Total Eclipse - Episode 1-2 Discussion / Poll

[Hagoshod]

Again, you're trying to make the argument that Total Eclipse is some brilliantly original special snowflake that needs the first two episodes to make the plot make sense. Because nobody in the world is already familiar with this genre of science fiction and they would be hopelessly lost if they started from episode 3 with just some general worldbuilding.

And that idea is not even remotely valid.

If painstakingly illustrating Yui's entire backstory (which wasn't even an intended part of her character in the books, but whatever) is that important to you, then at least hold it off as a flashback later in the series like they do with Felicia in Sora no Woto. That way it would at least fit in the overall narrative context.

[Darthtabby]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Eps. 1-2 together function as an introduction to the Muv-Luv franchise and Total Eclipse specifically. As someone who never played the games (or really even knew what they were) before this anime series came along, it's nice to have them here. To be dropped directly into the main story without any idea of what BETA are or humanity's dire situation would just leave me scratching my head, and the alternative would be to stop adapting the LN events now and again for pointless infodumping to keep from losing the newbies. If the point of the Total Eclipse anime is to raise overall awareness of the franchise in the public and draw positive attention, the last thing the show would want to do is present itself as "Hey, here's this mecha show that doesn't make a damn bit of sense unless you've been following the franchise for years."

So the question is, then, does it work as an introduction? Largely, it does. That is to say, after two episodes, I'm now aware that BETA are really scary and ick, that death is a brutal reality anyone can face at any time, and that there's a reasonable in-universe reason why "real-world" military machinery has been replaced with mecha. Similarly, I'm now aware that there are significant differences between Muv-Luv's Japan and RL Japan. And Episode 1, while it's not immediately obvious, helped to show off some of Yui's steeped-in-Imperial-samurai-warrior-culture background that we've already seen the significance of in her character interactions in Episode 4, alongside the more brutal experiences in Episode 2.

I feel a bit bad for dragging Dezo into this, but yeah, I'd say the argument that newcomers needed a good introduction to the setting is valid.

And since an introduction to numerous important aspects of the setting was necessary if the show was going to be accessible to newcomers, I think the show did a pretty good job of not only covering them, but doing so in an involving fashion.

[Hagoshod]

What "numerous important aspects"?

A bunch of previous gen designs that are immediately retired thanks to the timeskip?
A team of dead mecha pilots that are never mentioned in the main plot even in passing? (should have Mellowlink'd that shit, btw)
Introducing the viewer to different BETA strains that could easily be written into the Russia arc and/or any of simulation scenes anyway?
Yuuhi, Yui's uncle, Kyoko the mysterious Takemi prototype pilot girl, and however many other political background-type characters who get single scene introductions in the prologue but don't exist outside the context of Japan and have nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the show?

Tell me what's so special in the first two episodes that causes the rest of the show to fall apart if you take them out.

[Wild Goose]

Y'know, something that's been niggling at my mind for a while, which I am genuinely curious about; if this entire show, setting and premise distresses you so much, why do you continue to torture yourself so?

And again, IMO it's rather hypocritical to refuse to accept the artistic vision of the production crew when you yourself so ardently defend your artistic vision. Just a thought. Consider that your ang pow for Chinese New Year.*


*Chinese Lunar New Year custom; giving red packets called ang pow to anyone who's unmarried. Strictly speaking, anyone who is married must give these out, and anyone who's single can receive ang pow. Typically, ang pow will contain a small sum of money, though the amounts inside will vary based on giver's financial ability and how much they like the recipient.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Y'know, something that's been niggling at my mind for a while, which I am genuinely curious about; if this entire show, setting and premise distresses you so much, why do you continue to torture yourself so?

Because whenever someone says the way the Total Eclipse anime starts out is a perfectly acceptable way to write your first episode, it's effectively saying newer shows should follow the same awful example. It's the same problem I have with people who allowed Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 to happen.

And again, the difference between the TE anime writers and me is I at least make up my mind ahead of time when I'm writing brainless shock value garbage. I don't try to analyze Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the same level as The Dark Knight or Watchmen because Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is intentionally not trying to operate on that level. Total Eclipse started out with one of the ballsiest and legitimately suspenseful mecha series premieres I've seen in a while, but then it abruptly goes "oh nevermind we're going to stop trying, so here's some HILARIOUS catgirl maid cosplay" the moment it hits the timeskip. If you're not going to go all the way, then you're just throwing random out of place darkness into your script.

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

I'm now aware that BETA are really scary and ick, that death is a brutal reality anyone can face at any time

Except it's not. It's only a reality that exists in the first two episodes.

