Total Eclipse

This is an anime made by a masterpiece of a Visual Novel. And it soils the ''Muv-luv Alternative'' name in every way possible. IT IS AS INCONSISTENT AS A KID RIDING A UNICYCLE WITH HIS FACE (Lets now calm down and continue on.), failed at following the source material (Trying to follow it, and failing, is different from not following it at all.), badly written characters, and it wasn't generally thought out well AT ALL.

The first few episodes will tell you what this anime SHOULD be about, people fighting against hope, in a world full of death and despair.. But the sad thing is that the anime is like I said, inconsistent as kid riding a concrete with his face! The aliens are sometimes as big as houses, and sometimes the same aliens are double the size of houses.
A bit later, you see a horrific scene where all our heroin's friends die, and she even sees someone being eaten in front of her.. Guess what our heroin does? She starts speaking loudly with her communication device WHILE THE ALIENS ARE MOOCHING ON HIS FRIEND 3 feet away from her!

We'll timeskip ahead, where we see our main protagonist. He's supposed to be a ace and stuff, be badass and stuff.. We see him saving a plane from being destroyed by 2 ALLIED units who were RANDOMLY KILLING EACH OTHER OVER THE BASE, and the plane crashed cause of it. Though thanks to our awesome main character, he saved the 30 soldiers lives, from certain death. This scene can't be figured out with a brain, just throw it out of the window.
Now mind you, we were just shown how f-ed up the world really is, and about how serious the situation is.. NOW WE SEE ELITE SOLDIERS DESTROYING MILITARY PROPERTY, ENDANGERING LIVES, CAUSE OF SENSELESS FUN?!?!?!??!??!?!?!?! GOD DAMN IT! The world is in danger, and you who're PRACTICALLY adults, with military up-bringing, fly around potentially killing off other military officers and wasting PRECIOUS military equipment.. IT would be one thing if those two were SEVERELY punished (Like a year in the prison or something, with the next offense ending with explusion or DEATH.), but nope, that scene was just brushed over.
I'm also not going to say what is wrong with the mech combat (Actually I will.), as the combat between mechs in the visual novel was mostly ground based, and they needed to conserve the flying/booster fuel as much as possible.. In this one they fly all around the place like they just don't care for their mechs fuel or anything. . And mind you the mechs in the Visual Novel were supposed to be much newer and more potent, with much better specs and the fuel consumption was supposed to be more efficient.

I hope I've made it quite clear how inconsistent and depressing this really is. But want to hear the fun thing? The thing about gore, death and despair completely disappears, and the anime takes a ''high-spirited'' lets train and get stronger, with beach episodes kinda approach.

This is a BAD-BAD-BAD-BAD representation of the Muvluv Alternative name, and should be avoided like the plague. Rather take up the Visual Novel.
This might be interesting for people who don't care what they watch, and just care for breasts, and other stuff, but for someone who's looking for a serious piece.. This thing isn't for you.

First and foremost, let’s keep our eyes peeled regarding the difference between an anime and a cartoon. Do you still remember? A real otaku would… and of course, I’m not talking about the country they originated from. The heart and soul of an anime lies within the inspiring story that resonates and then, eventually captures the heart of its audience. Unfortunately, Total Eclipse is nothing more than a collection of bells and whistles. However, please don’t take it the wrong way—I do admire those vivid graphics and perky stereo type conversations. But other than that, what else does it have? It’s a yawn…

This show is boring, ugly, and boarders of indecent.

The plot is very stilted. It feels very rushed. You never get a chance to really know any of the characters until much later in the show when it slows down to focus on the”main characters” which you don't meet until four or five episodes into the show. When you finally do meet them you could really care less who they are or why they are fighting.

The art work, at times, is sloppy and way too dark. I don't know if this was an attempt to censor some of the more gruesome shots but it just makes everything look like a mess. The character designs are very lazy and everything looks super generic.

This show really tries to push the bounds of what is acceptable with younger characters. This show is based off a popular “dating sim” game series. It is clearly targeted toward a very specific demographic and I'm sure after seeing a few episodes you'll know right away what I'm talking about. There was one scene in a locker room that made me get up and walk away from my PC. I haven't come back to this show since.

I do not recommend this show to anyone.

