Memes / KanColle

aka: Kantai Collection

Much like any hit, KanColle has generated multitudes of memes, both in game and with its anime spin-off.

Originating from the Browser Game

• "Rabaul died for our sins."^ExplanationThe Rabaul Anchorage server used to be infamous for its instability, particularly experiencing crashes during events. This usually led to the developers having to extend the duration of ongoing events for everyone's convenience. With the transition to Phase 2, it seems like, however, it's no longer the case, or at least much less so.
  • "Luigi died for our sins... and then rose from the dead!"^ExplanationReferences this happening. A player sunk his Luigi Torelli (remodeled as I-504) two hours before Rabaul suffered a critical crash. The severity of the crash required a rollback to be performed, and due to this, the shipgirl's sinking was overwritten and she was brought back to his naval base. This quickly lead to jokes of Luigi being Jesus in shipgirl form.
• Akagi The Gluttonous Fiend ^explanationAkagi has a notable fan (or in the anime, canon,) reputation as a Big Eater. Because she is an early quest reward, players can get her long before any other carrier, when they only have resource-sipping destroyers or light cruisers, and long before they can afford the resources to field her. To make matters worse, during an early version of Kantai Collection, a bug apparently existed that made resupplying aircraft for Akagi an All or Nothing affair. such that losing even a single aircraft would leave players on the hook for the cost of resupplying all of her aircraft. Although some ships (Yamato and Musashi in particular) are noted for consuming even more, Akagi still remains the most memetically famous for this. Kaga is frequently paired up with her as a hyper-serious partner-in-crime.
• Potatoface ^explanationShibafu is infamous for heads/faces that are mildly akin to Potatoes and being rather alike; as such his ships often are nicked name this or some variation of potato.
  • Thanks, Shibafu.^note Western fans' reaction towards any new content that Shibafu produces, usually towards his "potato-faced" shipgirls. Used with varying degrees of sarcasm.
  • Becomes Ascended Meme as out of all the meal sets I-400 made, only the breakfast set which includes stir-fried potatoes doesn't make the Admiral sick from heartburn.
• Mothership Houshou ^explanationBeing the very first ship designed and built as an aircraft carrier to be completed, Houshou was personally tagged as the "Mother of all Aircraft Carriers" (全ての空母の母) with art depicting Houshou with various levels of maternal character. Also known as "O-kan" (お艦) for her maternal character, though this tag is also shared with other doting ships, Ikazuchi being one of them
• Ryuujou the Flattop, or any jokes about her having A-Cup Angst. ^explanationIn reference to her real-life counterpart not having a visible island beside its flight deck. This meme however is in contrast to her Petite Pride in the game.
• Any joke about Ashigara being branded as a Christmas cake, as evidenced by this imageboard pool. ^ExplanationA running gag on 4chan and 2chan is that she is a "Christmas cake"; a woman above 25 who for whatever reason is unable to find a candidate for marriage and has gotten desperate, or one who is just exceptionally poor at romance. Where exactly this joke came from is unknown. It could be a play on her nickname "Hungry Wolf" - a joke on her being hungry for males, or could be a reference to the historical fact that several of her commanding officers were never married. It's also possible the joke came from her name "purity", which is usually thought of as a good thing but it's possible the joke is she's still "pure" (virgin, unmarried) despite her mid-to-late 20s look. One other theory about her being a "Christmas Cake" is related to the legend of the folk-hero Kintaro who was raised in Mount Ashigara by a Yama-uba, or in other words, a Mountain Hag. Like the "Nagamon" meme, this fan-created joke was featured in the anime.
• Hirako Shock/ヒラコーショック ^note Refers to the early point in KanColle's popularity. On May 27, 2013, Hirako, better known as Kouta Hirano, went on Twitter and made epic tweets about refilling his fleet, only to go into equally epic breakdowns. As a result of these tweets, KanColle experienced a overflow of newcomers, eventually acquiring the popularity it has today. This event is often attributed as one of the first mentions of KanColle by many users.
