March 29, 2015
Kantai Collection Ep12
So here we are. The culmination of three months worth of Wednesdays, all coming down to this. It's been a long and surprisingly entertaining run, going all the way back to
January 7th. Along the way, there's been a Cthulhu summoning, incontinent shipgrannies, a deep and kinda disturbing love for
Mutsu has grown, and more comments than any two Series Writeups combined. Seems
Kantai Collection struck a chord with some folks, good, bad, or otherwise. I've had long discussions about the series offline, seen more than the show's share of bullhockey get spouted in online forums... cheeseandrice, the historical misconceptions I've seen about what actually occurred during the
real Pacific War have been enough to make me loathe the American education system. Despite all that, the series itself has been consistently entertaining, if
somewhat pointlessly fluffy at times. Well, we're not making
Haibane Renmei here after all. Hell, we're not even making
K-On!.
Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.
Which is a good thing. The show always knew what it was, though maybe not always what it wanted to be. Historic melodrama? Comedy? Lightweight fanservice vehicle? Tragedy? All of the above at the same time? Or just
Kantai Collection? Let's go with that. That's good enough, I believe. And if it isn't going to win any "Best of 2015" awards, well, that's okay too. So the end is nigh, how will it all go down? So to speak, of course... "going down" isn't a phrase you want to use when it involves warships. Or maybe it is, if you're the type of person who thinks of anime "that way". If you are... um... ew.
We pick up pretty much exactly where we left off at the end of
Episode 11: the Battle of Midway has begun, and history is doing Bad Things to our Shipgirls, which is what you'd expect. Three of the four carriers have been hit, only Hiryu seems to be able to fire arrows, there's an Abyssal surface warfare fleet closing in, and Akagi is in dispair as an anti-shipping bomb is headed right 'twixt her eyes. One can rail against fate, but it seems one cannot defeat it. And then... ...I keep getting distracted. The past two hours have been spent watching
WarThunder Fail videos, random
AMVs, and falling asleep at my desk. So I'm going to take a nap and pick this up when I'm done.
I'm back. Six hours of nap later, I'm back. If you're wondering why this writeup has taken as long as it has, there you go. Where were we? Oh yes... bombs fall, everybody dies.
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Excellent write-up! 100% agree with your conclusions, although I suspect I enjoyed the filler episodes more. I had forgotten that you predicted the Fubuki/Yorkie faceoff. I have a hard time thinking of the Abyssal carrier as Yorkie now, though...the Abyssals seem more to be some manifestation of WAR or somesuch. Of course, even in that context that carrier, which is clearly a persistent being, is occupying the historical space of Yorktown.
Posted by: Ben at March 29, 2015 08:54 AM (KUNWw)
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I suspect I enjoyed the filler episodes more.
In retrospect, there was really only one TRUE filler episode: curry cookoff. Eps like "Lets go to Truk" or "The Kongos" are redeemed by either being silly, having lots of Mutsu, or both... and rarely, Mutsu being silly.
But only Curry Cookoff could have been excised from the show's run without important stuff being lost. Yes, I count Mutsu's glorious smile as being important.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 29, 2015 09:49 AM (jGQR+)
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Thank you for blogging Wonderduck, I've enjoyed your posts as much as the series itself.
Now to go listen to Kongou Desu again...
Posted by: Riktol at March 29, 2015 04:23 PM (MQZN9)
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Sorry, I got distracted by the link to the War Thunder Fail Montage.
Montages, really, because that was the 16th and there are a bunch more and wow, watching aerial collisions really doesn't get old, does it?
Anyway. KanColle. Better than it could've been, not as good as it should've been, yet still one of the few watchable series out of the entire season, which... says a lot about the current state of anime, doesn't it?
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 29, 2015 09:46 PM (AQ0bN)
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Montages, really, because that was the 16th and there are a bunch more...
...and I've watched 'em all, plus pretty much everything else on BTG's channel, over the past few months. Plus many of the videos on his friends lists, too.
Nothing but time to kill. Nothing but time.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 29, 2015 09:50 PM (jGQR+)
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1. Thanks for these writeups! I'm not the target audience, but you have helped me keep up with an anime series that is clearly iconic.
2. Maybe you should write a futuristic vehicle racing novel. Guys on the teams, personalities of the drivers, life of the news guys covering it, political stuff happening in the places they visit....
What if they had to travel to different planets within a solar system, or farther? They'd pretty much be giving up normal life for racing, even if their transports went pretty fast. But if they only had a few races per planet, every race being entertaining would be more important.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 30, 2015 12:00 PM (ZJVQ5)
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I'm not the target audience...
