"I reject my carrier refit, Akagi!" note Battleship Kaga not wanting to go through the retrofit gets played out in the fandom as the scene where Dio first dons the Stone Mask. It helps that the developers gave Battleship Kaga skill icons that reference both Phantom Blood Dio and Stardust Crusaders Dio.
"ZA WARUDO!"note It's given that any character with a time-stop ability gets associated with this meme from the JoJo fandom. But in Azur Lane, the closest shipgirl that has this is Formidable. Her second skill, "Don't Move An Inch!", has a chance of reducing all enemies' Speed to 0 for up to 1.5 seconds, and it is guaranteed to proc on the first airstrike of the fight. Fans quickly associated Formidable to Dio the moment she was released, including all other voice clips, effects, fan-art and memes related to the JoJo character. Whenever there's a Formidable content online, expect to be hearing Dio memes as well.
L Wordnote Lumbering, which is Formidable's Berserk Button. It's often used in various ways such as a candlejack-type gag
HMS = Hot Maid Shipnote The large number of Royal cruisers depicted as maids with superb figures has not gone unnoticed, Belfast being the most prevalent example.
Belli DuraDespacitonote When Warspite uses her skill, she says "Belli dura despicio", the motto of her historical self. To the Latin-impaired, it can sound like the memetically infamous song name.
The Sandy Cultnote Due to all super-rares built by a member of an ingame chat room being announced in the chat, and San Diego being one of the, if not the, most common super-rares, resulting in entire blocks of text made up entirely of announcements saying a ton of people have built Sandys, it's become tradition to respond to such announcements with the Sandyhaunt emote, which depicts her peeking out from behind a wisdom cube and a quick finisher. This is generally called the Sandy Cult, with jokes that the best way to get certain ships is to pray to the Sandy Cult. Also a name for her EN fanbase. This likely is why the Sandy server was so full it started running into problems.
WATASHI WA NUMBAH WAN! Explanation San Diego's Image Song, "Super Stage". Its most recognizable lyrics are "Watashi wa Number One" (the last two words are deliberately sung in Gratuitous English), and have since then been used as a Fan Nickname for San Diego.
X is adoptednote Some ships look so different from the rest of their class, like Maya for the Takaos, that it is joked they must not have come from the same parents.
Unicorn!!!note Three of Unicorn's idle lines referencing the titular Unicorn Gundam. Fans would portray her Yandere side with either the NT-D System or its sibling unit, the Unicorn Banshee.
Juneau's only purpose is suicidal healing.note Her Martyr skill verges on That One Attack in PvP, since she heals up to 25% HP to all friendly ships when she's sunk. She's frequently combined with the Pearl Tears item to restore an additional 10% HP, meaning she can turn the entire fight with a timely death, to the point where people sometimes even shove in her disadvantaged teams, like an otherwise HMS fleet, just to die faster. Even the anime acknowledges this by showing her with Pearl Tears in one scene
Siriusly! note Some people just love making puns out of Sirius' name, even the EN official twitter did so once-twice.
Rainbow Dildo. note The Type 93 Pure Oxygen Torpedo aux equipment of Legendary Quality is commonly refered to as this, particularly among Youtubers and guide-writers, for obvious reasons.
Repainted item boxes note T4 gold item boxes which function a chance of getting a gold rarity item, but it seems quite low for a step up from the T3 box which has a rather decent chance of purple rarity equipment. It even got referenced in the Kizuna AI collab event, as well as a new loading screen.◊
Free cranes note The T5 Red item box which has a 100% chance of a gold rarity item has a way of giving construction cranes (a repair boat equipment) very often as opposed to a far more desired gold item.
Forgotten Wings note An now disused meme about the first major US event, Fallen Wings that due to among other things Japan syncing up with China and a scandal with one artist, got massively delayed only appearing in other areas a few months or so after the English version started running. It finally ended in April 2020 when the event was archived in all the areas.