• 2-4-11. ^note The resources (fuel, ammo, and steel, in that order) regained after scrapping Light Cruiser Naka. Naka is a common (and thus unwelcome) possibility in Battleship or Carrier construction recipes; rather than using her, most players just junk her immediately when they get her.
  • Has been an Ascended Meme for a while: back in 2013, the developers collaborated with an Akibahara cafe to do a KanColle novelty cafe event, and one of the desserts on offer was the "Naka-chan Set": 2 little dishes of lime jelly, 4 slices of peach and 11 bite-sized bits of cheesecake (?).
• ｽﾞｲ₍₍(ง˘ω˘)ว⁾⁾ｽﾞｲ (aka the Zui-Zui dance)^ExplanationA dance meme involving aircraft carriers Zuikaku and Zuihou, where they perform a characteristic dance with an "uwu" face.
• Isuzu Farms. ^note Isuzu has the lowest Remodel level of Light Cruisers at level 12 (6600 experience compared to 19000/43500/59500 for other ships), and what's more when she's remodeled she gets some fairly rare desirable equipment (the Type 21 Radar), plus she gives a whopping +4 to Anti Air when used to Modernize another ship. Add to this the fact that she seems to be a fairly common drop, and it's easy to see how many many admirals take advantage of this. However, the Artillery Spotting system and other updates has decreased Radar's importance, and Anti Air modernization is easy to obtain from many unwanted light carriers. As of October 2014, Isuzu Farms are effectively dead among experienced players, who use vastly superior (but even harder to obtain) Type 33, 32, 14 or 22 Kai 4 Radars.
• Levels don't matter! ^note In this game, the only stats levels are known to increase that modernization can't are Line of Sight (increases chance of scouting bonuses to accuracy and evasion in day battles), anti-submarine (which is much better off obtained from equipment), and evasion. Unlike most games, maximum Hit Points stay constant regardless of level. This, combined with the RNG-centric nature of the game, gives a level 99 ship which has been fully modernized relatively little edge over a lower level ship of the same type which has also been fully modernized. And virtually no edge if the battle starts at night (regardless of evasion and accuracy, cut-ins have as much a chance to miss as double attacks not activating, which is extremely seldom, and the stronger enemy ships, which appear far more often during events, cut in quite frequently), which was the case for the notoriously hellishly difficult maps for the November 2013 event. This line is commonly attributed to the Wo-class aircraft carrier. This has been partially discredited with reinforcement expansions requiring the ship to be level 30+ and the ability to perform opening anti-submarine attacks being heavily reliant on the base anti-submarine stat, but it still holds otherwise for the most part.
• ！すでのな ^note One of the purchasable decorations for an Admiral's office is a wallscroll written with crayons apparently done by Inazuma. Normally these are done vertically, but Inazuma misunderstood (she is a kid after all), and wrote everything sideways (and in hiragana rather than kanji as one would normally expect). However since she wrote the characters to her tic starting from the top of the scroll (na-no-de-su from the top to the bottom), when read left to right (the way the scroll gets displayed), it instead gets read as "su-de-no-na".
• Myoukou's and Sendai's excessively expressive mid-damaged portraits and Akigumo's arguably weird head proportion became the subjects - or victims - for many collage works by many Japanese communities, usually for humor effects.
• Wo! ^note Wo-class's Verbal Tic, much like pseudo-Pokémon Speak. It is common enough that the fandom has adopted this for Abyssals with appropriate classes (for example, when Re came out, her tic was "Re!" as well). Somehow, the Japanese fandom later on assumed every ship in the Abyssal Fleet talks in katakana (probably took cues from the event bosses' dialogue), which is often rendered in English as ALL CAPS.
  • In the aftermath of the November 2013 event, by which time most of the game mechanics had been deduced, inaccurate information (such as ships sinking at orange) started to be attributed to the Wo-class aircraft carrier. Occasionally, even accurate information gets this treatment, if only to confuse those still unfamiliar with the game mechanics.
