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Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse part 2 (anime review)

Muv - Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse part 2Title: Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse part 2

Director: Masaomi Ando

Written By: Takayuki Inagaki

Studio: ixtl, Satelight

U. S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks, Section 23

U. S. Release Date: May 12th, 2015

Format: Blu-ray / 13 Episodes / 325 Minutes

Genre: Mecha, Sci Fi, Action, Romance, Fan Service

Age Rating: TV MA

Overall Personal Rating: B-

Synopsis:

Even in the face of annihilation by the invading BETA forces, the persistent hostilities between the surviving nations continue to undermine mankind’s chances for survival. Desperate to gain the Type 99, the Soviet Command puts not only their own pilots but the rest of the human race on the firing line as they sabotage the Kamchatka base self-destruct codes in an attempt to salvage the railgun for their own purposes.

Caught in the crossfire, Yuuya, Yui, and the other TSF pilots must fight their way to safety through a nightmarish series of traps and counter-traps before the base is bombed or the BETA take them all. Only a series of heroic sacrifices can save them, and that’s just the beginning of the danger. The mysterious arrival of an unidentified TSF and an escalating competition to dominate the new world’s power and military structures ignite a new chain of events that further threaten to undercut humanity’s chances.

Commentary:

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse part 2 follows up with the end of the series that proves that sometime you can mix fan service with a darker mecha and see it succeed to a reasonable result. I’ve see plenty of other series take a much more ecchi approach and miss the mark. Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse manages to give us a story only get distracted by bouncing boobs a little. Of course the girls are highlighted changing into their pilot suites in a way that highlights their endowments which left me a little disappointed.

Now I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy the female form, on the contrary, I find women delightful but when you are trying to tell a serious story I find the distraction of fan service is misplaced. If we can get past the tight suites and partial nudity the story still needs to stand on its own. This is where the animation may be the saving grace and the writing comes across as something a little more pedestrian.

Overall Grade: B-

I was very hopeful for Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse part 2 and discovered that some stories should stick to one focus. Being a genuine fan of any solid Sci Fi stories that can entertain I found myself getting sucked into the series and then tossed back out. The unevenness of the story and the overall flatness if the writing left me wanting something completely different.

I am confident that the series will retain its true fan base and sell plenty of copies. I also thought that the series looked good and on Blu-ray it stood out with a relative higher quality than I see in other series lately. So, if the sexy mecha is your bag then you should head on over and start with Muv-Luv from the beginning.

My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy: The Complete Collection
 (anime review)

My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy: The Complete Collection
review provided by Katie and Andrew

Title: My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy: The Complete Collection


Director: Takayuki Inagaki

Studio: Diomedea

Author: Hiroko Kanasugi

U.S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks, Section 23

U.S. Release Date: November 11, 2014

Format and Length: Blu-ray / 10 Episodes and 1 OVA / 275 Minutes

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Harem, School

Industry Age Rating: 14 and up

Overall Personal Rating: B

Similar Series or Titles to Check Out: Date A Live, Excel Saga, The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat

Choose…

Synopsis:

Thanks to a very strange curse called “Absolute Choice,” Kanade Amakusa’s life has turned into a “choose your own adventure” game from the depths of Hades. A series of options that seem designed to cause him the maximum amount of duress and/or public embarrassment randomly appear in front of him, and if he does not choose one he suffers agonizing headaches. Due to his bizarre behavior because of this curse, Kanade is branded as one of his school’s five worst social misfits, and things get even weirder when he chooses one of the strangest options yet: “have a beautiful girl fall from the sky.” Not only does the sweet and adorable Chocolat drop on him like a bag of rocks, but she seems to have been sent to help remove the curse! However, she cannot remember how to because she has amnesia. But it has something to do with the missions this flippant God has him perform, and if he fails to achieve the objective of any of them he will be stuck with the curse for life! Will Kanade be able to complete all his missions and get rid of this cruse for life? You will have to watch My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy and find out.

Commentary:

My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy is a story about choices. We make them every day. Some we put a lot of thought into, and some we do not. Imagine if you are issued the choices for you to choose from. You cannot deviate or severe pain will result. Now imagine that your choices are absurd, and any one of them will damage you some way or another. That’s what you get with this series. It falls into the over the top comedy category, which really does not have many choices, because they all usually range from “meh” to “why am I watching this stupid….” This one chose to be better than that. Combining an absurd storyline, absurdly cute girls, and an even more absurd situation, picking up this one is a choice that you will not regret.

Overall this series (too long to keep naming) does touch into several other genres other than romcom, but it never really looses that romcom feel. I know it can be classified as a harem, and that is its second strongest category, but falls short of it in feel. The humor is strong with this one and looking for something other than the humor would be a poor choice. The characters were developed as much as you would expect. Some were developed better than others, and most fell into the standard archetypes like tsundere, kun-dere, dere-dere, imouto, etc., nothing too unexpected. It even makes fun of itself and this very issue in the later episodes. One thing that was different was the main character, Kanade, who seemed a bit underdeveloped at times. If it were not for the curse, he would have been a very boring main character. Another thing this series was strong in was the ‘moe’. If the three main female characters got any cuter, it would have hurt. With such characters, a series usually dives deep into the fan service, but this one kept it light. A few shots here and there and most had a point that related to the story, not just for the sake of exhibitionism.

The art was nothing special, with exception of character design of the named females. They chose to take special care in making them sickenly cute and colorful. Outside of that the scenes where normal. The occasional CG worked in was annoying, but I always find CG worked in with regular animation annoying, and the overall backgrounds were nothing special. Sadly as I write this, I cannot really remember the opening and endings themes, so they were nothing special either. Your standard J-pop with character scenes. But those are not the reasons to choose this anime. You choose it for the comedy or the moe, or if you want to rile the flippant god, choose it for both.
Extras:

My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy: The Complete Collection includes clean opening and closing animations and Sentai Filmworks trailers as special features. This series was released with Japanese with English Subtitles as the only language option.

Overall Grade: B

My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy: The Complete Collection is a weird series but it is also very funny. Be advised though that there are a few dirty moments in some episodes. Watch out for episode nine especially.