Kantai Collection: KanColle - Cute Warships Can't Salvage Disjointed Plot

Kantai Collection: KanColle

“Cute Warships Can't Salvage Disjointed Plot”

Many of us have a hero in our lives. They may not have done something super flashy or climactic, but they have done something significant enough to imprint them permanently in our minds. As such, we aspire to be like them or be acknowledged by them in some shape or form, no matter the challenges along the way. We may or may not reach this goal within our limits, but the fact that we strive to be someone greater and do something for this world is nonetheless important. That said, pick your “hero” wisely, because a wrong turn here could have colossal effects on your life overall!

“Kantai Collection: KanColle," also known as “KanColle: Fleet Girls” or simply "Kankore," is a 12-episode TV anime series that aired from the 8th of January up until the 26th of March in Winter 2015. It was produced by Movic, KlockWorx, flying DOG, DMM.com, Kadokawa Media House, and Kadokawa, licensed by Funimation and Crunchyroll, and brought to life by Studio Diomedéa.

The main staff behind it include Cook Justin as producer, Motonaga Satoshi as producer, WEST GROUND on theme song arrangement and composition, and Amano Shouta as production manager. It features the genres of action and sci-fi, alongside the themes of anthropomorphic, military, and school. This stretch of 24-minute episodes earned a rating of PG-13 for teenagers 13 years of age or older.

The anime series is based on the game “Kantai Collection," which is a Japanese free-to-play web browser game that was developed by Kadokawa Games and published by DMM.com on April 23, 2013. Its gimmick involves the representation of World War II warships as teenage girls and young women with personalities that match the history of the ship each of them is based on.

A sequel to the anime was released in the form of a movie titled “Fleet Girls Collection KanColle Movie Sequence” (“KanColle Movie” or “Gekijouban Kantai Collection”) on November 26, 2016. Done by the same studio, it featured the genres of action, drama, and sci-fi and had a runtime of 1 hour and 32 minutes. The movie was also released on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on August 30th, 2017.

A sequel TV series titled “KanColle: Itsuka Ano Umi de” (“KanColle Season 2: Let's Meet at Sea” or “KanColle: Someday in that Sea”) was aired from the 4th of November 2022 up until the 25th of March 2023, in Fall 2022. This series consisted of eight 23-minute episodes and was brought to life by Studio ENGI; the number of episodes was brought down from 12 in order to improve the series' quality.

The story is set in a world where the seas are constantly under threat owing to the hostile "Abyssal Fleet." In order to counter them, a specialized naval base is established, and it is host to a very special type of weapon: "Kanmusu," girls harboring the spirits of great Japanese warships! They are certainly not standard naval weaponry, as these girls possess the incredible ability to wear weaponized gear, which allows them to tap into the power of the legendary souls residing within them.

The tale thus looks to protagonist Fubuki, who is a young destroyer-type Kanmusu who joins the military base as a new recruit. But things are going to be tough for her from the onset, as she is immediately assigned to the infamous Third Torpedo Squadron, despite her inexperience and timid nature. Here, she is swiftly thrust right into the heat of battle and comes face-to-face with complete annihilation, only managing to survive thanks to her newfound "hero." Now this rookie warship is determined to grow as strong as her savior!

KanColle is one of those series with a neat premise that can branch off into an extremely large and intricate but interesting narrative. The combat setting gives it great potential as an action series, with characters that can be read into beyond their fictional existence. While the anime is fairly interesting and enjoyable to some at best, it can also be called a bad to mid-adaptation with a whole bunch of flaws.

This is an overall decent series if you’re into moe and girls with superpowers, because they are literally battleships personified. If you look past this, you’re going to see some bad game-to-anime transitions and a very mediocre plot. There isn’t much story here, outside of cute girl battleships duking it out with dark, demonic girls as the antagonists. The sheer lack of a proper backstory as to why they’re even fighting is appalling, and we aren’t even sure what the protagonists are fighting to begin with.

