A queen is a symbol to her people, a queen represents authority and nobility, and a queen most definitely takes charge and serves the people, even if it means not being able to take a little bit of tea time. That is the life of Queen Elizabeth.... or should be.
Having arrived at the Azur Lane base, Warspite bows before her Queen, vowing to be a great aide to her. Much to her disappointment, Elizabeth does not befit the ideals of a true Queen unless one considers being bratty, selfish, pompous, and overall lazy to be good qualities.
Suddenly, tragedy strikes as the Commander collapses, his body giving out after the massive workload placed on him proves too much. With the only ones that know his condition being Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, and a small few and not wanting everyone to lose morale if this knowledge were to brought to light (or, more seriously, risk having the Commander transferred away and have a new one assigned), Elizabeth elects to maintain the secret.
Now, our cute little monarch must fulfill all of her beloved Commander's duties (or at least make an attempt before passing them on to Warspite), all the while preventing anyone from learning about what happened to the Commander. Along the way, she and Warspite discover that some individuals are just as much in love with the Commander as she is, and they are all too keen to take her job as Secretary ship.
Azur Lane: Queen's Orders is a manga written by Tsuchii, based on the Azur Lane series first published on 26 October 2018.
An anime OVA adaptation was set to release on May 2023 via Blu-ray disks, though it eventually got belated until July 28th, 2023.
The manga contains the following tropes:
- The Ace: Enterprise, the Grey Ghost herself. She is the one who easily pieced together that Akashi has been impersonating the Commander and that Queen Elizabeth and Warspite are trying to hide it.
- A-Cup Angst: Queen Elizabeth is definitely jealous of the more well-endowed shipgirls, particularly those of her own faction due to how many there are.
- The Bet: Whenever she gets mad, Elizabeth always starts a challenge and wagers her position as Secretary ship. It takes a number of close calls before she learns to stop doing that.
- Cat Fight: Part of the manga's conflict is Queen Elizabeth and Warspite encountering the "Rival-of-the-Week" who wants to take Elizabeth's position as Secretary Ship.
- The meeting of all camps devolves into this when they start to question the Commander's lack of presence.
- Chick Magnet: The Commander seems to be the object of affection of almost every shipgirl at the base. It's because of this that some of those girls like Akagi and Atago are planning on replacing QE as Secretary ship.
- Abercrombie utilizes this to sway them all into electing her as the secretary ship.
- Combat Pragmatist: Sheffield will use underhanded tactics to help her queen in winning.
- Crocodile Tears: Abercrombie fakes crying in order to trick Warspite into signing her petition form, getting one step closer to becoming Secretary ship. This does not go well for Warspite once she realizes her mistake.
- Holiday Episode: Chapters 13 to 16.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: That's basically Warspite's job; to fulfill all the things Queen Elizabeth won't do as secretary ship much to her chagrin.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Queen Elizabeth proves throughout the story that she does care for her Commander and those under her. She even requested that Warspite be given the Retro-fit makeover.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Abercrombie's use in lying to everyone about dating the Commander to get the Secretary Ship position comes back to bite her real hard. She doesn't know how to get the Commander to date them nor the fact she's aware that the Commander is not in a good condition to assist. When she can't keep her promises, she's going to face a lot of angry women.
- The Leader: Most of the factions have one leading them like Queen Elizabeth, Nagato, Bismarck etc. Eagle Union doesn't have one hence Cleveland acts as their representative.
- Lethal Chef: Queen Elizabeth created a tea concoction that once she drank it herself, she immediately passes out.
- The Man Behind the Curtain: Akashi builds a device that allows her to synthesize the Commander's voice to fool everyone into believing that he's alright.
- Enterprise would later discover the ruse but thankfully, chooses to keep it a secret.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Queen Elizabeth's complete neglect of her secretary duties is what caused the Commander to do them on her behalf, leading to his collapse.
- In Chapter 79, Warspite then discovers that the other camps might also have had a part in the Commander's condition.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- Warspite concludes that the reason her Queen clashes with Atago is that they both love the Commander, which causes each of them to be jealous whenever he pays attention to the other. Also, both are afraid of horror movies.
- Elizabeth realizes just how similar she and Valiant are when the latter suggests that the proper solution to a ghost haunting the Base Academy is to summon their riggings and blast the Academy into rubble (reasoning that a ghost can't haunt a building that's been blown to smithereens), the exact same solution that Elizabeth herself suggested to a similar situation involving the Eagle Union Dorms.
- Playboy Bunny:
- As punishment for failing a bet in a game of golf. While Queen Elizabeth and her team do win, she is forced to wear it as a favor for North Carolina.
- Eagle Union sets up a Bunny Girl costume party and Elizabeth and Enterprise are forced to attend it and wear the costumes. Thankfully, they manage to get out of it by inviting Hornet and Valiant to take their places.
- Secret-Keeper: Aside from the titular Queen and Warspite, the only other ones who know about the Commander's condition are Akashi, Shiranui, the maids, and Enterprise. They are united in agreeing that it'd be best to help Commander recover and resume his position, rather than let Naval HQ simply ship in a (likely permanent and unknown) replacement.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl:
- Atago wants to send photos to the Commander... photos of herself in very obscene attire, much to Elizabeth's anger.
- North Carolina has a thing for Playboy Bunny suits. She even wears one underneath her clothing.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Valiant is the younger sister of Elizabeth and Warspite and is The Starscream that is seeking to take Elizabeth's position. Despite being annoyed with Valiant and her schemes, Elizabeth and Warspite do care for their sister.
- The Trickster: Shiranui seems to take joy in pranking Queen Elizabeth.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Subverted. Elizabeth's group expects the Commander to be furious at them for lying about his status to the fleet but he's actually glad that they did.
- Worthy Opponent: Kaga deems Elizabeth and Warspite to be this after the 2v2 duel they won against her and Akagi.
