No loli no life.
Impression
Atago looks so happy. In general, it was all smiles and laughter with Kancolle this week! They sure had me fooled at the start of the episode though, when Nagato and Mutsu had what seemed to be a very serious, plot-driven conversation that almost seemed to foreshadow the death of an unsuspecting kanmusu. Then everything turned out to just be a curry competition. I suppose there were still casualties – Kongou and Hiei did take some heavy damage, and Ashigara took a heavy blow to her spirit. And in front of Akagi, every single bit of food is a casualty! Although there might not be much bauxite left for her after Yuubari used it to make a shiny golden pot. Fubuki can feed her the remaining leftovers.
Surprisingly, there was hardly any Fubuki. And it seems like the episode itself was set before the restructuring, with everyone still in their original fleets from the start of the series. That might be the case next week as well, if the preview hints at Zuikaku hating on Carrier Group One – why the sudden shift in chronology? Anyway, Fubuki was temporarily relieved of her role as the protagonist by the Akatsuki sisters, who are the four destroyer lolis we’ve seen at various points in the past. They are too adorable. Fitting in with the standard role fulfilled by lots of lolis in slice-of-life series, Akatsuki, Inazuma, Ikazuchi and Hibiki are hard working, positive and try their very best. A bit like Fubuki in that respect, except they’re lolis. And there’s four of them! And their sleeves are all a little too long, which makes them cuter than they already are. It feels like I’m being rewarded for a good deed or something that I did to someone in the past. Hibiki is obviously best of the four, as I’m sure you’ll agree. What ended up happening with the screencaps was that I had somehow managed to compile a bunch of different cute expressions for the Akatsuki sisters. Here are some for your viewing pleasure.
Aren’t they just too cute? Sadly, one side-effect is that there wasn’t much of substance in the actual episode itself, which is an inevitable trade-off. The only other thing I really wanted to talk about this week was the curry competition itself! I love how everyone ended up knocking themselves out of the running after some sort of minor problem or issue. Poor Ashigara-san may never end up getting married too! Not sure if you can properly describe the Akatsuki sisters as having had the best curry when all the other contestants suffered uh… unfortunate incidents before they could present their own take on it, though. Admittedly, I probably still would have taken the one the lolis made, purely because like Nagato I’m not too big a fan of spicy curry. After all this, maybe Ashigara herself won’t be one either. Even her tears will be spicy.
In closing, a happy Shimakaze is a healthy Shimakaze.
Seriously, this episode was loli kanmusu heaven.
Most of all, I enjoyed finally seeing Yuubari put her prototyping and building skills to use 🙂 Hopefully we’ll see her build some new weapons in the future as upgrades.
I was surprised that they expanded Ashigara’s plight surrounding becoming married and how she drinks her sorrows away 😮
However, it was a pleasant surprise to see Naka-chan being down to Earth. I mean, she hasn’t been sunk and she markets herself all alone so it’s not surprising that she can be when not performing.
Shoukaku’s side-tie panties… that was an unexpected way of showing her reputation of always getting it worse than Zuikaku.
I did want to see Hiei’s cooking aspect come into play after the introduction of the Kongou sisters. Now all that’s left is to see Kirishima’s genius come through and Haruna’s own more personal traits.
I wonder if the conversations between Nagato and Mutsu were really just about the competition, or if there’s actually going to be a “Curry” Sea operation as part of the big plan to cut those two Abyssal waterways. In that case, it’d make sense to hold the festival before there… might not be enough people to eat all the food… ._.
Hmm. I’m hoping Nagato and Mutsu were talking about more than just the competition. They’ve had this trend of escalating conflict as the episodes have progressed, and the restructuring of all the fleets felt like a real turning-point in that respect. In contrast, this seemed like a slight blip in the overall direction of the show – it’d have been better as an earlier episode, and as this chronologically takes place before Episode 5 I wonder why they didn’t decide to do that instead.
You know how I try to suggest possibilities for the more unpleasant routes this show could take, but then just end up sounding like I was to see the moe suffer? This is going to be one of those moments… So with the same humility that Slaine apologized to Counts Sebring and Raffia, I apologize in advance for how this will sound.
It’s possible that they may have learned their lesson with Kisaragi’s dea- departure for a deep sea expedition ahem in that they need to build up characters before such events in more than just the episode where it happens. I don’t know how likely it is for a company to switch the airing dates of episodes though.
Of course, even if they all came back from the next battle, it’d be difficult to have a proper Curry Competition with injured and upset Kanmusu. So maybe they were just accounting for that rather than something more, umm, long term 🙂
For now, happy thoughts. Yes, happy thoughts with our favourite onee-sama! In Kongou we trust – http://youtu.be/0ezQ75HP7Lo?t=36s
You probably didn’t mean it, but you do realize the curry episode was a loli-focused one. And if the Akatsuki sisters are getting character development, it makes it more likely that we will be treated to some painful loli suffering in the near future ;_; I’m hoping this is just them deciding to introduce and flesh out a new group of kanmusu or something, they’re amongst the last kanmusu I’d want to see hurt.