Kancolle 1944 has been my most anticipated anime of Fall 2022 because I love WW2 history. In addition, I had high hopes that Kancolle 1944 would be so much better than the first season of Kancolle. I had mixed feelings about the first season of Kancolle, with the biggest issue being its inconsistent animation, as some of the shipgirls had wonky animation styles in some scenes. Moreover, the ending didn’t make sense from a historical perspective as all 4 carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Souryuu and Hiryu, were meant to sink in the final episode. However, they didn’t, and this left me a sour aftertaste.
Fast forward to 2022, and we have Kancolle 1944. One thing to highlight is the time skip that occurred from Kancolle S1 to this season. The story of Kancolle S1 took place from 1941-1942, while this takes place in 1944. In addition, Kancolle 1944 has a completely different set of characters since most of the characters that starred in season 1 have already been sunk. You can already tell where the show is going to go from here, but I’ll expand on that later.
Source: @IntlKCAdmL
From what I saw from the first episode, I can see death flags on the horizon. The opening song for the anime sounds extremely gloomy, as if something bad’s going to happen. In addition, the opening scene where the Abyssals were attacking Ryuuhou and Shigure was a sombre warning that this series won’t be as smooth sailing for the shipgirls as S1. My guess is that most of the shipgirls of the Nishimura fleet will be sunk, with the only survivor being Shigure, if the series follows what happened in history.
The visuals are one of the only bright spots I see in Kancolle 1944. It is highly detailed, from the animation of the shipgirls to their equipment. The only question I have is this – how will the studio portray the damaged visuals for the shipgirls? Will it be as explicit as what is shown in the game?
Shigure and Yamashiro before the Battle of Leyte Gulf
This series only has 8 episodes, so the story should progress fairly quickly. In addition, I foresee Kancolle 1944 to have extremely emotional moments as the shipgirls of the Nishimura fleet and the remaining fleet get either severely damaged or sunk. As a final thought, Kancolle 1944 shows potential to be a good series this fall season, especially for people who want to watch a shorter anime series. It has a unique story as it is based on what happened during WW2, and it will undoubtedly be an exciting series, given the short duration of the show.
