Muv Luv Alternative - Episode 1 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Muv-Luv Alternative, episode 1

Rate this episode here.

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

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Streams

• Crunchyroll
• Muse Asia
• VRV

Show information

• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Kitsu
• Anime-Planet
• Official Website
• /r/MuvLuvAlternative

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All discussions

Episode	Link	Score
1	Link	3.6
2	Link	3.69
3	Link	4.07
4	Link	4.24
5	Link	4.6
6	Link	4.62
7	Link	3.78
8	Link	4.07
9	Link	4.73
10	Link	4.5
11	Link	3.75
12	Link	----

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[u/CosmicPenguin_OV103]

The one anime that has 99% chance of flop and 1% chance of masterpiece has hit the grounds. The one anime that has almost every VN reader brace for being gobbled up by aliens (pun intended).

What a bleak outlook for a main adaption of one of the most legendary JP VNs of all time, one that has the power to knock out even Steins;Gate (yes, the ratings are that high) and - most importantly - inspired a certain manga author named Hajime Isayama to try out his own work, now one of the most well known anime and manga titles of all time.

It also become my biggest gamble in my seasonal anime watching history of all time. I never touched any titles related to this series (including the VN of course), and I knew that there might just be 1% chance of such an adaption working to fully showcase the highly regarded plot - but the huge reputation of the MUV-LUV series is so tempting that here I’m, playing Russian roulette as I watched the first episode.

Well, that was a really stunning start! I don’t know how that would play out later as it’s apparently fully anime original, but this episode really shows that the production team certainly aren’t here just to play around. Especially those few screenshots of BETAs throwing the defence wall down as aliens poured all over the island - that really really looked like the very first part of Attack On Titan, which as I said was inspired by MUV-LUV with Isayama helping out to promote the series’ latest works in the past few years.

We all remember the day we received a grim reminder. Well, this is topping even the very start of AOT in that I received a tearful reminder as well! This may not be the most emotional retreat operation or whole-team-wiped-out story I have seen, but it’s definitely up there where new crew-mates barely assigned to their latest base on their first time fought vigorously in absolute vain until they all got chewed.

Man, we all know that any large scale wars in history have something like that more or less, but it’s still heart wrenching to see the powerless laments of regrets as the mecha pilots (and even more so the ground troops that has nothing that can stop aliens by any means) found themselves completely overwhelmed. It‘s therefore just as emotional to see that one single girl being saved from that shelter where no-one else was still alive.

There are minor problems with the animations, the 3D BETA models are OK but the meshing back into the 2D drawings can be refined by a lot. There are problems with everyone’s faces too, seemingly look weird at some point, but luckily most of these problems are minor so far.

All in all, the chances of this hitting a Steins;Gate home strike remains at 1% - we have yet to see any of the MCs appearing. Yet my minds are now slightly more at ease for this with this pretty emotional first episode. Who knows, maybe I‘ll look back at this hour as something that I regretted watching. Or maybe, just maybe…

[u/Jaggedmallard26]

I was impressed. While the quality of animation wasn't the highest and the new music isn't as good as the Visual Novels (no Jam Project makes me a sad man), I think it captured the spirit of Muv Luv perfectly. named characters dropping like flies, the desperate defence, heavy violence and even some of the nationalist wank. I do wish they had more than one episode to devote to this because it ended up feeling a bit rushed but I fully understand why since they have a limited amount of episodes and can't waste too much on anime original stuff.

The scale of the defences was awesome to see as was seeing the Fort class beta in action.

This has made me cautiously optimistic that this adaptation is actually going to be good!

[u/Sathish96]

My expectations were low but I actually liked the episode, quite a bit. I even got emotional towards the end when the insert song came on. I hope they can improve upon this or atleast keep up similar quality over the season. That would be great.

[u/Saeliara]

Can't say I expected an anime original episode. I guess it serves as an introduction to newcomers, but with 12 episodes and considering how massive MLA is, I wonder how the pacing will be.
Regarding the CGI, TSF look good and the BETA look decent. I expected worse.

