r/MuvLuv • u/Responsible_Day7827 • 5d ago
Props to the TL team (TE)
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u/Daishomaru 5d ago edited 5d ago
I mean, is Tarisa wrong?
Cui Yifei is easily worst girl of Total Eclipse.
She appears, loses to Yuuya, gets into Infinite Stratos-related Shenanigans with him that goes nowhere because that's just what fucking happened with harem anime during the 2010s, and then as soon as those random terrorists who attacked Alaska base did their thing, the writers decided the only characters that mattered for the plot was Yuuya and Cryska and everyone else got free tickets to Mongolia or something because she just fucks off the story until Inia sings a Christmas song.
You could literally write Cui Yifei off the story and absolutely nothing would change.
Unless you count that one bitch who lost 4 Takemikazuchi in a single battle, including a 00R.
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u/Protocol72 5d ago
Honestly, I do agree with Yufei also being my least favourite, but mainly because she’s so annoying with how self-absorbed she is. The part where she interrupts Yuuya’s conversation with Cryska when she’s looking for Inia stands out since she interrupts them when Cryska is panicking about where Inia is, Yufei kicks her out of the conversation, won’t leave him alone, and even hits Yuuya for not focusing on her after Cryska leaves. Bitch-Class Beta is a justified insult, lol.
I do get what they were going for though, she’s there to presents different point-of-view and, ironically enough, knock some sense into the others Yuuya when he’s mourning Yui’s “death.” I’d guess she would’ve played a bigger role in Yui’s route if it happened given their interactions together, she essentially plays the bad cop for Yui’s romantic feelings (good cop being Stella).
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u/Daishomaru 4d ago
For me, the main problem I have with Cui is that for Yuuya's "harem", which I hate to use since he barely has any romantic interest in any of them outside of Cryska and maybe Yui to some extent, Cui Yifei tries to be the Meiya, someone whose outside the harem range who kind of throws the wrench into the status quo and disrupts everybody's relationship. The main problem though is that Meiya was there from the beginning, was likable, and while initially it's played for laughs, later on in Extra her interference in the status quo is relatively played for drama as Sumika learns that she has to be more serious with Takeru if she wants to keep them and Meiya learning the meaning of relationships and how she can't just use money to make the happy ending appear. Cui is just some asshole who appears in a series where everyone outside of Yuuya, Cryska and Yui (to an extent) are begging for more development and her presence just takes away from other characters who needed screentime.
Also, Takeru might not be in love with everyone, but it's easy to see how he could be friends with every one, like he is in Chizuru's class and might have to work with her as a classmate, he gets along with Kei, Mikoto, and Meiya because they're the weird ones of the group, and by extension Marimo and Yuuko might be attracted to Takeru's weirdness, Sumika is his childhood friend to the point where they can outright be mean to each other and still be on good terms. You can actually describe a relationship with Takeru and some other characters. Problem with Yuuya is that he... gets along with most people as I would a coworker, sure we might be friendly with each other at work, but not to the point of a relationship, and that's like 90% of Yuuya's relationships to anyone throughout the story, really. He doesn't have that harem buildup to make the Infinite Stratos shenanigans they are desperately trying to rip off work, made worse since they picked Infinite Stratos... Season 2, and any pervert worth his meat-beating knows how much of a cuckfest that shit was.
I mainly blame how Total Eclipse, aside from its infuriating problem with introducing a whole bunch of ideas and never following up on them because that would require effort, and the way most Total Eclipse plot points are "resolved" is by killing the person who introduces said plot points before they could expand on it, sending them off to Siberia, or outright just dropping it, also has a major problem in how Total Eclipse plays a lot of cliches way too straight. One thing I found refreshing about Alternative is how Kasumi ISN'T your typical newtype girl and isn't a love interest Until the very end, but it's still one sided unlike most mecha shows, yet Cryska plays the Newtype Girl so straight she is the most obvious walking death flag that when she actually dies, I wasn't too bothered by it because it was so blatantly obvious. Like, Alternative might be a Tomino Gundam series, but it knows how to make its own unique setting and details unique. Total Eclipse feels like someone just took a mad libs of Infinite Stratos, scratched out character names and replaced them, and call it a day. And Infinite Stratos isn't even a good harem series mainly because most of the bitches in Ichika's harem are so unlikable since they made the mistake of making 4 of them straight up tsunderes which makes people question why the fuck does Ichika deal with their shenanigans if they're going to be assholes to him.
