High School Fleet

A hundred years after catastrophic shifts in tectonic plates caused most of its area to submerge, Japan now thrives as a maritime nation. High functioning cities line the coasts of Japan, and well developed sea routes are defended by specialized naval ships. The marine industry is flourishing, and young girls are eager to join the Blue Mermaids—highly skilled women who devote their lives to protecting the seas.

After some time apart, childhood friends Akeno Misaki and Moeka China are reunited at Yokosuka Girls' Marine High School. Here they are joined by others who share their dream of becoming Blue Mermaids. Soon, training exercises commence, with Akeno and Moeka being put in charge of their own ships and crew. Everything is progressing smoothly for Akeno as she settles into her role as captain and builds camaraderie between her fellow crew members aboard the Harekaze, a destroyer ship. However, unexpected engine and navigation failures soon leave their ship stranded and the crew in danger.

High School Fleet follows the Harekaze's valiant crew as they navigate treacherous waters and other obstacles on their quest to become fully fledged Blue Mermaids.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Misaki, Akeno Main

Natsukawa, Shiina Japanese

Braunschweig Ingenohl Friedeburg, Wilhelmina Main

Igarashi, Hiromi Japanese

Munetani, Mashiro Main

Lynn Japanese

Irizaki, Mei Main

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Nosa, Kouko Main

Kurose, Yuuko Japanese

Tateishi, Shima Main

Furuki, Nozomi Japanese

Shiretoko, Rin Main

Kubo, Yurika Japanese

China, Moeka Supporting

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Kreutzer, Thea Supporting

Morinaga, Chitose Japanese

Kaburagi, Minami Supporting

Asumi, Kana Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Katou, Shinichirou Producer

Kashiwada, Shinichirou Producer

Ougi, Jiyuu Producer

Reviews

Feb 2, 2022

GREED_Adherent

Recommended

This is a good anime. If you like anime with an ocean atmosphere like listening to the waves, seagulls, storms and the scenery. And also ship knowledge such as its operation and giving the captain's orders to the crew. I think you should watch this.
This anime is approximately 85% of the scene in this season is in the middle of the sea. Not only the sea and shipping, but also the daily lives of girls who struggle to survive because they are considered school rebels because there is an unknown cause of chaos that is happening in this story. Don't forget their cuteness is a ... part of this anime. When asked which part is more dominant between serious and having fun. I think the fun part is a bit more. But I enjoyed it, seeing their daily cuteness and the way they steered the boat.
A little disappointed about the sound of cannons and explosions, too slow so the atmosphere of war is less pronounced.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 17, 2023

RESOLVING_POWER

Mixed Feelings

I watched High School Fleet, also known as Haifuri. I watched the TV anime, OVAs, and the movie. Here are my thoughts:

This is basically the maritime clone of Girls und Panzer, which I didn't enjoy enough to watch more than the first season of. It's been years since then, but I think one of the main reasons I dropped GuP was because of the crappy characters. I remember also thinking that the battles were very drawn-out and often boring. Anyway, enough about GuP — I only bring it up because the comparison is so common.

High School Fleet involves battleships which are operated by crews of ... cute girls. This is a winning combination, in my view. Watching the girls working together in their various naval roles is entertaining. The girls are enrolled in a naval academy for training to join a military organization called the Blue Mermaids (Blue-Mers LOL). It's unreasonable of me to expect this, but it would have been nice if a bit more attention was given to the technical aspects of the battleships. Although, anime is probably the wrong medium for that. Regardless, if you like military stuff then there's an okay amount of that here. Admittedly, I'm kind of a military dork so I'm probably a little biased in this regard. The ships featured in the anime resemble WW2-era battleships.

In terms of animation, CGI is frequently used to animate the battleships. The CGI can sometimes appear crude, even by anime CGI standards. However, the character animation is often surprisingly good (although inconsistent). I'm fine with this resource allocation as the high-quality character animation does enhance the cuteness appeal of the show. Both the art style and character designs are fairly generic. Although I will say that a disproportionate degree of attention is paid to the characters' hair, both in terms of design and animation. I enjoyed this subtle aspect of the show since I just really like hair (OMG I'm such a weirdo) and think it's an important feature. There are lots of cute hairstyles among the cast! Anyway, it's not really the character designs themselves that evoke the feeling of moe within me, it's the 'gap moe' of the girls operating warships that really amplifies the cuteness.