Banshee, ain't
nobody 'round these parts the target audience for
Kantai Collection.
...an anime series that is clearly iconic.
"Iconic" is such a polite word for it, much the way Heinlein used "individualistic" for his characters.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 30, 2015 02:37 PM (jGQR+)
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March 23, 2015
Kantai Collection Ep11
So it has come to this. Midway. We've known all along that it must be the climax, and after all the waiting, it's here. But will it be a repeat of history as we know it, or will the shipgirls make their own way through the timey-wimey stuff? Only the Production Staff knows for sure, and they ain't tellin' yet. It's a shame some aren't giving the show a chance... I suspect we've got some surprises ahead, and the production staff has earned themselves enough credit to be allowed to take their shot. I'm still betting against the historical ending, but it would be stunning if they pulled it off.
Last episode ended with Fubuki getting her remodel and being named as Akagi's personal escort. We begin this episode with a... flashback? Wha?
Akagi is practically dragging Kaga as explosions occur all around them. Both are badly damaged, quivers empty, flight decks broken, stockings torn, hair a complete mess. It's clear Operation AF has gone terribly, terribly wrong. History repeats, it seems.
Only Hiryu is left standing, while the killing blow for Soryu is about to land. There's nothing to be done for it. Abyssal fighters crowd the skies, each looking to drop a carrier, even a damaged one. Finally, the time has come. History repeats, it seems.
Akagi gets a quick glimpse of her impending doom. Well, I suppose we know how this is all going to go down now, don't we? What's more, her final words are "I'm sorry. Please scuttle me."
I discussed the problems with this tableau back in the Ep02 writeup. Now we get to have it in context.... and with the addition of torpedo trails in the water, to boot. Just as they hit, the screen goes white. Shortest episode ever!
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This is SO in your wheelhouse... You have got to be featherless by now - or well on your way.
Posted by: The Old Man at March 23, 2015 07:05 AM (o6+UC)
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"It's all just a little case of history repeating..."
I admit, I'm keen to see how this ends up. How brave are the writers, really?
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 23, 2015 08:55 AM (3m7pZ)
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How brave are the writers, really?
I think, considering what we've seen from them, the answer is "brave enough." The question is whether the Powers That Be will let them do it.
That answer is "no." It'd kill the game dead overnight. The Production Staff could do it. But they won't be allowed to.
That's a pity.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 23, 2015 09:21 AM (jGQR+)
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Now that we know what the nature of the "ship's souls" that are at the heart of the fleet girls is, I'm rooting for a major deviation from Midway. There are some interesting questions left that I don't think will be answered: are any of the fleet girls aware of the actual history of their namesakes? Only Akagi and Nagato are shown as having some indication, but they clearly don't understand. Do the Abyss also know any of this? Or are they operating under the same influence as the fleet girls?
It's a shame this series had to be tied so tightly to the game; the writers actually have something good here.
Posted by: Ben at March 23, 2015 11:15 AM (S4UJw)
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Now that we know what the nature of the "ship's souls" that are at the heart of the fleet girls is...
Do we? I think that's still up in the air...remember, Akagi's dream doesn't match up to either Real Life History or what's happening in the show. Nagato's having a feeling. Don't get me wrong, the "ship's souls" theory is a sound one and is probably correct, but the events of this episode doesn't confirm it.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 23, 2015 12:19 PM (jGQR+)
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You know how discovering that the
Yamato wasn't in one piece of the ocean floor didn't affect how the wreck was depicted in
Space Battleship Yamato? I think that's what we're getting with Akagi's dreams: the insinuation that the
Akagi was attacked and scuttled; how it actually happened is unimportant. Beside which, you're looking at how a "ship girl" is interpreting what the "ship's soul" is telling her...how could a ship girl take that kind of thing literally?
Posted by: Ben at March 23, 2015 12:49 PM (S4UJw)
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You know how discovering that the
Yamato wasn't in one piece of the ocean floor didn't affect how the wreck was depicted in
Space Battleship Yamato?
SBY debuted in 1974. The wreck of the
Yamato wasn't found until 1982, and wasn't confirmed until 1984. Before then, it wasn't known that the ship was in pieces.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 23, 2015 02:29 PM (jGQR+)
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Well, yeah. I meant like in the movie.
Posted by: Ben at March 23, 2015 03:40 PM (EdhH3)
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2199 would probably be a better example: they disregard the actual disposition of the wreck to portray something similar to the original series.
