Lets be honest. If youre here youre one of three things. 1. You played Azur Lane and heard they had an anime adaptation 2. Youre a history fanatic who wanted to see anthropomorphized ships interact with each other 3. Youre both Azur Lane brought about a very fine second wind to the shipgirl subgenre. Continuing the legacy of Kantai Collection and giving it a modern twist that has attracted millions of players on its app. However many fans including myself were dismayed at the anime adaptation. As a very new person to this community who hasnt even accumulated 5 hours on the game and only heard about this entire franchise through a chance encounter during Spring even I was disappointed at the overall effect of this adaptation. Story As I said earlier Im an extremely new addition to the Azur Lane community as of such I have no idea what the general game plot is. However I was aware of the general gist. Humanity was attacked by alien vessels sorta like that Battleship Movie and in response they turned their most famous battle vessels into cute anime girls. The Anime adaptation helps newer players like me clear up a lot of specifics of the system. How do these girls control these ships? Are they gijinkas of ships? Or actual humans possessed with the spirit of these ships? No theyre ships that through the mental cubes that were the bane of my gacha luck become human and theyre able to convert their ship bodies into battle armor to use. Alright understandable frankly thats actually a very comprehensible explanation and I have no complaints with it. But thats where it sorta all goes downhill. Following generic anime timelines they yada yada the background information so they can capitalize on it later for plot convenient flashback scenes. Suddenly Japan the Sakura Empire attacks Thats where the first issues I noticed came in. Most importantly I realized that the anime really loves their Deus Ex Machinas. Belfast saving Enterprise Enterprise saving Ayanami we get it animes love to flaunt their characters speed but if it gets repetitive it really takes out of the main feeling. Second is the overall spread of the story. 6 episodes for Enterprise to figure out that shes not invincible 3 episodes to figure out the Sakura Empire is up to something 2 dramatic action scenes and of which one is completely backstory fodder and whatevers left is thrown to the fanservice machine. Anyone whos watched any show before knows that this isnt good pacing. the 6 episodes of Belfast vs Enterprise eventually feels like it drags on and on and on while they did try to amend this by having other character interactions like Kaga and Akagi the Shokaku sisters Ayanami vs Javelin and Laffey etc. But that doesnt curb the dragging feeling. Meanwhile the last 3 episodes are super rushed. Barely any explanations are made about Akagis motives Enterprise is still the Deus Ex Machina Queen and hell it honestly feels like were members of the Sakura Empire in that last battle just as confused as everyone else. Characters Arguably the most anticipated part of the series everyone including newcomers like me knows that Azur Lanes selling point is its vast diversity of shipgirls and their quirky personalities. The Anime adaptation literally didnt do anything on it. Sure they made sure to include cameos for the minor ships like Cleveland but even with their main cast they struggled to make sure every character was well rounded and at least presentable as somewhat human. With their rushed attitude most of the characters were forced to stick to one central theme and crank it to 1000 which overall is a detriment to their personality and sets them as way more dull versions of their in game counterparts. On top of that even if they spent 6 episodes fixing Enterprises personality it overall still feels bland. All she did was realize that the ocean was scary. Thats literally it sure shes eating normal food a lot more but in the grand scheme of things it was a very minor change. Even with these flaws I still found myself gradually able to like a few characters. Even if the screentime isnt representative of how well they build as a character it still is noticeable enough for certain characters to stick out. People will most likely love the Starter Squad for their quirky personalities the two floofy tailed carriers will still be ara ara AF and I personally loved the Shokaku sisters. At least not all of the personalities were sunk with the adaptation Animation The thing about converting big badass ironclad warships into cute anime girls is that you deliberately sacrifice many great opportunities for killer animation by opting for the more conventional approach. The main appeal of warships is that theyre intimidating they kick ass and they are the most alpha way for nations to flex their biceps. It wouldve been great seeing these iron giant duke it out with shells and torpedoes but now that theyre kawaii anime girls we really just get to see them use peashooters and swords... really? Meanwhile the CGI. Its good in some places but bad in others especially when these human avatars are riding on their ships in ship form and not battle body form. The animations of the ships turrets turning and firing is really chunky and looks like something straight out of Super Mario 64. In all cases the anime was a good watch. Not a great watch but at least it isnt absolute bullcrap like others. Watch it if youre bored watch it if you want to see shipfus but dont watch it expecting to get something cool.