Photonflowers has been officially released (after a typical Muv-Luv style delay). You can get it on Steam now, and you can read up on what exactly Photonflowers is in my earlier writeup.
But that’s not the only exciting news to hit the Muv-Luv world. Both the Kickstarter page and lead translator Evan Ward’s Twitter account have posted images from the 2nd collection of Muv-Luv side stories, Muv-Luv Photonmelodies, showing that progress is well underway.
But the really big news is on the Japanese side, as Age has now posted a new page featuring a brand-new illustration of KimiNozo/Muv-Luv character Haruka Suzumiya, drawn by Kina Kazuharu, on the 18th anniversary of the original release of KimiNozo. That may not sound like much, but it represents the first news from the company in a whole year. Although they’ve advertised crossover events with the mobile games Super Robot Wars X-Ω and Phantasy Star Online 2, they haven’t so much as hinted at actual new content since their Comiket book Exogularity 02 last summer. That book also featured hints of new designs for both Muv-Luv and KimiNozo characters, and while the art there wasn’t credited, it certainly looks like the same artstyle as what was just posted.
What exactly the image means, Age hasn’t said. Many people have leapt to the obvious conclusion, that this image hints at a full-blown remake of KimiNozo. (Age hinted at such a possibility back at Anime Expo 2016, although it’s not at all clear how serious they were being.) Others have seized on what looks to be a hidden “0” at the bottom-right of the image, which could mean a full game version of Operation Zero. Operation Zero covers the events surrounding the KimiNozo characters in the Alternative world 3 years ago. Although they had hinted at such a story ever since their 10th anniversary video, it remained nothing but a hint until they finally adapted the story as a chapter in their mobile game Strike Frontier. Afterwards, Age had posted 2 videos rendering that Strike Frontier chapter in AGES (they can be found here and here), but perhaps now they’re looking at creating a full game version of it, possibly with voices. Or perhaps, like with the KimiIta remake and Confessions, they’re doing both – releasing a full remake with Operation Zero as a pack-in bonus.
Or perhaps it really is nothing more than what they’ve announced it to be – just a celebration of the 18th anniversary of KimiNozo. But even that would be news – it at least shows that Age isn’t dead, that they consider it still worthwhile to keep fans engaged and hopeful for future projects. After a whole year without any output from the company, even that would be newsworthy.
And speaking of voices, there was one last piece of news yesterday – Minami Kuribayashi, singer for most of Age’s games and the voice of Haruka and Kasumi, and who had been working under the single name Minami for the past few years, announced that she would be returning to the name Minami Kuribayashi, and will be celebrating the KimiNozo anniversary with a new version of her very first song, Rumbling Hearts, the theme song to KimiNozo. Hopefully, it means Kuribayashi and Ixtl/Anchor/Avex have buried the hatchet and we’ll be seeing more from them soon.
It’s been quiet on both the Japanese and English sides for a very long time, but now both sides have unveiled some exciting news on the same weekend. We can hope that this means the Muv-Luv franchise will finally start moving again.
Type-94 
More Muv Luv means more insightful comments from Type-94… which is also a good thing!
Good summary, thanks. One minor update is that the Kiminozo image was changed to give Haruka more of a smile, and the “0” at bottom right was replaced by a “0.1” on the left, at the base of the rainbow. If they’d kept up with these changes, one might wonder if they were doing some trick where combining the different versions of the image would reveal a message (or even a release date for the mythical Kiminozo remake), but I think it’s more likely this is just a form of watermarking to discourage misuse and bootlegs.