Return of the War God, when?!note With the EN version actually taking steps to largely sync up with major events in the JP version in 2019, this actually meant some events were landing at nearly the same time, with the Winter's Crown and Steel Sakura reruns in JP coinciding with the first runs in EN and with the two servers in perfect tandem by April for the Kizuna AI and 2019 Children's Day events; this had one effect, however, in that some of the older events got essentially skipped over. A lot of these weren't a huge deal... but the Mikasa-focused event, "Return of the War God", was a big deal, both because Mikasa is rather popular and a good alternative to Nagato in gameplay, and because that event is actually plot-relevant; Mikasa joining Azur Lane is highly relevant to later events and she shows up in the story on your side. This got especially goofy with Ink-stained Steel Sakura, which featured Mikasa very prominently... and the event referenced parts of Return of the War God. And then the goofiness got doubled when, thanks to Children's Day 2019 ("Escape from the Port?"), the English version got Hiei-chan!... before it got Hiei herself, as she's part of the War God gacha. As a result of all this, asking when on earth EN is finally going to get Mikasa has very much ascended to memetic levels. It finally reached the EN server on October 17, 2019. The meme has all but died when it got archived in all areas. Though some are wondering how newer players can get a Z Flag.
Stars Over The Fjord, when!note More or less a similar deal to RotWG - the small-scale event recreating the first part of the Battle of Narvik, and featuring playable HMS Hardy, HMS Hunter, and KMS Z2 Georg Thiele came out in Asia during the "transition to parity" period (March 7th to 20th, specifically - spanning the EN server's run of Winter's Crown and Moonlit Overture). As a result, when exactly it could be fit into the new synched schedule is unclear and people are wondering when the event might show up (especially since Hardy and Z2 are both quite good and Z2 in particular is a good third candidate for the popular Z1/Z23 frontline for IB destroyers). While a sequel event in Japan and China would have Z2 as a drop, players of those areas who want Hardy and/or Hunter are still left waiting. It finally ran in EN from 3rd to 16th September 2020. And its sequel started running later that same month. Japan and China eventually got their rerun in late 2020/early 2021.
Fallen Wings or Divergent Chessboard reruns, wheeeeen...note Azur Lane EN experienced quite a popularity boom in 2019, helped by things like the Neptunia, Kizuna Ai and World of Warships crossovers and general word-of-mouth of the game's continuous improvement... which meant that FW and DC, being 2018 events for the server, were content that these players had missed. After Visitors Dyed in Red got a fairly snappy rerun ahead of EN's first Ink-Stained Steel Sakura run (the time gap between the two runs was roughly six months), the new players in particular began to get a bit rowdy for EN's reruns of the other two events, as well as a rerun of The Pursuit of Graf Spee. This was exacerbated by the second anniversary skins being synched across all servers (meaning EN got the CN and JP 2nd anni formal wear skins)... which included a significant number of Ironblood characters who were available primarily from Divergent Chessboard, which all new 2019 players had never had a chance to play. There is also the gameplay issue of looking forward to the second season of priority research vessels since Freidrich der Grosse and Gascogne will require a significant amount of grinding with Ironblood backline ships (Ironblood, Iris, and Vichya in case of Gascogne), which are all event-locked barring Zeppy. October 2019 finally saw a much-welcomed rerun of Graf Spee, with Divergent Chessboard then getting its rerun in November, during the height of AL's anime-induced hype wave to boot. Eventually the Aurora Noctis event ran which had a number of german ship drops and the rerun of Scherzo of Iron and Blood event. This was put to rest with the events' archiving.
Z23/Nimi oath skin when!note Started after Laffey received a wedding skin, leaving Z23 the only starter destroyer without one. As of CN 3rd anniversary, she got a swimsuit skin instead of an oath skin when three others got theirs, which feels like a deliberate taunting of her fans. This is worsened by how Manjuu keeps giving her skins that nobody asked for instead of the highly-demanded oath skin. See Memetic Loser. After August 13th update (EN 2nd Anniversary), Nimi finally received her well-deserved Oath Skin in an almost unexpected way, putting an end to fan's long wait.
Saint Louis skin when!note Prior to September 2020, Saint Louis was the only Priority Rare phase 1 shipgirl without a single alternate skin, where everyone else in phase 1 and 2 and even some of the phase 3 has received at least one. Not to be confused with St. Louis, who has three alternate skins. This has since become a discredited meme with her finallygetting an alternate outfit, announced ahead of the Japanese server's 3rd anniversary livestream.
Washington and North Carolina skin when?! note For a long time they've gone without skins, with one major factor was their artist Kishiyo being on hiatus. He has since returned, promising to cover his other ships that haven't gotten skins. While Saint Louis has been getting skins, the lack of such for the two US battleships irks a chunk of the western fanbase. It's gotten to the point where people shop Washington's head on other skins. And Slow Ahead having an episode with both in a bunnyish outfits has only added fuel to the fire. Said fire exploded into an outright inferno after the "Mirror Involution" event, which was both an Eagle Union-centric event and had a premium skin set themed around bunny girls...and Washington and North Carolina were nowhere to be found. People are hoping such things are being saved for the english server's anniversary as other desired things were saved for that like Amagi's swimsuit and Z23's oath skin. Their hopes would come true when North Carolina finally got her bunny girl outfit during the 3rd Anniversary of the English server.
