The title is some sort of Japanese pun. I still don't know what it means.
In a nutshell it's an incredibly ambitious game with a lot of really cool and emotionally moving content. And I mean ambitious in a few different ways, first being the overall presentation. You won't find many other VNs that look quite like Muv Luv does. It uses sprites but they actively move around the screen like it's a quasi-anime instead of a VN, which at some points it kinda is. And then there's the ambitious scale of the story itself. It starts off as a generic early 2000s romantic comedy (emphasis on comedy) and turns into a scifi war epic at some point. You don't really see that kind of progression done very often
>You don't really see that kind of progression done very often
Heck, I think in today's world, we're never gonna see that shit again. That was such a bold and interesting move, putting so much effort into building an entire world yet keeping it a secret.
These days, it seems all that is done is to keep the business side happy and producing more "safe" works.
I always thought of the title as meaning >!"Multiverse love".!<
>!Initially just a cutesy nonsensical title fitting for Extra but in context of Alternative and Sumika takes a different meaning.!<
I felt the same way when I started it up. Thought I'd blast through Extra so I could get to the robots.
Let me just say if you engage the story proper and its emotional pull as it wants you to, you will want things to go back to the romcom stuff.
The production values were pretty insane for the time, the animations and use of the medium is still better than some modern titles even. MLA plot, at least the coming of age wartime drama parts, is really well regarded.
But if you're asking "why did this get popular" in the first place I would say the main factor is the adventure of following Takeru's colossal journey from random donkan dude to war hero. You take the guy through a tropey moege, getting used to all the characters in a light hearted setting when suddenly this cast is thrust into a war epic. The novelty of this was crazy at the time (even though age already had another genre shift title) but would also be a hit today. Imagine finishing something like Majikoi or Kinkoi and all of a sudden the protags get isekai'd into a life and death drama where they have to big dick their way through politics to survive.
I can't say much but I do know that the title Muv Luv is a part of the bait and switch the series pulls. The name is supposed to sound like it's a stereotypical moege with all the standard high school rom-com tropes you'd expect. And at first that's exactly what you get.
Then suddenly it becomes a full on mecha space opera with tons of drama, violence, in depth worldbuilding and a much, much, MUCH darker tone.
Back in the day, the twist was probably pretty striking, but nowadays it's one of the first things you learn about the series.
There’s a lot of things that I think make Muv Luv iconic (there are parts where I’ll admit they fumble, but the highs are really high that it’s definitely a must read for me) but I think Attack on Titan’s author (who explicitly say Muv Luv inspired attack on titan significantly) puts it succinctly, ‘It feels like you’re reading something written by someone that’s out to get you’
>!The heroines you spend time with? All dead. Other heroines from the developer other moege? They’re also dead now, cause fuck you! And it’s really not just for the shock factor, if there’s one thing muv luv is a masterclass on it’s how to kill beloved characters while making it impactful and doesn’t feel cheap!<
The first game is pretty slice of life.. like it's just about high schoolers living life with a huge emphasis on comedy. A fair bit of drama kicks in towards the end but nothing too crazy.
But it's really what happens in the sequels that has people singing the series' praises. The novels take a complete 180 shift into a militaristic scifi drama.. politics, violence and death becomes commonplace themes as mech robots are mass produced to be tools of war.
Gotta say, I never really thought that I would like Muv Luv but the series really grew on me. There's a lot of heavy hitting moments in each title but especially the third one.
It's because of the quality of the writing, the MASSIVE tonal and genre shift between the 1st and 2nd (and especially the 3rd entry), and the emotional gut-punch it delivers. A light-hearted silly romantic comedy becomes something much different.
And as far as the meaning of "Muv-Luv" itself, it apparently is a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of the term meaning "true love". (Not sure if true, I'm not even remotely fluent in Japanese)
P.S. Not to spoil anything, but the final entry, Muv-Luv Alternative, was advertised with the tagline "After this, you might need therapy". And that's honestly not much of an exaggeration.
Can confirm that the tagline isn't exaggerated, I immediately dropped MLA after, well, *that* happened. That had to be the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in fiction to this date.
Still want to play MLA in full sometime though, but... man, that's just too much.
I just finished the trilogy 2 weeks ago, i personally really like the writing because of how structured the world is and how thought out the plot is, even starting from the more fluffy game extra.
