We all know that cute girls doing cute things has pretty much been consistently popular in anime since Kyoto Animation made it their selling point back in the mid 2000’s. Now I shall shamelessly admit that I love this genre as much as the next guy, but there has been a longstanding sentiment that people are starting to get tired of it. So that’s why it seems like there has emerged a reactionary subgenre of cute girls doing decidedly uncute things. Whether it Gen Urobuchi mercilessly killing magical girls in Madoka magica or moeblobs in MUTHAFUCKIN TANKS in Girls und panzer, it seems the optimal way to refresh the formula was to take it to the EXTREME for all the jaded otaku tired of seeing girls drinking tea and/or crying with planet sized eyes.
I imagine it is such a subgenre that led to the creation of today’s subject, Kantai Collection(or Kancolle). Adapted from a game that was apparently very popular and produced by an animation studio only really known for the highly controversial Kodomo no Jikan, Kancolle tells the story of cute girls…. who are also ancient Japanese warships! The show tells us that ‘Fleet girls’ are girls who have been born with the souls of ancient warships, and that they are needed to fight a mysterious race of sea demons called ‘Abyssals’. We follow Fubuki, a destroyer that has recently arrived at a naval base ready to fight.
Yeah.. that is actually the premise. This may be where the first problem lies, a game doesn’t really need a believable or even consistent premise, but an anime series does a lot more. Then again, Kancolle, with its mixture of cool fights and comedy, perhaps doesn’t want you to take it that seriously, which is acceptable. The main plot is a mixture of naval action and slice of life elements. This is a combination that I personally adore in a show but I have to question whether it was pulled off effectively here.
It moves slowly at first, letting us get to know the characters and mechanics, and following Fubuki as she learns more about her mission and attempts to grow stronger. However, just once it gets up to speed, the show throws filler episodes in the mix, which while entertaining, did not bode well for a 12 episode series. The mix of slice of life and action has to feel natural and not like the creators decided to suddenly switch gears because they thought you were getting bored. This harms the pacing and makes it harder to care about what it going on in the long run. Another thing is that in the show’s downtime, the comedy and character interaction isn’t all up to snuff, meaning you’ll often be wishing for something to happen.
When the action scenes do kick into gear, they can be pretty tense, and the stakes are clearly shown, with little plot armor or deus ex machinas being used to cheat their way out of a fight. Despite the fact that we never really learn anything about the abyssals, they are pretty menacing and make for some good fights. When it comes to the drama, the show does make a good effort in attempting to get me to care, but these elements were too lightly spiced onto the mix to be effective. Things like Mutsuki’s arc from episodes 3 and 4 and Akagi’s arc near the end are able to shed some light on the characters and give us some reasons to care about how they fare in their fight against the abyssals, but not enough focus was given to this for it to be a prominent part of the show, as it was diluted by mediocre comedy and boring character interactions. Overall, this leads to a show which is entertaining, but lacks the tools to be truly engaging.
The characters are many, and as such I forgot who many of them were. There is Fubuki’s squad, the other squads, the carriers, the higher ups and many more. I will give the show credit in managing to cram so many distinct characters into a measly 12 episodes, but they pay a heavy price for doing so. If you can keep track of these characters, you will pick up a surface level understanding of who they are, but that is exactly ALL you get, never does the show have time to dig any deeper into these ship girls. When the show uses its characters for some good drama(like in episodes 3+4 as I previously mentioned) it can be fairly competent but most of the time it doesn’t bother. This leads to many of the characters being pretty one note and bland. Fubuki is the spunky but shy protagonist who will keep training until senpai notices her, Mutsuki and Yuudachi are just ditzy best friends, Akagi is a wise mentor with a troubled past and Kongou is completely insane. If the show had more time or less characters, maybe this wouldn’t be a problem, but it is as it stands, and a fairly damning one too.
The character designs and setting are mostly pretty dull, you can sometimes get confused which characters are which because of the multitude of them present, but the show at least tries to give unique designs to each girl. But hey it's what you expect, long flowing hair, school uniforms(for some reason?) and big moe eyes, but lacking in the originality or distinctness that make good moe designs. The animation is unsurprisingly kept to a minimum for the most part and movement is pretty limited(this is moe, who needs movement?). The exception to this is pretty obviously when the show wants to wow you with its gun porn.. I mean fight scenes. Here they pull out all the smooth water animations, gun animations, torpedo animations and EXTREME WIND BLOWY HAIR MOVEMENT. But this is to be expected from a show of this nature, and its not like it looks Ufotable or Madhouse levels of extreme sakuga usage.
Music is pretty chill, but it doesn’t really have anything to compliment apart from the fight scenes. The music for most of the SOL aspects is just your usual light sounding tonky lounge music that usually is meant to compliment the comedy and light tone, which doesn’t work here on account of how boring these scenes are. The music in the fight scenes is of the “let's use an orchestra to be all dramatic” variety which is a shame because the game has face melting guitar as its battle theme from what I have heard, so why couldn’t we get some of that? The opening is also a fairly dull song, apart from the hilarious misheard lyric of “WANKERRRRRRRRRR” and I don’t even remember the ending so it can’t have been great.
One thing I will say is that the voice acting is pretty impressive, mainly because many of the seiyus portray multiple characters, and manage to give them all distinct tones, which in moe is no easy task. They appear to be really TRYING to make the show more funny or dramatic, but sometimes it is the tools, not the workman at fault.
In conclusion this show is either a heavily botched game adaptation or just a really boring moe show, it's dull and predictable but I honestly can’t say anything worse about it. You can tell it attempts to be something but ultimately cannot save itself from being nothing, the curse of bad moe shows if you will. Come to think of it, why did I even review this? they say mediocrities are the worst thing for a critic, then I guess that makes me some kind of intellectual masochist.