Baltimore/Ashen when!?note Due to Baltimore getting a few skins since the original run of the event, demand for a rerun has been pretty high. The fact that she's a rather highly praised unit also fuels said demand. The long wait and the seeming delaying of the rerun for other things have been testing people's patience. Now discredited, but now people have moved to the next event rerun with Bermerton, which has also been discredited as of the 3rd Anniversary of the English server.
PRIDE OF A NATION, A BEAST MADE OF STEEL. Explanation Azur Lane announced the tease of Bismarck becoming a playable ship in the EN servers by reciting the first stanza of its namesake song by Sabaton, which was originally released for World of Warships. Since then, fans have taken to quote portions of the lyrics when discussing Azur Lane's Bismarck.
Entyfacenote Enterprise, Bismarck and Tirpitz are all done by the same artist and have near-identical faces, leading to this offshoot of the Nasuverse's "saberface" meme. Sovetskaya Rossiya, despite not being designed by Enterprise's artist, shares the same face as the latter, and thus she official joined Entyface Club when she made her debut.
Kishiyoface note Kishiyo has a rather limited range, inviting comparisons to the same meme. It's popular among both fans of this game and of Girls' Frontline, since Kishiyo has also drawn characters for that game - particular comparisons are drawn between QBZ-95 and Choukai, who look nearly identical.
Schrödinger's breastsnote Hood appears to be flat chested in her default skin, but her swimsuit and oath skins show that she has a large bust. This has led to some players joking that she is both flat and not flat, and therefore has Schrödinger's breasts. Some other characters such as the 3 Royal Navy destroyers drawn by allnes (Acasta, Ardent, and Icarus) also experienced wildly-varying bust size.
Z404note A lot of art of the starters, even the official ones, leave Z23 out, leading to this play on the 404 page not found error. The main reason is likely that most fanart is made by Japanese artists, and in the JP version, Z23 is the unlock reward starter, limiting her general visibility.
Victorious is tired of the Sirens' shitnote People quite enjoyed Victorious' role in Ashen Simulacrum, where she interrupts the usual back-and-forth between the Siren and the hero (in this case, Baltimore) to call the Sirens out on always being smug, always randomly showing up, smugly spouting random mysterious nonsense, smugly never explaining anything, then smugly leaving without a trace. Jokes about her speaking for the player base abounded
I love Alabama like a sister!/SweetHomeAlabamanote The usual jokes about Alabama's namesake state were quickly applied to her
"HEY SHIKIKAN!" "HELLO!" "HAJIMEMASHITE!" "SHOUNEN!" "KIMI WA..." note These quotes belong to Kent, San Diego, Portland, Nevada and Pensacola respectively - some of the common units that most commanders complain about pulling, especially when pulling for events or limited. It's their first lines, which will usually be said as commanders typically try to skip through more common pulls.
Yus◊ note A meme involving a very rare Belfast plush with the "yus" text over it, which has been very popular among Facebook pages. There are other variations, including Takao/Nuh and Atago/Ara, but Belfast is by far the most popular one. The advent of Algérie also spawned a new macro "Oui" with some modification to resemble Algérie. Also, there is a macro of Belfast plushie dressed in Pope robe with "etiam"here◊. This has further mutated into images of Takao surrounded by tacos and Belfast with a superimposed Sombrero, Accoustic Guitar and plate of nachos, both saying Sí
U-556, please wake up.note A Reddit meme that absolutely took on a life of its own, it began with a user posting a cute little two panel comic showing 556 rescuing Bismarck in the aftermath of the Scherzo event (as is implied) and hanging out together later to 556's delight. And then user Ritspi posted a re-interpretation of the comic, adding a third "panel" and... changing the context of it significantly. It all escalated from there, with variants of variants of variants cropping up for nearly a month. It's still remembered and referenced and 556 being a bit in denial about Bismarck remains a meme (even if Bismarck has in fact joined the "current" Azur Lane Commander's base as of "A Prayer For Peace").
