To Sent

The first thing that jumped out at me when I began playing Alternative, was the fact that I was much more engaged with the VN relative to the other two titles in the series. I'm not quite sure what to attribute this to, but I would suspect that it would be the accumulation of the following: the gravitas of the situation, the fact that I have spent the last 20+ hours reading its predecessors just to read it, and the fact that this basically the end of the main story line (which apparently is a big thing for me, if I start a series I very much want to know how it ends, this would be regardless of the quality sometimes. I have very seldom dropped a series that I have invested a significant portion of time to, not that its really applicable in this case since I don't believe that to be an issue with Muv-Luv).

In terms of the plot, it felt pretty similar to some other titles or works of fiction that I have read before and I believe that this would be a sentiment shared by many who have read MLA. With that being said, I don't believe that this is a knock against the writing in MLA. As many accomplished authors have stated already, there are only so many original ideas out there and at this point in time most of these ideas have been explored already (See this list: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml), although not necessarily in the same way. Again, I don't believe this to be a knock on the writing of MLA but rather just an objective observation. For me, I see MLA as more of a character study than a plot-driven story. I don't believe, that at any point during my reading of MLA, that humanity would 'lose' against the BETA (despite hoping for the author to surprise me, but more on this later) and beyond specifics, I think all of us reading the story had a fairly good idea of how the story would go. So with my biases about the story clearly stated, I will go into a bit more details about specifics of the story.

I am fairly torn on how I feel about the whole Shogun subplot that presented in MLA. I can say that during the whole time this occurred, my main thought was: why aren't they sending Takeru back to the other world, it's been 3 days (IIRC, though I may mistaken on that and this might be an error on my part). But that aside, in the end I am more in favour of the fact that they did discuss how humanity interacted with one another (in terms of varying nations) in a time of crisis, especially against an extraterrestrial threat. The whole humans vs. humans thing struck me as odd and I was inclined to agree with how Takeru originally thought. But, realistically I can accept that intra-human conflict is an inseparable part of human life, even if the whole of humanity is on the brink of extinction. So I'm glad that they included that section, even though I believe that it was a bit drawn out for my tastes. I'm not exactly sure if I really learned anything new about the characters or whether the social commentary made was anything new to me either. This whole Shogun subplot could have been tightened up but I definitely found that it was interesting. I appreciate them for fleshing out the world more and giving a more holistic view of how the Earth was/would be during the BETA invasion. Lastly, I suppose there is a pragmatic reason for its inclusion, to harden Takeru's resolve and to remind him that he has get his hands dirty in order to achieve what he wants.

Another plot point that I was fairly torn with was how they handled Sumika, specifically how she was raped/tortured by the BETA. I was incredibly disturbed by what happened to her and I think after 1-2 days it still bugs me as I'm writing this. My gut reaction was that the whole scene was a gratuitous, poor sweet Sumika didn’t deserve this. Before I go any further I suppose I should elaborate on how I feel about her first. When I first started reading Extra I was incredibly annoyed by Sumika. She was so damned clingy and was just an airhead. To me, there was little to her character besides being obsessed with Takeru (although this pretty much holds true for Alternative as well and unless I’m mistaken, please correct me if I am, she is partly to blame for dragging Takeru into this mess). As far as Alternative was concerned, I have to say that although I did piece together that the brain in the jar was Sumika before the reveal. However, I can’t say when exactly I did so and as such I present you the caveat emptor of this blog post: you may possibly be reading the ramblings of an idiot (unconfirmed). I can’t say what made me have a complete change of heart for the character, but I really did like her a lot more in Alternative, even with her fairly limited appearances. I won’t rule out that I might just feel sympathetic for her but maybe she just grew on me. I would argue that she displayed mental toughness more than anyone else in the cast, or is at least in contention for that title. Alternatively I may like her just because I fancy the idea of a dependable friend who you know will always be there for you; but, by the end of Alternative you could pretty much say that about most of his harem. So overall, I like what they’ve done with her character but not exactly what they did to her, despite the fact that you probably can’t separate the two. She’s still very much a Mary Sue through and through though.

With my ramblings about Sumika aside, this would be a segue into what I thought about the ending. I don’t think that anyone that would read this VN would be the least bit surprised at how Alternative ended. The death of all the girls was pretty much expected, if not necessary (I don’t think anyone’s willing suspension of belief would be able that). With that said I was disappointed with the epilogue and the way it was handled. I have no qualms about Takeru returning back to a peaceful version of his world. What I do have a problem with is how Takeru went back to being pretty much how he was in Extra. I did not go back to play Extra to see how the scenes differed besides the obvious points (Meiya’s sister, Kasumi, and Takeru tearing up), but after all that he went through in Unlimited and Alternative, I have to deal with that guy again? Really? Honestly I did not like Takeru at all for most of Extra and a chunk of Unlimited, but he did improve in Alternative. To see all that growth and maturation just disappear is kind of disappointing from the point of view of the reader. It bugs me especially because they could’ve been a lot more subtle with the scene where Kasumi is introduced. Instead of reading that Takeru vaguely remembers or feels like he’s seen her before, a simple a reaction similar to when he first Yuuhi would’ve sufficed for me. I would’ve preferred if it was only ever implied that Takeru remembers all the trials and tribulations that he’s gone through, the tears are acknowledgement enough for the reader.

A problem that I did take with the writing was that it was a bit heavy handed in its exposition. I feel like this is a direct result of the reader being able to, or rather having to, read all of Takeru’s thoughts. This is especially prevalent after Marimo’s death. His angst and his guilt felt like it was literally being beaten into me, I mean, I got it the first time. I’m not exactly sure what could be done about this. But, I believe in terms of how Takeru acts, feels, and speaks - a less heavy handed approach I feel would’ve helped.

In terms of the mecha and all the military stuff, I feel like those were very nice touches that really fleshed out the world. The design for all the mecha was cool and I’d definitely consider getting a kit for them now. The BETA serve their roles fine as the adversary of the human race, I don’t really care about them more than that. Overall I did enjoy reading the series and I’m glad that I did. The whole build-up for Alternative I still a bit iffy though, as it places up a fairly significant barrier of entry for the reader. I went through all three games in relatively few sittings so I have to say by the end of Alternative I was pretty burnt out, so it’s very possible I may have misread things or have misinterpreted things, if so feel free to correct me. With that said, if you feel like you disagree with me on any points feel free to express how wrong am I too.

So if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, I suspect this piece of writing will be plagued with tons of grammatical errors as I will probably not go through and edit this (I usually have to go through my drafts a fair number of times). Thanks for reading ~

P.S.: DAT BOW