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REVIEW: KanColle: Kantai Collection BD+DVD


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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:28 am Reply with quote
I'm curious to see if the home video versions of other previous Crunchyroll shows are handled similarly. Outside of the CR logo at the start of the discs, there isn't much to differentiate it from a Funimation show, and the lack of translations during the OP/ED sequences is unusual for Funimation, plus no commentary. Then again, the OP/ED for Garo Crimson Moon was handled the same way, and Funimation seems to do fewer commentaries lately, so maybe KanColle didn't have the streaming numbers to justify added expenses.
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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:20 pm Reply with quote
The whole reenacting Midway as a Japanese victory we're supposed to be happy about was going too far for me, paticularly since it's also the only incidence where they make a very specific visual reference to the ship the boat babe represents (was it Akagi?). I'm fine with counter-factual history & all that, but Japan winning at Midway is like Germany winning at Starlingrad or the Confederates at Gettesberg. You don't cheer that stuff & you certainly don't build an entire TV series around it. If Kancolle existed in a vacuum it could be shrugged off as harmless, but it's one of several anime in the last couple years that seem to have more openly right-wing & revisionist undertones than I'm confortable with.

Only other thing I really remember is that really weird & quite creepy dream the main girl has when she's in a wedding dress & confesses her love to the admiral, all done from the admirals POV. They really aren't subtle about how the admiral who all the boat babes adore is actually you, the player/viewer/director.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:22 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
I'm fine with counter-factual history & all that, but Japan winning at Midway is like Germany winning at Starlingrad or the Confederates at Gettesberg. You don't cheer that stuff & you certainly don't build an entire TV series around it.

The real world is rife with fictional Germany's winning World War II in a variety of ways, and the South actually winning the Civil War.

Guess you wouldn't like Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle" TV series, about Japan and Germany kicking American butt and ruling a divided America. Japan rules everything west of the Rockies, and Germany rules everything east of the Rockies. Even has concentration camps in the mid-west.

Fiction is fiction. I loved the Starship Troopers movie, but I sure in hell wouldn't want to attend that Boot Camp or be a citizen of the Federation in that movie.
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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:46 pm Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
Lemonchest wrote:
I'm fine with counter-factual history & all that, but Japan winning at Midway is like Germany winning at Starlingrad or the Confederates at Gettesberg. You don't cheer that stuff & you certainly don't build an entire TV series around it.

The real world is rife with fictional Germany's winning World War II in a variety of ways, and the South actually winning the Civil War.

Guess you wouldn't like Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle" TV series, about Japan and Germany kicking American butt and ruling a divided America. Japan rules everything west of the Rockies, and Germany rules everything east of the Rockies. Even has concentration camps in the mid-west.

Fiction is fiction. I loved the Starship Troopers movie, but I sure in hell wouldn't want to attend that Boot Camp or be a citizen of the Federation in that movie.


The difference is that you're not supposed to be cheering the Nazi flag flying over Washington. You are supposed to be happy the babe-fleet don't go the way of their namesakes & defeat the demons - which would be fine if it wasn't made clear the demons they're slaying are the defeat of the IJN by the USN. Very easy to make a story about IJN warships that doesn't involve reenacting a major turning point in the war as a Japanese victory; just look at High School Fleet.

Fiction is fiction, but the creators of Kancolle were expressing a point of view by making their show mirror history the way it does, one that I'm not going to pretend isn't there or that I like.

Btw, I didn't like Man in the High Castle, but not because of its premise. & you're not supposed to want to be a citizen of the Federation - that's the whole point of the film. Thinking it would be a good thing is how you end up with GATE.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:15 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:

The difference is that you're not supposed to be cheering the Nazi flag flying over Washington.

The real difference is that this is a Japanese show intended for Japanese audiences. We in America have no problem showcasing the rest of the world as evil villains, so I have no problem when the Japanese chose us Americans for such treatment. We should be happy that they picked us to play the villains over the Russians. We are even villains in Ghost in the Shell, yay.

Also World War II ended over seventy years ago. Most Americans could care less about either World War and many mix up their wars. Some probably even think Japan fought in the Civil War, or was that Hydra (intended, also quite possibly true.)
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DerekL1963
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Joined: 14 Jan 2015
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Location: Puget Sound
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 10:05 pm Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
Lemonchest wrote:
I'm fine with counter-factual history & all that, but Japan winning at Midway is like Germany winning at Starlingrad or the Confederates at Gettesberg. You don't cheer that stuff & you certainly don't build an entire TV series around it.

The real world is rife with fictional Germany's winning World War II in a variety of ways, and the South actually winning the Civil War.