Posted by: Ben at March 23, 2015 05:13 PM (DRaH+)
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Great, now I'm envisioning a weird cross between Kancolle and All You Need Is Kill. Groundhog Midway...
(Which... would allow for The Bad End without having it as a Bad End, come to think of it.)
Posted by: Avatar at March 23, 2015 09:03 PM (zJsIy)
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2199 had the pieces used as camoflage for the new Yamato they were building.
Posted by: muon at March 24, 2015 06:25 AM (XIprt)
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Yes, but the wreck was depicted as mostly intact and upright. The guns were even fired.
Posted by: Ben at March 24, 2015 08:34 AM (DRaH+)
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So, would you say that after 11 episodes, the series has finally reached its Midway point?
Posted by: Mauser at March 25, 2015 02:38 AM (TJ7ih)
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No, I wouldn't.
Mauser, your puns are really pushing it. Please don't.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 25, 2015 10:53 AM (jGQR+)
Posted by: Mauser at March 26, 2015 03:07 AM (TJ7ih)
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March 16, 2015
Kantai Collection Ep10 (updated)
So I'm running a little late this week, sorry about that. What with
my other hobby starting this week, I sorta had to shuffle the writeup a little farther down the priority ladder than normal. It's okay, though... if I had to, this was the episode to delay. Not that it wasn't important, heavens no, but it's hardly The Most Important Episode Ever. Which is why I'm not giving it my usual 100% treatment this week. Hey, I'M not the one looking to get a major remodel, that's Fubuki's job. I'd be satisfied with a haircut and a closet full of clean towels... I've really got to get to a laundromat, but that means going out into the public eye, y'know? Before I get into that, though, let's get going on the Episode 10 of
Kantai Collection!
We begin with shots of Foobie training and a not-a-flashback to the end of
last episode, when Our Heroine is told she's being remodeled. Nagato tells her that the Admiral specifically said that her upgraded form was going to be essential for the upcoming battle, and I'd like to say that I called that at the end of last ep's writeup. Go me. Sure, it was like hitting a batting practice fastball, but I still called it. I'm in a win-win situation here. Either they go with Foobie Saves The Day, or they go with History Repeating. I'd enjoy either result, though the bloodbath would take guts indeed. Back to current day...
....and Nagato's got a problem. See, she's got the Admiral's notebook of what to do for the coming battle, but the most important piece of information, the location, is in code. It just says to "strike Abyssal base AF," but not which base AF is! There are three possibilities: north, the Aleutians; South, someplace less-than-obvious to my history-laden mind, and Central. Nagato is doing recon-by-fire, sending small fleets out to each location to see which one gets shot at the most. By her logic, the one that's most strongly defended is AF.
Fleets have already been sent to North and South. The newly reconstituted Torpedo Squadron Three gets the Central area, which contains island MI. Orders are to get shot at, but not draw the entire Abyssal fleet down on themselves.
Mutsu!
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Fubuki: Competent badass, or clueless punching-bag? Only the writer of each episode knows for sure, as they put pen to paper!
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 16, 2015 07:12 AM (AQ0bN)
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Both. She's a moe yuri shonen hero.
Posted by: Ben at March 16, 2015 10:55 AM (S4UJw)
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Your post is incomplete. You didn't put in a picture of Fubuki in her wedding dress.
I felt that was the most telling part of the episode, clearly we are watching a dramatization of one player's game, not a re-enactment of history like people keep claiming.
Posted by: Riktol at March 16, 2015 03:24 PM (MQZN9)
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Your post is incomplete.
My post is exactly as complete as I wanted it to be. If you feel you can do better, you're welcome to do so.
Taking the time to explain the whole "marriage" functionality of the game was more work and effort than I judged worth doing. And, since that scene was a retelling of a dream and not an actual event, it's hard to figure it as a "dramatization of a game."
I could be wrong, though.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 16, 2015 03:37 PM (jGQR+)
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I don't think it's a dramatization of a player's game as much as it's a synthesis of the intended game experience.
Posted by: Ben at March 16, 2015 04:03 PM (neool)
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It's... kind of terrifying in some kind of mystic sense, though. "I saw you in a dream in a wedding dress! Therefore you are to
command our fleets, o my shipwaifu."
