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Originally Posted by Traece
The actual series.
No. All of my no. My interpretation of this series was this: "Let's put all the cliches and all of the harem we can fit into a show." I get it, cliches are cliches. They exist for a reason. Never in all of my life have I watched anything with this much cliche in it, and it not having been done for humor. All it was was minor cliche plot twists, beach scenes, harem stuff, love triangles, cliche character introductions, hotsprings scene, and everyone completely ignoring that THE WORLD IS BEING INVADED BY MANEATING ALIENS.
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I actually agree that most of the harem cliches could have been dispensed with - we all know that the OTP is Yuuya/Shiranui, afterall
. Sadly, however, this seems to be one of the realities of anime making - there seems to be a perception that without harem hijinks, you can't sell a series. In all fairness, this was a series that was supposed to have ended at episode 5 - that was all that was written in the serial novels before the decision to expand further.
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The most absolutely shocking thing about this whole anime was how many times I sat there saying to myself: "Uh, guys? You know that the planet is being invaded by maneating aliens, right?" I actually physically connected my head to my desk on multiple occasions in the last quarter of the anime because they not only hosted a tournament, the biggest cliche of any anime with action, but they did so COMPLETELY IGNORING THE ALIEN INVASION PART. There wasn't even any reason for it in relation to the BETA. They LITERALLY held it so that the TSFs could fight each other. And then the tournament was interrupted by an underground force comprised of sleeper agents assaulting the base and killing untold quantities of people (hello, Naruto!).
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With regard to the tournament, I agree that the anime could have actually presented it better. However, as regard to the whole concept - a series of combat exercises designed to evaluate the performance of the TSFs in question - it is a concept that is not only
sound, but
actually exists in the real world. It's called
RED FLAG-Alaska. And that's not getting into the fact that IRL, there are plenty of other fighter vs fighter exercises: the USAF has Red Flag at Nellis, along with the Maple Flag joint exercises with Canada, Pacific Air Forces used to run COPE THUNDER outta Clark AFB in the Phillipines, the Navy has Top Gun and Fleet Air ACM Readiness Program. It's also worth nothing that if it was a proper tournament, Bao-Feng would have been eliminated after their loss to Argos, but were next sent up against Infinities. What's really giving it the tourney feel are the mechanics and support staff of all the flights betting like there's no tomorrow.
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What do these resistance fighters want? They're refugee freedom fighters who are angry because after being displaced by the man-eating alien invaders, they've been severely mistreated by their host governments. Fair enough. Did I mention the part where their list of demands includes complaints about their spending on and "development of TSFs?" Yes, that is in fact a direct quote from the show itself. The terrorists are upset that countries of the world are spending time developing mecha to combat the BETA. During this hostile takeover the BETA mysteriously decide to do a hardcore invasion of Alaska, after the terrorists shed light on a massive line of nuclear weapons placed along the vertical length of Alaska to be detonated if the BETA get past their front lines, allowing them to recover and hopefully setup a new front line to stall them. The bad part about this is that it would result in the deaths of millions of USSR citizens displaced to Alaska, apparently. Why they would still be there when the BETA are pushing in on them I have no idea, just roll with it I guess.
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It's called drinking the kool-aid. The refugees are all worked up and aren't thinking clearly. To them, rather than spend millions on dollars on experimental TSFs that aren't hitting the battlefield, use that money on the refugees (to be fair, the RLF
does have a point on that, but they're only seeing the small picture). And frankly, I don't see any issues with their behaviour, because I've seen examples of the exact same kind of thinking IRL, up close and personal (albeit, obviously, not on the same scale).
And the mass media and the world are swept up in the narrative of "Durr hurr evil US planted nukes that will blow up half of Alaska!" C'mon, don't tell me you haven't seen this IRL, when the media and the narrative gets distorted from reality. I agree that if the BETA reach the Red Shift line, Kamchatka is lost, and that this is a plan that makes sense, but the US is sort of a favored whipping boy for the world. Note Sandek bullshitting how it's the CIA behind the RLF plan and how they brainwashed the Scarlet Twins, when he knows
damn well it's Soviet tech.
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Did I mention that this is the first time the BETA actually attack anyone since the first two episodes? Now, people who watched this anime will tell me: "But wait, Traece! They fought the BETA in Kamchatka with the Russians, who were all evil and shit!" Actually, the Russians invited the BETA in so they could steal the prototype Japanese weapon. The most significant BETA-related thing that happened in this arc is that the ex-MC (the girl from the first two episodes, who is now a wooing tsundere that wants to jump the new MCs bones despite the fact that SHE'S AN OFFICER AND THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY NOT OK) shoots one of her own mechanics to end his suffering at the hands of the only BETA that actually get to eat someone in this whole series besides the first two episodes. In fact, after the Kamchatka arc the BETA are ignored in entirety until they attack in the last three episodes, and the only reason them attacking is even a problem is because if they do too well the entire country of Alaska will literally be blown in half (which is also a complete load of crap, but whatever).