Once you get to episode 3, the only characters who are ever in any grave danger from the BETA are the cardboard background extras. Yeah, there's the one episode of Yui trapped in the bunker with the techie guy that tries to recreate the Kyoto atmosphere, but that's the exception to the rule. I actually did like that episode and thought it was nice to see how she's grown as a character, but it's effectively a tiny speck of gold in a giant pile of shit.

The whole idea that the situation is constantly hopeless and anyone can die at any moment is _obliterated_ when the show's post-timeskip batch of main characters spend most of their time goofing around in VR simulations, lounging around on beaches, and showing off their dazzling flying skillz at high altitude where they're completely free of any consequences of Laser classes roaming around. When they DO rarely participate in actual battle, they all share insane levels of plot armor and there's never any illusion that any of them could actually die. Gee, that's convenient. If they had just made that creative decision an episode earlier, Yui's first group friends wouldn't have been wiped out and I could have watched a show with a cast of characters I actually care about.

[Darthtabby]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

What "numerous important aspects"?

Dezo's post talked about the important things the first two episodes covered, and I touched on one of the really important ones in one of my previous posts as well.

The really important point about Dezo's post however is that he was one of the newcomers whom the first two episodes were written to provide an introduction for. And apparently he appreciated the episodes, thought they generally did a good job of introducing important aspects of the setting (minus a few issues he didn't think were properly explained -I'll admit to cutting that part for brevity) and thought he'd have been lost without them. I'd say this indicates that the writers and director chose a good approach.

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

Except it's not. It's only a reality that exists in the first two episodes.

Once you get to episode 3, the only characters who are ever in any grave danger from the BETA are the cardboard background extras. Yeah, there's the one episode of Yui trapped in the bunker with the techie guy that tries to recreate the Kyoto atmosphere, but that's the exception to the rule. I actually did like that episode and thought it was nice to see how she's grown as a character, but it's effectively a tiny speck of gold in a giant pile of shit.

The whole idea that the situation is constantly hopeless and anyone can die at any moment is _obliterated_ when the show's post-timeskip batch of main characters spend most of their time goofing around in VR simulations, lounging around on beaches, and showing off their dazzling flying skillz at high altitude where they're completely free of any consequences of Laser classes roaming around. When they DO rarely participate in actual battle, they all share insane levels of plot armor and there's never any illusion that any of them could actually die. Gee, that's convenient. If they had just made that creative decision an episode earlier, Yui's first group friends wouldn't have been wiped out and I could have watched a show with a cast of characters I actually care about.

Talk about massive exaggeration. There are a lot more episodes dealing with life and death situations than there are beach episodes. And a lot of the slower episodes have their own share of drama and character/relationship development.

But yeah, I guess the series does labor under the limitation that it can't kill any main characters its ongoing source material hasn't killed off yet, same as a lot of adaptations. Given this limitation I thought the show did a decent job of creating tension. I know I certainly enjoyed watching Die Hard on Yukon base.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

The really important point about Dezo's post however is that he was one of the newcomers whom the first two episodes were written to provide an introduction for. And apparently he appreciated the episodes, thought they generally did a good job of introducing important aspects of the setting (minus a few issues he didn't think were properly explained -I'll admit to cutting that part for brevity) and thought he'd have been lost without them. I'd say this indicates that the writers and director chose a good approach.

"One person said they thought it was good, therefore you must be wrong when you say it's bad."

That's the argument you're making right now.

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

I know I certainly enjoyed watching Die Hard on Yukon base.

Too bad I was saying the problem is the BETA just utterly stop being a credible threat after the timeskip. Yes, the last few episodes have things of some sort happening, but the main conflict they try so hard get you to care about is the human terrorist plot to take over the base. The BETA become full-time supporting villains in a story that started out by drilling you on how the BETA are the single most vile, dangerous threat to the human race. I tried to indicate this earlier when I used my trying-to-be-Ribbons-Almark comparison, but the show totally loses me when goes off on some bullshit Cold War espionage tangent and never comes back.

I don't give a shit about Master.
I don't give a shit about Master throwing the dagger at the map of Yokohama.
I don't give a shit about Master's fleet of automated Robo-TSFs.
I don't give a shit about Master's magical Innovade ability to brainwash Cryska and Inia.
I'm a LITTLE concerned over Master ordering the assassination hit on Yui, but that's just because the first two episodes trained me to empathize with Yui and associate her as the main heroine of the story.

There is nothing you can do to get me invested in the conflict with Master because in the back of my head I'm just sitting there constantly going "Uhhh.... so we're going back to that whole thing about aliens eating everyone in Japan at some point, right?"

