April 2015 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

I'm going to recommend the Muv Luv series of visual novels. This is a military sci-fi story where the lead of a slice-of-life harem/romcom finds himself in a war-torn alternate timeline, and has to learn to pilot giant robots in order to fight alongside battle-hardened versions of the girls from his own world. There are 3 parts: Muv Luv (romcom), Muv Luv Unlimited (darker military focus), and Muv Luv Alternative (very dark military/war). Muv Luv Alternative is the #1 ranked VN on vndb.org, with an average score of 9.28. Apparently it's also the highest ranked on the equivalent Japanese site.

The series has many virtues, but also some major caveats.

I'll start with the good stuff:

Amazing battle sequences - the animation is very advanced for a VN and the best battles are among some of the most tense and exciting I've experienced in any medium.
Interesting exploration of duty and identity in the politics arc.
Fun character interactions and humor.
Many very emotionally compelling moments - this story made me cry more than any other I've experienced (for both happy and sad reasons).
Pretty smart writing in general - characters don't obviously hold the idiot ball unless they're supposed to be idiots or are acting emotionally at the time.
Great world-building with well thought-through military/technical elements.
Great character development for the main character.
Amazing, film-quality music (more so in Alternative).

Downsides:

Extremely long overall - at least about 80 hours for the whole thing.
The first part ("Muv Luv") is a very silly and fluffy romcom, and while it's often amusing, it's over-long and some parts really drag (ugh, the lacrosse). By contrast to Alternative's 9.28 average score and #1 ranking, this only got 7.14 and #476, and shouldn't really be skipped due to important character and plot setup.
Only available in English via an old pirated version that requires some technical fiddling to get it to work (comes with a readme to explain this).
Has gratuitous sexual/fanservice elements.
Some of the tear-jerker moments may come across as heavy-handed or manipulative if you're not in the right mood for them.

Neutral elements:

Not heavily decision driven - the main routes in Muv Luv are extremely obvious, and Alternative only has one route.
The prose (and/or translation thereof) is quite simple and straightfoward, compared to eg Fate/stay night.

I wasn't sure whether to post about this because of the downsides, but I read it a couple of months ago and it's still on my mind enough to feel worth recommending. I'd strongly recommend it if you have the time to spare and like both military sci-fi and emotion-heavy stories.

Content warning: Explicit sex and violence.

Where/how can one buy this thing?

1Baughn11y

On the flip side there's Luv and Hate, which is an (incomplete! still good) rewrite of the Muv-Luv Alternate story with a guest protagonist from... Supreme Commander. Including the ACU. It's well-written, mainly character-focused with a few amusing combat interludes, and oh so gratifying after attempting to read the grimdark original. It's also a quest. If this doesn't mean anything to you folks... don't worry about it, you can treat it as an ordinary story if you wish.

6Username11y

Fair warning to anyone thinking of attempting these visual novels: * The protagonist is the dumbest and most thickheaded person I've ever encountered in fiction (and I've read a lot of dumb fiction, including quite a few visual novels). If you cannot tolerate extreme idiocy, you're not going to like this series. * About half the story is meaningless filler (yes, that's 40-50 hours of reading time). * The plot is very straightforward and predictable. (Posting from the anonymous community account since I don't want to get into another argument with a muvluv fan about any of this. This is strictly my opinion, take from it what you will.)