Though it's already been remarked that Fubuki is probably doing a better job at it than Yamamoto or, for that matter, Nagumo... and I'm convinced that Duck had it exactly right regarding which history books Fubuki has been reading in her spare time. Fubuki doesn't have Victory Disease - the Abyssals are a big scary alien threat that they don't have a handle on. Fubuki is perfectly happy to tell the carriers to run an adequate search (though she gets less guff about it since in Kancolle-land that doesn't seem to translate into a weaker strike.)
Further, they're going in to hunt the carriers from the get-go... though of course Kancolle is pretty abstract about what would constitute a landing or invasion, no? It ain't that kind of game, after all.
It'll be interesting anyway.
Posted by: Avatar at March 16, 2015 07:37 PM (zJsIy)
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Okay, granted that most wedding dresses today are styled a lot like evening dresses, and the wedding industry profits hugely by never having to tailor sleeves.
But seriously, guys, that was a sparkly evening dress and an evening tiara. If that's supposed to be her wedding dress, Fubuki is doing her wedding on the cheap, not that there's anything wrong with that.
(And it's not a wedding reception dress, because those are red.)
Of course, if we were really doing WWII-recreation, Fubuki can't have a Western-style wedding dress (unpatriotic), and she can't have an evening gown with that much loose cloth in it (rationing). White wedding gowns were still not universal even in the UK and the United States, and during the war, most girls just got married in their best dress.
Of course, there is the famous war option of making a dress out of parachute silk, but I think you'd need an awful lot of fairy-sized parachutes to get enough silk for a parachute t-shirt, much less a whole dress.
So I guess my point is that the Admiral has awful weird fashion sense in his dreams. The real dream message may have been that Fubuki is the destined Belle of the Ball, or the destined Eliza Doolittle.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 16, 2015 10:48 PM (ZJVQ5)
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Actually, that would explain a lot.
The Admiral thought "Fubuki = Doolittle = raid leader."
Actually, the dream was a precognitive death warning, telling the Admiral to "Move your bloomin' arse!"
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 16, 2015 10:56 PM (ZJVQ5)
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I really don't think the writers are re-doing WWII. Even if they were, they haven't done the groundwork necessary to sell it. This has been a constant complaint I've had throughout is that, since they clearly *arent* redoing WWII, why are they using Pacific battles as a template and sticking so close to how those battles played out?
Posted by: Ben at March 17, 2015 08:16 AM (DRaH+)
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You missed the point. That dream wasn't the Admiral in the early 1940s having a dream; the Tokyo skyline did not look like that back then, man. That was the modern-day Admiral, he who is playing Kancolle-the-game, dreaming about his waifu in the modern day, and then going in and playing the game like that...
I think the big key is this - the anime isn't worried about the rest of WW2 because it's about to end. They don't have to think about "well, wait, how do we make it so we keep winning but then keep fighting for event areas closer and closer to Japan?" (and that's something the game will need to deal with sometime too, y'know...)
We'll find out tomorrow, or failin' that, a week later.
Posted by: Avatar at March 17, 2015 07:46 PM (zJsIy)
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You missed the point.
So now I've got two people telling me how to do my writeups?
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 17, 2015 08:11 PM (jGQR+)
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I believe that _I_ was being told that I had missed the point. Which I probably did, given that I started talking about fashion irrelevancies and then headed out to wacko-land.
It is pretty hilarious how the Tokyo Tower continues to show up everywhere in anime.
So what time is KanColle set in, in its own universe? Obviously not WWII, because they're ship spirits in modern girls. But are we talking far future Earth, near future Earth, or AI who don't know they live on a server and are fighting against the alien viruses Reboot-style?
The baths working so fast -- that definitely argues far future, I would think. Unless it's magic, in which case magic has definitely leveled up in the KanColle world. I guess it could be roughly modern times, but I don't really see women today being comfortable walking around in public in those crazy outfits, unless all ship spirits are reincarnated in Japanese cosplayers who believe in skimpy outfits. So it must be very alternate universe.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 17, 2015 08:30 PM (ZJVQ5)
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Yeah, I'm happy with the writeup. Also I approve of F1 writing. So it's like, no matter what you're writing up, unless it's Rio, I win! (and even if it is Rio, I can't look away!) My fault for unclear pronoun use though.
Honestly, I like looking into the deep hidden stuff behind various shows, but I don't think Kancolle is suitable for it. I could make the scenario work if someone asked me to do it, but I'd have to put in a lot of detail that frankly ain't in the game or the show, and nothing's convinced me that the writers went to the trouble.
Posted by: Avatar at March 17, 2015 10:26 PM (zJsIy)
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"...nothing's convinced me that the writers went to the trouble."