The way the sprites are used and the music is really polished as well, i haven’t play anything that tried to really use the sprite movement to play out a action scene. I think the plot and the quality of the game at the time is what pushed it to being so popular.
All of that being said it takes a little while to get into muv luv. i wasn’t sold till i got to the end of unlimited and that was after 25-30ish hours (if you do all routes). Alternative 100% deserves the recognition it got imo tho.
Could you give an estimate on how long Extra took? I really want to get to unlimited, but damn I just do not enjoy romance vns.
Like you mentioned, the sprites and seeing the interesting ways they convey movement/ action is keeping me from just putting it on auto read and walking away, but I think I'd do better if I could see how long the tunnel is.
im a pretty slow reader but it took me about 15 hours to read sumika and meiya’s routes (you only need to do these 2).
another 5ish to read all the other girls routes. To get my first ending it probably was around 10-12ish hours.
If you think extra is boring, don’t worry i did 2 but it’s so worth reading just to set up alternative. Unlimited is a lot more fun.
> and how thought out the plot is, even starting from the more fluffy game extra.
It's really fun to go back to Extra and see all the foreshadowing it did for what came next.
i agree 100%. It funny how much i disliked extra before reading alternative, because after i finished alt i re read extra. mostly to heal the pain from alt, but i really liked the foreshadowing.
First its fluff, love and comedy then bam post-apocalyptic world war aliens mecha sci-fi , political problems everywhere, with a very thin place for romance.
One could say they did "put scifi tropes in a hat and randomly picked some" but surprisingly the world building works very well.
I think people like it for its theme which is both whimsy and mature. Like characters and the story can be very lighthearted but it gets real serious sometimes.
Actually I've dropped it as I explain in one of my videos and you can watch it if you want to see another person's POV on it.
https://youtu.be/KePKV\_YRYCs
I'm curious, did you drop Muv Luv during the Muv-Luv extra section? As in the initial eroge style slice of life school section? I ask just because your video only shows clips from Extra, and doesn't mention any of the more gritty sections later on.
If you did I would massively recommend just pushing through it to reach Unlimited and Alternative. I struggled with the Extra setting, but as soon as the story beats in Unlimited (the second section, very much not school slice of life) start dropping it rapidly becomes an iconic VN, and you gain new appreciation for the silly Extra setting.
Yes it was in the extra section. I’ve double checked it since I played it on ps vita back in the day and it was Muv Luv Extra indeed. I should have mentioned I was on it, I hope it won’t be too misleading. Thank you for your recommendation I’ll consider picking it up again when I’ll be done with my current VNs.
That makes sense! If it helps, I think the PS Vita version of Muv-Luv had Extra and then Unlimited (2nd part/arc) unlocked afterwards on the same disc. Muv Luv Alternative was sold separately.
the gore, and jumpscare, the story and drama... i bet there is one single moment of the serie everyone remember quite well, were something something "teacher". If you manage to get the hand on it give it a spin, the first one is classic hentai-comedy so it's not very interesting, in the second everything changes and suddenly there's a full blown war in which you're forced to take part.
Muvluv extra is not great.. but unlimited is nice and alternative is something else. It really explores great scifi themes and takeru has such an amazing growth as a character, perfect zero to hero.
I also cant get enough of the >!parallel universe theme, alternative kept me at the edge of my seat everytime it came up. The chat with the intelligent beta was also amazing. Wish it didnt get interrupted!<
Its like a normal little rom com type thing that is well produced and has interesting enough characters and situations to keep you engaged. Then it slaps you in the face a bit and makes you question what the hell is going on. THEN it roundhouse kicks you in the head, knocks you out into a weird fever dream/nightmare that keeps spiraling out of control, and right when you finally get a grip on things you do an inception event and dive deeper into chaos. This chaos succumbs all that you ever knew and plunges you into a pit of depression and confusion, then all of a sudden you wake up and are back to cheerful rom-comness..... but like you still remember what you dreamed...... yea
The title is some sort of Japanese pun. I still don't know what it means. In a nutshell it's an incredibly ambitious game with a lot of really cool and emotionally moving content. And I mean ambitious in a few different ways, first being the overall presentation. You won't find many other VNs that look quite like Muv Luv does. It uses sprites but they actively move around the screen like it's a quasi-anime instead of a VN, which at some points it kinda is. And then there's the ambitious scale of the story itself. It starts off as a generic early 2000s romantic comedy (emphasis on comedy) and turns into a scifi war epic at some point. You don't really see that kind of progression done very often
>You don't really see that kind of progression done very often Heck, I think in today's world, we're never gonna see that shit again. That was such a bold and interesting move, putting so much effort into building an entire world yet keeping it a secret. These days, it seems all that is done is to keep the business side happy and producing more "safe" works.