The cast is very tropey, unsurprisingly. Some of the characters are pretty funny though. I don't have any significant complaints about the cast; this isn't the kind of show that requires character development. The cast is enormous, making it difficult to implement individual character arcs anyway. None of the characters are annoying, thankfully.

In terms of voice acting, there's a fair bit of variety. Some of the VAs do an exceptional job (ex. Rin), although they are diluted by the enormous size of the cast. As for music, I liked the OP song (the vocals are pretty good). The OST was nothing special. I would have liked to have seen a more military-like soundtrack for this. Could you imagine a well-produced military-inspired OST with lots of brass instruments used in a show like this? That would be awesome. There was a mild military theme to the music, but I would have preferred it be stronger (I realize this is kind of a silly complaint). Regardless, a more creative and talented OST composer could benefit this anime a lot, especially considering that there are plenty of moments without any dialogue. However, I will say that the sound effects during battle scenes were pretty nice.

There was a healthy mix of plot and lighthearted silly scenes. It was sometimes a fun show to watch. However, one of my biggest issues with this anime was the plot itself. The battle scenes were usually fun and entertaining, but many other plot-related scenes were tiresome. Without giving too much away, the story involves a dumb mystery. A lot of screentime gets wasted on eyeroll-inducing scenes related to this mystery phenomenon. Just know that it was really dumb, and not in an enjoyable way — I sometimes felt like I was watching a one-star horror movie. Even beyond the mystery, the writing in general is just poor. The plot doesn't completely dominate the show, so I don't want to overstate its impact on my viewing experience. Still, it was pretty bad and I would have preferred a completely different story or, better yet, no plot at all. Seriously, I even would have preferred that everyone just sat around painting their nails and drinking milkshakes, while occasionally firing some torpedoes and 400mm cannons. In any case, for maximum enjoyment of this anime, I think the best thing to do is shut your brain off.


My overall rating for the TV anime: 6/10
I pretty much got what I expected. It was fun and cute, but there was room for improvement. It felt like this anime 'played it safe' in a lot of respects. Aside from the naval setting and the sometimes-strange plot, it was a fairly stereotypical moe show. I actually would have liked to have seen the maritime theme embraced more than it was. Meaning, a greater emphasis on naval operations, naval warfare, and general seamanship (I realize this is an unrealistic expectation for anime). As opposed to tropey character interactions that we've already seen play out in countless other settings. Due to its setting, High School Fleet had a chance to be truly unique. This chance was somewhat squandered. I also think that this show would have really benefited from a higher animation budget. There was tons of opportunity here for gorgeous visuals that would have enhanced the viewing experience, but this wasn't fully capitalized upon.

I'm not sure if it had any effect on this anime production, but apparently the studio went bankrupt not long after it aired (the movie was made by a different studio). Maybe there's a story behind that.


I'll also include my opinion of the two OVA episodes: they were bad. The plot was bad and they didn't even take place on the ships, which removed a significant driver of my enjoyment of the show. The OVAs were considerably worse than the TV anime, in my opinion (OVA rating: 4/10). I wouldn't recommend watching them unless you adored the TV anime.