And yeah, I know the VNs have the coup d'etat arc and human vs. human conflicts in Muv-Luv aren't a new thing and that's what everyone is comparing this to. Here's the thing, though: One, I hated the coup d'etat arc for many of the same reasons (on topic of slamming the plot into a brick wall for two hours and forcing some really obnoxious hamfisted anti-America xenophobia down your throat). Two, as bad as I thought it was, at least the coup d'etat came in the middle of the bigger picture and the writers remembered "Hey, oh yeah, we still have that giant looming alien threat thing we introduced earlier we need to resolve" and the Marimo stuff kicked off right after that.

And again, this is all due to the first two episodes of the anime being completely out of place as the introduction to the TE story. If the beginning of the series had simply spent its time setting up that we were watching a show about test pilots doing test things on a test base and built up its own villains from there, I wouldn't have anything else on my mind and the whole problem would have been avoided.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

"One person said they thought it was good, therefore you must be wrong when you say it's bad."

That's the argument you're making right now.

The hypocrisy in this is so amusing - because isn't that what your entire argument also boils down to?

"Hagoshod says he thinks it wad bad, therefore everyone must be wrong when they say it's good."

No need to thank me. You might wanna do something about the log in your own eye before going after specks of dust in other peoples' eyes.

I'm a LITTLE concerned over Master ordering the assassination hit on Yui, but that's just because the first two episodes trained me to empathize with Yui and associate her as the main heroine of the story.

And you don't think that's significant? As I've said before, without the prologue, it's much harder to be sympathetic to Yui, or to understand her position and where she's coming from.

But from what I've seen, this is essentially a major stumbling block for you. You obviously feel very strongly sbout it. That's fine. That's your right. Likewise, we don't feel as strongly about this as you.

In no way does that make your opinion gospel, no matter how much you insist on ramming your opinions down on others, as though your opinion were fact.

You have the right to your opinion, and we have the right to disagree with you, and your blatant misrepresentation of your own opinion as fact.

[Darthtabby]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

"One person said they thought it was good, therefore you must be wrong when you say it's bad."

That's the argument you're making right now.

You claimed the idea that newcomers needed the introduction to the setting the first two episodes provided wasn't "even remotely valid." By quoting a newcomer who felt the episodes provided a good introduction that he would have been lost without, I proved that the idea was indeed valid.

I may have gotten a touch carried away saying that indicates that the writer and director were doing a good job, but even that's technically true.

And again, this is all due to the first two episodes of the anime being completely out of place as the introduction to the TE story. If the beginning of the series had simply spent its time setting up that we were watching a show about test pilots doing testing things on a test base and built up its own villains from there, I wouldn't have anything else on my mind and the whole problem would have been avoided.

I didn't find the first two episodes out of place at all. I thought they were a great introduction to the setting and to one of the main characters, and I thought it was great that they told their own story while at the same time serving the larger story of TE by providing important background information that newcomers would have been lost without.

Does this mean you need to like the first two episodes? Not in the least. But you aren't going to convince me that your disliking the episodes means that they were poorly written.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

And you don't think that's significant?

Apparently the writers didn't think it was. As you stated earlier, Total Eclipse becomes "Yuuya Bridges' personal story" after the timeskip. Yui's just there to play second romantic interest fiddle.

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

by providing important background information that newcomers would have been lost without.

You have yet to answer my question on what exactly is in the first two episodes that is required to understanding the plot of a bunch of unrelated test pilots in a completely unrelated location.

[Alastor Mobius Toth]

I dunno....how about the entire background of the show, the technology and background of at least one major character?


I assume, this is in no way, shape or form relevant? At all? Oh wait, it already passed over your head multiple times, sorry about that.
The BETA are always there. They are not always there, or don't take the spotlight....but I assume you had missed the entire VR simulation that's consistently used during trainings. Or you know, the whole Kamchatka arc.

Without the pilot, how would audience know that Yui gets send to Alaska? It shows that Japan is getting *epically* fucked, and it needs all the help it gets, despite being the same old xenophobic nutcase it was in 1930s, it also gives us *some* idea why Prominence was started in the first place (I'm guessing some people, you know, missed the whole map showing overrun Eurasia in the beginning).

And then, there's the Type-94 Mk.C and Type-00

At the very least, they both get introduced during the pilots, and both are relevant to the show. Because you know...Type-94 C is exactly the thing they're working on? Because Japan is loosing?

And that if they fail, well...the rest of Japan ends up like Kyoto?

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like a fairly useful spin. "Here, we're getting eaten by bugs because our army has shitty equipment and kids as soldiers. So let's solve one of this problems by developing something better than Geki- and Zuika-shit. Oh hey, is that the prototype TSF we had seen in the pilot? And the one girl that survived and was established as being savvy about TSF mechanics? Why don't we send her to world's biggest research center and go from there?"

