Among the dedicated Muv-Luv fans, I, as an anime only and first time viewer into this franchise, felt as if I was standing in the middle of a warzone with them. Week after week, they broke down with meltdowns over how horrifying this adaptation was. The Muv-Luv Alternative adaptation seemed to have nearly destroyed it's visual novel counterpart. I wasn't sure what I got myself into, but at least I wanted to try go along with this ride and check it out.

Low effort 2D showed hilariously drawn faces, and animation that felt weak and hollow. People were disintegrating before the beams hit, and some soldier's eyes were drawn so bad it was just sad. Where was the quality check? Episode 1 prepared you for what's not going to happen in season 1 because the BETA weren't even the focus. It felt like bait but at least it had the BETA introduced. The pacing is so rushed, it felt as if the story was watered down and irreversibly neutered. As bad as this started, at least it got better and became decent towards the end.

The music was memorable only for the wrong reason because all I remember is how badly it sounded in the first episode. It felt like a struggle to get through all the boring and overuse of exposition in the beginning. It was as if the staff crammed the visual novel's story so much they managed to pound it into a low quality jewel. Some weeks I just couldn't watch the new episodes. There is a huge cast of characters and a lack of development for most of them, thus it was a challenge to try and follow along without doing a re-watch. As I stated earlier, the really fast pacing and dialogue makes this even more difficult to follow along with. Don't make the mistake I made and read what was released before to understand the characters better.

Fortunately, towards the end, despite there was still comedic 2D animation, the final arc began turning the quality around a bit. Most fall season protagonists are terrible, but Takeru's growth throughout really made me respect him more as the series went. The politics and dialogue was saved by Yuuhi with her passionate leadership. The CGI shown here was actually decent. The fights can be brutal and the deaths somewhat gory. It ended with a small decimal of dignity but at least they tried towards the end. Season 2 was announced as well, and I will be watching it regardless of how rough this season was.

Maybe this series was trying to be friendly for the new fans to get them to read the visual novel, but it's opposite for me because I have a bit of interest to read it because of how bad the adaptation seemed and what could have been.

Despite the stronger second half, Muv-Luv Alternative overall did not do what I want, and did not do what I need.