Muv-Luv 20th Anniversary

Today is the 20th anniversary of Muv-Luv – on this date in 2003, the original Muv-Luv game was first released. To celebrate, I thought I’d share my own Muv-Luv collection – my personal journey through 20 years of this amazing franchise.

Games:

The top two rows have the Muv-Luv games for PC. The third row is all the Muv-Luv games released for PS3. And the bottom row is Muv-Luv in English – the Kickstarter PC games and the Vita games.

Game Boxes:

Many of the games came in limited edition boxes. The top row is for PC games, the second row has the PS3 games and the English Kickstarter box. At the bottom is the Age 20th Anniversary Box, a huge tome that collects all of their old games, as well as CDs containing all of their songs, and a bunch of extra goodies.

20th Box Contents:

A picture of said goodies. The games are on the left, the CDs are on the right. Also included are the final two issues (#23 and #24) of their long-delayed fan club exclusive magazine, a CD containing digital copies of all 24 issues of those magazines, and a collection of new artwork from many of the artists associated with them, whether through their games, manga adaptations, anime, or whatever.

Anime:

The top two rows are for Total Eclipse, both Japanese and US Blu-rays, as well as a special DVD with interviews. We’ve also got Japanese Blu-rays for Schwarzesmarken and Alternative (volume 4 of Alternative is releasing next month).

CD (Booklets):

Various CDs I’ve bought for the franchise – I generally keep just the booklet and the CD itself, and I either toss the case or dump it in another box somewhere else.

The top row is for the soundtrack for the original Muv-Luv game – instead of a booklet, it came with a bunch of illustrated cards.

The second row is for game soundtracks. I lost the booklet for Vol. 1 of the Alternative soundtrack a while back, so I had to sub in the actual CD for that one.

The third row has the original JAM Project single CD for Alternative, a couple of song collections for Muv-Luv and Total Eclipse, and the latest CDs I bought – the soundtrack for the Alternative anime and the JAM Project opening theme for the second season. The one on the end is the soundtrack collection from the Kickstarter.

Novels:

The top row has the Muv-Luv novelizations – 2 for Extra, 2 for Unlimited, and 3 for Alternative. (I put them right-to-left because the three Alternative covers form a single picture when lined up that way.)

The second row has the Total Eclipse novels – the six officially released ones, and the special novelization of The Imperial Capital Burns that you get for buying all the Total Eclipse Blu-rays.

The third row has the main Schwarzesmarken novels. The fourth row has the various side novels – 2 Requiem collections of short stories, 2 that came bundled with the 2 Schwarzesmarken games, and 2 prequel novels.

Manga (1):

The 17 volumes of the Alternative manga by Azusa Maxima, and the original side-story also drawn by the same artist.

Manga (2):

I tried to fit all of the manga into a single shot, but there were just too many, so I split Alternative off into its own picture. This one has the rest.

The top row has the manga adaptations of Extra and Unlimited.

The rest is for the various Total Eclipse manga – the first one by Takashi Ishigaki, the second one (Rising) by Rohgun, the adaptation of The Imperial Capital Burns by Shirou Tsunashima, and some 4-koma collections from when the Total Eclipse anime was on the air.

Artbooks (1):

The first shot of artbooks.

The top row has official artbooks for Muv-Luv, Alternative, the side-stories, and Total Eclipse, as well as a collection of Duty: Lost Arcadia stories from TSFiA and an official artbook for the Total Eclipse anime.

The second row has the 6 TSF Cross Operation books, which collect artwork from the original novel serializations of Total Eclipse and Schwarzesmarken, as well as the TSFiA short stories that used to run in Hobby Japan.

The third row has both the Japanese Integral Works and the English equivalent, the Codex. There’s also a somewhat strange book of TSF variations, and the three volumes of the Dengeki Muv-Luv magazine that were released while the Total Eclipse anime was airing.

Artbooks (2):

This second shot of artbooks consist mostly of what are technically considered doujinshi – although they were generally published by the original creators, they were only sold at Comiket rather than through normal stores.

The first row has the three artbooks for Next Answer, the first Muv-Luv social mobile game, as well as written material intended to tease Duty: Lost Arcadia and the mythical Total Eclipse Yui route (to date, neither have materialized yet, so these doujinshi are largely all we have of them).