If there really was a problem with the pilot is that they skipped the whole Yui-briefing scene in Japan. And that they didn't kill those schoolgirls fast enough.

Is it the best pilot around? No, it's not, but it's not horrible either. It tries to merge two very diverging points; to both showcase the main points of the franchise and lead into a very tight-tangent side story. It does reasonably well at this.

Admittedly, the problem of the Total Eclipse is that it was always meant to be a side-story to main VN. Schwarzemarken would have been better, all things considered....but that isn't finished yet.

For the sake of the thread, I will refrain from discussing the argument that Haggy over there is a monumental hypocrite and is desperately hoping that we can convince him to like this show through liberal application of reverse psychology and foot-stomping while shouting at everyone that disagrees with him.


...I-I just did discuss it, didn't I?

Whelp.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by Alastor Mobius Toth

I assume, this is in no way, shape or form relevant?

But I'm not asking how the first two episodes are relevant. I'm asking why people think two whole episodes, which revolve around Yui's backstory that's not even part of the source material and a bunch of side characters who don't exist outside of the Japan plot, are required at the beginning of the series to get the plot of the TV show to work.

That's the argument that I think is pretentious as hell because, again, you're essentially saying Muv-Luv is the first story to ever involve a bug war and we would be utterly hopeless and lost in the storyline if they opened the show with anything other than a disproportionately drawn out 1-hour history lesson. I have some major objections to that.

Do you know what kind of setting Gundam X takes place in? A horrifying post-apocalyptic environment where a ridiculous percentage of humanity has already been wiped out by the mass extinction event that ended the previous war.

Do you know who one of Gundam X's supporting characters is? A socially distant war veteran haunted by massive survivor's guilt and his perceived failure as a child soldier during the war.

Do you know how the first episode of Gundam X opens? Narrator generally explaining there was this war and a fuckton of people died, *smash cut to opening credits introducing viewer to the proper main cast*, *transition to modern time with the relevance of the opening prologue being gradually explained through Jamil's flashbacks and character development over the course of the series.* It also helps that many of the elements of Jamil's backstory (Lancerow, the Lorelei girl, various fanatical Newtype experiments, etc.) are at least things the show's main cast are also directly exposed to.

Do you know what Gundam X DOESN'T do? Introduce the series with several full-length episodes shoving Jamil's entire war era backstory down your throat in one take with no subtlety or sense of pacing before randomly jumping 15 years into the future and suddenly turning it into Garrod's story. Yeah, that type of introduction WOULD work if the entire point of the show was to be a brutal, in-your-face account of Jamil's psychological misery, but it's not. If they DID do that, it would completely misrepresent what the main crux of the show is about and anyone invested in seeing Jamil as the teenage main character going through shit in the Seventh Space War would be left behind. And that's exactly what the Total Eclipse anime's problem is.

Yeah, the comparison isn't spot-on since Gundam X doesn't have bugs that eat you, but fuck me if Jamil and Anime Yui aren't polar opposite examples on how to write that type supporting character. For everything Jamil's character pulls off well, Yui's character does it catastrophically poorly.

[Darthtabby]

Even when they aren't being confronted directly, the BETA make their presence felt in TE. This series revolves around building weapons to fight BETA, and characters who were affected by fighting BETA, and people who are fighting for the sake of refugees who were mistreated after being dislocated by BETA. I find it quite easy to see how audience members could feel they were missing something if they were simply told "the BETA are scary and inhuman and relentless" as opposed to being given a glimpse of how the BETA are scary and inhuman and relentless. Showing is more effective than telling.

Ditto the stuff with Imperial Japan. I can easily see the audience feeling like they were missing something if the show just said "this is Yui, she's from the Imperial Japanese Army." Thankfully the show gave us a brief glimpse of the Imperial Japan that Yui comes from and which has greatly shaped her outlook on the world.

Speaking of Yui, there was a prologue type thing someone translated that I think comes from one of the fandisks. In it, Yui participates in a simulation where powerful new weapons are deployed during a hive assault. Before its revealed that the event is a simulation, the text basically explains that Yui can keep it together despite extreme psychological stress because of her will. The anime can't simply state things like that, and even if it could, simply saying that she has a strong will is vastly less effective than showing that she's the type of person who can find the will to keep fighting even after seeing her friends and comrades get crushed, blown up, and eaten around her.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

I find it quite easy to see how audience members could feel they were missing something if they were simply told "the BETA are scary and inhuman and relentless"

And the same audience ISN'T going to feel like they're missing something when the show suddenly drops everything and stops constantly showing the BETA are scary and relentless?

