Espionage was not something I was expecting from this show.
Although, the focus of this episode definitely goes to the numerous scenery shots than the characters. Apparently there was only one key animator assigned to this episode and the quality dip during the fighting scene definitely shows. Observer’s stomach decided to hog all the budget apparently.
We get a good look at the Crimson Axis base, which only makes me wonder if the Germans have some rad looking base with their sea-monster riggings everywhere. The first PV had a group shot of them in a building interior so I’m holding out for a German themed episode. Which only brings up the question of the lone shot of Saint Louis and the the possibility of the French fleets.
So Akagi is feeding false information to her superiors about how they’re controlling siren ships when in reality they’re just working together. This only proves that the four fleets, well maybe just three if we’re only seeing these two bases so far, will unite under a common cause and fight the sirens by the end. Observer mentions that Akagi will be reunited with someone and this is most likely her late sister Amagi, which means we’re in Crimson Echoes territory or even as far as Scherzo with Bismarck being in the opening and all. I swear if Project Orochi doesn’t become some enormous 8 headed snake boat-thing, I’ll be disappointed. To compare with in-game events, the Ink Stained Steel Sakura event has Akagi usurp control of the Sakura fleet over Nagato after convincing her to wage war against the allies. Nagato then places herself onto the enormous tree overlooking their base to commune with the spirits to try and learn something from them, and the event’s mission details the endeavor to recruit Nagato and co which I can definitely either see happening or something in similar spirits occur.
Ayanami’s hesitation will probably be that exact tipping point for the sane Sakura Fleet members to ditch Akagi when the time comes. The ending sort of gave away Shigure, Yukikaze, and Yuudachi but I didn’t expect Kako and Furutaka to be the fodder Sakura ships to show up. I was also surprised that Atago didn’t show up given her immense popularity. Almost everyone that showed up in the opening showed up except Atago so I wonder which other famous Sakura ships will show up.
Enterprise’s destructive lifestyle takes a backseat this time and we get Sheffield and Edinburgh of all people infiltrating the Sakura base. I appreciated the gesture because the happy world of fanart tends to always favor Sheffield over Edinburgh. When your associated with Belfast in any way, you tend to get a lot of fanart and Edinburgh gets the short end of the stick compared to Sheffy despite being Belfast’s actual sister. Back during the 2nd PV, Akashi was shown interacting with Belfast so I guess the threat of execution for learning the big secret with Akagi and Observer explains why she’s in Azur Lane HQ. Edinburgh is hopefully alive after that suicide boat collision since the allied forces’ retrieval of the black cube was confirmed by Kaga.
The ending changed, surprise surprise. I feared that we’d be exclusively focusing on that Last Supper style character seating but now that we got more girls around, we’ll hopefully have time to focus on more fun stuff. Not that focusing on solely Enterprise or having focus was a bad thing but there’s just a lot of potential outside who were originally shown in the first ED.
Lair of the Idle 