English Dub Review: Azur Lane “MONSTER – A War to Span Every Ocean”

Overview: 

Azur Lane shows up to stop Akagi.

Our Take:

You can tell this is the penultimate episode, because everyone is there. Everyone. Everyone! Even people from other factions, because as it’s mentioned, the Sirens pose a greater threat than the war at large. Even the Sakura Empire has joined. They all still care a lot for the sisters, but they have also recognized that to follow the Sirens is a betrayal of the Empire itself. They have to stop their former companions at all cost.

A lot of the focus this time is on the fox sisters, specifically how the Sirens managed to manipulate Akagi. Akagi’s true want in the world is love, something to put her outpouring of affection into, and that has been distorted over time. It is now really warped, with her desires taking form as her old big sister, Amagi.

Amagi was someone that Akagi and Kaga treasured a lot when they were young. She was one of the first strong carriers, but died a long time ago, and Akagi has been mourning her ever since.

Apparently Kaga was made from Amagi’s scrap– which is partially true in terms of real life parallels. When Amagi was damaged thanks to the Great Kanto Earthquake, Kaga (still under construction at the time) was changed to be an aircraft carrier. This sort of explains why Akagi is so obsessed with Kaga, because the true object of her affection (Amagi) is now part of Kaga. Kaga’s response to this is not to rail against that fact, but resign herself to it. She cares so much for her sister, that she’s willing to depersonalize herself as a result, turn traitor to her old companions, and essentially, stop being a person. Kaga is a little too self sacrificing at times, isn’t she? 

Overall, the animation is… okay. It is hard to make an anime off a popular mobage unless said mobage has the budget to actually shell out for a production (FGO, Granblue, Touken Ranbu) and that tends to be the bigger series. Azur Lane is large, but you can tell they’re still suffering from budget constraints. Which admittedly, is kind of a shame, because if animated well, it could have looked pretty cool.

On a side note, this got me to look up what has changed in the game since I stopped playing, and wow, they’ve implemented a lot since I last played, huh!