Review of KanColle

Don't take my score rating at face value. Kancolle (the anime) is a mesh of conflicts which makes it difficult to rate, also because of its target audience. The anime, before it aired, was announced to be crafted to exhibit a slice-of-life/battle ratio of 70%/30%, and that is where the problem lies. The anime basically hands you a platter of samples from the Kancolle universe but doesn't quite put in the effort to ensure that each sample is well crafted and fully developed. Let us start with the slice-of-life part first. Here's a warning to those who don't play the game: You won't get much of itat all. Most of the slice-of-life humour and interesting points stem from puns (like the Curry Operation) from the game and real history, to the characters' personalities which are well-exhibited in the game. Even for people who play the game, unless you know your waifus well (i.e. you understand the Japanese lines they say), you will also not be able to catch much. The scripts have the game's lines well weaved in in most parts, and almost every other line you hear will be either an exact or slightly modified line from the game. To fans, this is probably the most appealing part, because it brings out the personalities of each shipgirl and makes them come alive. Some people might dislike the overuse of in-game lines, but I'd say it's most of the time done quite appropriately, and is likely the best way to show the character's personality that we're familiar with.

Bonuses are included as well. "Unexpected" character behaviours like Nagato (aka Nagamon) and Zui-Kaga are included too, which are based off the fanfics. Good effort! Apart from that, the slice-of-life plot, is typical: entertaining, relaxing, and nothing much happens. Well done!

The battle scenes are on the whole not too bad, apart from the awkward CGI here and there (and my friend spotted a single frame render error as well). Problem is, it's split as well. About half the battles, mostly at the beginning of the anime, are pretty exciting and nice to watch (they feature the fairies in the planes too!), but then after that it falls stale towards the later part of the anime. By the time you get to the end, it's really nothing new, apart from just more and more ships getting involved and starts to feel cheesy. The battle scenes are the part of the anime which doesn't really require you to know the game since the game battles are not very similar, but it doesn't impress both audiences, which is a shame.

Drama in the show is also very awkward. There are some heartfelt scenes, and I must say I thought the anime (hint of a very slight spoiler here) was going to build up nicely from about ep 3 and ep 4, but it doesn't. The drama doesn't flow from one episode to another well, if any at all. While that's not a problem for slice-of-life, the writers decided to (try to) inject lots of seriousness in certain places, and because it just fizzles out by the next episode without a hint to its previous existence, the whole thing feels contrived.

Character development is practically zilch, except for the main character, Fubuki, who gets a bit. But I can understand that because it wants to stay true to the game, the characters can't change much. Also, some personalities (like Kongou) are based off the history of the ship itself, and so can't be changed much. With such a wide cast of characters, you'd be hard pressed to find enough time (for the slice-of-life segments) or impact (for battle and drama scenes) to develop any character in particular.

So on the whole, the anime is just very awkward because all the elements cancel each other out. You get heavy scenes of drama and battles only to be totally forgotten by light-hearted ones later as though none of that happened. They are not particularly well executed either.

OP and ED of the anime is great, and I think, if it was more focused on battles, these songs would fit it very well.

To conclude, you'd have to be in to this show for the characters to enjoy it, I'd say, and thus, you'd need to know the characters WELL either by seeing lots of fanfic or playing the game (or both!), otherwise the good parts will just fly past you leaving you with only the bad parts, which is likely why there's a whole lot of people bashing the show. Please be aware of that if you're taking up this series!

PS: I gave it a 7/10 because the 70% slice-of-life part was basically done right.