The next volume of the Muv-Luv Schwarzesmarken prequel tale, Bernhard im Schatten 2, which complements the traditional dual narrative of the Muv-Luv series, and throws the characters of the first tale into a harsh unforgiving world. Below I will make some notes about the translation and how it’s integrated into the overall narrative, you can enjoy them or just skip to the download section.
First of All, the entirety of the novel is translated, and that includes art pages and regional/detailed maps. If you feel you are lost between the different locations, the map section will a great asset in that regard. Also a note about the pronunciation of the words between the brackets, the characters only say the word between the bracket, and not both words that are next to each other.
For example, a word like Red Aristocrats (Nomenklatura). In the written novel, both words are written on top of each other, the Kanji and it’s German pronunciation, but when they pronounce it, they only say Nomenklatura, but I add both most of the time as some TSF models have the same pronunciation but different models and it gets confusing. Also don’t forget that you can click on any reference link to jump immediately to the translator note, then click there again to get back to where you left off.
Is Bernhard im Schatten 2 a spoiler for Schwarzesmarken? The most concise answer is no. IJust like with every other prequel story in Muv-Luv, the characters function differently and have completely different roles than the ones in the main series entries. Each novel is a stand alone entry and not entirely consequential but very meaningful regardless. In fact, it might leave you with more questions than answers. My personal recommendation is to check them out just to ease the barrier of entry to the overwhelming amount of lore, and cultural/political terms that the games will heavily depend on.
Fan Translation download link: Bernhard im Schatten 2
Baka-Tsuki Page for Project Progress: Schwarzesmarken