Forum - View topicKantai Collection -Kan Colle- (TV).
|
Goto page Previous Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23862 |
|
|||
|
Oi, that whole episode was suffused in dread - made it tough to watch, for me. Interesting that some of the gals are starting to realize they are playing out a version of some past drama. Kinda weird that as a Westerner, I'm rooting for the Japanese navy to win, but heck, I can't resist the appeal of cuteness.
|
||||
|
||||
Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
|
|||
|
Well the episode made clear they're not the actual historical ships, but their reincarnations. Sins of past lives should hold no bearing on the current one so I think we can root for them guilt free.
So first it was Strike Witches and now it's gone full Ikkitousen. |
||||
|
||||
Plasmaeclipse
 Posts: 153 |
|
|||
|
I just make myself feel better by rooting for the Abyssals anyways they're better designed IMO
|
||||
|
||||
DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15506 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
|||
It actually made me feel strangely better about it when the episode seemed to imply that. So far I had the uncomfortable feeling it was just moe version, but it being more that they happen to be reliving the events, I don't feel bad about it. But at the same time I think that I only just realised how awesome the Abyssal look. I was not particularly for them before, but I found myself really appreciating what we got to see. |
||||
|
||||
|
Plasmaeclipse
Posts: 153 |
|
|||
|
I kinda wish they let Henderson-chan (the airfield hime) keep her "rigging"
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131218090943/kancolle/images/c/cb/Port_hime.png kinda loses something without the giant demon cannon or can she sprout that from her back as well? [minor game stuff] spoiler[Also they didn't let her talk which I think is significant because it implies the Abyssals (or at least the boss ones) have some level of sapience.] |
||||
|
||||
|
Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6535 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
|
|||
|
Henderson Airfield is in the Solomons, thousands of kilometres from Midway Island.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Plasmaeclipse
Posts: 153 |
|
|||
|
I know it's a fan nickname for her since that's what fans assume she's meant to represent in game
|
||||
|
||||
|
Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6535 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
|
|||
|
Either way there's an airfield princess on Midway Island and, like the other Abyssals, her design is dangerous in more ways than one.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23862 |
|
|||
|
For those who are familiar with the game, what is an "airfield princess" supposed to represent? AA gun defences?
|
||||
|
||||
|
GrayArchon
Posts: 393 |
|
|||
It represents an airfield. Some of the bosses in the game represent islands (making them invulnerable to torpedoes). Airfield Princess was introduced in a fall 2013 event based on the Guadalcanal campaign. She's basically a reference to Henderson Field, which is named after the first Maine Aviator to die in the Battle of Midway. It was captured early in the battle by the US, and it's strategic importance made recapturing or destroying it a goal of the Japanese throughout the campaign. Numerous missions were flown from it, especially during the battle for the islands. I'd have to check to be certain, but I'm pertty sure some of the ships that gave Iron Bottom Sound it's name were sunk by planes operating out of Henderson Field. So it's pretty fitting as a boss character. There's also a Midway Princess, introduced in a summer 2014 event, that some people expected them use, but they used Airfield Princess instead. I'd guess there reasoning would be a combination of factors. The airfield at Midway was apparently also renamed Henderson Field at some point, which is a different airstrip than the civilian airport that also bears the name Henderson Field. And of course Major Henderson launched from Midway. Between the two it makes a certain amount of sense to reuse the Airfield Princess for Midway. Also as the anime pretty clearly didn't intend for the island to serve as a big final boss for the series, it also makes a certain amount of sense to not waste Midway Princess on the role of "gets bombed and not much else." |
||||
|
||||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23862 |
|
|||
|
@ GrayArchon - thanks very much for the background info - appreciate it!
|
||||
|
||||
|
Plasmaeclipse
Posts: 153 |
|
|||
|
I guess that info would kind of explain the rather weird casting choices for the MI finale.