They have somehow skewed the morals of the tale as well, ending up with a kids’ message like “One must grow stronger to become the best, but don’t forget your friends in the process." But as there are plenty of emotional moments thrown in there, this works as a casual anime that doesn't need to be read beyond the surface level. This is sad because it held such great potential if explored in depth, though.

The story follows a very divided format, with each segment containing its own separate plot. If I were to divide them into mini-arcs, it'd be episodes 1 to 4, 5 to 7, 6, 8 to 9, and finally 10 to 12. Unfortunately, they don’t bring it all together neatly by the climax, and the plot just ends up all over the place.

For some reason, there’s a repetitive pattern similar to those seen in Slice of Life shows, and it feels so out of place in a series like this. This is worsened by the fact that the show tunnel visions on the current episode’s events for no good reason, making the only overarching narrative Fubuki’s drive to come closer to Akagi, her hero. This awkward mix is what ruins most of the anime, because there are just some genres that cannot be combined well without very careful consideration.

The character department is another missed opportunity because they had some great units to work with but executed them in terrible ways. Maybe it was an experimental decision, but someone decided to have the main cast constantly repeat their in-game lines or slightly modified versions of them. This would’ve been fine a couple of times, but the overuse made the characters seem like lifeless versions of their game counterparts.

These lines serve to represent their personalities pretty well, but they need to show or explore those characteristics better in an anime adaptation. For example, I grew sick and tired of hearing Hibiki's Russian one-liners, as opposed to her speaking in complete sentences or even Russian, which would’ve been nice.

That said, all the characters are well-defined into their respective archetypes, one-liners or not. We have the MC with the “never give up” mindset, the resident Yuri girl, the seemingly perfect Akagi, the one who is sad for sadness’s sake, and so on. Then there’s the "Admiral," who is definitely an important character but goes unseen and unspoken for the whole series. This was most probably for self-insertion, but in anime format, it just robs all charms from this character because we could’ve had such great interactions on-screen. But yeah, there’s a girl for almost everyone’s type here, but none of them are particularly original or special.

The art and animation departments are where KanColle shines, mainly because they did an awesome job with all the designs. All the iconic ships are brought to life with awe-inspiring visuals, while employing a variety of art styles and bringing them together to make this badass cohesive style.

The character designs, particularly their facial features, remain loyal to the game and perhaps even somewhat enhanced. The artwork in general is heavily influenced by the game, right down to cute battleship girls losing their clothes as they sustain damage in battle in typical anime fashion. The animation is decent, just about enough for an action series, with some great work done on all the battleship turrets in particular. Nobody is winning any awards here, but it is one of the show’s redeeming qualities.

The sound and music departments are also great. The opening theme is "Miiro" by AKINO with bless4, and the ending themes are "Fubuki" by Shiena Nishizawa and "Let's not say "good-bye"" by characters Akagi, Kaga, Zuikaku, Kongou, Shimakaze, and Fubuki (voiced by Saki Fujita, Yuka Iguchi, Iori Nomizu, Nao Touyama, Ayane Sakura, and Sumire Uesaka, respectively).

All three pieces are well done, and I enjoyed them while watching the show, but they didn’t quite make it to my playlist. The battle OSTs seemed lacking to me; it’s like they didn’t pack a strong enough punch for all the chaos going on, but they still suited the show’s atmosphere pretty well. The remainder of the OSTs were just there; none of them are memorable, but they didn’t ruin anything either. The voice acting is decent too—nothing too special. But for the love of anime, do not watch the English dub because it is horrendous!

Kantai Collection: KanColle is a show that can be enjoyed despite its many flaws, but this largely depends on your preferences. So I cannot recommend it to everyone; what I do suggest is that you try around 3 episodes and decide for yourself. If you aren’t enjoying it at that point, you surely won’t start to further in, and it’ll likely become a snore-inducing watch.

The best episode in my eyes was Episode 6, which was both thematically consistent and fairly enjoyable too. If you are an avid fan of the game, this anime will most probably disappoint you, so tread with caution. If you are here for moe battleship girls, though, you will likely be entertained, even while compiling a bucketload of criticisms in the back of your mind!