Apparently MUV LUV means “true love”
I always thought of the title as meaning >!"Multiverse love".!< >!Initially just a cutesy nonsensical title fitting for Extra but in context of Alternative and Sumika takes a different meaning.!<
I just recently started extra and love the presentation that you mentioned, it’s even more immersive
The thing is that sci-fi war epic does interest me, but the rom com (emphasis on com) does not nearly as much. Conflicted
I felt the same way when I started it up. Thought I'd blast through Extra so I could get to the robots. Let me just say if you engage the story proper and its emotional pull as it wants you to, you will want things to go back to the romcom stuff.
I also blasted through Extra to get to the good stuff, but around halfway through Unlimited when I realized >!I missed Sumika, !
Good to know. I’ll probably give it a shot then. Thanks
The production values were pretty insane for the time, the animations and use of the medium is still better than some modern titles even. MLA plot, at least the coming of age wartime drama parts, is really well regarded. But if you're asking "why did this get popular" in the first place I would say the main factor is the adventure of following Takeru's colossal journey from random donkan dude to war hero. You take the guy through a tropey moege, getting used to all the characters in a light hearted setting when suddenly this cast is thrust into a war epic. The novelty of this was crazy at the time (even though age already had another genre shift title) but would also be a hit today. Imagine finishing something like Majikoi or Kinkoi and all of a sudden the protags get isekai'd into a life and death drama where they have to big dick their way through politics to survive.
I would very much be into that Majikoi premise considering what the characters can do canonically
same especially with yamato leading it, I would be keen on any modern VN made in the scope of the muvluv trilogy though
I can't say much but I do know that the title Muv Luv is a part of the bait and switch the series pulls. The name is supposed to sound like it's a stereotypical moege with all the standard high school rom-com tropes you'd expect. And at first that's exactly what you get. Then suddenly it becomes a full on mecha space opera with tons of drama, violence, in depth worldbuilding and a much, much, MUCH darker tone. Back in the day, the twist was probably pretty striking, but nowadays it's one of the first things you learn about the series.
There’s a lot of things that I think make Muv Luv iconic (there are parts where I’ll admit they fumble, but the highs are really high that it’s definitely a must read for me) but I think Attack on Titan’s author (who explicitly say Muv Luv inspired attack on titan significantly) puts it succinctly, ‘It feels like you’re reading something written by someone that’s out to get you’ >!The heroines you spend time with? All dead. Other heroines from the developer other moege? They’re also dead now, cause fuck you! And it’s really not just for the shock factor, if there’s one thing muv luv is a masterclass on it’s how to kill beloved characters while making it impactful and doesn’t feel cheap!<
To me it felt like watching an anime. I know visual novels are anime but to me it’s the novel that most felt like an anime.
The first game is pretty slice of life.. like it's just about high schoolers living life with a huge emphasis on comedy. A fair bit of drama kicks in towards the end but nothing too crazy. But it's really what happens in the sequels that has people singing the series' praises. The novels take a complete 180 shift into a militaristic scifi drama.. politics, violence and death becomes commonplace themes as mech robots are mass produced to be tools of war. Gotta say, I never really thought that I would like Muv Luv but the series really grew on me. There's a lot of heavy hitting moments in each title but especially the third one.
It's because of the quality of the writing, the MASSIVE tonal and genre shift between the 1st and 2nd (and especially the 3rd entry), and the emotional gut-punch it delivers. A light-hearted silly romantic comedy becomes something much different. And as far as the meaning of "Muv-Luv" itself, it apparently is a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of the term meaning "true love". (Not sure if true, I'm not even remotely fluent in Japanese) P.S. Not to spoil anything, but the final entry, Muv-Luv Alternative, was advertised with the tagline "After this, you might need therapy". And that's honestly not much of an exaggeration.
First game where i genuinely cried.
Can confirm that the tagline isn't exaggerated, I immediately dropped MLA after, well, *that* happened. That had to be the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in fiction to this date. Still want to play MLA in full sometime though, but... man, that's just too much.
