Ok, I'm watching this, and as a Gen-xer, I'm 100% blubafuddered WTFH this is. I don't get it. I cannot relate to how a person, is an airplane, but a person, or a destroyer who is a person - or some cute looking big eyed Japanese Anime character. It makes no sense. The storyline is not correlating with the action, and the representation that they're actual WW2 machines, well... I'm kinda stumped.
Some please, tell me what I'm looking at and what it represents...
I assume you checked out this clip (episode 1) posted above (
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,370474.msg4936345.html#msg4936345)
http://www.crunchyroll.com/kancolle/episode-1-hello-commander-668415right?
Ep 1 (above) pretty much gave the setting & plot starting from 00:00 to 02:30 and you should be in for the ride. I thought it was straight forward like any mindless summer Hollywood flick but in episodic (24 min x 12eps) & lighthearted anime form.
Some suspension of disbelief (the ship+girl part) and being "relaxed" (as in tired after dueling in DA or grinding in MA for hours) is required though, but other than that, it's solid with references (in later episodes) thrown somwhere randomly that, I think, most ww2 machinery era fans will get. For example - The "Kongou" character speaking and throwing
engrish phrases indicate Kongou's British origins (Vickers shipbuilding). Another one is "Yamato" character as a "resource hog" amd giving other fleet girls in the show "5-star hotel service" in her own private base
http://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/2x4z2m/spoilers_kantai_collection_kancolle_episode_8/You've got a strike witches avatar, the 
is a bit disingenuous to say the least
Strike Witches is not that popular (but I liked it
) and it had no impact but only to niche flight sim players. Kancolle franchise on the other hand is exponentially more popular than S-witches because of the massive fan/comic art out there
, the original browser game that started it all
http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tutorialand, and now the blockbuster anime
http://www.crunchyroll.com/kancolle/episode-1-hello-commander-668415.
I think the millennial-age gamers (they're into anime and JDM-games too) will, for better or worse, remember and picture Imperial Japanese Navy in their minds as moe-moe characters they saw on streaming video sites, the fan art/comic that's littered all over the net, or the original Kancolle browser game played by hardcore gamers.
I'm sure that when the franchise popularity wanes down a few of their fans will pick up a book or two about the actual warships/planes/tanks from ww2 and the key people frpm that era.
