If you want to watch a standard 6/10 isekai with pretty good 3D animated mech fights and an unimaginably rushed plot then this is for you. If you want an epic masterpiece that evokes PTSD, deals with psychological/philosophical issues and creates thought-provoking characters that feel more real than your irl friends then you should read the visual novel trilogy instead. It's 100 hours total though.. hard to convince you to read it I know - but maybe I managed to convince you to at least not watch this disgrace of an adaptation.
The anime casually skips the first ~50 hours of the story. What's the result you may ask? Well,
Look, I am not saying that the anime is trash overall it is just incredibly frustrating to see because of what could've been.. imagine eating the tastiest meal of your life and then you go to the same restaurant with your friends to show them but 9/10 ingredients on your plate are just missing.. I know that it is impossible to have a faithful adaptation without hundreds and hundreds of episodes. They should've just went with a spin-off series.
Now I am just going to explain how to read the VNs in case you're interested:
The story consists of three parts, Muv Luv Extra, Muv Luv Unlimited and Muv Luv Alternative.
The first two parts are sold together as 'Muv Luv' and the last part seperately as 'Muv Luv Alternative' - both available on Steam.
I'd recommend installing the 18+ patches if you want to see nudity, sex scenes and a little more gore.
Only in Muv Luv Extra (1st part) I would actually recommend to read every heroines route before continuing with 'Unlimited'.
The routes in Unlimited and Alternative don't deviate as much so you can just read as many of them as you want to.
You could stick to a route guide but the best experience is probably to just go with your gut on every decision especially on your first read.
The first 10-ish hours where pretty hard to get through for me personally because it felt very slow and I am not really a fan of the Slice of Life genre but once I was emotionally hooked on the characters I couldn't stop reading daily.
If you actually manage to commit to this long journey:
Read at your own pace, enjoy and take care of yourself, soldier.
26.5 out of 29 users liked this review