When humanity has finally bitten off more than it can chew, those who are left behind have to clean up the resulting mess. The question is.. can they? And how?
Having no other recourse in its fight against the BETA, the "Beings of Extra-Terrestrial Origin: Adversaries of the Human Race" following the failure and shutdown of Alternative Plan IV, humanity fell back to Alternative Plan V, sending off a hundred thousand of its best and brightest into space to found an exile colony, and then simultaneously-dropping G-Bombs on the BETA hives, in an effort to destroy them and wipe out the BETA swarms. The bomb strikes would have been followed by a massive, suicidal, worldwide counteroffensive... had the bombs not performed beyond expectations.
In the aftermath of "The Day", as the start date of Operation Babylon is called, the Earth is no longer what it was. The whole of the Eurasian and African continents now lie beneath the waves, while on the other side the former seabeds are now deserts of salt, expanding and encroaching upon whatever habitable land remains. Among the ruins and desolation there is only war: there is no peace nor goodwill among men, and mankind - the pitiful remnants of it - still lies divided, fighting amongst itself, whether for supremacy, or for simple survival.
Amidst all of this, the BETA - long thought eradicated along with lost Eurasia, resurface...
Written by âge's Wei Luxin, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After (TDA) is an ongoing series of Visual Novels chronologically set after Muv-Luv Unlimited. It is a tale of those left behind when humanity abandoned its homeworld, and follows a new cast as they struggle to survive in a world's second After the End.
Following the successful English language release of the main trilogy on Steam, The Day After received an official English localization on February 5th, 2021.
This page assumes that you have finished Muv-Luv Unlimited. As such, spoilers from said Visual Novel will be left unmarked.
Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After provides examples of:
- After the End: Operation Babylon really messed things up.
- Brain in a Jar: The joint task force infiltrating the JFK Hive encounter these, as well as people jars of the cast of the Prologue. This causes Lilia, the Sole Survivor of that prologue, to Freak Out and start shooting every brain jar in sight.
- Canon Immigrant: Ritsuko Oogami, a heroine from sister company phi-âge's VN Owarinaki Natsu, Towa Naru Shirabe, officially shows up in a Muv-Luv - titled work for the first time. Said visual novel itself is a Stealth Prequel to Muv Luv Unlimited and is set in that same universe. Captain Sayoko Komaki also makes her first VN appearance here, having shown up in the manga adaptation of Muv-Luv Alternative as Sagiri's second-in-command during the Military Coup.
- Child Soldiers: The draft age has been further lowered to ten. Due to the lack of training equipment (the few remaining are priority-assigned to combat veterans) the new recruits are instead made to watch videos of pilots doing simulator training, and sent into battle with combat stims.. which in Miono's case is wreaking havoc with her metabolism and growth patterns, as well as making her emotionally unstable.
- Cutting Off The Branch: TDA could not have followed from Meiya's True End in Unlimited, as here Meiya has replaced her twin sister Yuuhi as Shogun, but with the latter's name.
- Due to the Dead: Upon Lilia's urging, the commanding officer in the prologue holds a military burial for the remains of the JFK deadnote , complete with honor guards, gun salute and the playing of Taps.
- Freak Out: When Lilia encounters the bodies of her friend Melvina, and love interest Will deep within the BETA hive that formed around the USS JFK and undergoing the Sumika treatment, she snaps and shoots up all the brain jars she sees.
- Ignored Expert: Yuuko predicted what would happen to the world if Alternative V goes ahead, and wrote a top-secret report on the matter before disappearing (in the Unlimited manga, going along with the migrant fleet). Even highly-redacted, the report hinted that even worse things are to come from the massive G-Bomb strike.
- MacGuffin: Ikaruga is looking for the unredacted portions of the Kouzuki Report, which Yuuko left with trusted colleagues before disappearing, and spell out the worse things which are to come from G-Bombing the world, in order to find ways for humanity to survive the coming events. Marimo was imprisoned on trumped-up charges due to refusing to divulge to the Imperial Royal Guard the portions Yuuko entrusted to her.
- Majorly Awesome: Having returned to the Imperial Japanese Army after Alternative IV got shut down, Marimo gets her old rank of Major back, and proves more than competent with a Shiranui.
- Mythology Gag: Walken and Sagiri have their "rematch" in Chapter 02, with Sagiri (having defected to France) "upgrading" to a Rafale, and Walken in a non-sabotaged Raptor. Walken kills Sagiri's squadmates with a single cannon burst, and fights the Rafale to a standstill before being ordered to return to base.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: During a battle in a war between the US and Japan one side, and France and Canada on the other, Hibiki's squad found that the besieged defenders they were sent to relieve had resorted to cannibalism in their desperation.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted. Tactical nukes are now routinely-used in thinning operations to tie up BETA swarms before TSFs move in.
- Semper Fi: The Black Knives squadron in the Prologue are US Marines. Interestingly, their main Tactical Surface Fighter is the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, whose real-life aircraft counterpart has been avoided by the US Marine Corps, which prefers to use the F/A-18C Hornet.note
- Sole Survivor: Lilia, of two separate Marine units.
- The Dead Have Names: The names of fallen Marines and naval personnel are read at a Memorial Day service in the prologue, just before a 21-gun salute and TAPS.
