Anime Discussion Thread - Page 2406

Determination of Levels of Enjoyness (LoE) of Muv-Luv Extra, Unlimited, and Alternative

Introduction
Muv Luv is a visual novel novel by age released in 2003 (Wikipedia, 2012). (Insert random boring background and definition of terms and other info from literature reviews). As part of a deal, the author of this article was tasked to read the entirety of the Muv Luv visual novels including Muv-Luv Extra, Muv-Luv Unlimited, and Muv-Luv Alternative (MLE, MLU, and MLA respectively). As compensation, the ones who brought the task towards the author would have to watch 5 or 3 series of the author's choice (IRC logs, 2012).

Methods and Materials
The instrumentation setup included a PC running Windows 7 64-bit (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) and Muv-Luv Extra and Muv-Luv Alternative games (Âge, Japan). Standards were run using the author's only previous experiences with VNs. Thus, Little Busters was chosen as the only possible standard.

Results
Levels of enjoyness for MLE was moderate to slightly above average. Levels of enjoyness for MLU varied between moderate and boring. Levels of enjoyness for MLA varied between moderate, very good, and "pretty fucking epic." See Figure 1. (Insert figure of made up, and too good to be true calibration curves). Lacrimation (google it) was detected in minute amounts. This was significantly different (p<0.05) compared to other forms of media the author has seen in the past, but was not significantly different (p>0.05) compared to a similar point in the standard used.

Discussion
Fuck it, I give up, can't follow a scientific format anymore. Too much of a hassle.

MLE
MLE like I said above was pretty average, but right from the start, I loved Sumika. Her personality was cheerful, and her expressions were so memorable. First time hearing her say "AAIIIIIIIITAAAA~" was so heart warming :3, and her hair. That lock of hair... is so ridiculously charming. So good.

Meiya was another favourite. Not really sure why, but since she was such a major love rival with Sumika during MLE, I really couldn't help but like her. She took defeat to Sumika so well, and her responses for not picking her options the first time around made me feel bad for her. That and whenever she talks and says "そなた" made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Also, her pony tail! :3

Other characters, Mikoto was too trap like, Tama was meh, Chizuru was meh, Ayamine was trollish, and funny.

Didn't know what else to talk about in terms of routes/story, it was pretty standard, and cliche. Nothing was all that surprising since it was all blatantly foreshadowed etc, and I only did the 2 main routes to get me to MLU.

MLU
Boring. One of the reasons why I dropped MLA:TE was cause I went in expecting it to be about humanity fighting their last stands against BETA, not, a bunch of random training/beach episodes/talk between characters. That's exactly what I got in MLU. There were no BETA at all, unless you count that shadow. The training was ridiculously boring. It was amusing seeing Meiya get addicted to the video game, and was not surprised that when it came to TSF training, Takeru would be the best.

What kept me in were the constant questions and mysteries that were brought up, mainly with why Takeru was there in the first place, the brain in the room, hints at the Alternative plans, and Kasumi. Kasumi!!! :3 The end was pretty disappointing, no battles, no BETA, no nothing. Although, I guess all the character interactions and development was kind of important.

MLA
Hmm, where to begin for this. Having to redo the training arc AGAIN was pretty bland and boring. It was mostly just Takeru cheating because he had a 2+ years head start in training compared to everyone else. Dirty cheater. Also, the amount of fake science in this was pretty intense. Part of me was curious at how the explained it, part of me was trying to make sense of all the techno jargon Yuuko threw around, and part of me was just like, "fuck I gotta read more of this?". It felt tedious to have read all the explanations, but at the same time, I felt I would've missed something big if I didn't. Ugh. If I wanted to read fake science, I'd just look at my first year lab reports, plenty of fake science there.

Yay so Takeru semi sped up their training arc, while developing a new imba OS. Cool. Next arc, coup d'etat! Boring, more political BS*, but some nice talks with Meiya and others about the reasons for why people do things was relatively interesting, but some of it was repeated from MLU during the volcano thing. Also, I don't know why that American/Finnish Eishi fired and broke peace talks. Guess we'll never know, cause she conveniently died. Oh well, couldn't be helped, since she had to talk about why she was fighting just moments before with Tama, signalling her end.

*America being a dick and using the CIA for shitty underhanded tricks and inciting rebellion to gain leverage on nations.