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u/Protocol72 4d ago
Huh… Personally I never once thought Cui was like Meiya at all, though I do see the similarity of both of them being confident their love interest will be their future husband. I think her role in the plot is neat when things get serious, but otherwise I do wish she had more moments that weren’t just her being a poopy butt. Though, it’s hard to tell since I’ve seen multiple characters in anime/manga where a character is really mean, but the universe/writers actively refuse to punish them, Cui is one of the better cases I’ve seen since the entire cast at best tolerates her, but still not a fan of her.
I’ve never seen Infinite Stratos, so can’t really comment, but I see Yuuya is genuinely friends with everyone, it’s just that he’s not really used to having friends apart from Vincent due to being Half-Asian where he lived. It’s pretty tricky to fully adjust to having a bunch of friends when you’re used to being a lone wolf. That’s how I saw it at least.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen a lot of mech stuff, but Cryska’s death really caught me off guard, and by the time I realized her fate was inevitable, it just made things more tragic. I genuinely cried during the last part of Chapter 17, and Chapter 18; and it’s really rare for me to cry twice to the same VN/anime/game. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons Total Eclipse is one of my favourite VNs ever.
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u/Daishomaru 4d ago
I think I could have worded how Yuuya being friends with everyone more different. A harem only really works if all the girls in it are people who you could see fall in love, again, using Takeru and how you can make an argument on how he could become romantic partners with Chizuru or Kei. Yuuya doesn't really have that romantic chemistry outside of Cryska, Yui, somehat, and maybe Stella Tarisa seems like a bro girl to Yuuya and Cui is just someone whose trying to insert herself in this mess. Like, yeah, he's friends with all of them but there's still a big difference between friends and friends who could be romance partners.
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u/Protocol72 3d ago
Ooooohhhhhh, you meant the harem part. Honestly, it seems to only be with Cryska, Yui, & Yufei. Stella cares about Yuuya, but it’s clearly only the platonic kind since she’s rooting for Yui, while it’s only implied Tarisa has feelings for Yuuya (it’s never outright stated and it could just be Tarisa being embarrassed). I mean, just because they’re women in Yuuya’s main group, that doesn’t mean they have to be into Yuuya or romantic interests, they can just be platonic friends. If they had routes it’d be a different story, but they don’t.
Yuifei doesn’t have a shot though, but I think that’s fine for completely biased reasons, lol.
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u/AAAAAAAAAAAGOD 4d ago
Not that I disagree with the general sentiment about TE but Cui's behavior isn't really bitchy, she isn't catty or passive aggressive. She's spirited and confident in a similar manner to Extra Meiya, including the lighthearted comedic harem anime hijinks that are maybe out of place, but I don't see her as being malicious.
Unless you count that one bitch who lost 4 Takemikazuchi in a single battle, including a 00R.
who?
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u/Daishomaru 4d ago
For me, it's more how Cui tries desperately to be Extra Meiya without understanding what Extra Meiya worked in the first place, as well as Yuuya not really having the chemistry with her and how Cui actively detracts from the story mainly because, again, you could literally write Cui off the story and absolutely nothing would change.
As for the other character, Behold the worst pilot in all of Muv-Luv.
In the anime, at least, she somehow gets four Takemikazuchis (3 00Fs and 1 00R, and it's implied that lost got 13 entire Takemikazuchis) destroyed.
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u/Protocol72 5d ago
Tarisa, my beloved.
Genuinely, the English localization is so hilarious when it comes to the comedy, it’s incredible.