What is Muv-Luv really about? (Very light spoilers)

My first real foray into Japanese media was Umineko no Naku Koro ni. When I read Umineko (the first half), I thought it was the best thing I had ever read. Nothing had ever made me think like Umineko did -- it was so bizarrely meta and classic at the same time that it really commanded my attention. I was always thinking about it.

Then CLANNAD became my favorite story ever. However, by this point I knew that it was possible for a better story to come along and take this place. CLANNAD doesn't command the industry in terms of quality. There are other stories which are just as good, and stories in the future that will take its place in my heart --- CLANNAD was just the one I would designate as my favorite.

I always had the philosophy that there wasn't one story that completely stood above the others -- a story that could not be surpassed in the present or future.

---- Then I read Muv-Luv Alternative.

From a mathematical standpoint, I understand that it's always possible for Story X to be surpassed by Story Y.

My heart sincerely doubts that it's going to happen. (Don't get me wrong -- I'd love to see this happen! But I'm not counting on it.)

Muv-Luv Alternative is, in my mind, the absolute pinnacle of Japanese storytelling. It's the game that ruined anime for me.

It's so good it makes me angry. 

(Describing specifics would require me to delve into spoiler territory, so I'll leave it at that for now.)

Naturally, I want to share this with my friends. It's the best story to come out of the anime industry, so why wouldn't I?

Of course, this is really hard to communicate to others. I've tried to tell my friends to read this story, but alongside the doubt comes one question --

"What's it about?"

Sometimes this is a pretty easy question to answer. CLANNAD is about family. Little Busters! is about friendship. Fate/stay night is about ideals. For Muv-Luv, I had more trouble.

You might think Muv-Luv is a mecha story. It's not -- the mechs are just a pretense.

The game acts as a deconstruction of the harem genre of Japanese anime. I wouldn't call this the focus of the game, though.

The game markets itself as "a tale of love and courage." This is certainly true, but there's more.

Some say it's about how humans choose to live and how they choose to die. Again, this is certainly a main theme, but there's more.

Muv-Luv Alternative is a story about the human spirit. 

This game is really brilliant in that it discusses this in both macro and micro scales. We see a race of people that are almost completely subjugated by an alien species but fight on anyway because they have to. We see how people fight and how they hold themselves with dignity in the face of the apocalypse. We see how people pass on the wishes of the deceased and how they give their lives to protect what truly matters to them.

We see a young man repeatedly get shit on by fate. We see him driven to the absolute ends of sanity, only to be beaten to the ground because of his very existence. We see him stand up, every time, and fight on because he has to protect her. 


Muv-Luv Alternative masterfully captures the human condition and that's what makes it insurmountable as a story.

It's been over a year since I've read this and I'm still waiting for a story to handle this topic better than Muv-Luv did 10 years ago.

Schedule

I need to find a way to force myself to work on creative stuff. Right now most of my free time is dedicated to FF11.

A friend told me that the best way to force yourself to keep a schedule was to involve other people. It's one thing to let yourself down, but it feels really terrible to let down others that are relying on you.

I'm thinking of writing a webcomic to get into this habit. If I don't make new posts twice a week then people will be disappointed. That seems like a good way to force myself to be doing something productive.


It's a start!