Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse

In 1973, after the brutal six-year Lunar War, an alien threat known as the BETA invades Earth, killing billions and laying waste to Eurasia. Although conventional weapons can bring them down, the BETA’s laser-class can erase entire air fleets, pushing humanity to field towering humanoid war machines called Tactical Surface Fighters (TSFs) to survive.

When the BETA reach Japan in 1998, military academy student and TSF pilot Yui Takamura is ordered to hold Kyoto’s final defensive line alongside her classmates. The victory comes at a staggering cost, and the losses Yui endures leave her resolved to never let such devastation happen again.

Three years later, now a lieutenant, Yui is assigned to the Alaska-based XFJ Project—a joint Japan–U.S. program developing next-generation TSFs. Working with an international test team that includes the difficult Japanese-American pilot Yuuya Bridges and soldiers from nations already consumed by the BETA, she helps bring the new Shiranui to fruition while navigating Cold War-era politics and the personal scars that still shadow Yuuya.