Some more training, and introduction to new cannon fodder A-01 unit and Isumi's Valkyries, and also CHOMP. Awhile back, I never thought I'd be reading Muv Luv, so I Youtube'd the scene, so I kind of knew it was coming. But still, didn't mean I liked it.


Yeah, not pretty. And so we enter the "PTSD" arc. While I knew CHOMP was coming, I definitely didn't expect CHOMP2... That caught me completely off guard. The accident in the gym with Sumika, I fully thought the earthquake they felt was a million BETA emerging from the ground. At that point, it felt like anything could've happened. I don't know what else to really say about it, but it felt a lot longer than I wanted it to be honestly. Could be that I took a lot of breaks, especially during the car scene with Yuuko, but damn it took awhile. Actually, I was pretty amused during the world travelling part, especially about the thrown shoe, so much so, I reran MLE and found those parts/references to be pretty amusing.

Sadogashima arc was pretty epic. I don't know how else to describe it. The deathflag talk with Isumi was pretty amusing too. Isumi feeling all of Sumika's pains T.T. Isumi was so cool... =( she died too early, and the entire scene was pretty tear jerking.

The reason for the XG-70/Sumika failing was pretty amusing at first. Because I pretty much guessed immediately after it happened that it was cause of Takeru and his thoughts. Although they did make it not as much his fault and explained it was cause of the surge of information Sumika got from her readings of the hive. The tentacle rape part was pretty wtf -___- It was pretty obvious when Sumika was first revealed that this world's Takeru died in front of Sumika to BETA, but it was interesting that have revealed that they were taken prisoners first, and that he tried to go against some Soldier-classes with his bare hands.

It's been relatively long now since I've mentioned one of my favourite characters so I'll say this now. That CG of Kasumi teaching Sumika how to play cat's cradle!! X3!!!!!!!!!


Battle of Yokohama was surprising in how much of a loss it was for humanity. They got outplayed haaaaard. I knew I only had 2 arcs left, and actually thought the next arc was suppose to be Objective 20, but after that, they were pretty fucked, and I was surprised that we used up all the newly introduced cannon fodder all of Isumi's Valkyries were either KIA or injured. *note* I was pretty amused that even the gate guards got their own deathflags...

Original Hive arc! Since Echo and Kaze (not saying it was their fault -___-) had this spree of posting a bunch of MAD/AMVs of MLA, I couldn't help but get spoiled near the end. So I had an idea of what's suppose to happen. That and it would've been pretty obvious regardless. After the mission briefing, I already had an idea of the areas they were going to die in. The space launch scene was epic, along with Wakamoto saying that speech. Definitely had chills just reading that. I was surprised how fast they just skipped the entire Hive entering section and went straight to the end part. Some of the parts inside the hive felt like it ran a little long, and got boring with the talks, but the animation was pretty sick. The talk with the overmind/hive thing and not acknowledging carbon-based life forms as life forms was funny and dumb at the same time. Too much was devoted to that thing learning Japanese... Meiya's end felt a little long too, god dammit Takeru, I know you're suffering, but she's basically being tortured**/raped (didn't really want to use rape) in front of you, PRESS THE GOD DAMN BUTTON TO FIRE!@#... I also can't believe he asked if she was hurt after she was screaming/groaning in pain for several minutes.

**I actually thought she would've been more injured. The animation showed her stabbing the sword through the cockpit, and blood coming out.

The epilogue, wtf!? he forgot everything... uuuuugh. Whatever, I got this CG. :3 It appears that Kasumi at least remembers everything, she "lacrimated"*** (lol, laughing at my own jokes now) instantly when she saw him.

***If you're too lazy to even google that, it's some scientific way of saying tears, jeez...

SPEAKING OF CGs. WHATTHEFUCK AGE!@?# I finished like 50-60-70 hours of MLA and there's no fucking Kasumi Extras option!@?# That was pretty rage inducing. I was also hoping to be able to rewatch some of the animated cutscenes too, but NOPE. Fuck, it felt like such a kick in the balls with that lack of events menu...

Conclusion
MLA was pretty fucking good. Could've been better if they included a CG menu after you beat the damn game.

Also, wtf is up with everything recently feeling like Endless Eight...

All in all, it felt something like this, maybe replace the happy face in MLU with a bored face. + Show Spoiler +