Finally, we get to see our shipfus animated.
Kantai Collection, or kancolle, is a browser game on DMM where you play as an admiral in charge of a number of ship girls based on WWII ships. You send the ships on sorties and expeditions in your campaign against the abyssals who has taken over Earth's ocean, all while praying to RNGesus that your construction or sortie reward yields the ship you want. Its a nice timesink and appeals a lot to its target audience, with a strong fanbase that rivals that of Touhou. With such a large and dedicated fanbase, its extremely tempting to create an
...
anime adaptation to not only provide fanservice, but to also make a quick buck on its popularity. So they yielded and produced this anime. And how does it fare?
Condensed version:
Why you may pick this up:
-Plenty of fanservice (ero and non-ero) for those who have played the game
-Poi
-Kongou
-Shimakaze
-Nagamon
-Ship waifus are now animated
-OP and ED (though to be fair, if you only want the OP and ED you can just search on YT or hikari no akari)
Why you may skip this:
-Anime does a poor job of introducing game to newcomers or to people who never played kancolle.
-Newcomers and people who never played kancolle will not get the references and fanservice
-Poor plot direction and pacing
-Insufferable CG
Long version:
Story-5: This is the weakest part of the anime. The story is best described as going through an existential crisis; it does not know its purpose for existing. Does it want to tell a gripping tale about a young maiden's perilous journey through Earth's Ocean with her fellow shipgirls, or does it want to be a Madoka clone, or a SOL comedy, or to introduce newcomers to the game, or to provide fanservice for current players? It has the distinction of being all of the above, and yet somehow being none of the above at the same time. It constantly switches between those identities, like at one point the anime is trying to push the fact that a shipgirl has sunk, and at the next the Akatsuki sisters are entering a curry competition, as if that sinking never happened. It should pick an identity and stick to it. We would have been fine with the anime if all 12 episodes were just the shipgirls seating around the Teitoku's office drinking tea and eating cake, and maybe have cameos from the abyssals as well. They may as well call themselves Headquarters Tea-Time. It’s simple, cheap, fun, provides fanservice for current players, while having many opportunities to introduce the game to newcomers.
Art-7: The art is decent during the non-combat scenes. The managed to make most of the shipgirls look moe enough to keep you going. Artillery designs are all based on art from the game and WWII ships, while all the girls themselves look cute enough, unlike some of their in-game counterparts. The main problem is the CG used during the combat scenes, or when they are water skating. It is extremely jarring to watch. The framerate does not make the animation smooth, and this makes the combat scenes very hard to digest, which in turn, makes admiring the shipgirls difficult. The Character designs somehow gets downgraded as they move in a 3D plane, and ruins the entire experience. Fortunately, these scenes are not prolonged, and we quickly return to the moe 2D girls.
Sound-8: One reason you may pick up this anime. Both OP and ED are enjoyable, and the ED is one of my personal favourite ED. The soundtrack used are enjoyable to hear when used during the scene is meant for, but are ultimately forgettable. Artillery firing packs a nice explosive punch to them, and all the VAs do their jobs well enough. The VAs in this anime deserve special mention, as they actually voiced multiple ship sisters, each with their own distinct pitch and tone you could’ve sworn were completely different voice actors. Honorable mention goes to Nao Touyama, who voiced the Kongou sisters, Atago and Takao. Her voices can be extremely different from each other, from Kongou’s Engrish to Atago’s playfulness, and yet she manages to do make all 6 characters sound like they have 6 different VAs.
Characters-8: Probably the main reason one might pick up this anime. Fans of the game should ALL have a ship they are extremely fond of, and Kadokawa has recognised this, even giving players the ability to marry the ships that they like. To see them animated, with their VAs saying new unique lines and interacting with other shipgirls, is like a wet dream come true to the player base. The story follows Fubuki, one of the special-class destroyers and a starter ship in the game, as she joins fellow destroyers Yuudachi (poi) and Mutsuki in taking the Ocean back for humanity, one abyssal at a time. The character development in this show suffers because of this, as these three are the only characters that receive any development, the rest being there to provide the viewers a chance to see their shipfus animated. While the other characters are lively and fun to watch on screen, they receive little to no character development. Backstories are left in history books since these shipgirls' history are based on their WWII counterparts, like Sendai's love for night battles since she fought most of her battles at night in WWII, or how Yamato's aversion to the word 'hotel' is based on her being used mostly as a hotel in WWII and barely used for combat. Enjoyable, but unless you have played the game, they are not memorable.
Enjoyment-8: As a huge fan of the game, my enjoyment of this anime is, of course, biased, since I understand all the jokes, fanservice, and references made in this anime. To see the shipgirls that I often used in the game animated is glorious eye candy, but was shattered when they transitioned to the CG. I also found that I enjoyed the SoL moments more that the action ones. Just 2 episodes of them making curry and looking for Shimakaze are better than 10 episodes of them fighting the abyssals.
Overall-7: If you are a fan of the game the anime is based on, feel free to watch this. While the CG is painful to watch, one can get over it through the love for their shipfus. For newcomers who wants to know more about the kancolle craze or wants to know more about the game, the English Kancolle wiki the kancolle forums, Himeuta, has FAQs and general information about the game. IF you are a newcomer, play the game and fall in love with the game or a shipfu first before watching, or else most of the jokes, references and cameos will lose its appeal. For people not interested in Kancolle but is a huge anime fan, do not bother with this. A poor story focus and lack of character development in a large cast of characters brings down the anime, with an ending not worth your time. If you want to investigate what the kancolle craze is about, himeuta or the kancolle wiki is more than enough. If not, you are better off spending your precious time watching other anime.
Jul 7, 2015
Kantai Collection: KanColle
(Anime)
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Finally, we get to see our shipfus animated.
Kantai Collection, or kancolle, is a browser game on DMM where you play as an admiral in charge of a number of ship girls based on WWII ships. You send the ships on sorties and expeditions in your campaign against the abyssals who has taken over Earth's ocean, all while praying to RNGesus that your construction or sortie reward yields the ship you want. Its a nice timesink and appeals a lot to its target audience, with a strong fanbase that rivals that of Touhou. With such a large and dedicated fanbase, its extremely tempting to create an ... 
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