Azur Lane 07
アズールレーン episode 07

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Azur Lane sends a massive, combined fleet of Eagle Union and Royal Navy ships to meet a large Sakura fleet. Some of the Sakura ship-girls have concerns about the upcoming fight since they don’t understand Akagi’s reasons for forcing the issue. Meanwhile, the ships of the Royal Navy are ready to rock. Javelin and Laffey think about Sakura destroyer Ayanami. And Belfast worries about Enterprise trying to do too much. That night, Union light cruiser Helena and battleship Massachusetts have growing concerns.

With the Siren’s help, Akagi summons a storm on the Azur Lane fleet. The fleet suddenly finds themselves on calm seas, but are immediately beset upon by Siren ships. Enterprise spots Akagi hovering in front of a volcano. She welcomes them to her realm and her Siren fleet attacks. Azur Lane counters with the Royal Navy leading the assault. The battle is going well for Azur Lane, but Sakura battleships Ise and Hyuuga shows up. The rest of the Sakura fleet “warp” in, lead by Kaga.

Kaga has to hold back some of the carriers after Enterprise is spotted. She goes after Enterprise and is irritated that Akashi provided Azur Lane with info on their alliance with the Siren. Enterprise wants to stop Akagi, which angers Kaga. Enterprise gets distracted by Belfast coming under heavy fire, leading Kaga to get a score on her. As such, Enterprise falls into the ocean, so Belfast disengages to assist her. Enterprise has a vision of dead ship girls and a strange one that looks her way.

Meanwhile, Akagi thinks Enterprise dead, but she’s stunned to see Enterprise rise with more power. Nearby, the Siren ship Observer gleefully takes note of Enterprises awakening. Kaga is shot out of the sky and Enterprise causes an energy surge that hits all ships. She confronts Akagi and defeats her easily. The sight of Akagi falling apparently lifeless into the ocean snaps Enterprise out of it. She admits that she’s afraid of the ocean.

Elsewhere, Akagi finds herself on land and sees her older sister, Amagi. To her horror, Amagi has no face.

Thoughts/Review

I expected Akagi and Kaga to die, but I didn’t expect it to happen in Azur Lane 07.

A Gathering of Ships

One thing that Azur Lane 07 did was find a way to not only use a majority of the ship-girls who’d previously been introduced, but also introduce some new ship-girls as well. Further down, I have a list of all of the ship-girls I spotted in the series (sans the Siren ship-girls). However, I’m constantly amazed at how the writers of this series find ways to give some lines to most of these ship-girls. More than that, they may only get a couple of lines, but often they are meaningful.

The other element here is evoking World War II imagery. I still don’t get why the ship-girls sometimes have their big, World War II ships when they travel and sometimes don’t. And not only that, but many ship-girls don’t even travel on their own ship, but hitch rides on other ships. Not sure why this is.

Siren Plans

We know that the Sirens tempted Akagi with the notion of being reunited with her deceased older sister ship-girl, Amagi. And yet it seems that Akagi’s desires blinded her to the fact she was being used by the Sirens. They allowed her to bring Enterprise and the other Azur Lane ships to Siren territory because the Sirens apparently have their own plans for Enterprise.

But who is the ship-girl in Enterprise’s vision? Is this a vision or some kind of memory? It will be interesting to find this out, more so since Enterprise’s character story has now expanded.

Ship-girl List

As I’ve previously stated, I’m keeping track of a list of ship-girls in each episode aired. Here’s my list from Azur Lane 07. (Let me know in the comments if I missed anyone.)

• Eagle Union: carriers Enterprise, Hornet; battleship Massachusetts; heavy cruisers Houston, Portland; light cruisers Cleveland, Columbia, Montpelier, Denver, Helena; destroyers Laffey, Hammann, Eldridge.
• Royal Navy: battleships Queen Elizabeth, Prince of Wales, Warspite; battlecruiser Hood; heavy cruisers Suffolk, Norfolk,  light cruisers Sheffield, Edinburgh, Belfast; destroyer Javelin.
• Sakura Empire: carriers Akagi, Kaga, Zuikaku, Shoukaku, Souryuu, Hiryuu; battleships Ise, Hyuuga; heavy cruisers Takao, Atago; destroyers Ayanami, Yukikaze, Shigure, Yuudachi.
• Iron Blood: None.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Azur Lane 07 with some final bullet point thoughts.

• Did Kaga die when Enterprise shot her? She’s survived a point-blank shot before, but with this new attack from Enterprise being new, maybe she dies.
• It seems like Akagi is dead. Either that or she’s having some weird vision. The series has avoided any real darkness to date. However, I did figure Akagi and possibly Kaga would die. I just didn’t expect it so soon.
• It seems that energy pulse from Enterprise was to send all of the ships back to Earth.
• Why is Enterprise afraid of the ocean?
• I found it interesting that during the faceoff between the Sakura fleet and Azur Lane, Prince of Wales (Royal) ordered the attack before Sakura could.

In the end, Azur Lane 07 continues to surprise me. However, this surprise is in a positive way.

Additional: I’m thinking about starting the Azur Lane game and streaming it after the game ends. Let me know in the comments if you might be interested in watching something like this.