ShinodaChan

As someone who loves Azur Lane, I'll be honest: This adaptation was terrible. - Mediocre story featuring a generic plot, awful pacing, an OOC lead (Enterprise), forced yuribait, and an inconsistent setting. If the writers' goal was to sum up the in-game story so far, they failed spectacularly. No in-game events are mentioned or animated, and what context is presented is vague and never expanded upon. Enterprise is reduced to a one-note ration addict without common sense who can only be saved not by her sister (Hornet) or her dedicated repair ship (Vestal), but by Belfast because yuribait. One of the major factions in-game (Ironblood)is sidelined with their starter ship only getting ~3 minutes of screentime, and the minor factions are nowhere to be found. Episodes sporadically hop from serious moments to lighthearted ones as if the writers couldn't agree on the atmosphere they wanted to present. There are several more issues I can give (e.g. that one episode where it took ~12 minutes of ships slowly approaching each other before they actually started fighting, Akagi being stuck with the idiot ball for several episodes) but you get the idea. - Inconsistent animation; compare the first and second halves of Episode 8 and you'll see what I mean. There's a reason Bibury had to delay the last two episodes by three months just to make them serviceable. Speaking of which... - Terrible 'fight scenes' with no sense of choreography or intensity. Zooming around on planes and dodging bombs is not a fight scene, it's a snooze fest. Some fights were better than others (Enterprise vs Zuikaku), but for the most part they were laughable. - Forgettable soundtrack outside of the OP/ED outside of one or two tracks. - Dub was hilariously bad; the German accents were way too thick. Now this adaptation wasn't garbage at everything, and it's true that viewers had low expectations going in since since Bibury is a freelance studio that normally does in-between animation instead of entire adaptations. However, the only redeemable things about this adaptation (e.g. most character portrayals including voice acting) are done just as well if not better by the game, the manga adaptations of the game, and even Azur Lane Crosswave (regardless of its controversial gameplay). It's disappointing, and I feel bad for both Manjuu and Yostar because they've put their heart and soul into the IP for years, but now they have to deal with the bad reputation of an adaptation that was clearly doomed from Day 1. If you have not played Azur Lane, please give it a shot. I can guarantee you that the game is much better than this adaptation on all fronts, and that Manjuu & Yostar treat it with plenty of love and care. As for this adaptation...well, at least the Blu-rays remedy some of the animation errors. March 2021 Edit: Yostar Pictures's adaptation of Azur Lane (Bisoku Zenshin) just finished airing and is far better than this adaptation was, so be sure to give it a look if you were hoping for something else. I've also edited this review for concision.

Stark700

Perhaps the theme of ship girls isn’t an overly saturated idea in the anime medium. We’ve only had a handful of anime about ship girls in these recent years. Azur Lane does gleefully feel similar to Kantai Collection, a franchise that it drew influences from. Back in 2015, Kantai Collection presented itself as a love letter to fans of the game. Azur Lane follows a similar path and by that, it tries to please the fans. But as an anime original viewer, Azur Lane presented itself to me as a fan disservice of naval storytelling. The plot deals with nations fighting against the mysterious alien forceknown as the “Sirens”. Azur Lane is a military alliance established to counter the threat that consist of the Eagle Union, Sakura Empire, Royal Navy, and Ironblood. However, these nations develop ideal clashes that breeds internal problems within the alliance. Let me tell you this right now and that is, you should not expect much character development for the oversaturated cast of characters. Besides a few of the more prominent characters such as Enterprise, Akagi, Unicorn, Javelin, Belfast, and Kaga, there’s far too many to count or worth investing time into. It’s a flaw of the anime with viewers being easily lost within its sea of characters and even the plot. Azur Lane seems to be the type of anime that’s aimed for an audience already familiar with the franchise. That being said, the anime isn’t completely unwatchable. Naval warfare takes shape with a war drama story that isn’t difficult to understand. The main question is how much you feel attached to the story it tells us. The main plot deals with how each nation operates by using its arsenal and military units in the conflict against the Sirens. When it doesn’t engage in war, we do have the so called “breather episodes” to give the characters time to relax. The first half of the series even had a particular beach episode to give time off for the ship girls. Other times, it brings together characters from different nations and their ideals. One of the most prominent character is Enterprise, an ace renowned for her skills and her experience. Throughout the anime, she faces her own personal demons including dealing with the incident of her sister, Yorktown. While the anime doesn’t pull the trigger on most of the cast, Yorktown does become a victim of warfare and in respect, Enterprise feels responsible. In a sensible topic, war can be a life altering experience. Azur Lane seeks to promote character assassination on occasions despite the highly fictional content. As I mentioned before, Azur Lane seems like type of anime targeted to fans who are already familiar with the franchise. There’s far too many cast and as result, many of the characters gets demoted to background extras or even omitted. A primary example is the limited focus on Ironblood and its members. The anime attempts to remedy this by having groups of characters appearing but it doesn’t really leave a good taste. On the other hand, it’s easy to see that some character relationships to be intimate than others. No, this is not a shoujo-ai. But sometimes, you do get a ship tease between characters such as Akagi and Kaga. Unfortunately, the relationships in this anime is eye catchy at best but filled with utter nonsense. Watching Azur Lane made me feel like a kid who got a flashy new toy but gets bored the very next day. Characters such as Unicorn serves as mascots that brings little value to the storytelling. If you’re seeking for a concrete plot, seriously look elsewhere. This isn’t an anime that will make you quote lines from what it’s selling. On the technical elements, Azur Lane became a victim of for its visual quality and animation. There's obvious problems with the production values when the producers decided to delay the series' final two episodes by 3 months. While character designs doesn't suffer from CGI, some of them looks inconsistent in background scenes. Most of the time, the characters looks scripted on set and the battle chereography seems like it's a live slideshow. There's no easy way to say it but Azur Lane takes a big fall on its animation front. Ah, Azur Lane. Somehow, I got the impression the producers wanted to throw all this together to get the audience's favor into the game. Honestly, the plot is so poorly written that you may have to look up a wiki to understand the full gest. Without playing the game, this show won’t be much of an enjoyable experience. It's not even an eye pleaser with the atrocious animation. You will certainly not come out of this show remembering a memorable quote or two. And it’s a shame really. It's 2020 and we haven’t received a decent anime about ship girls in ages.