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Rogofsky's schemes aside, I'm not sure how you missed that the Soviets are barely holding on at Kamchatka, where they're facing regular incursions by BETA. They weren't inviting the BETA to Kamchatka, the BETA were making their way their of their own accord (hence the tunnels, which were dug by an earlier BETA incursion, which Rogofsky appropriated for his schemes). Your interpretation isn't entirely correct in that. Also, you're hyperboling; it won't be the entire
state of Alaska, but a section of it. (And yes, realistically speaking I doubt several thousand nukes would actually be able to do that, but you never know.)
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Besides the fact that the main plot was abandoned, did I mention some of the subplots that are abandoned? Turns out that the core module of the prototype Japanese weapon attracts the BETA when they're trying to scuttle in before the Russians get their hands on it. They're all over that thing like, err... something that really likes something else. Why? How the hell should I know? The characters barely even acknowledge the fact that the BETA really liked the core module. All they say is something to the effect of: "They're all heading for the hangar where the core module is!" That's it. Nobody asks why. It never gets brought up again.
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It doesn't get brought up again because the Core Module and the railgun are tie-ins to Alternative. Saying more would get me yet another ban for spoilers. *sighs* As for your query why the BETA would want the core module, I guess you missed out on Sanada's lecture on how the BETA are attracted to electronics? And to an extent, the railgun wasn't part of the XFJ plan, but a separate program which loaned the fruits of their work to a different RDT&E outfit for live-fire testing. XFJ's remit is to develop a new TSF to replace the Type-94. This is similar to the then developmental F-22 undergoing intergration testing with the Small Diameter Bomb; F-22s drop SDBs and then move on to do other things, because the SDB is being developed by a different team. Do you demand that the Lockheed-Martin's F-22 team continue work on the SDB? No, because it's Raytheon who're supposed to work on the SDB.
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Then there's the last two episodes which are focused on the obviously supernatural girls that were obviously engineered by the Russians as some sort of human experiment. They release some weird superweapon thing (they become newtypes, basically) and then some weird shit happens and they kill this guy who tried to mind control them (like I said: newtypes), and then they put themselves in his TSF and it starts glowing and becomes all badass and shit and the girls start killing all the BETA and then assaulting their friends (nobody dies, of course. Have to keep that harem strong!). This all stops when Yuuya, one of maybe four characters in this whole anime with a backstory that includes exposition, takes a gamble a fakes being killed. This snaps the psychotic psychic Russian girls out of their murder spree because they love him so much because he has a nice "color," (Inia's words, not mine). The BETA get bombed. The U.S. military swoops in and murders whatever terrorists didn't kill themselves (yeah, they all commit suicide when the BETA start overrunning the base because they basically fucked everything up and destroyed their reputations). The end. There's never any exposition about the girls. They show up, kick some ass from time to time, and then they're the primary antagonist at the very, very end, for about half an episode.
Incidentally, that's the end. They save the Russian supertwins, and then the BETA get bombed, and mostly off-screen infantry shoot the terrorists.
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*shrug* Different cups of tea, perhaps? I didn't really have a problem with this. As for the terrorists attacking Yukon, they're are made of two factions: The Refugee Liberation Front, which is attacking to make a political statement and demand better treatment for the refugees, and Allegiance, a radical cult that worships BETA and believes in killing everyone and letting the BETA inherit the earth. Allegiance manipulated the RLF into launching the attack and setting all the BETA stored at Yukon free (the US was conducting research into the BETA there, and they're not the only ones - sidestory Rebirth notes that there are a great many BETA labs of similar size in North Africa). Then, when the RLF members had a change of heart, the Allegiance operatives shoot them down, then commit suicide so that all the blame will be laid at the feet of the RLF, causing that group to become even more marginalised, as it's outlived its usefulness to Allegiance. The Allegiance operatives don't want to be taken alive for interrogation, because if they're interrogated, it'll become known who was actually responsible for this shit going down.
But evidently, you missed that.
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Most of the time spent in this anime was drama. Drama with the male MC being resistant to his Japanese superior because he's a Japanese-American during the "cold war" perior and people were racist to him (kudos to them for giving him a believable backstory, by the way). Drama with the prototype project. Drama with the Russians. Drama with his past. Drama with his old rival. Drama with the Americans. Drama with terrorists. Sure, there was action, and honestly the action wasn't bad at all. Most of the time was spent elsewhere, however, and elsewhere was not very interesting. Elsewhere was cliche to no end, and lacking in depth and importance. I'm going to be honest here: I would have been less bothered by all of this if the main plot, the BETA invasion, had actually been part of the story. So much time was spent ignoring what had been setup as the story, that I found it hard to care about all the other crap going on. I literally felt like the only person that had concern for their world.
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That's because, like Macross Plus, this isn't a big war story: this is a personal story set against the backdrop of war. Macross Plus was about a love triangle and estranged friends reconciling; Total Eclipse is about Yuuya coming to terms with his issues and growing up.
As I've said before, if I were to sum up the franchise as a series of
Armor-Piercing Questions, Extra asks the question,
"Who do I love?" Unlimited asks the question
"How do I survive?" Alternative asks,
"How do I overcome?"