The second row has the four Allied Strategy books, which collect their earlier Comiket books, the Lunatic Dawn series. At the end are the two Exogularity books, which had replaced the Lunatic Dawn series. All of these were sold at Comiket to offer additional information and tease upcoming storylines.

The third row has a few leftover books – a volume of Gianism magazine that had a major feature on the Total Eclipse anime, a Newtype insert book also featuring the Total Eclipse anime, and a collection of lineart for the anime. Rounding out the row are a couple of random Comiket offerings – a volume of Lunatic Dawn and a collection of art from Age artist Monkey Chop – which I’m pretty sure I picked up during one of Age’s visits to Anime Expo.

By the way, I’m leaving out a ton of other stuff that is, shall we say, tangentially Muv-Luv related. Issues of Newtype and other anime magazines that I bought pretty much strictly for their Muv-Luv content. Issues of Hobby Japan and Tech Gian that have serialized Muv-Luv content that was never collected. There are also stuff like CDs (for example, for JAM Project and Minami Kuribayashi) that have a lot of Muv-Luv related material. Basically, if it didn’t have Muv-Luv content on the cover, it seemed silly to dig it up and take a picture of it for a Muv-Luv anniversary.

Models/Figures (1):

My collection of TSF models and figures. I’m not a big figure person – there are tons of Muv-Luv figures that have been released which I’ve just never been interested in collecting. The two at the top left I bought from Age directly at their booth at Anime Expo 2010. The rest I think I just picked up here and there along the way – for a while, I made it my mission to buy something from any store or convention booth that stocked TSFs, just to show my support for this fairly niche franchise. As you can see, there weren’t many.

I dunno where the actual figures are. They’re in another box somewhere (along with a bunch of Gundam figures), and I’m not going to track them down just so the box looks nicer.

Models/Figures (2):

Mostly a collection of figures and models I got from the Kickstarter. The TSF model on the right is a special version that came with the limited edition of the 2nd Blu-ray for the Alternative anime. A similar special version will be packaged with the 4th Blu-ray as well.

Bonus Goods (1):

Various bonus items that came bundled with some of the other stuff above. Some are from limited editions, some are pre-order bonuses, some just come packaged with them. If you’re wondering what some of those big game boxes from up above are for, they hold all these little trinkets. Some of them are pretty clearly labeled where they’re from, some are anybody’s guess at this point.

Yes, that item at the bottom right is a blood-splattered dogtag with Marimo’s name on it, and yes, that is a little twisted.

Bonus Goods (2):

Some larger bonus items – clear files, pencil boards, wipecloths. The poster at the bottom was included as a store bonus with the 3rd Blu-ray of the Alternative anime, and even though I know they’re just getting rid of excess stock, it’s still nice to have.

Bonus Goods (3):

A couple of wallscrolls. The Yui one is from the 20th Anniversary Box, the Meiya one is from the first season Blu-rays of the Alternative anime. Both are store-exclusive pre-order bonuses. The poster at the top was included with the Integral Works book. There’s a huge picture of a Takemikazuchi on the other side, but I think this side, showing the TSF development timeline, is cooler.

Bonus Goods (4):

Various knick-knacks from the Kickstarter. The jacket on the left is perfect for lazy quasi-cosplaying.

Other Age Stuff:

Originally, I was going to limit this post to just Muv-Luv items (it is, after all, only a Muv-Luv anniversary). But all the KimiNozo stuff was mixed in, so I had to sift through all of it, and at the end, I had a huge pile of other miscellaneous stuff, and it seemed a waste not to include it. So here’s a bonus picture.

At the top center, we have the KimiNozo anime – the DVDs released in America (back when they would sell single DVDs) and a nice chipboard box to hold them, as well as the Japanese Blu-rays. Also up top is the KimiNozo PC game, and a concert DVD featuring the cast of KimiNozo, as well as JAM Project.

In the middle, there are various artbooks (including one for the old version of KimiIta), as well as physical editions of the children’s books featured in KimiNozo.

At the bottom are some CD booklets for various Age CDs, as well as the 2-volume novelization for Owarinaki Natsu, Towanaru Shirabe.

Something Personal:

To close out, some stuff that’s a little more than just merchandise.

