Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse discussion thread

[FUNiOP]

I like the world setting, the aliens invading, and the giant robots fighting them, but I don't like the characters or plot points. I hope it will explore other areas of the world, but I think having that part better would make it really great. Of course, this is only just beginning, so with a strong foundation, I hold out hope that things will improve overall. It has my interest this season.

[something]

Episode 1:

- Oh right, damnit. This is by Satelight. I hate their style of CG so much. Mouretsu is the only show I found it at all tolerable in, and that's probably because they tried less to make it look detailed and shaded, and it was just spaceships.
- Wow, they really had to stretch to justify the "A" in "BETA", didn't they?
- That's a pretty crazy scar that dude has.
- Yeeeeeeeep, I don't know how many episodes I can survive CG like this. On the spectrum of acceptability for CG, mecha score much lower for me than other vehicle types (e.g passenger vehicles, conventional military hardware, or spaceships) because they're more humanoid. And more humanoid = more and more complex movements, and the movement of CG objects is always painfully out of step with everything else in a typical animation.
- Thankfully Kazusa joins the group quickly. I wasn't looking forward to a lot of bitchiness from her, assuming she survives. I guess she has a better chance than the other girls.
- Pretty decent build-up to the attack.

Okay I guess the cannon fodder will die next time.

I dunno. This is going to need to be one of the best shows of the season before I'll give the CG a pass, and it's impossible to tell from the first episode whether I'll like it or not.

[HitokiriShadow]

Oh god, Yamashiro. ;_;

So, unsurprisingly, everyone but Yui died. Most of them at least died much less unpleasant deaths than Yamashiro and we were spared the graphic details. And even Yamashiro's is pretty tame, in terms of graphicness if not in their own suffering and quickness of death, compared to some of the stuff I remember seeing from VN screenshots a long time ago. Of course, the VNs are in flat out guro territory and the anime was never going to be that bad, at least not in the TV version. And I have no idea if Total Eclipse hits that level of content to begin with since its based on light novels.

[Ingraman]

Yeah, that was the expected end result.

Some deaths were cleaner/easier than others, and we got to not-see a rolling head in the shadows.

I wasn't expecting the big time-jump at the end.

Will we get a proper OP next time around, now that the prologue is over, or will they wait until the main cast is all properly introduced?

[Buckeye]

That was some intense episode seeing how Yui's close friends were KIA by those BETA monsters. It was scary seeing how Yamashiro was about to be eaten by those aliens, preferring death by Yui's gun. Now that Kyoto has fallen, the real story begins three years later and where we will probably see the male lead, Yuuya, make his appearance.

Next episode figures to be when things will take off now that the prologue has run its course and the real story is just starting. I'll be sticking with this show for awhile now that these two episodes have set the table for several things.

[something]

Time to watch a bunch of girls die grisly deaths I guess.

Episode 2:

- 1 down.
- 2 down.
- Ughhh this CG, these battles are not fun to watch.
- 3 down.
- What? A mention in anime of the American military that doesn't portray them as evil and/or stupid? Didn't know anime was allowed to do that.
- Oh, lost count. Is that 5 down?
- 6 down, I think.
- 7 down.
- 8 down. Only the three with any distinguishing traits are left. Locket girl will be next.
- At first I was surprised how long Izumi lasted, but then it became clear she had a much worse death coming to her than just getting blown up in a mech. See ya later, Izumi. 9 down.
- Wow Yui you fuckup. Way to let whatshername get eaten. 10 down. It's kind of unfortunate because she reacted so calmly and professionally to seeing Izumi get eaten, then is unable to spare whatshername the same. Oh well, character trauma was needed.

Still no ED animation either. Wonder how long they'll take. I guess until we have the real cast.

Too graphic for my taste, or rather would be if it weren't all censored. And if it weren't censored I'd already have stopped watching. I'm really not into graphic violence, especially if it involves people getting eaten or other such things. I'm also not into whole scenes being massively censored so it's lose-lose really.

Dunno. Copious CG + gore (albeit censored) is generally not a recipe for a continued watch from me. I'll probably end up dropping it for lack of priority.