I still don't know why they would even bother introducing boss enemies if the Wo-Class (which some people are now assuming is the Yorktown) is meant to be the big climactic threat. Especially since there's an actual Aircraft Carrier Oni/Hime that was also introduced in the Midway event and people assumed that was representing the Yorktown (both the actual ship and the ship class in general). The hime form of the Carrier is also heavily damaged (in terms of portraits) compared to the Oni form (this actually happens to most bosses with a few exceptions). So if they had introduced it earlier it probably could have served the same function as the Wo-class and make slightly more sense as the boss enemy than Henderson-chan. Actually this sounds kinda silly because its never explained how Abyssals worked (and because it didn't happen) but at one point I actually expected the Wo-class to evolve into a Carrier Oni/hime Of course we can go the far more meta route and assume that the anime has likely been in production for quite some time and it's possible those enemies has simply not been introduced when they drafted this. |
||||
|
||||
|
getchman
He started it Posts: 9122 Location: Bedford, NH |
|
|||
|
I do know a good chunk of the events at Midway, but there are some bits I'm fuzzy on. for instance, the start of this battle. spoiler[Airfield Princess being overwhelmed by carrier bombers] does represent the first major event of the real life battle, correct?
|
||||
|
||||
|
GrayArchon
Posts: 393 |
|
|||
I can think of a few possibilities, especially after checking the Kancolle wikipedia. For starters, they needed some boss characters to properly portray islands for attacks. Otherwise things like bombing Midway would happen entirely off screen, which wouldn't sit well with anyone. Aircraft Carrier Demon/Princess and Midway Princess have other problems with using one of them for the carriers. Namely all of them are armed with: Abyssal Hellcat Fighters, Abyssal Hell Divers, Abyssal Avenger Torpedo bombers. The problem with that being that all of those are obviously based on real planes, the Hellcat, the Helldiver, and the Avenger. And no carriers at Midway were equipped with them. The first model Helldiver never saw action in the Pacific. The second model Helldiver didn't enter service until months after Midway. The Hellcat didn't even fly for the first time until weeks after Midway, and didn't see action against Japan until more than a year later. The Avenger was present at Midway. Six of them, based on Midway Island, not on any of carriers. Five of which were shot down in Midway's counter attack to the initial strike. So to use Aircraft Carrier Demon/Princess for one of the character would require them to either not be true to history, or not be true to the game, and they were probably disinclined to do that. Plus, Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet were all Yorktown-class carriers. Having Yorktown be an Aircraft Carrier Demon/Princess while Enterprise and Hornet were just Wo-Class carriers would also not be true to history, they'd all need to be one or the other. Yorktown being a kai version an Enterprise and Hornet not being kai versions works because Yorktown was the combat veteran of the three. Furthermore, while Yorktown was remarkable for how much damage it took before sinking at Midway, Enterprise was actually the one that inflicted the most damage. On that front it goes roughly: Enterprise > Yorktown > Hornet > various submarines > Midway Island. So having the Yorktown analogue alone be the boss would not match with history there either. So yeah, including more of the boss characters would involve getting further away from history and/or the game than they probably wanted to. They also pretty clearly decided to keep the Abyssals the speechless, enigmatic enemy they were when the game first came out. Using making wide use of more recent bosses that have speech would require them to rethink that decision, and possibly increase the costs as well.
To answer your question, and for the benefit of others who might not be familiar with the battle beyond general terms, and don't wish to spend the time to look things up, the battle went roughly like this: The carrier group moved in to attack Midway Atoll, and soften it up for capture. While capturing it would give a nice strategic advantage to Japan, that wasn't the end goal of Operation MI. The intent was that the prospect of a functional Japanese base on Midway would be too great of a threat for the US to permit, and they'd be forced to immediately send everything they had, particularly their surviving carriers, to retake the island. At which point the main fleet lurking around separately from the carrier group, would surprise and destroy the US fleet, crippling the ability of the US to do anything on the Pacific front. Unfortunately, while the Japanese switched to new codes shortly before Midway, all the critical information had been intercepted prior to that, enabling the US to have the fleet out waiting to meet them. So the carriers launched their first strike, and put out scouts, Tone's launching late likely due to technical difficulties with their catapault. Then a scout plane from Midway spotted two carriers with empty decks meaning a strike was on the way, and Midway scrambled to get it's own planes in the air, sending the bombers off on their own, and keeping the fighters to cover the base. The Japanese strike basically wiped out the defending fighters, but while the bombers inflicted a