The boards on top are specially drawn shikishi that I bought from the Age booth at Anime Expo 2010. On the right is one by Kyousuke Himukai, artist on Owarinaki Natsu, Towanaru Shirabe and The Day After. At the time, all I knew from him was Owarinaki Natsu, Towanaru Shirabe, so I asked for a drawing of Ai, my favorite character from that game (she’s very much in that Mitsuki/Sumika/Marika mold that Age seems to like). Chronicles 01 came out just a month later – if that game had come out before the convention and I had had a chance to play it, I almost certainly would have asked for a drawing of Lilia instead. Such is life.

The left one was done by Sou Miyata, the then-current artist on Total Eclipse. I actually didn’t commission this one – I saw them put it on sale on the last day of the convention as they were packing up to go home, so I shrugged and bought it. I can’t remember why I didn’t bother commissioning my own. It may be that Miyata had taken over for the original artist on Total Eclipse (Tasuku Iizuki) not that long ago, and I still wasn’t used to Miyata’s art. I also wasn’t nearly as big a fan of Total Eclipse back then as I am now. When I look back now, I really kick myself for not getting a picture of Yui when I had the chance.

Lastly, a couple of items that I felt were appropriate for an anniversary. The first is the obi from the JAM Project CD for Alternative that I showed above. I already included it in this showcase, but I wanted to make a special mention of it, because this CD, containing the songs Asu e no Houkou, Tsubasa, and Carry On, was the first piece of Muv-Luv merchandise I ever bought. It came out in 2005, before Alternative was released (it was actually supposed to come out at the same time, but they wound up delaying the game for almost a year). At the time, you could describe me as more of a JAM Project fan than a Muv-Luv fan. I enjoyed Extra and Unlimited, and I was looking forward to Alternative, but I mostly bought this CD because of JAM Project. But after Alternative came out and blew me away, I had a feeling I would be sticking with this franchise for a while, so when I happened to find this obi sitting in the corner of my room, I decided to hang onto it on a whim (I usually throw these things out). Looking at it again reminds me of the early days, of going through the transition from a casual fan to a hardcore devotee. In a sense, all of the merchandise I showed above can be traced back to buying this one CD.

The last item is particularly special. It’s a receipt from a store in Akihabara, where I bought actual physical copies of the Muv-Luv trilogy (the same ones you can see in the first picture above). I’d like to say I flew all the way to Japan for the sole purpose of buying Muv-Luv – but no, obviously I’m not that crazy. But it just so happened that the all-ages versions of the games came out just a few months before a trip I had already planned, so I knew they should still be available without having to look too hard. I was already a huge fan by that point, so this was probably number one on my list of things to buy on the trip. There was something special about buying the games in an actual store in Japan. I hung onto the receipt because I knew this was something I would want to remember.

Memories of Age at Anime Expo

Muv-Luv creator Kouki Yoshimune has started planning a live event to be held on October 22 (the first day of Muv-Luv) celebrating Age’s 20-year anniversary. It’s still in the early stages (he seems to have just thought of even doing it less than 24 hours ago), and he created the hashtag #age20th to discuss the event and solicit ideas, but the hashtag quickly became a way for fans to celebrate Age’s 20th anniversary in general and share memories.

I wanted to share my own memories of what Age and their work has meant to me, but they’ve been a part of my life since 2003, and I have almost too many memories to mention. So I thought I would focus on a very special time instead – the years Age came to Anime Expo.

Age first came to Anime Expo in 2010, as a special guest of MangaGamer. Officially, their major guest was Minami Kuribayashi, the main singer for Age’s games. They also brought artists Sou Miyata (Total Eclipse, Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu) and Kyousuke Himukai (Owarinaki Natsu Towanaru Shirabe, The Day After). But what they didn’t announce was that Kouki Yoshimune himself would be coming along to take a look around. At the time, Muv-Luv was pretty much a complete unknown in America, and I can only assume that they thought nobody would be interested in meeting him – the artists, at least, could draw some shikishi for fans, even if nobody knew what they worked on. However, Age was running a weekly radio program at the time which I would listen to, and Yoshimune happened to mention on it that he would be taking a week off from the program to fly to America for the convention. For me, this was the biggest news I could hope for – I could never have imagined I might actually get a chance to meet this writer who I respected so much. So I packed my copies of Muv-Luv and Alternative and flew down to LA in hopes of meeting him.

