(L) Azur Lane [anime]

[James Rye]

I would have gone Golden Lions for Royal Navy.^^

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

What I don't understand is why some people are surprised the Japanese girl's are actually antagonist's, considering how the developers are Chinese and that the two countries relations aren't exactly good. (Just remember that one time Chinese news claimed Japan was building a war-ready Gundam because there was a model at an expo).

Wait what, the developers love Japanese culture. That's why they are so beloved. Heck, they are even planning on creating a Japanese branch.
I don't exactly think they made the Japanese the enemies of the English because they hate them.

[Triple_R]

A pretty fun first episode. Looks great. And I found it a more exciting watch than I remember Kancolle Episode 1 being, but then I did go into Kancolle anime as an anime-only viewer whereas I've actually played a good bit of Azur Lane, so that probably gives Azur Lane an edge for me right off the bat.

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Wait what, the developers love Japanese culture. That's why they are so beloved. Heck, they are even planning on creating a Japanese branch.
I don't exactly think they made the Japanese the enemies of the English because they hate them.

Well, nonetheless, the Japanese shipgirls are pretty clearly the antagonists of this first episode, and the English/American shipgirls are pretty clearly the protagonists. I mean, the Japanese shipgirls are clearly the aggressors here, even made me think a little of Team Rocket in Pokemon honestly lol.

It's an interesting creative choice. I see some pros to it, but also some potential downsides as well. A lot will come down to the execution, of course.

I mean, they could have just had the entire anime be about all four factions teaming up against the sirens. But I guess they felt that would be too similar to the Kancolle anime for comfort?

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I mean, they could have just had the entire anime be about all four factions teaming up against the sirens. But I guess they felt that would be too similar to the Kancolle anime for comfort?

Meh, what can Kadokawa do about it? Azur Lane has Bilibili on its side. Kadokawa couldn't even abuse a small Chinese production company like Beetle.
I personally wouldn't find that interesting though.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Meh, what can Kadokawa do about it? Azur Lane has Bilibili on its side. Kadokawa couldn't even abuse a small Chinese production company like Beetle.
I personally wouldn't find that interesting though.

I do think that Allies vs. Axis certainly has the potential to be more interesting than all four factions vs. Sirens. But, at least for me, it depends on how they play it. Like, I'll just get this out of the way now - If they play it super-safe and don't have a single named ship get sunk, then eh... hard to get excited about warfare where there's no sense whatsoever of real stakes on the line. In such a case, Allies vs. Axis will eventually be no more exciting than all 4 factions vs. sirens, imo.

I understand that all of their most popular ships are probably plot-shielded to the extreme (with the possible exception of antagonist ships), but if even ships that are just commons or rares in the game are considered plot-shielded, then the combat might start to seem empty after awhile.

[mickbis]

Feel like they will build up a conflict similar to WW2 until they realize they're dancing on Siren stage all along.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Not everyone likes having an Admiral in a girls' show. That setup was not why the KanColle anime sucked, at least for me. It was Fubuki.

Fubuki was a bad main too yeah. (And they are about to go with a DD again.)
The part that bothered me most was the faceless totally apathetic Admiral, they intended to be the viewer.

Originally Posted by Kakurin

What a load of... it's not like historically the Axis countries were the ones that lit up the flames of war.

Yeah, but Japan usually tries to sweep that under the carpet.

Not saying that's not one of the reasons, but there were also several incidents where China accused Japan for dumb reasons, like the already mentioned Gundam model, and, JS Kaga.

So yeah, the developers being Chinese might actually have to do something with it.

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Meh, what can Kadokawa do about it? Azur Lane has Bilibili on its side. Kadokawa couldn't even abuse a small Chinese production company like Beetle.
I personally wouldn't find that interesting though.

Depending on how strict Japanese copyright laws are more than one might believe, but it's not like they just destroy other people's works for fun.
The only time I personally heard of them suing in regards to kancolle was when another company made and almost identical game to KC Arcade AND used the trademarked term "Kanmusu" there.
(Or those were two different incidents... Been too long). That being said, that game looked so similar to KCA that you could have as well called it KCA Alternative.

On the grand scheme, copyright laws aren't generally considered to take popularity into account. There are certain exceptions (at least in Europe) but unless Al already existed, and was well established, before Kodakawa trademarked or copyrighted it the one I'm thinking about wouldn't actually apply.
That being said "shipgirls" alone are not enough to file a copyright complaint as it's just a general idea. Also I think Japanese Copyright laws are closer to US ones.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Wait, the Japanese are the bad guys? That's interesting.

It's based on a Chinese game.

[zztop]

Interview with Azur Lane's CEO and staff.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

And then I was feeling very amused and thinking this is actually kind of fresh. Argeppio doesn't really count because for one thing, it's more like all the WWII warships being the antagonists rather than Japan and Germany being the bad guys. For another, the good guy ship, or sub, is Japanese. Oh, BTW, the other "human-owned" ship is German though the manga hasn't put him up for awhile in favor of showing shipgirls (Japanese) preparing for a school festival...

For them to so completely yield the "good guy" spot and accept the "bad guy" spot is ... rare.

