High School Fleet

Episode 5

If I've learned anything from High School Fleet so far, it's that you can totally get away with mutiny as long as you claim to remember nothing and blame your actions on mutant space hamsters. That seems to work for the characters in this show, as both the crew of the Harekaze and the instructor who shot at them in the first episode seem to have been cleared of any wrongdoing. With the rest of the fleet no longer after their heads, the girls take a break from fighting and hold a party for Wilhelmina (whom they've helpfully nicknamed Mi). It's not all clear sailing, however, as the missing battleship Musashi opens fire on the school ships that come looking for it. Akeno ignores her “observe and report” orders and tries to get aboard the Musashi, but she's thrown from her boat in the chaos of the battle.

Let's just get this out of the way right now: the whole “crews driven crazy by weird hamster creatures” setup is kind of ridiculous. I'm on board with the idea of some kind of contagion spread by animals on ships, but something about the way High School Fleet presents its premise makes it hard for me to take it seriously. On the other hand, if (and it's a big if) you're charitable enough to cut the show some slack on the subject, it does at least open up an interesting challenge for the characters to deal with. How exactly do you rescue a group of innocent victims when they've taken over a warship and are throwing shells and torpedoes at anyone who gets near them? The military nerd in me is looking forward to seeing what kind of answer the series ultimately comes up with.

While the crew's downtime seems mainly like a convenient excuse to sneak in some relatively tame fanservice, High School Fleet also uses the opportunity to take another shot at some character development. This effort is a little more successful than last week's episode, as we actually cover some new ground with Mi and Rin. Mi seems to be settling into her role as the obligatory eccentric foreigner, while Rin's backstory paints a reasonably convincing picture of how someone so timid decided to join the crew of a warship. It's nothing special, but it helps give the girls a little more depth beyond a job description and a single personality trait. The most interesting of the bunch may be Inspector Furushou, who finally gets a chance to speak for herself as she recovers in the hospital. The show's older characters add an extra dimension that we don't always get in a “high school kids save the world” series, so here's hoping they continue to play a role in the story.

We also get some proper action scenes this week thanks to the Musashi's clash with the school ships, and the show continues to be at its best when it's geeking out over naval combat. High School Fleet's visual direction always seems to gain some extra energy whenever it's time to blow something up, and there are some cool moments as we track a spread of torpedoes from launch to impact. The dynamic between Akeno and Mashiro on the Harekaze's bridge also gets pretty interesting, with the chance to help her best friend testing Akeno's commitment to her crew. Put those clever visuals and compelling conflicts together and you've got a solid action series.

After last week's necessary break for plot development, High School Fleet seems to be back on course in this episode. The writing maintains a genuine enthusiasm for the material without completely losing itself in the details, and the serious elements are somehow still playing reasonably well with the cute and silly stuff. Concerns over the teenage mutant ninja hamsters aside, I don't see this series going off the rails any time soon.

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.