No, really. Explain to me why your logic doesn't work both ways here.

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

as opposed to being given a glimpse of how the BETA are scary and inhuman and relentless.

There.

That right there.

Now you're the one practically saying outside of ONLY the first two episodes, the BETA are never actually shown as being as scary, inhuman, and relentless monsters in the course of the series and we only ever see them in passing glimpses.

So what the hell is the point of spending the entire introduction of your series establishing an idea and a particular writing tone if it's never going to be part of the actual story? I could write a movie that opens with a beautiful haunting rendition of the fall of the Roman empire, but the effort would be completely wasted if the entire rest of the movie suddenly became a modern slapstick comedy.

[Wild Goose]

For me, I found that the prologue's depiction of the BETA worked, because whenever the BETA showed up later in the series, such as the sim runs, it allowed me to fill in the blanks (for example, Yuuya's sim run in Ep. 4 with the Fubuki, with Argos watching his back), or during the TSFiA stills in Episode 8.

Really, Hagoshod/Abicion/Whatever you want to call yourself today, I will repeat: your argument essentially boils down to the same thing you accused Darthtabby:

You disliked this element of Total Eclipse and considered it bad, so bad that it destroyed the series; therefore everyone else who didn't mind, who found it okay, who managed to enjoy the series, is wrong.

But by all means, feel free to ignore the log in your own eye.

Please do continue to wallow in your hypocrisy; you have my gratitude, good hack of a sir, for providing me with a form of entertainment akin to the trainwreck that is Barisan Nasional's self-denial and Malaysian politics. XD

[NoemiChan]

Just my opinion... The first two episodes of MLATE nearly made me dropped the series..... I'm so picky in watching an all female cast anime... and these two made me felt that.... what saved this series is Yuuya.. yeah.. Yuuya.... he and Yui really clicked IMHO.

There are many situations that only a real man could do for a girl....

[Alastor Mobius Toth]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

That's the argument that I think is pretentious as hell because, again, you're essentially saying Muv-Luv is the first story to ever involve a bug war and we would be utterly hopeless and lost in the storyline if they opened the show with anything other than a disproportionately drawn out 1-hour history lesson. I have some major objections to that.

And that line of thinking is not pretentious either? Do you seriously assume that everyone automatically is familiar with genre of Bug War?

Wait, that's not pretentious. It's just arrogant.


Also, Kamtchatka arc? Because, that's totally not there to bring BETA back into picture with vengeance. It's really not! I mean...that...red...blob...things...eating little Kazakh child soldiers, that's totally a background noise! Yeah! Don't pay attention to that! At all!

Or the wave of BETA tearing through Alaska either! It's not there, and it's certainly not made out of BETA!

And I'll skip the fact that all of this is pretty much consistent with the style of the VNs, where BETA are fought at all the grand 4 points in the main story.

The way I see it, the entire argument boils down to you being convinced of certain point, and throwing a temper tantrum like a little kid when people don't agree with you. If this can be interpreted in any other way, then you might want to work on your phrasing.

It's really fine to dislike something (I would know, I do it myself sometime), it's not fine to lash out at the people who think to the contrary, while falling back on hypocritical arguments.

@Goose

Can't be as funny as writing an essay on Malaysian dynasties.

[Wild Goose]

I'd just note that arrogance is when one is prideful and can back it up (e.g. Yuuya, Maverick, Snake, Bob Lee Swagger, Ripple Creek mercs). Conceit is when one is prideful and can't back it up (Le Mieure, Giselle, Hagoshod).

Both terms are generally used synonymously, but there's that subtle distinction.

@AMT: You have to write about Malaysian dynasties? Seriously? My heart bleeds for you, man. Though it is kinda lol. Incidentally, one of our "major literary works", the Sejarah Melayu (Malay History), was commissioned by the Johore Sultanate as a take that to the Malacca Sultanate, which spawned the Perak and Selangor royalties, which are unrelated to the Johor Royalty of that time, who're actually descended from the Bendahara (Grand Vizier/Premier) who took over after the Sultan died.

[wavehawk]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

it's rather hypocritical to refuse to accept the artistic vision of the production crew when you yourself so ardently defend your artistic vision.

- But that's what people do ALL THE TIME. When they complain that a movie should end diffrently, or a game ended in a way they hated thus is bad, and they continously claime they can do better (but never do).

Hypocrisy is endemic to the human condition. There's rules everyone else should follow but you yourself are exempt from those same rules.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by wavehawk

and they continously claime they can do better (but never do).

oh, really?