The FOG in Arpeggio (which include the Japanese fleet) is pretty much the enemy of all humanity and drove said humanity away from the seas and made various nations suffer (which concept is borrowed by Azur Lane for the Sirens). The protag-group, Gunzo & crew aboard I-401/Iona, although Japanese in nature, represent humanity more than a single nation. The premise is delivering a super-weapon to America to be mass-produced so that humanity will have a chance to fight back against the FOG. The story pretty much views America as humanity's last hope considering the protags aboard the I-401 alone wouldn't be able to fight the entire FOG fleets on their own. (also, the "German sub" and its crew in Arpeggio is supposed to be a rogue, not a protagonist).

Speaking of humanity, where are all the normal people in this Azur Lane world? Most of the characters that we saw in this episode are ship-girls. The stakes would've felt bigger if we are shown some real people and how they live their lives before the Japanese fleet comes guns blazing.

[Nachtwandler]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Speaking of humanity, where are all the normal people in this Azur Lane world? Most of the characters that we saw in this episode are ship-girls. The stakes would've felt bigger if we are shown some real people and how they live their lives before the Japanese fleet comes guns blazing.

My friend has exactly the same complaint regarding KanColle, Azur Lane and, inexpectedly, Iliya Drei anime.

It is hard to feel the scope of tragedy in the world than there are none or hardly any humans seen during the whole season.

Even Strike Witches or Arpedgio made it better.

[Tactics]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Speaking of humanity, where are all the normal people in this Azur Lane world? Most of the characters that we saw in this episode are ship-girls. The stakes would've felt bigger if we are shown some real people and how they live their lives before the Japanese fleet comes guns blazing.

Spoiler for :

Similar to Arpeggio, in Azur Lane setting, Siren rules the sea to the point it became territory forbidden to human.
Each nations ship-girls also have their own agenda and internal conflict, for better or worse as they easily something akin to superhuman.

As far side-material goes, player is the only human allowed in naval base.
Acting as commander assigned to naval base, as neutral, representation of human, to lead them fighting Siren after unification of ship girls. At most times told exhausted / collapsed due to amount of report he need to submit.



By amount of ship-girls and consideration to characters involved, it'll be difficult asking human presence, let alone making lovable commander figure as not all franchise willing to take risk to score high like Idolmaster's Producer-san.

[Liddo-kun]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Speaking of humanity, where are all the normal people in this Azur Lane world? Most of the characters that we saw in this episode are ship-girls. The stakes would've felt bigger if we are shown some real people and how they live their lives before the Japanese fleet comes guns blazing.

I think this comes all to personal preferences. I came here to see the ship girls, not came to see people in the background. Couldn't care less if I never saw any random civilian in any episode. My real life cosplay friends and I breezed through Kancolle without giving a thought on why there is no random guy in any episode -- our mindset that time is enjoy the story and finding a ship girl that is easy to cosplay (unfortunately, the props for Kongou-san proved too expensive for us to acquire so the plan was called off and my friend just cosplayed someone from Love Live ><).

ok, but I also would not mind if they put in some civilians / random ordinary people to satisfy those who wanted to see civilians. hehe

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Not saying that's not one of the reasons, but there were also several incidents where China accused Japan for dumb reasons, like the already mentioned Gundam model, and, JS Kaga.

So yeah, the developers being Chinese might actually have to do something with it.

And I guess the Azur Lane developers hate the Germans as well right?
And I also guess every Chinese thinks the same. Sort of like every Austrian is a FPÖ voter and xenophobic.

You line of thinking is as idiotic as the people that were saying Kancolle is Japanese right-wing propaganda because IJN ships are at the forefront of the game.

[Marina2]

I like how they design Japanese ships to be demon + spell caster.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Fubuki was a bad main too yeah. (And they are about to go with a DD again.)

What? Based on the first episode, I would have guessed the protagonist was intended to be Cleveland, though no doubt Javelin will also have a larger than average part

[Liddo-kun]

Forgot to say. I'm liking that Javelin has what looks like spear, and Ayanami has a sword. Which means there's also physical combat, and not just shooting in fights.

looking forward to next week.

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

The show is meant to promote the shipgirls. No one needs a random OC taking screentime from them.

In that case they should make shipgirl admiral, because what we got is basically everyone going Leeroy Jenkins. No mission control, no strategy, no hiarchy.

And honestly it's not like good OC wasn't done before. Cinderella Girls producer or Gentiane come to mind

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Kakurin

And I guess the Azur Lane developers hate the Germans as well right?

Hate is the word you guys used, not me.

Originally Posted by Kakurin

And I also guess every Chinese thinks the same. Sort of like every Austrian is a FPÖ voter and xenophobic.

That's what you said, I said that precedences have been set and it therefore shouldn't be 100% surprising.
As for the FPÖ, luckily for the entire country they are probably pretty much done for after the last ballot. Sadly your sentence pretty much fits their remaining voters, so they won't get thrown out of the parliament within the next few legislation periods.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

In that case they should make shipgirl admiral, because what we got is basically everyone going Leeroy Jenkins. No mission control, no strategy, no hiarchy.

It's just the first the episode. I'm sure they will have better strategy going forward. Regardless, my point stands that the last thing you want to do is taking precious seconds of screentime from the shipgirls.