That's the scab I keep picking at.
Posted by: Ben at March 18, 2015 08:48 AM (DRaH+)
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Ah, but the joy of fanfic and WAGuess is that you can make it work anyway!
Amusingly enough, early YA writer S.E. Hinton has revealed that she's been writing fanfic of her own stuff and putting it out in non-official fanfic groups under a fannish name. (Although at that point, I don't know why she wouldn't just release a book of short stories, unless she's under abusive contract.)
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 18, 2015 05:58 PM (ZJVQ5)
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March 07, 2015
Kantai Collection Ep09
There are moments in life that an adult has to deal with, whether they want to do so or not. These moments are called "obligations," and not following through with them is a very bad thing. At work, in one's personal life, and even in something as floofy as a blog, one's word is your currency throughout your life. That is why I had to give FedEx hell when their delivery man decided that dropping my package at the leasing office for Pond Central's complex was fine, as opposed to even trying to deliver it to my door. Sure, there was nothing preventing me from going the four blocks to the office to pick it up... except for the principle of the thing. I apparently got the delivery guy in serious trouble, but c'mon.
Do Your Job. Follow through on your obligations.
Which is why I am here right now writing about the newest episode of
Kantai Collection when I'd rather be doing nearly anything else.
I thought last episode was fluff, and lord was I was right. It did have the advantage of being wonderfully
Mutsu-centric, and that right there made it fun for me, so it had that going for it. Which was nice. This one, though... from everything I had suspected was going to occur, this one was making my stomach churn. As it turned out, what I suspected was going to be bad wasn't... but then the show took an unexpected turn. So why am I still muttering here instead of actually doing the writeup? I dunno. Just because I follow through on my obligations doesn't mean I enjoy it all the time. Well, so it goes... being an adult sucks sometimes. And with that thought ringing through your mind, let's get on with the show!
We open with the command ships gathered together, discussing the results of the latest simulations now that the entire fleet is gathered at Truk. Much like Mutsu said last week, the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor if they push Operation MO now. Nagato, no dummy herself, agrees and will speak to the Admiral about it right away. Things are wrapping up when another shipgirl rushes in... there's a problem with one of the destroyers!
Someone has moved Pippin's lightness slider waaaaay far to the right. She's all glowy and washed out. The other girls are somewhat taken aback by this, of course... small errors aside,
Kantai Collection has been a well-animated show, something like this just shouldn't happen. The usual reasons for her glowing are trotted out...it's
true love, it's
aliens, it's bad fuel so she might
explode. Her humors are out of balance, we'll need to apply the leeches.
Fortunately for everybody, including us (leeches, ugh!), Nagato and Mutsu arrive and while visibly surprised, clearly recognize what's going on. They tell Pippin to go to the factory right away... all the destroyers look concerned. Remember that game mechanic I talked about some episodes ago, where you can use unneeded ships for spare parts and improvements to other vessels? Is P-for-Poi about to be sent to the breakers??? Does Akagi need repairs, and if so, do we get to see shipgirl-on-shipgirl cannibalism?
What's
wrong with me?
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Man, Doolittle never did that much damage. These Abyssals know how to bomb! (Of course it's easier when you can do low-level bombing because you're utterly indifferent to the survival of your little demon-plane thingies...)
There's now essentially zero chance that we're not careening towards Midway. I honestly think that your scenario is pretty likely - Fubuki is already running off concepts that weren't developed until afterward and it's quite probable that she's just a better admiral than Nagumo was at this point. Also, it takes a heck of a lot less time for the carriers to spot and launch a strike.
It's entirely possible that they're going to do Midway straight up, which would still be pretty damned courageous of the writers and would be deserving of a tip of the ol' hat.
Finally, there's one additional alternative. Something that would be awesome beyond the Actual Midway Ending. It's a damned long shot, something I'm only thinking is even possible because of meta knowledge about the game and even then it's not so much "knowledge" as "wishful thinking plus educated guessing". But it would be so awesome I don't even want to say it, in case it jinxes it!
Posted by: Avatar at March 07, 2015 03:24 PM (a38fD)
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It's entirely possible that they're going to do Midway straight up,
which would still be pretty damned courageous of the writers and would
be deserving of a tip of the ol' hat.
I think it'd be the bravest move I'd ever seen in pretty much any mass media production, period. You think Anno's hatemail after
NGE's ending was bad? That'd be nothing in comparison to what would happen here. I've said all along that I'd love to see it occur, though I don't think it will.