At Anime Expo, MangaGamer had a massive booth in the exhibit hall, and they had set up a stage for their guest singers to perform at various times during the day. Off in the corner, they had also set up a special Age section, where Miyata and Himukai would draw shikishi and sign autographs for fans. Here Age staff would also sell Volks A3 TSF figures, which I imagine was something of a struggle since nobody knew what a TSF was. (In later years, Age staff would become fond of telling the story of an American fan who was looking at a Raptor figure, and finally asked a staff member, “Is the Raptor the strongest model in this universe too?” The staffer responded “Yeah!”, which convinced the fan to buy it.)

On the first day, I dropped by the booth to see Kuribayashi sing. Afterwards, I actually managed to spot Yoshimune hanging around off to the side, just observing this strange foreign convention. Mustering up all of my courage, I managed to approach him and, in my pitiful spoken Japanese, ask if he really was Kouki Yoshimune. He confirmed that he was, seemingly astonished that somebody in America might actually know him. He asked how I managed to recognize him, and I told him I recognized him from the pictures they post every week on their radio program’s website. I asked if he would sign my copies of Muv-Luv and Alternative, and he was delighted to. I’m pretty sure that makes me the very first person to get his autograph in America, and those copies remain one of my most prized possessions.

. . . By the third day, I saw him sweeping in when people would buy A3 figures, point to the box, and proudly proclaim “I wrote that!” in English. He would then more or less force his autograph onto the unsuspecting buyer. So if he was ever at all shy at the prospect of offering his autograph to a foreign audience, he obviously got over it. I remain amused at the idea that some of those fans may still have those boxes in their closet somewhere, completely unaware that the strange man who autographed them was actually the creator of Muv-Luv himself.

Two years later, Yoshimune would return to Anime Expo 2012, this time as an official guest. He was here to present the brand-new anime adaptation of Total Eclipse, set to premiere that summer season. This time around, he was accompanied by singers Minami Kuribayashi and Ayami, as well as Alternative manga artist Azusa Maxima. Things kicked off with a panel on the first day introducing the Total Eclipse anime. The panel was pretty sparesly attended, which was disappointing but not surprising, considering Muv-Luv was still not a well-known property in America. In one especially amusing moment, when the moderator asked Yoshimune to describe the world of Total Eclipse, he began by saying, “A man named Everett created the many-worlds interpretation, suggesting that there are many parallel worlds . . .” Meanwhile, the hapless translator looked on in increasing horror – I suspect he thought the answer was going to be something simple like “There are aliens, mechs fight them”, and was caught off guard by the incredibly complex answer he was going to be forced to translate.

Even worse was what happened at the end of the panel – Yoshimune announced that he wanted to say something important. He then began talking about the earthquake that had hit Japan the previous year, and how he had been moved to see many different countries come to their aid. He said that he was thankful for the opportunity to come to America and express his gratitude. When the time came for the translator to translate what Yoshimune had said into English, he froze up. I think he panicked at the weight of what Yoshimune had been saying, the sense that he had been saying something that was actually important and not just about silly cartoons, and the responsibility of it crushed him. He literally spent at least 2 minutes frozen in silent terror, which is an absolute eternity when the whole room is waiting for you to speak, and the panel literally cannot move forward until you finish. It was the most awkward moment I have ever experienced. Eventually Yoshimune led the entire room in clapping and encouragement just to cheer this guy up and get him to do his job and translate what Yoshimune had said.

On a lighter note, when explaining the background of the Alternative world, Yoshimune stated that it was the Americans who destroyed the 2nd BETA landing site, and the Americans who created the TSFs that allowed humanity to fight the BETA. (Yoshimune pretty obviously chose for this panel to focus on the things America did right for an American audience, skipping over America’s more problematic actions.) He concluded by declaring, in English, “Thank you America!” This, of course, ignited a passionate round of “USA! USA!”, which Yoshimune seemed amazed by. He spent the rest of the panel (and indeed the rest of the entire weekend) randomly goading the audience into more USA chants, and never seemed to tire of it.

