Review of KanColle

Why am I writing another review for a series that already has like 30? This review will be different for 2 reasons: first, because of the direct contrast with the last anime I reviewed; and second, because I'm going to be focusing on thematic elements a lot more than previous reviews do. I'm not going to complain about the CGI (eh, it's better than Initial D) and I won't say anything more about the music after noting that the OP/ED are totally awesome. That said, there are going to be some SPOILERS in here, at least in a general sense, because I'm going to betalking about this show's thematic weight, and about how it works as rewritten history.

First, the contrast. Superficially this show ought to share a lot with my last review, the miserable Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid. I mean, it's action girls up the wazoo, right? And fan-service? And pick-your-favorite-waifu as though it were a harem show? But if you look past those superficial similarities, this show really shines by comparison. First, while I'm not going to deny the obvious shout-outs to people who've played the games or are interested in the historical in-jokes, there's surprisingly little sexy-type fanservice. I recall maybe 2 panty shots, and they're really quick flashes during action sequences, plus some obligatory breast size jokes (but fairly limited ones).

Even more importantly, this is a show that (despite its underlying concept being, well, kind of stupid) actually manages to earn the thematic weight of the occasional serious moments. There's an event maybe 1/3 of the way into the show that really comes out of nowhere--but is not glossed over like the uncounted attempted (not to mention the completed) rapes in Valkyrie. It's shocking in its tonal shift, but the show has the wisdom to stay with this event and devote serious screen time to showing the reactions of other characters over a fairly long course of time. Unlike Valkyrie, where this feels like a cheap, repulsive gimmick, here it adds a lot of weight to what the characters are dealing with. And it comes in a way that raises the stakes for the rest of the show. The show designers and writers had the guts to do this once: are we really going to be able to sit back and enjoy the Cutest Little Child Soldiers hanging around ganbatteing in class and eating ice cream afterward? Or are we going to think, wait, what'll happen in the next mission, is anybody really safe? Yeah, you're going to get a curry episode in the middle. You know what that's called? It's called tension relief. Even Evangelion had comic moments, you gotta spot the show an ep to let the audience relax before the next big arc.

On that note--we actually get serious arcs, with missions that span several episodes, and are clearly building toward something. Missions with goals and stuff. We have both progress and setbacks. During the course of the anime, it is not at all clear what the ultimate outcome of the war will be. (I mean, there's sequels, so you can probably guess that Our Heroes don't outright lose. Yet. But who knows what S2 will bring? And if the season ends with them on the ropes, the story isn't *over*, it'll encourage everybody to go out and fight harder in the game, right?)

Of course, the show does suffer from Cast of Thousands. I always take notes when I watch anime or read manga, because I want to remember everybody's names for later, and you usually don't have a lot to go on to tell them apart... well, these episodes took me over half an hour each because I was typing so much in my note file. I think I have a hundred lines of character summary and relationship mappings. Phew. Of course, that's because we're basically listing every freaking boat that ever showed up in the Japanese navy, which all have to be included so you can... buy the merch? Get more hype about the game? Spot your favorite shippuwaifu? Idk. But they're all in there, and if you aren't writing it down or already familiar, you're going to lose track.

The second angle I want to cover is history. This is both the biggest fanservice element (imo), but also where it gets a little... awkward. Particularly for the American audience. The conceit of the show is that our Cutest Little Child Soldiers are somehow karmically linked to the souls of battleships... of the Japanese Navy. Of World War II. Now you might pause a minute, and scratch your head, and recall that exactly one Japanese capital ship actually *survived* the War... and think maybe that doesn't bode so well for Our Heroes. This feeling will get even stronger when you realize that the missions in the arcs of this anime actually map shockingly closely to historical engagements and events. The last third of the anime is a really amazingly close retelling of the Battle of Midway (go read the Wikipedia page and then watch episode 11 and just try to disagree). That's when it dawns on you that the Abyssals--they really are basically the American navy, fulfilling many of the same roles... we even have a creepy demonic USS Yorktown as an antagonist. So my grandmother was in this navy, and now I'm emotionally invested in seeing their dark doppelgangers get whupped? Surreal.

This is also where it should get weird or awkward for the Japanese audience. Because to tell this story, moreover to tell a victorious story, or most of all an *uncomplicated* story, with this history, you need to make some pretty radical changes. Here the USN analogue is actually just a mysterious force that arose from the depths and are clearly the aggressors. And to square that circle of "IRL these girls all wound up dead lols" we throw in a different element in the form of our main character, Fubuki, who is pretty much the poster girl for Yamato-damashii (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapaneseSpirit). She's gonna try super hard and believe super strong and motivate the whole fleet with the Power of Friendship, and by Nimitz that's actually going to change things! This is a *simplification* that actually *makes things complex*, because those are obviously very admirable qualities and make her, and all of them, likeable and relatable characters; but in the process they create a historical narrative in which just a little more Japanese Fighting Spirit (and a little more strategic flexibility and anti-aircraft gunnery) would've saved the day. This winds up being uncomfortably nationalist: Japan the aggrieved victim; the eventual triumph of a particular Japanese national spirit and character; the sanitization and justification of Imperial Japan's role in the war--this is straight out of any Uyoku Dantai group. Decomplicating the original conflict complicates the work.

Complicates because, the political implications aside, it's a formula that works. Everybody loves to cheer for the underdog; we like our heroes to be obviously heroic and lovable and not have to carry the weight of the atrocities that go with real war on any side; the best baddies are of course the arbitrarily hostile alien force that Shot First. And it's a kind of intriguing reworking of history, too, because with a little more strategic flexibility and anti-aircraft gunnery, things really could've been quite different. At the end of the day, this show won me over, from the characters (even if I ran out of fingers and toes) to the historical what-ifs. It's just tough to keep an eye on the line between alternate history and emotional support for actual revisionism.

In any event, if you watch the show (as you should!), you may find it quite interesting to read Wikipedia along with. I know I did.