Muv-luv - quantum physics, mechas, war, schoolgirl romance

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I am really, really conflicted now. I read through a visual novel... It had:

Clichéd high-school harem gags, all of the anime tropes (childhood friends, promises made during childhood, dutiful class representatives, maids), shitty character art...

and it had:

Mechas, grim-dark future, gun porn, massive battles, 10 minute discussions on quantum physics, political intrigue and self sacrifice.

All in the same game (a lot of the elements are only valid in the beginning). I originally skipped muv-luv after I saw the first screenshots. The first game is exactly what it looks like:



No excuses there.

But "muv-luv" is actually three parts. The first being a shitty harem story set in a high school. But after that is where it gets weird. The series does a complete turn around, going for a grim dark war story instead.



A whole lot of it will be spoiled below, so if the premise seems interesting, I'd recommend playing the game instead of reading further.

Review:
http://yandere.gray7.com/?p=620

But yeah, fuck if this was a confusing experience. Muv-luv is split into three parts: extra, ultimate and alternative.

Extra is the high school portion. Nothing too inventive at all. The protagonist is a ordinary guy who likes playing Virtual-On and slacking off. He has a female childhood friend who is obviously in love with him, almost all of his school friends are female... Then a girl from absurdly rich and powerful family shows up, moves to his house and tries to win him over. Lulz ensues.

Extra is surprisingly long, has multiple paths for all of the heroines plus some bonus endings as well. And once you’ve completed the two main storylines, ultimate is unlocked.

And that is when it goes weird. In the beginning of ultimate, the protagonist finds himself in completely different universe, one which has radically different timeline.

Yeah. Straight from campy love comedy to that. The characters from extra are all present in the alternative universe, though with altered personalities. Ultimate is about the protagonist undergoing military training, learning tactics and getting to pilot a mecha. That part of the game lasts about 10+ hours. And you won’t even get see an actual alien, or take part in a real battle.

Alternative comes after. Due to certain plot twists, you get to relive the events of ultimate and try to reach a different outcome this time. This is where the story really picks up – and turns into traditional war drama.





Muv-luv is really, really fucked up. I can’t picture anyone else than the Japanese mixing silly romantic comedy with hard-core sci-fi, war drama and tragedy.

Sometimes I wonder if the developers were intentionally fucking with the players/readers. The first 20+ hours of the game are spent in light hearted atmosphere where player gets to interact with standard anime girls. Even the beginning of alternative is a power trip where the supersoldier protagionist breezes through basic training and displays his superior piloting skills (mecha otakuness pays off in the end).



And then it grabs you by the hair, pulls you up and starts fucking you in your face. Without any prior warning.

Brutal, in your face gore on a moment that you least could expect it.

And the all-powerful super soldier turns into scared little kid who pisses his pants and has to be heavily drugged to maintain his PTSD.



From this point onwards you know that bad things are going to happen, yet you still can’t believe it. Not after spending so long a time with the false sense of security. You know that war movies operate in this way, yet you still refuse to acknowledge the possibility.

On one hand it is full of the clichés I hate, shallow and annoying characters and follows a very clear template (once you realize that which story template fits). On the other it is surprisingly well written. It provides in-universe explanation for the feasibility of giant mechas and the reduced importance of air units. There is great attention for detail and the unique history of the world is utilized throughout the story.

Quite often more time is spent on going through the plan for a combat operation than the combat itself. The pseudo-science in the story is actually backed by real physics theory (and explained to the reader). The fuckload of filler fluff turns out to be relevant at surprising parts, so you can never be sure when it is ok to skim though details.



Muv-luv is another great example on why I both hate and love Japanese entertainment at the same time. They mix things that no sensible westerner would ever do, produce the ideas with resources that no indie dev would ever have. You can never take those fuckers lightly.



P.S. Now imagine if there was actual gameplay as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gof32qAYM0

Re: Muv-luv - quantum physics, mechas, war, schoolgirl roman

Disgusting.

All I see is pauldrons!

All I see is shit.
Shit everywhere.
"Let them hear the cry of the Valkyries"
I'm sorry but I'm pretty fucking sure Odin doesn't allow weak fucking japs into Vallhalla. Also, UN = Japan in the future, I guess?

Re: Muv-luv - quantum physics, mechas, war, schoolgirl roman

You mean the mecha or the UN marking?

Haba, I you for your exemplary coming-out.

Naah. There is imperial army, the game just happens to be set on an UN base residing in Japan with predominantly Japanese cast.

Also; you'll be happy to know that real Viking descendants have all been wiped out. There is actually in game scene with a Finnish pilot who has immigrated to US.

Heh, they actually explain the size of those in one of the training sessions. Weight balancing or someshit. The mech design certainly didn't make my dick harden either.

Thanks. I still feel dirty, but someone had to do it.

There is a lot that can be learned from Alternative, weabooism aside. On engine side it shows how much a difference some small touches can make to otherwise static art (animated talking heads, scrolling backgrounds, cockpit movement etc.). Hand crafted 2D art combined with that... mmmmm...

And story wise, if you replaced the anime girls with space marines, even Awor Szurkrarz would be happy.

The pauldrons are on the school and military uniforms too

Man, you're clearly into something...





I'd be more worried about the fact that the training uniform/suit has see-through plastic parts. And even more for the fact that they actually came up with a rational excuse for making them so.