As for the 2020 movie, here are my comments on it:
- the same crude jarring CGI is used to animate the ships, unfortunately. In fact, the visuals in general are barely a step above the TV anime, which is disappointing. As I already said, this anime could benefit a lot from better visuals.
- again, not enough focus on the maritime theme of the show. Not nearly enough cool battleship content. To my stark disappointment, the first ~50 (FIFTY) minutes of the movie did not have a single battleship scene (so, basically half the runtime). High School Fleet continues to squander its potential by not focusing on the things that make it unique and entertaining. It still continues to be "Generic School Anime but Sometimes On a Boat This Time" (which unfortunately isn't unexpected).
- again, another ridiculously bad plot that feels like it came out of a grade-school creative writing class. Literally the kind of thing I'd expect in a one-star movie. Not that I care that much about the plot anyway. Please just show me some cool battleship stuff and accompanying gap moe; at this point I don't even care what storyline you need to justify it.
- when the battle scenes did finally arrive, they were pretty underwhelming, particularly for a movie. Sound effects were alright but could have been better. I was also disappointed by the lack of any ship-vs-ship skirmishes.
- the sense of novelty that kept me interested in the TV anime has since worn out. I've already seen 14 episodes of this anime, and the movie isn't really bringing anything new to the table.
- the characters are still just as cute as they were during the TV series. This is one thing that High School Fleet consistently does an okay job of.
- overall I simply didn't enjoy the movie as much as the TV series. Spending ~half the screentime onshore was a major reason for this. It's called High School FLEET, okay?! FLEET. As in, on ships at sea in the flipping water! That's all I'm asking for!

My overall rating for the 2020 movie: 4/10

Rin and Tama are the cutest!!


There's another thing I want to say about modern anime more generally, even though this review might not be the best place for it, and I'm probably stating the obvious anyway. A lot of modern 'moe' CGDCT shows will add a theme to their story or change the setting or do something to try to distinguish themselves from all the other similar shows. So many of these anime will, in concept, have a totally unique and interesting theme that could make for a memorable show. Upon implementation though, the show will squander this unique potential by deferring to the same tired formulaic CGDCT material — the same tired character interactions, the same stale comedy, the same character types and tropes. High School Fleet is yet another example of this (and hardly the most egregious). It doesn't fully commit to the elements that make it unique, and instead plays it safe, so what you end up with is Generic School Anime (sometimes on a boat this time!). Admittedly, High School Fleet has a unique plot (and unfortunately it's quite bad), so it's not even an ideal example of this phenomenon.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 27, 2019

xxsenilexx

Not Recommended

If you want to watch little girls doing stuff on WWII era ships and that's about it then this is the show for you. If you care about story or character development then stay away. I watched this when it came out so I'm going off memory and it didn't leave me with any good ones.

Overall: I gave it a 4, mainly because of a really bad plot and poor character development. This could have been a lot better if they went to another genre or cut down on the number of characters they used so they could develop them better.

Story: I said it was ... poor(3), things are explained away or not explained at all. Some of it makes no sense. It's kind of hard to talk about how bad the story is without adding in any spoilers. Think of it like the "Aliens" guy from History. Doesn't make a lot of sense but you just go with it.

The way the ships are staffed is bad, they put a bunch of 15 year old girls on a ship with no supervision, no actual CO or XO, no Blue Mermaid, no nothing. This entire setup is a recipe for disaster, and it is because that's how they get the story rolling, a person with 0 experience commanding a bunch of people with 0 experience. The only person who seemed to have experience was the "second" in command, but she has "issues" so she's pretty much useless as well. I also think that they were way understaffed, we're talking about the 350's in war and 250's in peace for actual destroyers (Fletcher). I guess if you go with a skeleton crew and add in a bunch of automation you could get that number down, but the most advanced destroyer in the US (Zumwalt) has a crew of roughly 170. I know this is an anime and we shouldn't be comparing it to the real world, but it kills your suspension of disbelief by having like 30ish 15 year old girls running a WWII era destroyer.

Last thing about the story. There is a surprising lack of aircraft, aircraft carriers seem like they would be even more important in their world than ever before. This was one of the things I was thinking about at the end, this would've been pretty easy if you had aircraft, but I guess you need some way to fill up 12 episodes.

Art/Sound: Nothing really comes to mind, the ships looked nice and that's most of what stood out. Gave it a 5 since it wasn't that bad.

Character: Gave it a 3, way too many characters to try and develop in like 12 episodes. None of them very remember-able. I also didn't connect with the main characters either, they went the "childhood friends care about each other so should you" route.

Some people have said this should have been a slice-of-life and if they went that route they could have gotten a lot better character development.

Enjoyment: Gave it a 4, it's a good waste of time and that's about it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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