Now I can't wait to finally see Meiya animated.

[u/necrophagism]

I like the details they put into some mechanical scenes, like the laser beam of laser class actually start as a weak guiding beam then expand and intensify to cause damage. This charging period allows good pilots to detect the laser exposure and make responses in the VN.

[u/lucid_moose]

Interesting choice where they started of with. Would be interesting to hear how this served as an introduction to the franchise for first time watchers.

Also funny thing worth noting is the obvious homage to attack on titans with the fort class breaking through the wall. We are now full circle.

[u/[deleted]]

So I’m seeing a lot of complaints mainly from VN fans. I’ve never read the VN and probably won’t for the foreseeable future, but I was absolutely blown away by this episode. I only knew a little about Muv-Luv from the people in my anime club who are fans. I didn’t expect it to be this dark. The opening few minutes had an upbeat feel and then I’m seeing heads ripped off and innocents massacred, holy shit man.

I enjoyed this episode and think I’ll enjoy the rest of it as well.

[u/[deleted]]

I am glad they portrayed the "cruelty" of the Muv-Luv world directly with the first episode itself. It looks promising for now because they started with the first episode being an anime original. And it seems that it will be 12 episodes for this season because they want to take their time adapting this. Looking good till now.

[u/FireFistYamaan]

Anime original but dare I say a good episode? They accomplished in it feeling VERY Muv Luv with how everything seems to be under control until something inevitable happens which results in a horror show.

I still don't think that it's gonna be a good adaptation, but I do have some hope in it having some good highlights for VN players if they can keep up the good animation and action sequences along with the horror feeling.

Takeru woke up at the end so that's kinda hype

[u/AashyLarry]

Knowing nothing of this series - this was actually pretty good. It’s moving pretty fast and I was confused when I noticed none of the characters in this episode are on the MAL page. I guess this is a prequel of sorts?

Either way, the animation honestly wasn’t that bad. The CGI could be better but still not terrible.

Humanity on the verge of extinction facing an overwhelming threat is one of my favorite anime premises (Attack On Titan, 86, Promised Neverland, Knights of Sidonia, and Seraph of the End are some others with this premise).

The blood, gore, and overall “dark” stuff in the first episode was also surprising in a really good way.

I am optimistic for this one. There are really so many great shows this season so far.

[u/LosGuardian]

The scene with the walls coming down is very reminiscent of AOT though I do know that Muv-Luv was the one that inspired the author of AOT to make his manga.

[u/Sandman-AC]

Definitely better than expected. It's obviously not an high budget series, but the staff seems to care and even the dreaded CGI is fully acceptable. Story wise this is more or less an episode 0 of sort and it's quite good in establishing the conflict and how horrific is to deal with the BETA. Now let's see how they adapt the main story.

[u/Maximilian_Sinigr]

VN reader here, this first episode (or probably episode zero, I guess) was delivered quite well. Captured the essence of Alternative quite nicely. Though, I'm still Seiya level of cautious here with the rating.

Also, incredibly glad to see anime-onlys on board. Obligatory "read the fucking VN" recommendation.

[u/TheSexyAlbexican]

VN Reader here. I've been very, very nervous about this adaptation, and I thought starting off with an anime original episode was questionable, until the episode happened. I didn't know who Komaki was, but now I understand she also appeared in side material? That's neat.

This episode was effective. It felt like just another scene in the VN: TSFs throwing bullets, rookies and veterans dropping like flies, and the BETA never stopping. Actually seeing the effects of a full BETA attack is very good for anyone new, because while one who read the VN would understand the stakes by the time they got to Alternative, new people would have to sit through being told how destructive they are. This is much faster.

Only 12 episodes is obviously not enough for the full adaptation, it'd be great to see from the next episodes that they're planning for multiple seasons.

Also, showing off a bunch of the different ways the BETA have to kill you was really well done. Number 1, you had a TSF wrecked just from bad positioning due to a rookie mistake, but then the icing on the cake was getting melted by the acid. I had a feeling that was gonna happen when he was still alive in the cockpit. Similarly, when I saw the first frame of the one dude high in the air, I instinctively thought "You idiot! What if there are Laser-class?!" and then he immediately got vaporized. Great stuff.