Ep10 will be upgrading Foobie and preparing the fleets. Ep11 will be sailing to Midway and the opening of the battle. Ep12 will be the middle and end, both of the battle and of the show. OR Ep11 will be all of Midway, and Ep12 has them picking up the pieces of the defeat.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 07, 2015 03:50 PM (jGQR+)
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It's *possible* for the production staff to do Midway in a straight forward manner, but I think it's highly unlikely. Plus, I would bet we still have one or two episodes of filler. If they don't then, this will probably be a short series. I don't see how they could pull of three straight episodes of battle...they haven't put enough detail or budget into running a full half-episode of battle so far.
Avatar, if you have some insight from the game that may indicate what's going to happen, I would put money on that option. So far, that's been the answer to everything: what happens in the game.
Also, is there any way you can share the info without feeling like you're jinxing the show?
Posted by: Ben at March 07, 2015 04:06 PM (S4UJw)
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Oh, I didn't mean -in- the game. I do know that they registered the trademark for Kancolle over here several months ago, though.
Posted by: Avatar at March 08, 2015 02:18 AM (a38fD)
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It's a damned long shot...
they registered the trademark for Kancolle over here...
Just as Yorkie the Abyssal looms over the disabled Foobie Fleet,
Yorktown-chan and
Enterprise-chan pop up and beat her into the waves, allowing Frodo to get in the final shot.
Yeah, introducing the US Navy to the game would be...
interesting, if nothing else.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 08, 2015 09:36 AM (jGQR+)
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From the game perspective, it solves the "gee we need new ships" problem for a long time. Obviously they've already more or less got the whole IJN in there. They brought in the German fleet, but... that's kind of limited for the obvious reasons. Bringing in US ships (and maybe even some Aussie or UK ones?) means they are unlikely to ever run out.
And think of the in-joke opportunities! You think that Kaga and Zuikaku spark off each other, wait until Kirishima and San Diego are in the same room...
Of course the simpler explanation is that some company is working on a translated Kancolle version and that's it. Not bad news in and of itself!
Posted by: Avatar at March 08, 2015 03:56 PM (a38fD)
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Bringing in US ships (and maybe even some Aussie or UK ones?) means they are unlikely to ever run out.
A light at the end of the tunnel. Hope is reborn! That would be so much more awesome than just doing Midway right...
Posted by: Ben at March 08, 2015 05:53 PM (JP4JT)
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Yeah, introducing the US Navy to the game would be... interesting,
if nothing else.
(I alluded to this briefly in a previous comment, but I'll flesh my ideas out here.) As odd, and maybe a bit disturbing, as it seemed to me to see a series with WWII warships anthropomorphized into attractive women and teenaged girls, what was
really disturbing me about this series was the Abyssals. The Abyssals are (a) hideous beyond words, and (b) (apparently) playing the role of the US Navy; this IMO sails uncomfortably close to the ugly portrayals of Americans in Japanese WWII propaganda.* Having US shipgirls join in the battle against the Abyssals would ease my mind greatly on that account. (However, it wouldn't surprise me--or bother me, for that matter--to see some milder stereotyping, i.e. the US shipgirls turn out to be all brash, vulgar, overconfident, tall, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed, with huge appetites and even bigger boobs.)
*Mind you, ugly propaganda (with a side order of casual racism) was typical of that era in history, and the Americans certainly dished it out as well as taking it.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at March 08, 2015 05:56 PM (gt7kt)
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Sorry for the double-comment, but I hit post a little too soon, and didn't think that last bit through.
However, it wouldn't surprise me--or bother me, for that matter--to see some milder stereotyping...
It wouldn't
necessarily bother me to see some milder stereotyping, of the we-tease-you-because-we-like-you sort; if they stray too far to the America the Boorish side of the
Eagleland tropes (caution: TV Tropes link), then I'll get annoyed. (And "brash" and "vulgar" may have been a bridge too far on my part; let's say "boisterous" instead.)
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at March 08, 2015 06:42 PM (gt7kt)
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I made the mistake(?) of going to an imageboard site and I discovered that apparently there are more abyssal characters, who where listed as something like Airfield-chan and Seaport-chan, or something. The tagging was not entirely clear....
Frankly, after seeing some of the fan art, getting wiped out at Midway would be a blessing.
Posted by: Mauser at March 09, 2015 12:21 AM (TJ7ih)
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It's all in the artists' renditions of them. They range from "Cthulhu saw them and now needs a change of pants" to "d'awwww". (The "Northern Princess" seems to range into d'awwww territory really easily - little cute girl playin' with her captured Zero, heh.)