    
    Became Hilarious in Hindsight when a bunch of common claims that were believed to be false and thus attributed to Wo all turned out to be true (It's safe to depart on orange ^note an Anti Frustration Feature that has been all but confirmed after testing, Are you scared? There's no proof ^note of ships sinking with orange HP, Midway is months away ^note it turned out that the anniversary event wasn't Midway, but rather the raid on Port Darwin in Australia, with the Midway event set 4 months later; and even then the anniversary event was also months after the claim was first made, 50k resources is enough ^note a good number of players cleared all the maps (including both extra operations) with that amount of resources or less, levels don't matter ^note E2's pre-boss node, a night battle node, where levels really didn't matter, was a major bottleneck, you are too paranoid ^note considering the above points, DEFINITELY), making players question whether Wo really should be doubted.
  "I will never doubt Wo ever again."
• Several of Kongou's lines are quite memetic, such as:
  • It's the British-born returnee, Kongou -dess! Nice to meet you!
  • Engaging! FIRE!
  • All guns, FIRE!
  • BURNING LOVE!
  • A new face has arrived!
  • Wow~! Congratulations!
    • Wow~! Presents from Admiral!
    • Shit! The precious equipment I got from the Admiral!
  • Admiral! You've got mail~! Love letters are unacceptable!
  • Hey, admiral! It's OK to touch, but there's a time and place for everything! ^note A line Kongou sometimes says if you click on her when she's your secretary.
    • Oh, commander. You can love me if you want, but I hardly think right now it's the appropriate time and place, you shameless flirt! ^note The English dub version of Kongou's second secretary line in Episode 4 of the anime.
  • Hey! Admiral~ Even though you're always doing your best, I want you to not push yourself so hard~!
  • Admiral~ even though it's the time and place, if you forget the mood and timing... it'll be a "No", y'know?
  • Kongou forgot English. ^ExplanationKongou has a lot of English lines, which are clearly not spoken by a native English speaker. Fans sometimes joke that, after so many years in Japan, Kongou is no longer able to speak English and is only pretending to know it.
• HIEEEEEEEEEE—!! ^note Hiei's Verbal Tic. She usually screams this if she's either distressed or bewildered.
• Haruna wa daijoubu desu. (Haruna is alright.) ^note Haruna's Catchphrase.
• Hotel ja arimasen! (I'm not a hotel!) ^note Yamato's response to someone calling her a "Hotel".
• Nagamon ^note The Alternate Character Reading of Nagato's name, which is commonly used by the fans whenever she's acting out-of-character (usually by Cuteness Proximity). Northern Ocean Princess is the usual victim of Nagato's less serious antics in fanarts. The anime partially canonized this when she saw a squirrel inside Truk's bathhouse and wasted no time petting it.
• Unicorn, from the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn OST, has become associated with close-call event clears, after several Japanese players streaming their playthroughs of the Spring 2014 Event chose to use it as BGM, especially when things started too close to maintenance time. See this, for example, where the Admiral literally cleared the final map with mere seconds to spare before Maintenance Time. Makes the crescendo of Unicorn especially cathartic.
  
  This meme was actually spawned during the Arpeggio of Blue Steel crossover event, where one Japanese streamer was using that track as he was trying to hammer that last bit health from the final boss node. He succeeds, only to get a connection error during the results screen, and upon re-connecting, he discovered in horror that the game auto-resolved the battle as a LOSS and that his ship girls' efforts were for naught.
  • Also, Gundam and Armored Core is so frequently crossed over with Kantai Collection in fanworks, KanColle could otherwise be called Gundam WITH SHIP GIRLS!.
• Prinz Chiyo ^note Prinz Eugen's striking resemblance to Chiyo Sakura and having the same voice actress has lead to tons of fanart drawing her as Chiyo and the Admiral as Nozaki in various scenes from the manga and anime, as well as drawing Chiyo as Prinz around the Naval Base.