Not inclined to really deny anything you've said, after all - even I am not sure that I can say that I liked it. I do believe that there is value in having a look on what they did and having actual discussion on it.

You're spot on about anime-related (or actually most of the whole Japanese) entertainment being shallow and seemingly catered for idiots. But the funny thing is - the authors clearly are not idiots themselves. They know their physics and have read their literature (all the chapter tittles in the game are shout-outs to "hard" sci-fi books, for example).

They are balancing silly shit while maintaining rather high standard elsewhere. For example: instead of just showing lots of cool action scenes they go painstakingly through the tactics.

This precarious balance is what fascinates me. Not trying to be deep or intellectual while not becoming entirely shallow either. After reading a fuckload of hard sci-fi, historical novels and "classics" I'm more and more inclined to say that the stories themselves are not that different in the end, it is just the fluff around them that makes the difference.

And in this case the fluff it happens to be pink and highly irritating to many (myself included).

As for the shame... Shamed for what? I got something out from reading it through. Real men shouldn't be ashamed for indulging themselves in something "childish" once in a while. Doesn't make me feel any less of a man to admit it.

TL;DR

They did manage to mix in seemingly incompatible parts, creating something that you probably won't ever see done. If you can stomach the book covers, the contents might surprise you.

I sure would like to understand what makes the Japs and us westerners are so different that they are able to pull this sort of stunts off.

Re: Muv-luv - quantum physics, mechas, war, schoolgirl roman

Mecha.

Shit, I haven't noticed this was a Haba's thread.
Then I saw this:

:FFFFUUUUUUUU-:

why must it always be 16 year old high-school girls with a wide selection of tit sizes and hair color that pilots mechas?

Why does the dude have bigger tits than the chick?

So is this a game or cartoon or comic book or what? I'm confused. And since I like Rance, I guess I should get it? From where?

For me, nothing outside anime has demonstrated such promise of brilliance and so reliably proceeded to devolve into utter shit. I almost feel that there's one actually intelligent guy in japan, hiding somewhere, giving each 'promising' author an idea, only to never follow up on it ever again. The author goes on to mention the idea in passing, hints that it'll be developed later on, and then decides "Okay guys it's time for 20 episodes of panty shots, club fairs, and insight into the characters' 12-year-old minds!" Like Trash said, it's pure name-dropping, nothing more.

It's not even about ignoring the book's covers in favor of what's inside. It's about digging through cubic miles of shit in order to retrieve a gemstone the author didn't even bother to polish.

parallel universes, that's one element you miss. Once you recognize it it's not too confusing, for a multiverse setting I mean.

Extra can be considered main universe.

Hero of Ultimate remember his memories in Extra, and ultimately fail to save the world. Story ended with a 100k of earth refugees colonize a different settlement, all Earthians behind killed and died including your hero.

Alternate has Hero remember both universe but enter the world earlier than Ultimate so he can affect more. Possibly win the game if you do it right

It's interesting, if you can look past the cliches. Or ignore the anime art styles.

OH FUCK I AM POSTING ON THE CODEX MY GOOD IT IS SO COOL, A DREAM COMING TRUE BROS

It is a visual novel. A whole lot of reading, mainly. No that much interactivity and the story (in the final game) is linear with only some minor flavour scenes that you get to decide.

Biggest production values I've ever seen a visual novel though, being fully voiced, having a lot of animated scenes and effects to spice up still images.

Though certain action scenes where they use still images are rather amusing due to all the wrong reasons (the protagonist displaying his "crazy moves" - i.e. doing 360 degree flips by rotating the same image...)

The soundtrack is pretty sweet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad6c5SP48uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj-WITqo4uI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aqN_kWCaqo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9fvnSkSC90

There is not much lulz to be had in the game, if you compare to Rance. Very little sex.

Heavily influenced by Starship Troopers and Aliens, high on melodrama and filled with somewhat infantile comedy. All the worst parts of generic anime in the beginning and then the worst and best parts of epic space opera at the end.

If you want to spoil yourself completely (and can stomach the retarded addition of Aerosmith song):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBGNpaO1rn4

That is how it goes - and I admit that it is more than a little infuriating.

Pretty schizophrenic really. On one hand we have those anime hair girls acting inside their own shallow stereotypes, on the other we've got the setting where all the young men have already been drafted, life expectancy on the field is counted in minutes and casualty rates are in the upper 50's on a good day. And mankind has less than ten years left before they are utterly wiped out.

One has to consciously ignore the shit to enjoy the story itself. In this case it does help that Alternative culls down the retardation quite a bit and focuses on wannabe bromance. Kinda like Aliens with pink haired anime girls instead of grizzly marines.

If I had the moneys to waste, I'd love to hire one of those studios to make a western edition; tone down the art, reduce melodrama, add some more grit and make the characters more believable. Would be interesting experiment.

Of course nobody still would buy it 'cuz they'd still go "shitty gfx" and "reading is teh hard" (alternative alone is 50,000 lines of text).

Japaneses have the peculiar genius of fucking up a most SF-sound idea you can have.

Muv-Luv is nothing compared to AirGear. The backbone of Airgear is about a beanstalk, orbital elevator for you noobs, get abandoned and the kids in the town under it played around with the tech stuffs lying around. What you actually read is that a lot of teenage angst, harems, panty shots, coitus interruptus, half-assed rapes.

ANyway, your best bet always are on manga or games. Anime is for fags.

Coming out, Suchy? Not that I care.