October 11th, 2019 
AstroNerdBoy Azur Lane 02
アズールレーン episode 02
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis
The Union and Royal ship-girls begin repair work after the damage taken in the fight against Sakura Empire carrier Akagi and Kaga. Battleship Prince of Wales and carrier Illustrious discuss the situation and how Union carrier Enterprise saved them. Illustrious worries about how tightly wound Enterprise is. Meanwhile, light cruiser Cleveland speaks with Enterprise and expresses her concern that Enterprise isn’t getting rest.
At sea, Akagi tends to Kaga’s wounds. They are joined by Iron Blood heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. She teases her allies regarding their recent loss. Akagi deflects the loss as merely toying with the enemy. To that end, Akagi has the 5th Carrier Division move to intercept an Azur Lane fleet lead by carrier Hornet, the sister of Enterprise, and battleship Arizona. Akagi baits Prinz Eugen into helping. She agrees, taking Iron Blood destroyer Z23 and Sakura destroyer Ayanami with her.
Back at the Azur Lane base, Union destroyer Laffey is eating lunch outdoors with Royal destroyer Javelin. Enterprise comes by and chats with the girls, who are concerned for her health. Meanwhile, the Union fleet heading to the Azur Lane base has destroyer Hammann taking point, followed closely by heavy cruiser Northampton, light cruiser Helena, light carrier Long Island, the battleship Arizona, and the carrier Hornet. Helena detects enemies as the fleet is intercepted by Sakura 5th Carrier Division carriers Shoukaku and sister Zuikaku.
At the Azur Lane base, Prince of Wales learns of the attack. Before she can order reinforcements, Enterprise has already departed. Joining her are Cleveland, Laffey, and Javelin. The 5th Carrier Division with Prinz Eugen overpower the Union fleet, but Enterprise’s arrival thwarts them. Unfortunately, Enterprise’s damages catch up to her. But, before the Sakura can take advantage of the, the Royal Navy battleship Queen Elizabeth and her fleet reinforce their allies.
Thoughts/Review
With Azur Lane 02, a little exposition at the start of the episode certainly helped clear things up a bit more.
Ship Girls Explained
I liked that the prelude to Azur Lane 02 took the time to have some narration exposition. I figured the ship-girls could be a technological creation. We are told that “magical” Mental Cube crystal substance that was introduced to Earth due to the Sirens allowed humanity to create said ship-girls. So at least I have my explanation. However, I do wonder, “Where are the actual humans at?”
What still has to be revealed is why Azur Lane and Red Axis based their ship-girls on World War II ships.
Also, I’m hoping the Siren threat is gone into more as the series goes on.
Battle Babes At Sea!
I admit, I’ve kinda gotten into the battle aspect of the series. Although some battle stuff really wearies me, I find that the fights to date in Azur Lane have been visually interesting. And I don’t just mean because we have battle babes at sea. 😉 But I do find the animation from Bibury to be pretty good.
Also, I like that the fights do have a feel of tension to them. I’m not sure if these ship-girls can die, based on how Enterprise shot Kaga at point-blank range. But that said, seeing Enterprise in battle and her bow weapon break due to the damage from the previous battle wasn’t something I expected. As such, I liked it.
Of course, there were two, cliched “just in the nick of time” moments in Azur Lane 02 to stop the villains from landing finishing blows. But I found myself enjoying things enough to where I didn’t mind the cliches.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
Time to wrap up my review of Azur Lane 02 with some bullet point thoughts.
- I really didn’t need the ecchi content that was thrown into the episode ’cause “reasons.”
- I did appreciate the little moments of levity in the series.
- The series point of drama will seemingly originate with Ayanami not wanting to fight the enemy ship-girls she’s come to respect, and vice versa. We’ll see where that goes.
- Why do some ship girls travel on their ship, in FULL ship form while others just travel in their battle-clad human form?
- Giant bird chicks as crew? 😂
In the end, Azur Lane 02 was much more enjoyable than I had expected. And so far, the folks in charge here aren’t giving folks the middle finger like the folks did in Fate/Grand Order.
So what did you think about the episode, if you are watching? Let me know in the comments.
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I play Azur Lane as my main gacha game.
The only human in the game version is you the player (you play as the commander of Azur Lane). The anime writes out this character completely.
Unfortunately, this leads to some unnatural moments like Prince of Wales asking who will sortie to attack (as though decisions are made by committee or vote). Normally you give out orders to the shipgirls.
Another example: Enterprise in the game has a sense of purpose (she is there to serve and protect you the commander). In the anime, she lacks a sense of direction at times.
I’m generally ok with this change as it focuses the anime on the shipgirls. The commander character would lend itself towards unnecessary harem protagonist hijinks.
Spoiler of the game’s version of events in episode 1 and general side story spoilers:
[spoiler]The attack in episode 1 parallels the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
In the real world, the battleship Arizona is sunk in port.
In the game version, Arizona dies while in the arms of her sistership Pennsylvania. We get this powerful image of her final moments: https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/File:Memory_Tora!_Tora!_Tora!_Background_1.png
In the anime, Arizona does not die. She is one of the ships this is surprise attacked in episode 2.
So anime appears to be toning down or eliminating the deaths. As you suggested, it does remove some of the tension.
A number of the side stories in the game have superb, though tragic, character deaths. So I’m kind of disappointed they are toning it down. [/spoiler]
Overall, I like the show. But I’d rather the anime pick a lighthearted or serious mood to focus on (preferably a more serious mood).
Awesome! I have a question–on the gacha element, how is it for getting the best of the best ship-girls? In FGO, all 4* and 5* Servants are locked behind paywalls, save for certain limited edition, “welfare” 4* Servants. You can save premium currency that’s scored as rewards to try to access paywall Servants. But the free summon pool only has low-star stuff. So I’m just curious on how the gacha is as I’ve heard FGO is the worst.
As someone with no knowledge of the gameplay, it did seem like she was a leader of Azur Lane, but not THE leader.
Interesting. I didn’t sense this in the anime.
On the spoiler, that is interesting.
[spoiler]So if Arizona died in the game, then the fact that Arizona is still alive suggests the anime will be doing its own thing story-wise.[/spoiler]
I kinda like the humor moments. They break up thing.
The materials for pulls are provided in abundance and the rates are high (e.g. 7% for an SSR). You are effectively guaranteed to get all the best ships. Theoretically you can get a huge unlucky streak. But this can be mitigated by saving materials for the right times.
To use myself as an example: I’ve played ~6 of the 12 months global has existed. I am entirely F2P, but during that time I’ve gotten every new ship from the gachas.
There are also free shipsgirls for playing events or logging in and shipgirls that drop from the main campaign.
I’ve played FGO, so I’m familiar with their system. If you think of gatcha rates as a spectrum, FGO and Azur Lane are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum.
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For the anime, I think the main plot points will be the same as the game. They’ll just take a more lighthearted approach. I usually wait until the end of a show before grading it, so I’ll just enjoy the ride for now.
Regarding the game, that actually sounds pretty good for a gacha game. I’ve played other gatcha games before. FGO seems to be the worst out there in gacha stuff. And that doesn’t even touch the quality of life issues.
Likewise. Though so far, I’ve liked most of what I’ve seen in Azur Lane.