[FUNiOP]

Well the first episode didn't cause me to give a shit about any of these characters, so seeing them all graphically slaughtered isn't so much tragic as unpleasant. Hideous CG, gratuitously gory violence, and covering most of the screen with black or almost-black during a lot more important scenes made this episode pretty much as unpleasant as I can imagine it could be. Now Yui is the sole survivor, living through all that tragedy, and I suppose I'll have to hope I'll give a shit about her eventually. I really wanted to love this show, but it is really not making it easy for me.

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by something

Too graphic for my taste, or rather would be if it weren't all censored. And if it weren't censored I'd already have stopped watching. I'm really not into graphic violence, especially if it involves people getting eaten or other such things. I'm also not into whole scenes being massively censored so it's lose-lose really.

You might as well just drop this right now. The games are known for their extremely graphic and disturbing death scenes of major characters. Even the uncensored version of Yamashiro's death would be tame compared to some of the stuff in the games. There WILL be more deaths like Yamashiro's, and I can almost guarantee you some of them will be worse.

This may end up being a problem for me as well. It always annoys me when dead bodies (even if they're horribly mutilated) get censored like they were here (and in Freezing and Dead Man Wonderland). But, like a particular scene in Dead Man Wonderland (which also was more than enough to get me to drop it), I was really glad for it here.

I'm hoping most of the character deaths will be of the variety that most of the girls suffered this episode. Brutal, but quick and non-graphic. I'm fine with a show in which I have to watch all or almost all of the characters I like get killed off. I wouldn't have even started this if that was a problem. But there will definitely be more that are at least as nasty as Yamashiro's, the issue is how many. If its three or four over the course of the rest of the (27 episode) series, that shouldn't be a problem. If I have to see three or four characters I like get eaten alive and torn apart (or, somehow, something worse) by episode 10.... that's going to be a lot harder to get through. I knew what I was getting into with this show, but it wasn't until I had way too much time to think about that scene while I was at work that I realized that it might be too much for me to handle.

[Fencedude]

Wait, has this seriously been confirmed for 27 episodes?! WTF? I was expecting just one cour.

Anyway, none of these deaths had a thing on what happens in the original Alternative VN. So it didn't bother me too much.

The episode was pretty much as predicted, still onboard so far.

[Betenoire]

Originally Posted by HitokiriShadow

This may end up being a problem for me as well. It always annoys me when dead bodies (even if they're horribly mutilated) get censored like they were here (and in Freezing and Dead Man Wonderland). But, like a particular scene in Dead Man Wonderland (which also was more than enough to get me to drop it), I was really glad for it here.

Oddly it isn't the death scenes that bother me that much. The series clearly was giving off a "All but the lead (and maybe Yamashiro)" were going to die. And while a number of the deaths were violent I guess I got the idea this (second episode) was going to be like a war film where the cast stormed the beach and most didn't make it.

My problem at the moment is that the series has given me very little reason outside some very generic tropes to connect to the characters...OK, granted outside of Yui they would have all been wasted anyway and that leads to the deaths being hollow because I just don't see the characters as "real" and it also undermines events as if the characters don't seem real there is little emotion to be associated with either their survival or death.

Now hopefully this intro was done more along the lines to set up the cruelty of the war and the danger that comes with it and the writers will endeavor to give me a reason to care moving forward and Yui's little moment when seeing the baby and deciding to live and fight for life isn't going to be enough in itself. I don't expect them to make a major pivot to do so all in the next episode (thinking that is even possible to do strikes me as a bit foolish) but I want to see a pivot. I don't want to wind up with another Blue Gender where at the end I only had a few moments of caring as to what happened to a couple characters but for the most part had just grown tired of this world and practically everyone in it- I understood why they were they way they were, I just didn't care by the end.

I can handle nasty things happening as long as I have some anchor in a series to keep me interested in the outcome, but if the momentum gets lost and this becomes just some sort of animated version of "torture porn" films I won't make it to the end. Not saying it is there yet but I'm hoping the next episode provides some sign that the events have a purpose to them.