Azur Lane

When the "Sirens," an alien force with an arsenal far surpassing the limits of current technology, suddenly appeared, a divided humanity stood in complete solidarity for the first time. Four countries—Eagle Union, Royal Navy, Sakura Empire, and Iron Blood—formed Azur Lane, paving the way for the improvement of modern warfare, which led to an initial victory against the common threat. However, this tenuous union was threatened by opposing ideals, dividing the alliance into two. Sakura Empire and Iron Blood broke away and formed the Red Axis, and humanity became fragmented once again.

As a seasoned and experienced fighter, the "Grey Ghost" Enterprise shoulders Azur Lane's hope for ending the war. But behind her stoic persona hides a frail girl, afraid of the ocean. Even so, she continues to fight as she believes that it's the only purpose for her existence. Meanwhile, Javelin, Laffey, and Unicorn—three ships from the union—stumble upon Ayanami, a spy from the Red Axis. Strange as it may seem, they try to befriend her, but as enemies, their efforts are for naught. Still, they persevere in hopes of succeeding one day.

Amidst the neverending conflict within humankind, the keys that could unite a fragmented race might exist: a soldier coming to terms with her mysterious personality and camaraderie between those with different ideals.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Enterprise Main

Ishikawa, Yui Japanese

Laffey Main

Naganawa, Maria Japanese

Belfast Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Akagi Main

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Kaga Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Prinz Eugen Supporting

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Atago Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Ayanami Supporting

Taichi, You Japanese

Z23 Supporting

Abe, Rika Japanese

Cleveland Supporting

Horigome, Saya Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Kanemitsu, Kazuhiro Producer

Taniguchi, Hidehisa Producer

Tamura, Satoshi Producer

Reviews

Apr 8, 2020

AlexPaulLEWZ

Recommended

Before I start , I want to say that I would try my best in refraining to mention game material in this review so that I would avoid spoilers.

War never changes. Be it any era, wars have only done nothing but chaos towards the people participating it. That fact remains until today. People will always want to gain something other people have: territories, resources—anything. Once the dispute reaches between governments, a lack of communication will always ensue with WAR.

Soon, war moved on from the lands to the seas, and naval warfare became one of the most pivotal battles a side cannot afford to lose ... lest their disadvantage. In this series, however, an alien forces known as the "Sirens" with extremely powerful technology suddenly appeared, spreading threat to humanity.

To combat this situation, all of mankind miraculously stood in unity against the common foe, creating an organization called "Azur Lane," which mainly comprised of four countries: Eagle Union, Royal Navy, Sakura Empire, and Iron Blood. The countries used objects named "Mental Cubes" which let them embed the power of full warships upon female soldiers—a breakthrough in technology. This effort of solidarity gave humans an initial victory against the Sirens.

However, humans will always be humans, and soon, even Azur Lane was broken into two opposing factions. With humanity once again divided alongside the continuing threat of alien enemies, what will be this world's fate? Such is the story of this series. The premise itself reflects how the world was in the past—even how it is today in times of peace. Conflict is the main essence of man, and the anime did a great job portraying that reality.

I love how the story became developed as episodes went by. In some instances, I felt that pacing was too fast, but that also refers how life is, especially in wartime, where one must be vigilant at all times because no one knows what will happen in the future. Next day, you might be already dead—killed by the enemy. That is a part of reality this anime portrays, and the execution was quite nice.

I also like how the art was drawn, especially in scenes where the girls equip their warships and head to the battlefield. Like in the history of war, there were many variations of warships: cruisers, carriers, destroyers, etc. I like how the artists tried their best to draw the actual warship alongside with the character portraying it, for example, you can see Enterprise aboard the runway of the USS Enterprise, and as Enterprise equips her ship, the transformation may be clichéd, but I still like it.

There were some flaws in the character design, especially on the consistency of body statures—especially a part I'd rather not explain here—but I found it kind of nice and made it a game to spot inconsistencies, but I won't dwell on it too much. As an Azur Lane gamer, just seeing the girls move around and alive is already a big thing to me, that's why it has a special place in my favorites.

The character development in the anime also deserves my praise. I like how the main characters change into people who are lone wolves to team fighters, and that in itself is one of the reasons I love this series. Like I have said before, just seeing the girls adapted into anime makes them more appealing. There was also a good amount of fanservice that are just too good to be missed. The personalities each of the girls had were also preserved in this adaptation, which then was used to create an original story—just splendid.

The sound is also noteworthy, especially the opening theme with lyrics that reflect with the protagonists' problems and how they should approach it. When it comes to the credit sequence, the music that accompanied it is very relatable—very peaceful—a situation everyone hopes that the world should be. Looking at it technically, the execution of music were greatly in line in the situations the characters were facing, be it a happy scene, or the spoils of war. I also loved how the anime shipgirls were also portrayed by their respective voice actresses from the game. It puts a smile in my face.

