Upcoming Muv-Luv Alternative Anime
Muv-Luv Alternative anime adaptations is right around the corner. The first episode is set to air on October 7 2021. This will be the first time a mainline entry of the Muv-Luv series gets an anime. Previously only spinoffs Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse and Schwarzesmarken had gotten the animation treatment.
What is Muv-Luv?
Muv-Luv is known in the visual novel community as a trilogy consisting of Muv-Luv Extra, Muv-Luv Unlimited, and Muv-Luv Alternative. It is recommended to be consumed in that order. Extra setups the characters and their dynamics by using a light hearted school comedy romance. Unlimited ups the stakes and places characters into an interesting settings to explore more bleak topics. Alternative then shifts the genre to delivery a very compelling coming of age story.
Muv-Luv Alternative is consistently revered as one of the best visual novels. Sequel ratings may be a factor as those who did not finish Extra and Unlimited would not be rating the sequel. Even then Alternative still has a healthy pool of votes based on vndb.org statistics. It is also no secret the creator of Attack on Titans, Hajime Isayama, drew heavy inspiration from Alternative.
Alternative may not be my choice for number one visual novel but it still has holds an important place. Muv-Luv is very impressive with the mechanical execution of the visual novel. Other visual novel have not reach the same level even now. Alternative did away with the text box dating sim like dialogue interface and turn it more into of a pseudo anime. Alternative incorporate more film techniques to be more cinematic. The first two entries got an update in the steam release to match Alternative style.
Expectations for the anime
It is worrying that only Alternative is being adapted as the audience should have an understanding difference between the two worlds. This fear would have been alleviated if the Alternative anime has a decent run time. Alternative currently is projected to have one cour.
The episode count will be difficult with Alternative 50 hour story and not even counting the first two entries. Let us compare with the commonly considered successful visual novel adaption.
- Clannad is about 80 hours. It took 47 episodes to comfortable tell its story.
- Fate/stay Night is about 80 hours. It took 50 episodes and three movies to fully adapt.
- Steins;Gate is about 40 hours. It took 24 episodes to be an successful adaptation.
Base on the trailer footage it safe to assume it is the start of Alternative up to Operation 21. Even cutting all the techno-babble scenes it will be very tight. Chances are very slim this adaptations will have the same success as the other big visual novel adaptations.
My expectations going into this anime is just have a good time seeing the battles animated. Hoping for some decent key moments animated well. I do not have high hopes in the anime conveying the story in a satisfying way.
This anime is most likely to drum up attention to the upcoming visual novel Muv-Luv Integrate. Well now expectations are set so let us see how this anime will turn out.