Anime Review: Azur Lane Episode 1

Azur Lane

Studio: Bibury Animations

Genre: Action, Military, Fantasy

Streaming: Amazon Prime, Funimation

Another anime season, another mobile game adaptation.  This time it’s the turn of Azur Lane, a Chinese mobage that features cute girls as… anthropomorphised  war ships. Sound familiar? That’s because there is a similar series out there like this, such as Kantai Collection but Azur Lane’s premise follows that of the setting being based around World War II. Therefore as well as war ships, air ships are also involved and the story line follows roughly that of the opposing factions within that historical conflict.

The mobage itself is hugely popular so it was only a matter of time before it got an anime adaptation – but often these adaptations are lacklustre and consist mostly of fan service for the existing fans. So is Azur Lane any different? Not really.

It’s clear from the first few minutes of the series and the opening that Azur Lane has an insanely large cast of characters, which is pretty typical for mobage games which rely on gacha. Most are seen only as cameos however and not named in this first episode and the story focuses more around a group of younger girls and the antagonists.

Visually this anime is stunning – everything is bright and colourful and the character designs shine through. Very little of this is seen in the action sequences however which are brief and ultimately seem to skip over most of the detail, which is strange in an anime supposedly about the war and military techniques. It leaves the overall feeling of the episode a little muddled – we’re told that this is a series about a war between opposing factions but there’s a heavier emphasis on the slice of life and lighter moments between the girls. There’s also a large amount of fan-service shots which felt rather unnecessary at times, given some of the characters look pre-teen.

Still though, this is a fairly light anime so far it has hints of a greater storyline and progression to come – just what are the reasons why the Sakura Empire and Iron Blood factions suddenly turning against the Royal Navy faction? Nothing is answered yet, and no real casualties in the first battle suggest that any future development may be somewhat limited. Still, the characters are fairly likable so far and are interesting enough to hold people’s interest – whether this series will continue down the more slice-of-life avenue or venture more into warfare remains to be seen.