• Plasma-chan. ^note Originates from an illustration of Inazuma slamming her hands against the table saying she hates Nasu (eggplant, which she also memetically hates, but the original picture actually refered to an artist by the name of "Nasu") combined with weird troll face. Plasma-chan can refer to any illustration of Inazuma with that face, Inazuma expressing her aversion towards eggplants, or simply any kind of darker version of usually timid and nice Inazuma. That includes, but is not limited to Inazuma depicted as a troll, being violent or yandere. Her catchphrase なのです (Nanodesu) tends to be stylized as な゛の゛て゛す! (Nanodeath!). Her name is a reference to Inazuma's name (lighting).
• 70万 or 70W (both meaning 700 thousand)^note The game has a huge following in China, with one section of Baidu Tieba hosting one of the largest communities. It was said that the section was bought out by one of the pirated Chinese private servers for 700,000 yuan. The private server was then advertised as "the real KanColle" as opposed to the one hosted on DMM, resulting in an Internet Counterattack from angered Chinese players, who have since constantly attacked the private server with DDoS attacks. They successfully took back the forum and forced the pirated server into hiding.
• Kagerou Collection ^note The presence of 17 ships of the Kagerou class, out of the 19 that existed in real life, had led players to call the game this. Not helped by the fact that many of the newly-introduced Kagerous are either a) rare, or b) event-exclusive.
• (Insert shipgirl name here) Does Not Exist ^note The rallying cry of frustrated admirals who fail to get event-exclusive kanmusu making their debut in quarterly events. First came to be during the Spring 2015 Event when Roma was introduced as a drop in the final event map.
• Super Dyson and two Dysons ^note The final battle at E5 of Winter 2015 Event which features two Battleship Princesses accompanying an even stronger Battleship Water Demon, are nicknamed as such after the vacuum cleaner brand due to their massive tanking ability and high firepower.
  • GODDAMN BOOTY DYSON! ^note How most players expressed their frustration against the Battleship Summer Princess as she first appeared (in solo form as boss in the penultimate event map, and in double form as pre-boss node flagships in the final map) during the 2016 Summer event; she basically was the same as the abovementioned, but her art depicted her in a Boobs-and-Butt Pose wearing a bikini.
• Cat bomb ^note A catch-all term whenever an error screen appears, depicting a cat looking at Error Musume in kneeling position with a tear dropping on her head. Incidentally, there were actual attempts to weaponize cats to instinctively guide anti-ship bombs in World War II, though it doesn't get anywhere given the weight of these bombs.
• Kuso teitoku! / Shitty admiral! ^note A nickname for the player, popularized by Akebono. Incompetent players are often referred to with this term. It's also used (mainly in fanworks) for admirals who mistreat their shipgirls, whether played for comedy or drama.
• Reppuu Mule ^note A term for carriers loaded exclusively with Reppuu air-to-air fighters for the sole purpose of gaining air superiority - without any bombers, they can't actually attack.
  • Later with the inclusion of event maps where using Akitsu Maru proved to be very invaluable to a lot of Admirals for gaining air superiority in maps which do not allow carriers to be used, another meme soon surfaced: Akitsu Maru's Reppuu-ken. ^note  Akitsu Maru's ability to equip Reppuus and helping players achieve air superiority in where carriers are not allowed to be brought probably made for this joke where Akitsu Maru simply blows the enemy planes away using Geese's signature move, the Reppuu-ken (Gale Fist). A similar variation also exists with Hayasui with hers being referenced as Hayasui's Ryuusei-ken ^note referencing Hayasui's ability to equip torpedo bombers, particularly a Ryuusei that comes with her remodel, and her tendency to achieve MVP kills in a given battle with it equipped... and another certain series where fans made the connection.
• HEIL HOOTLERS!! ^note Upon the introduction of Graf Zeppelin in the Fall 2015 event, fans of the Kriegsmarine-based fleet girls have made such proclamations in connection with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen (who also was reintroduced as a drop on one of the nodes on the same map where Graf was available as Boss Drop.) It is worth noting that all three of them are considerably well-endowed.
• ITAI! YAMETEYO!!^note Comes from Submarine Princess's scream when she is being attacked. Given her fairly high defense, odds are pretty high that you would be hearing it a lot while fighting her.