On the third day, they scheduled an official preview screening of the first 2 episodes of Total Eclipse ahead of their debut on Japanese television. Unfortunately, the screening was heavily delayed, apparently due to both the previous event running over and the need to set up the room for the mini-concert they would be holding. My recollection is we had to wait outside the venue for over an hour. Towards the end, Alternative manga artist Azusa Maxima actually walked up and down the line, showing off a laptop playing a trailer for Alternative, in order to hype up the crowd. The actual screening went well; I was particularly excited, seeing as how it was the very first time we got to see a Muv-Luv property on the big screen. I had been expecting the screening to introduce Yuuya and Argos Flight, a story I was very familiar with, so it was an amazing moment when Yoshimune announced that what we would be watching was in fact a completely new story that had never been told before.

One memory that stands out is when the title of the episode, “The Imperial Capital Burns”, appeared on screen, some wiseass cried out “Spoiler warning!” Which, well, he kind of had a point, right?

The screening was the same as a similar screening they had held in Japan the day before – the especially gory parts were shown uncensored. The version that was aired on Japanese television and streamed on Crunchyroll was censored, meaning that for several months until the series was released on home video, only those of us at the Japan and Anime Expo screenings saw the uncensored version. After the screening, Yoshimune came back on stage to encourage us to watch the series that summer, and Minami Kuribayashi and Ayami came on stage to sing their Total Eclipse songs.

Yoshimune would return to Anime Expo in 2015 to support the newly announced Muv-Luv Kickstarter. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend that year. They announced that Muv-Luv would have a presence at Anime Expo just a week before the event began, and there was simply no way I could arrange to attend with such short notice. From the pictures and stories from the people in attendance, it looks like Degica set up a booth in the exhibit hall where Yoshimune would sign autographs. I would have loved to have been part of the festivities celebrating the official release of the original games in English, but I’m glad it sounds like everybody had a great time.

Yoshimune would return again the next year, for Anime Expo 2016, which I was determined to attend. Like the previous year, Degica set up a small booth where Yoshimune would hold autograph sessions. He would also hold little mini-panels at the booth, where about 15-20 of us would gather, and he would tell stories and answer questions about Muv-Luv. Notably, the booth featured an early demo build of the first Muv-Luv game that people could actually play. It was the first time I was able to see the English translation they would be using, and seeing it really put my heart at ease.

Muv-Luv was not able to score an actual panel in Anime Expo’s crowded schedule. Luckily for them though, popular artist Sayori was another guest at Anime Expo that year. Sayori had worked for Age for several years and was still on very good terms with Yoshimune, and together they arranged for Sayori’s own panel to bring Yoshimune on as a surprise guest, essentially transforming her panel into a combined Sayori / Muv-Luv panel. Unfortunately, the panel was held in a room far too small for the number of fans interested in Sayori, let alone Muv-Luv as well, and I wasn’t able to get in. Reports are that Yoshimune was as animated as usual, cracking jokes and telling lots of funny stories.

So that’s the story of the 3 times I managed to meet Kouki Yoshimune, and other Age/Muv-Luv related staff, at Anime Expo. I remain hopeful that whatever Age is up to, it may lead to another visit to America, and another opportunity for us American fans to show our support in person.

Ixtl

So, I learned the other day that Ixtl now has its own website up.

Contrary to what I had kind of been thinking, it seems that Ixtl is not just an offshoot of ACID (Age’s parent company), but a distinctly separate company.  The president of Ixtl is Takashi Nakanishi, the former president of AG-ONE and the current vice-president of MAGES (the combination of 5pb and AG-ONE).  If I had to guess, I would say that Yoshimune probably convinced MAGES to assign some of their employees to handle Age’s copyrights, and together they formed a new company.

It’s not just copyrights, though – Ixtl is credited for helping to plan the upcoming live event in April, and apparently they’ve also started managing Minami Kuribayashi’s career.  These are all things that ACID used to do.  Yoshimune mentioned in the past that this reorganization would help them put out games faster, and it looks like the reason for that is that now ACID can focus completely on game development, while Ixtl will handle all of the other stuff they used to do – copyright, licensing, merchandising, event planning, career management.

I still have no idea why Ixtl is credited on Animation Production, though.  It may simply be some legal thing.