Guess you wouldn't like Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle" TV series, about Japan and Germany kicking American butt and ruling a divided America. Japan rules everything west of the Rockies, and Germany rules everything east of the Rockies. Even has concentration camps in the mid-west.


I should point out that Amazon's travesty is based on a classic SF novel by Philip K. Dick, published in 1962. Plucky Americans defeating a world full of evil fascists is an old trope.
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Hikarunu



Joined: 23 Jul 2015
Posts: 950
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:28 am Reply with quote
Back in early day of browser game in 2013, we dont have any clues what is abyssal fleet? Does them are Allied force and portrayed as antagonist? But in 2015, they made event boss changed to kanmusu after kantai fleet win. An interesting concept and much more interesting they added foreign ships. starting with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Not only Axis but Allied ship too. They eventually added USS Iowa and Saratoga in Kancolle.

The theory that assumed abyssal fleet are exclusively made of Allied or Axis force are no longer relevant.The Kancolle movie pretty much confirmed it.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:36 am Reply with quote
Hikarunu wrote:
The theory that assumed abyssal fleet are exclusively made of Allied or Axis force are no longer relevant.The Kancolle movie pretty much confirmed it.

I might have been born at night, but it wasn't last night. There is no doubt at all in my mind exactly what the "abyssal fleet" is and what the game/series is all about. The fact that now they're trying to muddy the waters doesn't change that. You can believe whatever you want about it, but you'll only convince those who want to be convinced.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:51 am Reply with quote
Nah, what the game is about is having a bunch of cute girls under your command combined with an auto-battle system with a sort of gacha mechanic involved if you do well enough in the battle.

The cute girls are the forefront. If you can't understand that, then you're completely ignorant to the Japanese mobile/net game market.
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Łukasz Kawosz



Joined: 11 Jul 2017
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:52 am Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:

The difference is that you're not supposed to be cheering the Nazi flag flying over Washington.


Ok, this is another entry in the long ass checklist of what anime isn't allowed to do in fictional works to not piss off outspoken people on ANN outside of japanese cultural sphere.

What's next one?
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18135
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:35 am Reply with quote
Hikarunu wrote:
The theory that assumed abyssal fleet are exclusively made of Allied or Axis force are no longer relevant.The Kancolle movie pretty much confirmed it.

It may not be relevant anymore for the game but it's absolutely relevant for the anime series and incontestable for the duration of the anime series, and that's what is being reviewed here. If they added ships from other nations in later then cool, but it doesn't change what they did in the series.

As for whether or not they should do it? Conceptually, I don't care if they're doing a "what if?" scenario as long as the circumstances are credible, and a different outcome on the Battle of Midway would have been absolutely possible if the Imperial Japanese Navy had been a little more daring and willing to flout standard procedure. Still could be uncomfortable to watch from an American viewpoint, though.

Someone else commented about how the show is really all about the cute girls, and that's a given. However, such blatant historical references can't be totally subsumed by that.
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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:13 am Reply with quote
To clarify, I shouldn't have said people shouldn't make whatever, but they shouldn't be beyond being called out for & criticized just because "it's only fiction" or "it's not made for you." After all, the fact this is a US release shows someone out there clearly thinks it's for more than just Japanese audiences. It certainly is primarily just a cute girls with bits of ship stuck to them show, & a pretty fun one at that. But that makes the writer/directors decision to have the story parallel real historical events stand out all the more. They didn't have to; so either they didn't put any thought into what the implications might be, or they did it intentionally because they or the assumed audience would want to see it. Neither is a great answer.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:21 am Reply with quote
Am American, still rooting for IJN kanmusus. Even with what it could imply, it's still nothing like Deep Blue Fleet which actually did have the Japanese winning the war.

Hope we get to see Tenryuu and Musashi added in with decent roles.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18135
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:01 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
They didn't have to; so either they didn't put any thought into what the implications might be, or they did it intentionally because they or the assumed audience would want to see it. Neither is a great answer.

Totally agreed here. They could have just entirely made up the overall strategic circumstance and it would have worked just fine. Nothing about the concept necessitated patterning it off of actual events from WW2.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:25 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
Lemonchest wrote:
They didn't have to; so either they didn't put any thought into what the implications might be, or they did it intentionally because they or the assumed audience would want to see it. Neither is a great answer.

Totally agreed here. They could have just entirely made up the overall strategic circumstance and it would have worked just fine. Nothing about the concept necessitated patterning it off of actual events from WW2.


Why must all Japanese anime, intended for Japanese teenagers and young adults, be filtered through a lens on how it might effect some American sensibilities.

Anime production is already a trainwreck, of never enough time and never enough money, that the inclusion of an American censor in the process would never be sensible for the majority of anime shows.
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