• Knock knock, It's the United States! ^note  The confirmation of the USS Iowa being added to the game (first through KanColle Kai on the Play Station Vita, then as reward on the Spring 2016 event) coincided with this fairly memetic video makings its way across Tumblr, and naturally, they were combined for humorous results.
  • Iowa's inclusion itself has become a meme among Western fans, prompting jokes like "making KanColle great again" and " a reminder not to do lewd things at the USS Iowa naval museum.◊"
  • The "make KanColle great again" meme was exemplified in Death Usagi's last dance during the Summer 2017 Event, with Iowa being the MVP of the battle with both of her shelling being emphasized by Donald Trump and his supporters.
• Zuiun Nuke ^note Shortly after an in-event patch implemented the Central Princess's Achilles' Heel, the absurd amount of damage that was inflicted to the Central Princess by the critical hits from dive bombers was miscredited to the Zuiun Model 12 when a Nico Nico Douga video showcased the quadruple digits damage inflicted while Fusou and Yamashiro are equipped with them, somehow neglecting that none of the Zuiuns had survived the aerial phase.
• Iowa is most volleyball player ^note A mutation of Iowa's MVP line brought about by the nearly indecipherable accent of her seiyuu, Chinami Hashimoto.
• Kaga Wife ^note The depiction of The Stoic Kaga as a perfectly genteel, Sugar-and-Ice Personality housewife when off-duty, as exemplified by Ayasugi Tsubaki's doujins of the same name. Further solidified with the release of her Image Song Cape Kaga, which has so far earned very positive feedback from fans.
• (Crossed over with Memes/Gundam):
  • "Wait, wrong Mikazuki." ^note Came about weeks after Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans started airing, where one of the protagonists shares their name with the Mutsuki-class destroyer. Becomes a bit more notable with the announcement of the KanColle Anime's English Dub, due to the casting of Cherami Leigh (the Voice Actress for G-Tekketsu's Kudelia Aina Bernstein) as the voice of destroyer nameship Mutsuki (Mikazuki's elder Sister Ship)
  • "Wait, wrong Akatsuki."^{SPOILER ENTRY}The gag continued after the end of the said series, where it is revealed in the epilogue that Mikazuki's son with Atra shares the same name with the purple-haired nameship destroyer. Bonus points for Atra having the same Seiyuu as Harusame, Kiyoshimo, Hayashimo and Northern Ocean Princess (aka Hoppo).
  • Thanks to the aforementioned meme above, the fans have tagged the same basically as 鉄血のカンムス^note "Tekketsu no Kanmusu" - Iron-Blooded Fleet Girls.
  • On a somewhat related note: "Raise your Flaps!"^ExplanationThe introduction of Kawakaze's second remodel gave her a pair of hair flaps like Yuudachi and Shigure in their similar remodels. Seeing as the three aforementioned destroyers were of the same class and designed by the same artist, fans assumed that future second remodels for the remaining Shiratsuyu-class ships (minus Samidare and Suzukaze, because they were penned by a different artist; and also Yamakaze because she somewhat already gets her hair flaps by default) will end up having hair flaps as well (Holds true at the moment with second remodels for Murasame, Shiratsuyu and Umikaze, respectively.) The meme, apparently, is in reference to G-Tekketsu's first OP "Raise your Flag."
• Finding Nimu ^note I-26 (read as "Nimu") was introduced as a drop on the Summer 2016's E-1 Boss Node. Coupled with the game's notorious RNG rates for rare or event-only ships, players have taken to coining farming runs for her as such.
• Admire-ral ^note Warspite's odd pronunciation of admiral, the one flub in her otherwise flawless English and all the more prominent for standing out like that. It was later found to be a quirk of her seiyuu.
• Remakaze ^note Drawing Hamakaze in Rem's clothes and vice versa due to their identical hairstyles.
  • Come Winter 2017 event, the Abyssal Twin Princesses are called Abyssal Rem and Ram, which leads to...
  • Rem died. ^note The Twin Princesses' damaged form has one twin holding another in her arms, seemingly dead, which mirrors Rem's fate in the series.
