Review of KanColle

I shall preface this review by stating the fact that I have not played KanColle, and have extremely poor knowledge of World War II era planes, as well as events during the Pacific Theatre of that war, and this may have potentially detracted from my experience, but I digress. KanColle is a SoL about the browser game of the same name, involving a group of anthropomorphised Japanese WWII-era warships who must fight against some alien creatures. The story for the most part takes place from the perspective of Fubuki, who is not as skilled as her comrades, but is determined to improve herself, largely out ofadmiration for Akagi. However, here lays one of KanColle's predominant shortcomings - there is a very large cast of characters and it is safe to assume a player of the game would like to see their favourite ship in action, but this is the problem. When you've got 12 episodes, and a very large cast of characters, the end result is a small amount of characters who retain a large amount of screentime, whereas the rest see next to none, and this is quite problematic due to the fact it often becomes a bit of a jumbled mess of characters, none of which the viewer comes to particularly care about. Additionally, the characters that are given significant screentime aren't the most in-depth either, with the show often relying on simple catchphrases and uninteresting formulaic quirks, rather than anything particularly substantial. I can't really think of anything major about any of the characters, beyond Kongou speaking in Engrish a lot and Yuudachi ending all her sentences with 'poi'.

But this isn't all KanColle rests on, it's a story of two halves - the moe and character interactions, but also the action, so how does the action fare? All things considered, I'd say quite well. The show does make considerable usage of CGI (which I found less intrusive than I normally do, I theorise due to the fact all the fighting takes place in water, so it doesn't look as out of place). The action isn't anything to write home about, it's serviceable, but also a bit forgettable, and I'd say this could apply to the entirety of KanColle. It's not bad by any means, but it's just all too average to really keep you excited or emotionally invested or anything. Oddly enough, the finale, which should be expected to be the strongest episode, I'd wager to be the weakest. Climaxing with a recreation of the Battle of Midway, no doubt the most important battle for the IJN or Japan as a whole during the war, it was all a bit underwhelming. You really don't get a strong feel for the huge scale of the battle, and I'm not going to critique the lack of historical accuracy, as ultimately the only thing KanColle has in common with actual naval battles of WW2 are the names of the ships, but it just seemed an awfully poor missed opportunity. It's just so commonplace for any action series to have a huge battle at the end, wherein the main character(s) emerge victorious and celebrate, but it hardly felt any different to the minor skirmishes they'd engaged in beforehand.

The film, titled KanColle: The Movie, is unfortunately more of the same. Perhaps a little more organised than the anime in terms of usage of characters (i.e. who gets placed in, and when) and more action-oriented than the original, but it too isn't anything special.

All in all, KanColle's just average. I'd say that whatever it is you want to see, you've probably got a stronger alternative, but if it does look as though it appeals to you, then you'll most likely get what it is you expect, if you are who I presume the main target audience for this to be, and players of the game, and just want to see your favourite ship in animated form, then I think it's good enough, you'll get what you want. But for everyone else, it's not got much of a saving grace.