Total Eclipse's question is more personal:
"Who am I?"
Because really, if you're going to criticise Total Eclipse for focusing on the personal drama, then you ought to do the same for Macross Plus - there's a war going on out there, both Isamu and Guld have significant combat time, and the whole
point of AVF was because the VF-11 can't hack it anymore.
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Story: I give the story a 3/10.
You can not introduce a main plot with the sole purpose of establishing a sub plot. If you want the main plot to be the sub plot, make it that. Don't spend two episodes doing a fantastic job of drawing viewers into this dark and bloody conflict, and then completely and entirely ignore it so that you can have harems and fanservice and beach parties. Just, no. The only reason I don't give this a whopping 1/10, is because the one time they really focus on the main plot, they do a fantastic job. For those of you who want to tell me that the JSF project was actually the main plot and that human-eating alien invaders that have taken over most of the planet are a sub plot, I invite you to think hard about that prospect.
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As I've said above, the same criticism applies to Macross Plus. Sets up that there's a dangerous universe out there and shit hits the fan regularly and the UN Spacy needs a new Valkyrie... and then it's about solving past issues and a love triangle. And yet Macross Plus is so acclaimed. Huh.
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Mecha design: Surprisingly enough, not that bad. It's not subscribing to the Real Robot genre, obviously, so I wont nail it for the designs having little to no purpose or explanation. The designs themselves are pretty interesting, and the vast majority of the TSFs shown have a very military appearance. There's nothing particularly outlandish or strange going on here. At the same time, however, there's not a lot of variety in the designs themselves. The function of the different designs also varied based on culture and military preferences for the different countries. China and Japan had maneuverable TSFs with more melee focus, the Russians had heavier TSFs that appeared to emphasize brute force and had chainsaws on them (Chainsaws. Not gonna lie, pretty cool stuff there), and the U.S... Well, the only TSF from the U.S. that gets some real emphasis is that of the "old friends of male MC participating in the tournament." It's called the F-22 Raptor, and it emphasizes stealth. Man. What a shocker... The design for the Raptor was actually pretty cool, except for the fact that the characters say and I quote directly: "It was designed for fighting other TSFs." MAN-EATING ALIENS, HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THEM?! The Chinese TSF was pretty nice looking as well. My favorite was the Type-00 Japanese TSF used by the female MC as her perk of being from a noble family and part of the Imperial Royal Guard. The Type-00 is barely used but it's golden (in a surprisingly un-tacky way) and it looks pretty cool. I give the design a 6/10.
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In all fairness to the Raptor, the reason everyone goes on and on about how it's meant to fight other TSFs is due to its stealth features and low-observable RCS. As a practical matter, its combat performance is greatly superior to the Eagle, which is pretty much the mainstay anti-BETA TSF of the world. It's just that, sadly, every canon depiction of the F-22 in combat, aside from Total Eclipse, has been against human foes.
But yes, on the whole, Muv-Luv has some rather interesting and unique mecha designs.
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Alien Design: Helloooo Blue Gender. The BETA vary significantly in design from type to type. There are several types of beta ranging from soldiers, grapplers, lasers, fortresses, and a couple others. Only three of them are regularly utilized, and these three appear in armies consisting of themselves alone. In the three instances of combat with the BETA over the course of the 25 episodes this anime ran, almost all of that time is spent with those characters engaging one specific form of BETA. I forget what that BETA was called, but it's the one with the armored shell that basically charges at them. The other common foe is the soldier, which is some weirdo grotesque looking thing. The third most common is the grappler which was the BETA of choice whenever someone was going to get eaten. The laser-type BETA is some kind of weirdo midget with big eyes that fires lasers, mainly at aircraft (it doesn't even fire lasers out of its eyes, strangely enough). These are considered in-story to be the most difficult foe to contend with and basically implied to be the reason that the BETA are winning. This is actually held up as true, over the course of the series. There's also this giant Fort-class BETA that's supposed to be really tough. The one time it actually appears in battle it dies after three shots from the bombshell Swede. Well... OK then. The designs themselves are interesting and there's definitely a variety of different beasties. The combat-type BETA meant to run in and kill shit seem to serve much of the same purpose and have little to differentiate them in terms of usefulness. The only time they're really very interesting is those two scenes where they eat people. I'd say 6/10.
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Regards the Fort dying, refer
my thoughts here. Tl;dr, Fort-kun was hit with six 120mm HE shells in the head and shoulder, which are major arteries, and that's before the shells detonated. Wound trauma was probably sufficient to kill it.
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Overall score: 4/10. This anime had a lot of potential if it had been run like the first two episodes. If it had kept that Blue Gender meets FMP! style they had at the start it would have been amazing! Unfortunately after the first two episodes they instead focused on making it cliche, and force-feeding a really terrible harem.
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To be honest, I agree that they should have spent significantly less time on the harem and more on the development side; it
is possible to make an engaging story about test pilots. Afterall, it's been done already with
The Right Stuff.
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