Hoping I haven't gotten anyone's hopes up. I still agree with Duck that Japanese Victory at Midway is the most likely result at this point.
Posted by: Avatar at March 09, 2015 03:29 AM (a38fD)
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Seriously, not even the Arrow pilots are safe on the imageboards. I couldn't look away, the horror, the strangely arousing horror!
Posted by: Mauser at March 09, 2015 07:06 AM (TJ7ih)
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Huke did the designs for the Abyssal ships, and they tend to be creepy-sexy. He also used his motif of a flame (usually blue) coming out of the left eye that he did for Black Rock Shooter, which the anime recreated for the Wo-class aircraft carrier above.
There's debate about what the Abyssal fleet is. The Wo-class carrier has Abyssal Hellcat fighters and Hell Divers like the
Midway Princess, but despite being named after USN aircraft, they weren't used at Midway. The
Battleship Water Demon seems to be a dark reflection of Nagato, down to her sinking lines. There are even
Abyssal torpedo cruisers, and only the IJN used that type. If the theory about them being ships from both sides that have become lost to anger and grief is true, then the anime might have the
Kisaragi return as an Abyssal ship (maybe the Destroyer Princess) and the ship girls find some way to redeem her.
Mention of the
Yamato reminds me of something. Why haven't the IJN fans commented on the new
Space Battleship Yamato series? There were positive reviews of the live action movie here and on Chizumatic, but not the new anime. They even hextupled the number of female characters (from one to six) so it's not such a sausage-fest.
Posted by: muon at March 09, 2015 08:11 AM (XIprt)
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Speaking for The Pond, I have no interest in that anime. The movie was a fun way to kill a couple of hours, but I have no intention of devoting a major slice of my life to a series that I've never liked in the past.
Just because the
Yamato is in it, doesn't make it of interest to WWII historians.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 09, 2015 08:39 AM (jGQR+)
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This one just didn't make a lot of sense to me. Every few minutes I found myself thinking, "This must mean something to people who play the game, huh?"
Ah well. Sticking with it out of morbid curiosity, at this point...
Also: Of all the doodles from that source you could've picked. Ouch, I need to restock my brain bleach supplies now.
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 09, 2015 09:41 PM (AQ0bN)
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March 03, 2015
Kantai Collection Ep08
Running late this week, but fortunately this episode is somewhat fluffy in content so it shouldn't be a problem to write up, right? Weeeeellllllll... maybe not so much. See, there's a lot of Mutsu this week, and it's hard to write coherently when you're dreamily staring at the screen with a dreamy smile on your face and a vast lack of attention to your surroundings. She's dreamy is what I'm saying, and she has the ability to cause mass distraction, at least in your humble scribe. Did I mention that this is a beach and/or swimsuit episode? Boogity boogity boogity, let's go
KanColle-ing!
We pick up shortly after
the end of last episode, with Foobie Force escorting a badly damaged Shokaku to a mysterious location that only Kongo knows about. And who better but a British-built battleship to know the location of the new Japanese fleet base called
Camelot!
Which is a much nicer sounding name than what we usually remember it as, Truk Lagoon. "The Gibraltar of the Pacific." "Japan's Pearl Harbor." Easily the most important IJN base outside of the Home Islands themselves, in real life Truk could do everything but build new ships or do major repairs. After spending a good half-hour to an hour examining terrain maps and satellite photos, I'm forced to conclude that Foobie Force is approaching Uman Island, which is an odd choice of place for the Production Staff to use. To be sure, there was a Japanese presence on the island, a small base on the outcropping on the left of the picture. But the Administrative Center for the IJN was one island to the North, Tonoas. A much larger facility, that, and one that'll match up better with what we'll be seeing soon. Perhaps they decided not to use an actual place where so many soldiers and sailors really died. If so, good call, I'm okay with that.
More importantly, Mutsu told Kongo that there's a new, special ship based there, and that by the time Foobie Force arrives, the rest of the Naval District will have relocated. The two carriers resolve to head directly to the repair bays, while everybody else is... um... everybody else.
Mutsu!
more...
