming across with sufficient impact. I quite liked the theme songs as well; the opening has a vocoder R&B vibe to it that’s very catchy. I checked that the Sentai dub exists, and indeed it does, and it had me switching back to the Japanese audio with undue haste as usual. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typographical error. One oddity is the use of the word Eishi for the TSF pilots. To my ears that’s the Japanese pronunciation of Ace, which makes more sense for Western audiences.

Extras

The discs present their content with static menu screens. The only extras are on disc 2, and offer two textless openings, two textless closings, and trailers for No Game, No Life (coming soon from MVM in the UK), Black Bullet, and Brynhildr in the Darkness.

Conclusion

Oh for the luv of muv! This series just doesn’t know what it wants to be. I made the mistake in Part 1 of basing my expectations on the first two episodes, anticipating a battle against all the odds to save the world from an alien menace. That didn’t happen. Instead the subsequent episodes delivered a whole lot of petty character conflict in a story about test pilots from all over the world, trying to work together to advance giant robot technology to eventually fight the alien menace. We didn’t get much alien, and the character conflicts were based more on petty xenophobia rather than personality clashes, which made the eventual romance that began to develop between its two main characters somewhat outlandish. But that first half concluded on an interesting note, when the whole lot decamped to Eastern Siberia, for a training exercise against real aliens, and wound up caught in the middle of a whole lot of lethal politics.


That storyline is concluded at the start of this collection, but I made the mistake of expecting more of the same. Instead Muv Luv becomes a romantic harem comedy! Following their Kamchatka misadventure, they return to the Yukon base for more R & D, and also a Blue Flag exercise, wargames that pit the various giant robot technologies of the world against each other to show just how successful the experimental program has been. By this time, the Russian ‘sisters’ Cryska and Inia have become sweet on Yuuya following what happened in Siberia, and then the Chinese contingent arrives to take part in the Blue Flag, led by a pilot named Cui Yifei, a rambunctious girl who’s decided that she will marry any pilot strong enough to defeat her in combat. All this while, the awkward, blushing romance between Yuuya and Yui has been proceeding at a snail’s pace, so much romantic rivalry ensues.


It gets complicated when the US team of robots, the Infinities arrives, led by Leon Kuze, another Japanese American who Yuuya used to serve with, and with whom he has bad blood. This all culminates in episode 19, the hot springs episode. It’s supposed to be a team building exercise, to get these mutually antagonistic TSF pilots to become better acquainted, but it ends up in a natural hot springs, girls cooking curry for their guys, sharing some time, soaking up the therapeutic waters, groping each others’ breasts, while the guys try to sneak a peek, and wind up being battered for their efforts. Hello, alien menace, battle for the world, anyone?


Thankfully the final five episodes redeem the series somewhat. Muv Luv turns out to be a daft, aimless show, bookended by some serious blood, guts and uber-violence. The first two episodes showed what the BETA were about, when they rampaged through Japan, traumatising the main character Yui. The final five episodes offer some more alien menace, but this time this story arc looks at the effect the alien attack has had on humanity, especially the displaced refugees. The Yukon base comes under a terrorist attack from the RLF group, a militia force formed from the refugees, demanding fair treatment for the displaced, an end to exploitation, but they are prone to extreme violence to achieve their aims. There’s also betrayal from within the ranks of the Yukon base which leads to one of the more shocking moments in the show. The RLF have their own problems too, which include religious fanatic infiltrators in their own group, who see the BETA as a sign from God, that humanity will be cleansed in blood. Throw in the US’ doomsday plan for Alaska, plus a secret BETA research facility in the state, the true nature of Cryska and Inia’s relationship (Soviet genetic research gone mad), and you’re in for a bloody, violent, and action packed final arc for the show. There are some surprisingly gruesome deaths in this arc, and were it live action, I’d expect it would be an 18.


As often happens with anime series these days, Muv Luv leaves us hanging in anticipation of a second season. Will Yuuya and Yui get their happily ever after? Will Earth defeat the alien menace? Who knows? And as yet, no second series is scheduled, although a look at the Anime News Network indicates that a prequel series is due next January. Muv Luv got far worse than I expected it to in this second half given the disappointment of the first, but it also ends far more strongly, and with a lasting and memorable positive impact. This show has seven brilliant episodes bookending a mediocre run, and that’s far more preferable to the alternative of seven brilliant episodes bookended by 15 mediocre episodes. Captain Earth may have fallen flat, but Muv Luv pulled out something special right at the end.