KanColle

Kantai Collection is probably the most contradictory show of the winter's releases, in my opinion. I still do not know what to think about it, and the concept of girls who are not girls but warships took me quite a while to get used to. And so I was in different states of wanting to drop it after the first episode, after the second, I started to like it quite a bit, and after the third, I was again on the fence about what to expect next. Sometimes I found it very weird, sometimes cute, sometimes it managed to surprise me, and most of all, it kept me confused about what I thought of the girls. Sometimes it is about the common everyday concerns of young girls, and at another time, they are fighting like warships. Plus, they never die, they sink, never get injured, but get damaged, and if they get repaired, it takes some time unless there is a "repair bucket" that acts as a source of auto-repair. I was curious to see how the concept of their mutual love would develop because sometimes it feels a little like Yuri, and other times they talk about sister ships. So this is very weird, and it even made me watch a few gameplays from the original free-to-play web browser game, hoping to understand it. I managed to figure out a few things. In principle, someone who has played the game knows this could be a cool anime series. The Admiral (the player in the game) is regularly featured in the anime series, even though his visual appearance is hidden. So it gives the game player a better chance to relate to the anime series. Plus, there are a lot of hints and connections that I might not have understood without seeing the game (the "repair bucket," for example). Anyway, it awakened my interest because I had not played the game. In my opinion, the animation is very good, as is the soundtrack, plus the characters are quite intriguing. I thought this show was quite watchable, it was quite interesting and very special, so I am awarding it a better three stars. (09/05/2022)

I was quite intrigued and entertained by the first season and the movie, but the second season just bored me. New characters weren't properly introduced, and it was just a single mission without any major exposition. The series counts on you knowing everything about the girls/ships, and the writers don’t feel the need to introduce anything else or create new intricate plots. There’s a conflict, which you are already familiar with from before, and there are the girls who are actually warships, which you’ve probably realized by now. Their new adventure features other characters you may know from the game, and if not, they’ll be introduced only briefly, because that's all you really need to know... The series does have a nice pace thanks to the lack of filler (although it didn’t really make me feel anything), but covid caused an unplanned extended break to my viewing, and I didn’t find the motivation to return to the show after that - I have seen 3 episodes and they were only worth 3.5/10. (03/25/2023)