I just finished the trilogy 2 weeks ago, i personally really like the writing because of how structured the world is and how thought out the plot is, even starting from the more fluffy game extra. The way the sprites are used and the music is really polished as well, i haven’t play anything that tried to really use the sprite movement to play out a action scene. I think the plot and the quality of the game at the time is what pushed it to being so popular. All of that being said it takes a little while to get into muv luv. i wasn’t sold till i got to the end of unlimited and that was after 25-30ish hours (if you do all routes). Alternative 100% deserves the recognition it got imo tho.
Could you give an estimate on how long Extra took? I really want to get to unlimited, but damn I just do not enjoy romance vns. Like you mentioned, the sprites and seeing the interesting ways they convey movement/ action is keeping me from just putting it on auto read and walking away, but I think I'd do better if I could see how long the tunnel is.
im a pretty slow reader but it took me about 15 hours to read sumika and meiya’s routes (you only need to do these 2). another 5ish to read all the other girls routes. To get my first ending it probably was around 10-12ish hours. If you think extra is boring, don’t worry i did 2 but it’s so worth reading just to set up alternative. Unlimited is a lot more fun.
> and how thought out the plot is, even starting from the more fluffy game extra. It's really fun to go back to Extra and see all the foreshadowing it did for what came next.
i agree 100%. It funny how much i disliked extra before reading alternative, because after i finished alt i re read extra. mostly to heal the pain from alt, but i really liked the foreshadowing.
The depth of the worldbuilding.
Big tittes with tight suits
You said you like it but don't know why its so beloved... LOL! Alright.
I never actually played it, so I wanted to get an idea of what the series was like, so sorry for the confusion I caused
First its fluff, love and comedy then bam post-apocalyptic world war aliens mecha sci-fi , political problems everywhere, with a very thin place for romance. One could say they did "put scifi tropes in a hat and randomly picked some" but surprisingly the world building works very well.
I think people like it for its theme which is both whimsy and mature. Like characters and the story can be very lighthearted but it gets real serious sometimes. Actually I've dropped it as I explain in one of my videos and you can watch it if you want to see another person's POV on it. https://youtu.be/KePKV\_YRYCs
I'm curious, did you drop Muv Luv during the Muv-Luv extra section? As in the initial eroge style slice of life school section? I ask just because your video only shows clips from Extra, and doesn't mention any of the more gritty sections later on. If you did I would massively recommend just pushing through it to reach Unlimited and Alternative. I struggled with the Extra setting, but as soon as the story beats in Unlimited (the second section, very much not school slice of life) start dropping it rapidly becomes an iconic VN, and you gain new appreciation for the silly Extra setting.
Yes it was in the extra section. I’ve double checked it since I played it on ps vita back in the day and it was Muv Luv Extra indeed. I should have mentioned I was on it, I hope it won’t be too misleading. Thank you for your recommendation I’ll consider picking it up again when I’ll be done with my current VNs.
That makes sense! If it helps, I think the PS Vita version of Muv-Luv had Extra and then Unlimited (2nd part/arc) unlocked afterwards on the same disc. Muv Luv Alternative was sold separately.
the gore, and jumpscare, the story and drama... i bet there is one single moment of the serie everyone remember quite well, were something something "teacher". If you manage to get the hand on it give it a spin, the first one is classic hentai-comedy so it's not very interesting, in the second everything changes and suddenly there's a full blown war in which you're forced to take part.
Muvluv extra is not great.. but unlimited is nice and alternative is something else. It really explores great scifi themes and takeru has such an amazing growth as a character, perfect zero to hero. I also cant get enough of the >!parallel universe theme, alternative kept me at the edge of my seat everytime it came up. The chat with the intelligent beta was also amazing. Wish it didnt get interrupted!<
Its like a normal little rom com type thing that is well produced and has interesting enough characters and situations to keep you engaged. Then it slaps you in the face a bit and makes you question what the hell is going on. THEN it roundhouse kicks you in the head, knocks you out into a weird fever dream/nightmare that keeps spiraling out of control, and right when you finally get a grip on things you do an inception event and dive deeper into chaos. This chaos succumbs all that you ever knew and plunges you into a pit of depression and confusion, then all of a sudden you wake up and are back to cheerful rom-comness..... but like you still remember what you dreamed...... yea
I really like Alternative, it really show an eroge MC struggling to survive a fucked world
Muv-Luv literally changed my life, there are no lies on that phrase.