lot of damage, they failed to neutralize the base, hence them sending word back that a second strike was required. Midway's bombers for their part, mostly got shot out of the sky for no damage. With a second strike needed, and no sign of enemy ships, Vice Admiral Nagumo - the guy in charge of the carriers group - ordered the reserve planes armed with general purpose bombs (explode immediately on contact, unlike armor piercing ones intended for use against ships) to hit Midway again. That change was underway when Tone's late scout plane finally spotted the US fleet, and then the carriers. The result being that Nagumo reversed his order and had his planes rearmed for ship killing. The delay and extra work meant that launching a strike against the carriers would have to wait, or the returning planes from the first strike would be unable to land, run out of fuel, and be forced to ditch. So, they recovered their returning planes first. Meanwhile, the US carrier strike was already on it's way, and it arrived while the Japanese were in the middle of refueling and rearming operations. The US torpedo bombers were shot out of the sky without any successful torpedo hits, but they succeeded in disrupting the carrier's formation, and brought all of the defenders attention down to sea level. The resulting being that the US dive bombers arrived unseen until they'd actually begun their attack runs. What happened next has been called the "five fateful minutes". The account the coined the term is likely historically incorrect. It contents that Japan was five minutes from launching it's next strike, when they were likely at least half an hour away from it. It's still a fairly apt term though, as the dive bomber's run didn't take much more than five minutes, and searching the term will quickly get you some in depth discussion of the battle. Planes from Yorktown hit Souryu directly at least 3 times, and planes from Enterprise hit Kaga 4-5 times and Akagi just once, but it landed in her hanger. Seeing as all of their hangers had bombs stacked about from the re-armings, full fuel lines scattered about from refueling, and were generally full of planes being fueled and armed, I'm sure you can imagine the specifics of the result. The Souryu and Kaga were completely aflame pretty quickly, and the Akagi took longer, but was also on fire and out of action. The undamaged Hiryu launched counter attacks. The first wave bombed Yorktown, damaging the deck and boilers, and starting fires. Damage control teams put out the fires, patched up the deck, and got the boilers running ago, just in time for the second wave from Hiryu to torpedo her, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Enterprise and Hornet recovered Yorktown's surviving planes, and launched another strike. Meanwhile the Japanese gave up on waiting for the abandoned Souryu to sink on it's own and scuttled it. They also abandoned the Kaga. Around this time, the planes launched by Enterprise found Hiryu and bombed it, again inflicting fatal damage. Not long after, Kaga was scuttled in the evening. Attempts were made to save Akagi and Hiryu during the night, but ultimately they were abandoned and ordered scuttled. Akagi sank before dawn, Hiryu remained floating for a few hours before sinking mid morning. US planes harried the retreating Japanese forces, damaging some and sinking the cruiser Mikuma the next day. A day after that, Yorktown still hadn't sunk, and efforts were under way to correct it's list and tow it back to port for repairs, when it was found by the Japanese submarine I-168. I-168 fired torpedoes, sinking one of the destroyers guarding Yorktown, and finally sinking Yorktown itself. I-168 then successfully escaped. Edit: Forgot to add, the battle fully ended when retreating Japanese ships passed out of the range of the Midway based US planes, and neared the range of the Wake Island based Japanese planes. Especially as he was at risk of encountering the Japanese surface fleet at night when he couldn't really use his planes. ----------------------------------------------------- My apologies for the length of that, it's difficult to both boil things down, and convey detail. Anyways, it's difficult to say what changes are a result of time and budget constraints, and what changes are a result of the dramatic need to have the ship girls actually see their enemy ships, rather each side seeing nothing more than a bunch of fighters and bombers. Still, episode 11 seems to have ended in the middle of an analogue of the "five fateful minutes". In other words, right in the middle of the dive bombers' critical attack. That leaves the anime with just enough wiggle room to go a lot of different directions. Especially as the ship girls launched a second strike that the historic ships never had the chance to launch. Last edited by GrayArchon on Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
|
Rogueywon
Posts: 253 |
|
|||
Don't apologise! I like long posts - provided they have something to say. And it's worth recapping this history when it comes to KanColle, because it's a huge part of the show, but I suspect that most people don't know all that much about Midway (history curricula up to and including high school level don't seem to go in much for battles these days). It's up there with Salamis and Trafalgar on the list of "decisive naval battles in history", so it's interesting to see it get an anime treatment, even if it's an occasionally slightly uncomfortable one. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group