• Similarly, Shielderkaze/Hamashukaze ^note Due to Mash Kyrielite/Shielder and Hamakaze also being lookalikes.
  • On the same vein, Saberkaze/Seibakaze with Isokaze wielding Excalibur ^note As Isokaze shares Ayako Kawasumi with Artoria as her seiyuu.
• SparkleColle ^note Sending shipgirls on their own to 1-1 in order to "sparkle" them. Usually derisive due to the sheer tedium of doing so, especially when preparing girls for support expeditions during events
• Because of a certain snuff doujinshi, depicting Uzuki anywhere near a lightbulb will immediately incite the fans to search for some Brain Bleach.
• According to Chinese players, European players have higher luck than Americans, who have higher luck than Asians, who have higher luck than Africans, who have the lowest luck. As a result, those with the Random Number God on their side are called European Admirals. This has crossed to other communities, with players having RNG against them accusing other luckier players of being Europeans.
• Shimakaze-kun ^note A doujinshi-based meme. Shimakaze's invokedMemetic Outfit ended up being extremely popular with Otokonoko Genre works to the point where she's referred to by the name exclusively.
  • Shimakaze (female) ^note The above meme ended up becoming such a staple of Shimakaze doujins that some fans jokingly clarify when she's drawn as she appears in canon. It also ended up being shared by other Yoshinori Shizuma characters that look similar to her, such as Zero from Grimoire of Zero.
• Kamen Rider Snipe Kantai Gamer / KanColle Gamer. ^note Kamen Rider Snipe's Lvl 50 form, Simulation Gamer, sports him with armaments similar to those on shipgirls.
  • Admiral Snipe / Snipe Teitoku. ^note The form also sports him wearing an Admiral's cap.
  • Snipe, the new Kanmusu! ^note Due to the armaments, several fans took it further by declaring him a new shipgirl.
    • Snipe, the first Fleet Man! ^note Several fans noted that if he was in the game, then he would've become the first Fleet Man.
  • I'M READY! FOR BATTLESHIP! ^note Snipe's Level 50 standby jingle, which is the Kamen Rider equivalent of a Ship Girl's introduction.
    • SCRAMBLE DA! SHUTSUGEKI HASSHIN! BANG BANG SIMULATIONS!! HASSHIN!!! ^note Snipe's Level 50 transformation jingle, which is often changed into "Burning Love! Shutsugeki Hasshin! Kantai Collection!! Hasshin!!!" for extra comedy.
  • BANG BANG BURNING LOVE! ^note Snipe's "Bang Bang Critical Fire" finishing attack looks suspiciously similar to Kongou's "Burning Love" attack. See this video for yourself.
• Admiral Steven Seagal! Greatest badass of the seas! ^note Seagal starred in Under Siege as a badass ship cook and sporting an awesome uniform, which did not go unnoticed among artists. Thus he is a fairly popular choice for the Admiral role, usually commanding the destroyers Akatsuki, Hibiki/Verniy, Ikazuchi and Inazuma, and generally stands at the front lines if not in fact among them during battle. The fact that his name is Seagal, which can be read as "Sea Girl" (sea gal), doesn't hurt either. Even funnier now that he has become a spokesperson for World of Warships. This has died down for a number of reasons including his attitude and him being removed from the spokesperson position.
• Shinano when?^note The usual question from fans asking as to when the aforesaid Aircraft carrier (whose Alpha art was released way back when the game was in its early years) will make her debut in-game. Has been seeing loads of repetition upon introduction of foreign navies and new ship classes, and aggravated by Warship Girls, Abyss Horizon, and most recently Azur Lane releasing their versions of the same ship.
• Saratako^note An Escort Fortress wearing Saratoga's hairstyle and clothes, coming from a bug after the release of her second remodel that caused said abyssal to appear instead of her. The "tako" is from "takoyaki" as the Escort Fortress is often called such.
• The second ships (in their classes) have sexy bodies.^note This stems from a tweet from Shizuma Yoshinori, one of the game’s character designers. While apparent in most of his second-in-class ships he designed (Teruzuki, Mutsu, Musashi and Saratoga), the pattern also holds true to many other ship classes in the game, Isuzu and Atago being prime examples.