Posted by: Wonderduck at
01:29 AM
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A couple nights ago, while browsing through many a site unmentionable and better that way, I encountered an artifact most curious. A volume, penned and drawn by a couple of notable porn artists, who on this occasion had settled for some light cheesecake as a side to something rather more substantial. It appears to be a guide to naval combat for people who got into the game but don't actually know how any of this stuff works. Shell types and sizes, arced fire, the gun loading process, the inner workings of a torpedo, diagrams of mini-submarines, scout planes and search patterns, the use of the arresting wire... I mean, I can't read a word of it other than some of the numerals, but it's kind of fascinating anyway.
It turned out there were two volumes of it. Cute stuff for what it is. Very much too bad there's no translated version, but let me know if you want to take a look at the Japanese version.
Posted by: Avatar at March 03, 2015 03:44 AM (a38fD)
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Yeah, I could tell that was the Yamato by her big... guns....
Posted by: Mauser at March 03, 2015 05:13 AM (TJ7ih)
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Mutsu baiting Nagato was pretty much the one really good thing about this episode...
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 03, 2015 08:23 AM (AQ0bN)
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The 18.1" Shan Shiki shell seems thoroughly scary but rather poor doin's, thanks to Japanese lack of proximity fuses.
It can take a substantial chunk out of a formation of aircraft if you guess right as to where they'll be when it gets there, but the sky is big and if they know of the threat they'll be maneuvering. Supposedly the militarily useful
burst is a markedly forward-directed cone-like shape of 20 degree solid angle and the better part of a km length.
With a proximity fuze rather than pre-set detonation, things get more interesting -- but I'm guessing you could actually put a much higher rate of proximity-fuzed antiaircraft fire into many more places, still with plenty of range and altitude capability, by using the ship's secondary battery. (The VT fuse scaled down to the 5" guns that most USN ships had at least a few of.) That way you can preserve or otherwise employ the big guns and still have good air defense.
Thankfully the real IJN never got those fuses...
Thoughts?
Posted by: Ad absurdum per aspera at March 03, 2015 06:17 PM (cQAlw)
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Uncle Ad, if the IJN had had prox fuzes, they wouldn't have needed the Type 3 shell in the first place. The idea of a 18.1" diameter shotgun barrel is awfully fun, though...
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 03, 2015 07:34 PM (jGQR+)
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It's hard enough to build a proximity fuse using vacuum tubes that can continue to operate after having been fired from a 5" DP gun (which is what the Americans did). I can't imagine how you'd make one that could survive being fired from Yamato's 18 inchers. (360 Kg of cordite, baby, in the propellant charge!)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 03, 2015 08:00 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 03, 2015 11:38 PM (jGQR+)
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The game has the type 3 shells as especially effective against "installation type" bosses, based on RL airfields. Did the IJN use them against those targets?
The wreck of Yamato's sister ship, the Musashi,
has apparently been discovered by Paul Allen. Unlike the Yamato, it was mostly intact. I wonder if she'll show up later?
Posted by: muon at March 04, 2015 06:41 AM (XIprt)
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Muon, yeah, I wrote about the Musashi being found
a couple hours before I posted the writeup for Ep08. It's literally the post below this one. I'm sure she won't show up in the show.
No, the Type3 shell was strictly an anti-aircraft round; that was the only point to it.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 04, 2015 08:17 AM (jGQR+)
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Yay! Great writeup!
The old-school anime injoke was the bit where Yamato was standing looking out at the sea sadly at night, and all of a sudden they started in with the wailing female vocalization music, a la Space Battleship Yamato.
To be fair, some swimsuits work that way, but only if you apply a lot of stickum and double-sided tape. And you can't swim or move much.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 06, 2015 08:52 PM (ZJVQ5)
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Well, probably it's really "a la that Imperial Japanese Navy song about the Yamato Spirit that the Space Battleship Yamato theme song is reminiscent of," but it made me laugh.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 06, 2015 09:10 PM (ZJVQ5)
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There isn't really a good anti-runway shell, is there? I mean, by the standards of WW2 aviation, for a fighter base, you really just needed a level field free of obstacles. I know the Germans spent a lot of bombs on British runways that just got filled in after (and Churchill reminding everyone to make it look like they were still cratered up, heh!)
Posted by: Avatar at March 06, 2015 09:56 PM (zJsIy)
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Henderson field was shelled by the Japanese, including battleships, and they used fragmentation shells.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 06, 2015 10:07 PM (+rSRq)
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Airfields in that area weren't just cleared ground, because of tropical rain storms. If the field turns to mud, you can't use it. The Americans had big mats made of steel that the CB's put down and welded together, to cover the entire length of the field.
If one of those got damaged, they'd cut it off and replace it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 06, 2015 10:10 PM (+rSRq)
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