High School Fleet

Episode 11

The trouble with enormous doomsday ships is that they rarely do what the good guys expect them to. The Musashi finally reappears in this episode, but it's not where everyone planned for it to be. With most of the fleet in the wrong place, it's up to the Harekaze and a handful of Blue Mermaid ships to intercept the rogue battleship. The thought of putting her crew in mortal danger to stop the Musashi causes Akeno to have a breakdown, and Mashiro struggles to get her back to normal. Some encouraging words from the rest of the crew arrive just in time, as the Musashi knocks the Blue Mermaid ships out of the fight. With no other ships in the area, a freshly motivated Akeno sends the Harekaze into action.

As High School Fleet's big season-ending battle, this is about the setup you'd expect. Akeno and the Harekaze have one last chance to stop the Musashi and rescue its crew before things start to go horribly wrong, and they'll have to do so without much help from the rest of the school fleet. This episode takes a by-the-book approach to setting that conflict up, complete with the obligatory scenes of important people in command centers talking about how vital it is to stop the Musashi. The flashbacks to Moka losing control of her ship to an infected crew almost feel superfluous at this point, as they don't tell us much that couldn't already be inferred from past episodes. The extra backstory is vaguely useful in showing us the Musashi's side of the story, but much of that screen time could have been put to better use in depicting the battle with the Blue Mermaids.

Speaking of that battle, it's a pretty good one. This action sequence is a slight departure from High School Fleet's usual one-on-one confrontations, and it's fun to watch the four Blue Mermaid ships work as a team. Otherwise, it's mostly a case of High School Fleet doing what it's good at: fast-moving torpedo volleys, explosive cannon blasts, and big ships weaving their way through one another's attacks. The one thing that seems odd is how the episode shows off the Mermaids' plan to board the Musashi but never has them carry it out. It's a bit unusual for an action series to show off a bunch of speedboats without putting them into the water, but perhaps we'll see those boarding parties again later on.

The Harekaze is the one ship without a big role to play in this episode's action sequence, and its absence mostly comes down to Akeno's crisis of confidence. It makes sense from a narrative perspective to have the protagonist briefly lose her nerve before the big fight, but I'm not sure I buy the way it plays out. The last episode did at least hint at Akeno's worries over fighting the Musashi, but the implication seemed to be that she was concerned about attacking her old friend's ship. Instead of that, she ends up fretting over the prospect of putting her crew's lives in danger. Given the relative lack of consequences for her risky decisions in the past, there just doesn't seem to be a convincing reason for Akeno to freak out over the idea. Still, at least the rallying speeches from the Harekaze's crew are appropriately silly. Lines like “I'll be your mayonnaise” are exactly what I'd expect to hear from this series, and they add some welcome levity to a situation that could've easily been taken too seriously.

Aside from some minor hiccups, this episode does its job of ramping up the level of excitement for next week's big battle. By the time the Harekaze charges in and signals a promise to rescue the Musashi's crew, the dramatic tension is exactly where it needs to be. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is that High School Fleet is playing to its strengths by having these two ships go up against one another. It's time for the underdog destroyer and its quirky crew to test their spirit and teamwork against another big scary battleship, and I wouldn't want this series to end any other way.

Rating: B

High School Fleet is currently streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Daisuki.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.