• Oyashio is Ushio's mother ^note Oyashio's name (親潮) means "parental tide", while Ushio's (潮) means "tide". But Oyashio's name can also be read as "Parent of Ushio". It didn't take long for fans to pick up on this.
• Doujin Circle Autumn Cloud/Autumn Cloud Sensei^note Akigumo's fondness of drawing pictures has made fans calling her a doujinshi artist and portraying her as one.
• Jama da, DOKEEE~!! ("GET OUT OF MY WAY!")^note Yamashiro's Fall 2017 Event night battle attack line quickly became popular due to how furious she sounds. By comparison, her usual night battle attack line sounds as subdued as she usually is.
  • "MOVE, BITCH! GET OUT THE WAY!"^NoteAs a result of the line's translation, fans have immediately linked Yamashiro to the said song from the Word of Mouf album. Inevitably, a remix of the song with her attack line spliced in followed.
• Kirishima is now the President of Taiwan.^ExplanationThe fact that the Taiwan's current Head of State Tsai Ing-Wen looks suspiciously like the aforementioned fleet girl has the fans taking notice.
• Go Go Kaze Rangers!/Super Sentai Kamikaze Class^note The first five vessels of the Kamikaze class (Kamikaze, Asakaze, Harukaze, Matsukaze and Hatakaze) have a color scheme which is suspiciously reminiscent of the main protagonists of the Super Sentai series, leading the five sisters to be frequently depicted as such.
• "Base, We lost Gamby again..."^NoteIn the few months after Gambier Bay's release, she already got two memes to her name: one centered around her Sasebo Naval Base Tour art being photoshopped onto other pictures (or otherwise getting impossibly lost, and another where she says her name while crying.
• Rush BB^note Samuel B. Roberts' art was barely released before players noticed that the grip of her turret looks like a P90 bullpup submachine gun. Counterstrike: Global Offensive jokes quickly followed, with fans even dubbing her as 'Samuel "Rush B" Roberts'.
• "Shut up, Ooyodo!"^note In August 2016, one of the new setting options added was silencing the "quest girl" voice, which some players find annoying. Since that's Ooyodo's role (regardless of whether the player has her in their fleet), this is regarded as telling her to shut up. This inevitably resulted in fanart of such things as admirals covering Ooyodo's mouth, gagging her or kissing her, or just telling her to shut up. Along with pictures of Ooyodo being offended at being muted, or trying to physically block the admiral from touching that button on the interface.
• Nelson's special attack, the "Nelson Touch", possesses a unique CG depicting her straddling her equipped hull. Due to the accidental phallic imagery, this quickly led to depicting the special attack as Nelson ramming the abyssals with a giant metallic strap-on, or worse.
• Gotland the Honorary Starter Ship^note Swedish ship Gotland arrived with overtly friendly voice lines with a lack of implied acclimation period compared to other foreign ships. This lead fans to run away with the idea that she'd been at bases far longer than she already had been, to the point of Gaslighting and marriage promises among other things. Don't you◊ remember?◊
• Paul Allen, real life Admiral^note The staggering number of World War II shipwrecks found by the RV Petrel funded by now late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has led to jokes that he was actually farming for shipgirls in real life.
• Colorado:
  • Kamikaze-class Battleship Kolokaze^NoteColorado's art depicts her as considerably smaller than her Big-7 counterparts (since her real-life counterpart was also on the small side for a Battleship, at least in terms of length). Considering that she was launched on the same year as the Nameship Destroyer Kamikaze (Both were launched in 1922, within just a few months from each other), and that they both share the same CG artist in Parsley, fans have taken to labeling Colorado as an honorary Kamikaze-class, apart from the "Smolorado" nickname she was already given.
  • Democrat Colorado^ExplanationWhen it comes to politics Colorado is often portrayed as left-leaning in contrast to Iowa being portrayed as a Republican. This included art of Colorado celebrating Joe Biden's election in 2020.
