As a standalone anime it is fairly mediocre but still entertaining, like Strike Witches, Girls und Panzer, and Sky Girls, this anime attempts to mix moe girls with machines drawing fairly niche audiences and rampant skepticism from onlookers.
It has several major downsides however, which makes this anime more niche than usual and directed toward players of the game.
Firstly the large cast of characters can be difficult to follow, especially since there is no singular naval uniform or main cast (aside from Fubuki and her roomies). I feel the scenes with the main character interacting with most of the fleet were a little unnecessary, or at least should have had cute introductory captions for each character introduced to Fubuki (see the Negima anime by Shaft). Over the show you come to grow attached to characters, so it doesn't feel lacking in main character development, but certain groups of ship girls are recurring on-screen without proper introduction or screen time (like the Heavy Cruisers, you know that one blonde one with enormous... guns..).
The second major problem lies in the 3D graphics as well as the visual inconsistencies in the anime. Let's be real here, the 3D looks atrocious next to the hand-drawn anime, and was much less noticeable in Girls und Panzer, and was completely accepted in Expelled from Paradise (which is all 3D so you just gotta suck it up) but in KanColle it's easily noticed and looks like it was made in MMD. They could have easily come out with an OVA with amazing battle graphics, but instead went for the 12 episode with okay graphics.
My final complaint is a nitpicky one about the anime continuity, which could probably be easily explained in the game, but again this review is from the viewpoint of the anime as standalone content. This part contains --spoilers--
The equipping of the ships is seen as purely mechanical, except for the few times when it's not? Example, when Akagi equips and then her arrows magically appear in her quiver. Or when Fubuki is trying to get Yamato in the water and all of a sudden she is wearing her rigging. Or, when Nagato joins the battle in her rigging only and suddenly she has her full guns? Small things like these just don't make sense when they make a big point of the girls getting ready with the assistance of machines. Strike Witches also had the magical and mechanical element, but it was very clear what both elements could do. --end spoilers--
On the whole, this is another mediocre anime that is still entertaining enough to watch the whole way through, but if they wanted to make it more open to non-game players they should have reduced the cast and clarified the world better. If they only wanted it for the niche players, they really should have just gone all out and done the beach training episodes and justify to themselves moe ships.