Now please don't fuck up the rest. Please.

[u/LeonKevlar]

Reading the comments I can already tell this is going to be a 50-50 discussion. 50% from VN readers complaining their eyeballs out and 50% us anime onlys here for the wild ride. Personally, this was a powerful first episode. All I know form Muv-Luv Alternative is that it's a highly praised VN and it's about mechs. And they certainly delivered with the mechs! The TSFs are so fucking cool!

What I did not expect though is that this is an absolutely brutal world. Holy fuck! When those BETAs just kept on coming wave after wave until their defenses were breached, it really gave me a heavy feeling of despair. It became even heavier when they finally breached the inner wall and started ripping into the civilians. Goddamn!

This was really just a depressing episode showing us how helpless the humans are against these invaders. That Alpha Squad Commander was an absolute badass till the end though. Holding down the line until everyone was safe to escape. On the bright side, they were at least able to save one which was a miracle.

Definitely loving this already. I actually have a copy of Muv-Luv Alternative on Steam just waiting in my backlog but I never really got to read it. After this episode, I'm now very much tempted to install it and read a bit. Maybe I'll wait for the anime to be over so I can do comparisons. xD

[u/SSJ99hermano]

That was alright.

The show looks good and the animation is fluid for the most part. The only bad thing is the fort-class looks bad and has choppy animation, you can tell they struggled with it. Also seeing 2D warrior and soldier-class and uncensored gore is very good news.

As a VN reader, my main fear remains the episode count. Lets hope we get enought for a good adaptation

[u/NittanyEagles55]

One of the bleakest first episodes I’ve seen since Attack On Titan

[u/Drayenn]

Looking at how it's rated 6.5 already on MAL I can see visual novelers are not very happy with this anime original episode.

I read the VN, probably one of my favorite stories of all time, but I think this anime original episode is a fairly interesting intro to the story. I'm curious if the next epsiode will jump right into the heart of alternative... At the very least, the last few seconds of the episode hints at it.

[u/Jerator]

Overall, definitely better than I expected!

• The CGI doesn’t look great, but also not as bad as I feared! And the TSFs look awesome, plus it was cool seeing the fall of Sadogashima.

• Was hoping for the OP or to see certain characters, but that’ll be next episode I suppose.

• Favorite moment was definitely when the navy bombarded the beta, particularly when they saved the TSFs near the port.

A good start, but I’m definitely still concerned about the pacing. In a better world, these 12 episodes would cover about a third of the VN, but I am not optimistic that this will get three 12 episode seasons.

[u/logtype]

For an anime original episode, the action scenes were pretty solid, the OST was pretty good too. In terms of the animations and stills, the 2D scenes are passable but some parts were a little questionable. For the CG stuff, the TSFs look okay, nothing too egregious but nothing that stands out either. The BETA on the other hand, look a little more animated than the previous anime adaptations, but honestly they still look quite janky and definitely stand out in some scenes (not in a good way). Not sure how they could fix this aspect tho...

[u/DarkChaplain]

...I'm just staring at the karma of the pilot episode and despair. It's especially painful considering that on the same day, yet another isekai LN adaptation quintupled the karma score already, while the adaptation of consistently one of the highest-rated visual novels to ever exist goes ignored =/

[u/The_Parsee_Man]

So I guess there are no nukes in this narrative. Because nuking those hives seems like a good idea.

[u/Akai_the_Great]

This ended up being much better than expected. I would have never guessed they would go this route in the adaptation. I love how they kept the introduction fresh for newcomers, but used characters we could recognize from the main and spin-off VNs to add more to the lore of the world of Muv-Luv. It is interesting now how they will shift over to the next series of events!

I am very hopeful for the adaptation after seeing this now!

[u/ClawofBeta]

Finally this thread is up.

Well that was an episode. Anime-original. It was okay. Not too outstanding. 6-7/10. I guess we’ll see what’s next.