I greatly enjoyed watching this anime. I watched this anime when it was airing, and even though the conclusions of this show was delayed by three months, that only made my excitement go stronger each day that the episodes are nearing to be aired. Once again, I really loved how the anime portrayed its story without straying far from the essence of the game's original premise. Overall, I'd say that it is one of the most memorable anime I have ever watched. That's how I loved it.

Now, I want more especially because of the ending. If there is a second season, I will gladly watch it.

But would that be possible, especially when there were a lot of production issues? I hope so.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 20, 2020

2life

Mixed Feelings

Azur Lane is an anime original, adapted from the game with the same name. I love the game.
The game itself has sort of a story line and has many events with their own story line often not involved in the main quests. I feel like that the creators of the anime had a bit of struggle to write a good plot. Later on it become's clear there's a lot of plot armour if it wanted to fit the personality of the game.

The animation is sometimes good but most of the time it's trash. As a war/action anime it should have been dynamic and moving. ... Yet we get moving picutres (not good). The studio postpone the last 2 episodes to make the animation better, but there was no improvement compared to earlier episodes.

The plot is very weak/ non-existent. It had one cheesy catchphrase where the show should have revolved around. You're leaved confused on what was important or what actually had to be tense. There was just no exitement from the plot. Yet it's an original story, but that's the only plus.

Characters are exactly the same in the game. It could have been charming if they gave a bit more lore or personality to let the character "live" and step out of the game. To bad they wanted to fit as many faces in the anime as possible and that made every character plain and bland.

This anime is nowhere near what i expect a war themed anime to be. The studio had all the freedom to create their own story with a lot more action. Yet they didn't and that dissappointed me. The Fate/ franchise has done this way better on animation and plot. They had better lore, a more logical way of dealing with a ton of characters and the dialogue wasn't dead.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 20, 2020

ShinodaChan

Not Recommended

As someone who loves Azur Lane, I'll be honest: This adaptation was terrible.

- Mediocre story featuring a generic plot, awful pacing, an OOC lead (Enterprise), forced yuribait, and an inconsistent setting. If the writers' goal was to sum up the in-game story so far, they failed spectacularly. No in-game events are mentioned or animated, and what context is presented is vague and never expanded upon. Enterprise is reduced to a one-note ration addict without common sense who can only be saved not by her sister (Hornet) or her dedicated repair ship (Vestal), but by Belfast because yuribait. One of the major factions in-game (Ironblood) ... is sidelined with their starter ship only getting ~3 minutes of screentime, and the minor factions are nowhere to be found. Episodes sporadically hop from serious moments to lighthearted ones as if the writers couldn't agree on the atmosphere they wanted to present. There are several more issues I can give (e.g. that one episode where it took ~12 minutes of ships slowly approaching each other before they actually started fighting, Akagi being stuck with the idiot ball for several episodes) but you get the idea.

- Inconsistent animation; compare the first and second halves of Episode 8 and you'll see what I mean. There's a reason Bibury had to delay the last two episodes by three months just to make them serviceable. Speaking of which...

- Terrible 'fight scenes' with no sense of choreography or intensity. Zooming around on planes and dodging bombs is not a fight scene, it's a snooze fest. Some fights were better than others (Enterprise vs Zuikaku), but for the most part they were laughable.

- Forgettable soundtrack outside of the OP/ED outside of one or two tracks.

- Dub was hilariously bad; the German accents were way too thick.

Now this adaptation wasn't garbage at everything, and it's true that viewers had low expectations going in since since Bibury is a freelance studio that normally does in-between animation instead of entire adaptations. However, the only redeemable things about this adaptation (e.g. most character portrayals including voice acting) are done just as well if not better by the game, the manga adaptations of the game, and even Azur Lane Crosswave (regardless of its controversial gameplay). It's disappointing, and I feel bad for both Manjuu and Yostar because they've put their heart and soul into the IP for years, but now they have to deal with the bad reputation of an adaptation that was clearly doomed from Day 1.

If you have not played Azur Lane, please give it a shot. I can guarantee you that the game is much better than this adaptation on all fronts, and that Manjuu & Yostar treat it with plenty of love and care. As for this adaptation...well, at least the Blu-rays remedy some of the animation errors.

March 2021 Edit: Yostar Pictures's adaptation of Azur Lane (Bisoku Zenshin) just finished airing and is far better than this adaptation was, so be sure to give it a look if you were hoping for something else. I've also edited this review for concision.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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