Muv-Luv has released aNCHOR today Muv-Luv Regenerative Volume 01 in English on Steam.
It’s not actually a game, but a 19-page magazine originally released in Japan in late 2022 that dives deeper into the complex and multi-faceted universe of the Muv-Luv series, which many (including yours truly ) consider to be the best visual novel series of all time .
It’s sold on Steam as DLC for An alternative to Muv-Luv, so you need to own the game to buy it, and it’s priced at $19.99. By the way, the page count can be a bit deceiving as the text is very dense as the publisher chose to keep the same page structure of the Japanese original and Japanese kanji take up much less space than English words.
Among the magazine’s contents, you’ll find an article about Sakura Usuki, a new character introduced in the An alternative to Muv-Luv anime, mecha Fubuki Kai TSF, interview with NextNinja CEO Masayuki Yamagishi, who is working on the future Muv-Luv Dimensions mobile game, an article explaining how the Battle of Midway happened in an alternate history of the franchise, a column by creator Kouki Yoshimune, and more, all adorned with beautiful artwork worthy of the series’ legacy.
By the way, volume 02 is already out in Japanese, and volume 03 is in progress.
You can take a look at the cover below, featuring Sakura Usuki and Fubuki Kai.
If you are not familiar with Move-Luv franchise, you might be wondering why it has its own magazine, and the answer is pretty simple. Its sci-fi isekai (alternate world) is so complex and interesting that there are a ton of directions it could be expanded on and a lot of information that fans might find interesting.
As mentioned above, the franchise is widely regarded as one of the best (if not the best) visual novel series of all time (even the artificial intelligence of the new Bing agrees, although it apparently cannot overcome PTSD) and one of the first isekai stories to make waves in Japanese pop culture when the genre wasn’t as oversaturated as it is now. It combines a tragic and romantic story with one of the best and deepest science fiction worlds ever written. It is so influential that Attack on Titan mangaka Hajime Isayama cites it as one of his main sources of inspiration.
majority Move-Luv visual novels are currently available in English on Steam (until Move-Luv and An alternative to Muv-Luv were also released on PS Vita) along with the Early Access action game Project MIKHAIL: History of the Muv-Lyuv warthe official localization of the prequel visual novel Kimi Ha Nozomu Eyen finally at work.