Azur Lane moment. Explanation Thanks to the ever increasing Fandom Rivalry in the Facebook community and the prevalence of very young looking characters among the casts, detractors of the game will often label the playerbase as lolicons and at worst, pedophiles, thus born aforementioned meme, often described as a moment when a pedophile is on it's action, mocking the game and the playerbase. It doesn't help that most of the popular characters are the younger-looking ones, complete with the inclusion of Ark Royal who is very attached to Destroyers (which are younger looking), strengthening the stigma further. However, most of the playerbase is rather surprisingly tolerant about this, often labeling themselves as such in jokes and many other trivial stuff related to the game. However it has taken a small toll as some have quit due to "excessive fanservice".
Belfast Dance Explanation The act of superimposing Belfast's Chibi Sprite dancing over footage of other games, TV Shows, Movies etc, usually to the tune of Dancin (Krono Remix) by Aaron Smith. Has since crossed over with the Coffin Dance meme to have 4 Chibi Belfasts acting as the Pall Bearers doing the dance.
Enterprise's Dislike of Lemons note A trading card collab with Gothic wa Mahou Otome had a card of Enterprise with her bio stating she dislikes lemons. Memes have taken off of Essex giving Enterprise lemons for this reason.
Leipzig is the Anti-Roon note Stemming from "NNTR", a R-18 doujinshi pertaining to Roon's attempt to steal away the commander with Leipzig catching her, upon which the normally timid girl surprisingly snaps and proceeds to thrash the larger ship. As such people treat Leipzig as a protective element from Roon.
Le Malin is the Anti-COVID19note Le Malin starred in a PSA video about washing hands and gargling. Since she was released on the EN server when the Coronavirus Pandemic was happening, a lot of in-game comments refer to her as a savior for the fight against the pandemic.
Meme Queen Essex note At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to say everything about Essex sans her combat performance has become memes in every possible way. The silly faces she makes in her chibi animations makes fans characterize her as an incompetent ditz who comically ruins things for herself and everyone else. It later became an Ascended Meme with the introduction of her party skin, which gives her silly faces even in her fullbody artwork. From someone who almost got overshadowed by Taihou to become a fan-preferred meme like this, it might not as bad as it sounds.
Shin Essex/One Punch Essex note A nickname based on the easter egg version of the fight against her in the "Air Raid Drills with Essex" event (rerun in Japan and China) which is basically impossible to defeat and requires a top notch fleet to survive. The text before it starts suggests this is her going all out, which sparked a sort of Memetic Badass reputation to this version.
Drake no. Drake yes. note In common with various fandoms, Azur Lane has joined in with Drakeposting, oftentimes substituting Drake with Akagi as originated in this fanart. With the advent of Research Season 3, this has further mutated with the addition of HMS Drake to the playable roster.
Hololive Collab 2: Electric Boogaloo. note Thanks to a certain incident that pretty much prevents a second collaboration with the Hololive girls from happening, some of the ships happen to be unintentionally (or rather intentionally depending on your perspective) designed to have cues or, in a few cases, look like the Hololive girls, leading fans to joke that Azur Lane can do a Hololive event without the Hololive girls present.
Howechama note There is a significant visual similarity between HMS Howe and Akai Haato, nicknamed Haachama. As there is a significant overlap in fandom, people were quick to point this fact out. Even Marine Houshou herself made the comparison when she pulled Howe.
Azur Lane Gura note U-110's shark-like behavior is just like a certain V-Tuber. A bonus point is that during her recent re-run event, you can only achieve rank A (a rank below perfect S rank) in a certain map no matter how hard you try to defeat her, clearly not a reference to someone's verbal tics. This meme gained some more life due to August 2021 (the sub's launch month) had Gura start flirting with Shion (someone oft compared to garlic), leading some to conclude they were U-110's parents.
Usada Pekora snuck into Azur Lane note Shirayuki, introduced in the re-run of the Swirling Cherry Blossoms event, looked very similar to Pekora from hololive, making people meme that artists managed to sneak her in despite the unlikelihood of a second collab ever happening.
Princeton is blind note The way Princeton holds her cane looks a lot like a blind person using a white cane, leading to Black Comedy comments like so.
Prince of Wales is the Eagle Union faction leader note After getting her skill improved in preparation for Operation Siren, POW - a Royal - no longer only improves herself for sortieing with Eagles, but also confers buffs on them in return. This is something that usually comes from the faction's leader figure.