This show has less than zero storytelling, so so action, somewhat interesting mecha design, and is so slow moving and boring that i literally skipped around in the FIRST EPISODE to try and find something interesting. the 2nd episode is a bit better, but the third kills it entirely. dont waste your time. this show is retarded.

how as many people gave it 4 or 5 stars is entirely beyond me. they probably also think gundam wing is "the best anime evar"

The fact that so many people gave this series a 5 is incredibly sad to me. Maybe the creator of the show is purposefully going after a specific audience that i'm not even close to being part of, and maybe I'm missing something.

There is no character development. I've given this show hours of time, and so far all I know is that one main character is a racist, the other main character is also a racist, one of the main characters' dad is a racist, Japanese mechs suck because they are "unstable", and American mechs suck because they "use brute force".

If the two main characters and all the secondary characters died, I wouldn't care. The dialogue is trite and bland, and the story goes nowhere after the second episode.

Normally I give every anime I watch at least two episodes to hook me, since some shows that I ended up loving took at least that long to warm up to, but this show was the opposite. Don't bother giving this the two episodes to hook you. It probably will, but then you will be incredibly disappointed for the next 3 hours while you watch the rest of the available episodes.

If you want meaningless filler dialogue, watch Tommy Wiseau's "The Room". At least it is so bad it's funny. This show doesn't even have that as a redeeming quality. It's just plain bad.

On-going review.

This show gutted me. From the start it actually showed potential. I went into it with a clear head; just casually wanting to a watch a decent mech anime with a good story. And I got that...for two episodes.

It's like being given a spoonful of a delicious cake; only after the first two scoops someone rushes in and punches that spoon into your throat mid-bite.

It had such a good set up too. Few anime put on display the sheer hopelessness of a losing war the way Eclipse did. Right away the audience is shown what a drastic effect the BETA are having on mankind, and what a threat they are to all life. The first handful of characters introduced are almost all decimated in their first battle; in highly gruesome and shocking ways to boot. Whilst it was censored, it still made me a little squeamish.

And then, the whole tone of the show changes. Gone is the tension of a mounting alien swarm, or the continuing growth of whom I thought was going to be the lead character. Instead we get dumped on Hentai Dating Sim Military Base and in the shoes of all round jerk Yuuya Bridges; a seasoned mech pilot who hates Japanese but apparently refuses to change his first name.

I understand trying to slow the plot down and introduce the characters we'll be following throughout the show, but every single person barring Lt Takamura is just a bland cardboard effigy masquerading as a real human. So bland, trite and stupid are they I can't even remember their names! There's typical white-haired duo who are supposed to be Russian and are so obviously part of some secret military experiment, annoying tomboy girl who is teased constantly due to her figure (Haha lol, she has small breasts, bloody hilarious), green-haired butt monkey who thinks he's suave but is universally ignored by everyone, blonde-haired woman with giant boobs who DOESN'T DO ANYTHING, and Yuuya's best friend who gives him advice concerning women (awful advice by the way.)

Yuuya, being the most stubborn and unbelievably dense protagonist I've seen in a while, just coasts through the show whining about the Japanese and their crappy TSF mechs, and playing the disgruntled hero pilot to a T. He at least has some backstory but is generally bland and lacking personality. Oh, and he snaps at people who tease him about making advances towards women. Isn't he an adult? Military no less? Who the hell gets flustered and nervous about that?

Though the show plummeted to 'Bad' leading up to episode 5, it was at least watchable with the smattering of mech action (Training Exercises, but a good prelude to what the battles will look like) sprinkled in among the juvenile character interactions, it nose-dived with a head full of concrete during episode 6; Fanservice Beach Episode.

Yes, that's right. Six episodes into a mech anime about the coming end of the world due to ruthless aliens and we get a beach episode. They try and wave it off by saying 'It'll boost morale, please the press etc", but that is a pathetic excuse. The already bloody awful character interactions get even worse here with the female cast so quickly donning swimsuits to pander to the lonely otaku crowd and losing whatever personality they had.

The final nail in the coffin was the brutal character assassination of Lt Takamura. I really liked her during the show. She was a tough-talking and cool-headed superior who knew how to put the constantly whining Yuuya Bridges in his place.

Then they degraded all her worth to nothing by turning her into a simpering useless princess at the slightest sign of trouble. After a scene where they're stranded on an island somehow (which is already bull to begin with) she's so tired and helpless after the ordeal that Yuuya has to carry her to safety and shelter, with her getting nervous and blushing at the contact like a worthless schoolgirl. How insulting.

Forget it, I'm done with this review. I'm done with this show.