Review for Azur Lane

Introduction

This is an example of one of the more bizarre genres in anime, and one that I have taken pains to avoid since the last time I watched such a show. We’re talking anthropomorphised anime, or specifically inanimate objects anthropomorphised in anime. For some reason, human characteristics get applied to non-living objects and creators build stories around them. And now thinking about it, I realise the irony of stating a dislike of this genre, given that I grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine, but when it comes to anime, the last time I saw something like this was Hetalia Axis Powers, a never ending comedy franchise which sees the nations of the world imagined in human form, imbued with their particular national stereotypes as seen from Japan. It wasn’t exactly highbrow...


Shows which personify inanimate objects keep being made from time to time, and I’ve never really been interested on the strength of my experiences with Hetalia. I did enjoy Cells at Work, which gives the humanised treatment to the smallest components of the human body, but blood cells and the like are technically animate. I never thought about spending time with shows like Upotte!, where guns become cute girls, or Kantai Collection, where naval warships become cute girls (there’s a commonality to the genre here). Kan Colle as it is colloquially known is based on a video game, and as these things go, if one anthropomorphised naval warship franchise is successful, you’ll know there will be another one. Azur Lane is the other one, where naval warships become cute girls. I wasn’t exactly looking to watch such a show, but idle curiosity combined with a bargain bucket sale price kind of twisted my arm.


Aliens called Siren invaded. To defend the world, anthropomorphised battleships were created, cute girls with devastating firepower, with the bulk of the defence coming from four countries, Iron Blood, Sakura Empire, Royal Navy, and Eagle Union. They managed to push back the invaders from the oceans, but the battle didn’t end. The grand alliance split in two, with the Royal Navy and Eagle Union opposed to the Sakura Empire and Iron Blood, who have the radical idea of using the Siren’s own technology against them. Now the Azur Lane stands against the Red Axis even as both stand against the Sirens.


12 episodes of Azur Lane are presented across two Blu-rays from Funimation UK.

Disc 1
1. ACTIVATION – The Girls Who Soar on the Seas
2. MELEE – Pulsing Waves, Steel Wings
3. ELEGANCE – Perchance, Like a Human
4. SAKURA – Cloak and Dagger
5. REUNION – Reaching Out to You
6. SHACKLES – Tying Bonds, Binding Hearts
7. DEADLINE – For Determination, For Love
8. INTERSECTION – Hold You, Never Let Go
9. HOPE – Light Shines Through The Darkness

Disc 2
10. ECHOES – Crimson Memories, Bleached
11. MONSTER – A War to Span Every Ocean
12. BLUE WATERS – May the Azure Lanes Bless You

Picture

Azur Lane gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on these discs. The image is clear and sharp, detail levels are good, and colours are consistent and vibrant. This is a show with character overload, and it’s replete with lots of anime girls cum battleships, so character design is paramount here to distinguish your favourite anime girl archetypes from the subjective riff-raff. I wasn’t impressed with the animation to be frank. It has the kind of animation short cuts that they used to take making cel and paint anime, where resources were scarce, and time was rarer still. But Azur Lane is made in the days of digipaint, and digipaint in the era of hi-def. There shouldn’t be any reason for characters to drift off model, but there are moments in Azur Lane that look cheap indeed.

Sound

You have the choice between Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English and 2.0 Stereo Japanese with subtitles and signs unlocked during playback. I went with the Japanese, and found the audio to be adequate enough. The actors are suited to their anime archetypes, the action comes across well enough, and the music is eminently forgettable. I think the subtitles are accurately timed and free of typos, but this I can’t be sure.

Extras

You get two discs on each inner face of a BD Amaray style case, wrapped in an o-card slipcover. There is artwork on the inner sleeve to appreciate and a defunct digital code. The discs boot to static menus.

Disc One boots with a trailer for Kemono Michi Rise Up.

Disc Two launches with a trailer for Fairy Tail Final Season Part 23.

Here you will find one textless opening and three textless closings.

Conclusion

Azur Lane defeated me. There, I said it. I was beaten into the ground by an anime. I was pummelled into insensibility, pounded into a cognitive stupor, and repeatedly left unconscious by its utter vacuous-ness. I tried watching the final three episodes on disc two on three separate nights, and each time I was gone by the middle of episode 10. Last night, I managed to wake up five minutes from the end, and blearily caught the finale of the story, and I’m chalking that up as a win. Even when it came to the nine episodes on the first disc, it was a coin toss as to whether I’d make it to the end of an episode or not. In the end, I spent far more time on this series than I ever meant to.


Take those Amazon reviews with a pinch of salt, and try an episode or two on streaming before you shell out for the Blu-rays, because if you haven’t guessed it by now, I found Azur Lane to be the most tedious waste of time I have expended in a very long time. There aren’t too many series that I haven’t found the wherewithal to power through; we’re talking Samurai Deeper Kyo and Dragonball GT territory here.


The first hint was staring me in the face; Azur Lane is adapted from a Chinese mobile phone game, although not all such anime adaptations disappoint; just most of them. It’s a side scrolling shoot-em-up, which doesn’t bode well for narrative, although when it goes the other way around (U.N. Squadron was adapted from Area 88) the results are better. World War II warships in cute girl form might have caught the attention, but it’s as if they wanted to put all of them in there. This is a show that seriously suffers from character overload. If there is more than one ship of a particular class of vessel, they’re presented as sisters.


There is an ever expanding fleet of cute little grey-haired girls, all with similar personalities, the Sakura Empire ships all have animal ears and tails, and when it comes to character designs, it all seems to blur into a sameness so dispiriting, that not only did I forget who was who in this show, I stopped caring altogether. The show also has an identity crisis, alternating between slice of life cuteness, and battle to the (not) death narrative. Sure, shows like Strike Witches can pull that off, but you have to care about the characters, and I refer you to the aforementioned character overload.


It can’t even make up its mind over the rules of this universe. These girls are apparently anthropomorphised battleships; warships in human form. And you can see little bits of ordnance, guns, flight decks and so forth sprouting from their forms. And then you see them standing on the deck of the ship that they are, standing on themselves... When they fight, sometimes these big ships vanish, indicating some kind of complete transformations, but sometimes the ships remain. I have no idea what’s going on here. What’s worse is that contemplating this meaningless puzzle is more interesting than the story.


There is a story in there somewhere, about conflict and conciliation, about finding one’s humanity, about sisterly love and sacrifice, about betrayal but it’s all buried under the designed by committee anime clichés, not least the cute girls getting naked in the communal bath which earns this show a daft 18 rating. I’m borderline on whether I want to give Azur Lane a second chance, but it would have to be bright in the middle of daytime, with me fortified by as much caffeine as I can get my hands on. A dismal, by-the-numbers cash-in results in a dismal anime show!

Azur Lane is available from Anime on Line, from Anime Limited, and from mainstream retailers.