2021, the year of Kashino. note The Chinese year for 2021 is the constellation of the Ox, or the year of the Ox in short. This lead to a huge upswing in fanart of Kashino, as she has a bovine Animal Motif. More often than not, it includes either a cow costume or, in the case of lewd fanarts, a cow motif lingerie.
New Jersey gesturing to things note The Mirror Involution PV features a moment where New Jersey motions with her hand to an image of her in the background (at 0:21 in the video). Fans took stills of this scene and edited them to replace her image with other images or text. A compilation can be found here.
Ayanami torpedo face◊note This particular gif of Ayanami shooting torpedos while making an "interesting" face in the game's chat. There are many other variations, usually with Ayanami and the torpedos edited to look like different characters from another games.
Murm note The chibi sprite of Murmansk, a character introduced in the "Khorovod of Dawn's Rime" event, has a pair of rather◊ comical◊ facial expressions. Upon that event's release, they almost immediately took off as Discord emotes, most often used in response to something the user deems stupid. It truly started to take off as memetic in the middle of 2021, though, as users in several different AL-related Discords began making "Franken-Murms" by pasting her face onto scores of existing emotes.
Takao is MOTIVATED. note Takao's Samurai motif fits to Vergil's own from the latter game to the point that some fans jokingly remarked that the former is a big fan of the latter, more prevalent after the release of the Special Edition version. There's even a mod available for the PC version of DMC 5 to replace Vergil's character model with Takao's from Crosswave. Funny enough the pre-vent for "Ashen Simulacrum" where Ember first appears is called "Approaching Storm", which did not go noticed by fans.
Foolishness, Atago/Ash, Foolishness. note related to above, but this time it's directed to either Atago (being her twin sister analogous to Dante, with similar Bunny-Ears Lawyer personality compared to their more serious sibling) or Ash (for being in the same faction)
THIS. IS. POWER./ BURY THE LIGHT DEEP WITHIN!/I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING.note The appearance of Ember/Takao Meta, whose power in-story is shown to be far beyond the regular ship girls (best shown during the Swirling Cherry Blossoms event where she struck the fake Watatsumi without harming Nagato), is noted by fans that she indeed gained so much power similar to how Vergil acquiring his Sin Devil Trigger in DMC 5. This meme has since been hijacked upon the unveiling of Musashi for the 5th Anniversary Event.
Katsuragi's face. note When her art was revealed, fans took notice of Katsuragi's mouth being placed a tad higher than it should, drawing comparisons to the infamous Eye Mouth Eye emoji.
Anything bout the sheer unlikelihood of Liduke's ships getting a new skin. note Liduke is the biggest artist that has seemingly gone over to Arknights entirely, much to the dismay of fans of ships like Amagi and Mainz, the latter of which is the only PR3 ship without a skin. As a result, a number of memes are made on the matter.
"Fox Mating Season":Explanation The period from December to February where real-life foxes breed. AL Players usually refer to this period as the time where the fox-based kansen (particularly those from the Sakura Empire, Akagi, Amagi, and Kaga being more prominent) are in heat, and try to procreate with the Commander.
S 🅱 I N A N OExplanation The release of Shinano's Moonlit Chrome Race Queen CG featured a couple of meme references to Formula One, in particular the infamous "S🅱innala" Meme.
I play Azur Lane for the plot.Explanation Obvious Overly Long Gag referencing Playboy and Azur Lane's fanservice aside, Azur Lane's plot as told through the major plot events has, in the opinion of the fandom, genuinely has gotten very interesting starting around Tower of Transcendence, to the point where players have begun saying this unironically, when previously it was only ever said as a self-deprecating joke.
Despacitonote When Warspite uses her skill, she says "Belli dura despicio", the motto of her historical self. To the Latin-impaired, it can sound like the memetically infamous song name.
Azur Lane moment. Explanation Thanks to the ever increasing Fandom Rivalry in the Facebook community and the prevalence of very young looking characters among the casts, detractors of the game will often label the playerbase as lolicons and at worst, pedophiles, thus born aforementioned meme, often described as a moment when a pedophile is on it's action, mocking the game and the playerbase. It doesn't help that most of the popular characters are the younger-looking ones, complete with the inclusion of Ark Royal who is very attached to Destroyers (which are younger looking), strengthening the stigma further. However, most of the playerbase is rather surprisingly tolerant about this, often labeling themselves as such in jokes and many other trivial stuff related to the game. However it has taken a small toll as some have quit due to "excessive fanservice".