• Sorrow of the Imperial Japanese Navy^note Shigetaka Kurita, a director of Kadokawa, made an infamous statement where he said that one might cry while playing KanColle but not Azur Lane, something that has received derision not just from the rival game's fans but also from this one's due to the game's Excuse Plot making no effort to show as such in-story.
• "Do you have a minute for our Lord and Savior Zuiun?"^ExplanationHyuuga's constant mention of the Zuiun Seaplane Bomber in her dialogue lines (moreso in some of her seasonal lines) has convinced majority of the fans that she's pontificating the greatness of the Zuiun, sometimes dragging along other shipgirls who can also equip the said plane. Has escalated into an Intellectual Property Religion of sorts under the term "Zuiunism", as governed by the Holy Church of Zuiun.
• Chikumask^note Chikuma's default art has her placing her right hand under her chin with the fingers in such a way that, combined with the odd shading, it looks like she's really wearing a mask, the contents of which are depicted by fans as ranging from the comedic to the horrific. For better or worse, the Kai Ni doesn't have such ambiguity.
• Shyowa^note Some Pixiv artists gave Iowa the Alternate Character Interpretation of an introverted nerd who puts on a "stereotypical American" persona to look cool. Fans gave it this name.
• Mutsu the snail / Mutslug^ExplanationFans noted that her headband resembled the eyestalks of a snail, and began drawing Mutsu as a snail with cannons on her back. Said creature may be snail-sized, Mutsu-sized, or Kaiju-sized.
  • Mutsu exploding after tripping/stubbing her toe/doing absolutely nothing.^ExplanationThe battleship Mutsu sank after her battery exploded, taking more than 1,100 people down with her... while anchored at port with no enemies in sight. This lead to fans joking about Shipgirl Mutsu exploding at the slightest thing.
  • Mutsu-ni-Naru / "Turn-into-Mutsu" Beam!^ExplanationMutsu is a common result from attempting Large Ship Construction, but is also deemed a Junk Rare compared to other ships (at least prior to her Kai-2 remodel.) Fans joke that Mutsu has the power to turn the other, more desirable ships into copies of herself. Immortalized in an infamous parody of Watamote's 3rd ending detailing the travails of Orel Cruising and LSC ("When I do LSC, no matter what they all turn into Mutsu, turn into Mutsu!")
• "Wrong (Insert shipgirl name here)!"^ExplanationWith all of the characters in Kantai Collection being based on real-life warships, there are plenty of other related properties with characters of the same name based on the same object. Unfortunately, not all of them are pleasant to be around, as evidenced with Takao and Hyuuga from Arpeggio of Blue Steel, and more recently Azur Lane's Ark Royal, to name a few (Though to be fair, the inverse is also true, see Kongou and Nagato.)
• Bokukawauso^ExplanationName means "I am Otter". A bizarre Cartoon Creature drawn by Shu Uchida, which she jokingly claimed was a proposed character for Kancolle Arcade. It became a recurring figure in fanart, and was made into a mascot for the 2019 Kancolle Zuiun and Reppu Festival.
• Scirocco is a Zeta Gundam character^ExplanationThe word Scirocco has been trending with Twitter when the 4th Maestrale-class ship was released. Certain Gundam fans used it as an opportunity to make jokes about her sharing the name of the infamous Titans commander Paptimus Scirocco. Common jokes include Scirocco dressing up as the Gundam character (and vice versa), pilot the Mobile Suit The O, or getting rammed by her own watermelon-flavored popsicles, an infamous reference to Paptimus' death in Zeta Gundam where he was impaled by the titular mecha's nosecone. Implied to be an Ascended Meme as Scirocco's Rainy Season CG shows here sporting a raincoat that is similar to the yellow on the The O.
• Tokitsukaze and Arbok. ^ExplanationIn mid-2021, an anonymous person comissioned a number of artists to draw Tokitsukaze being constricted by an Arbok. This was notable enough that some artists began drawing it without being comissioned, while others began drawing variations such as other shipgirls encountering Arbok or Tokitsukaze squeezing an Arbok.
• Yuramushi. ^ExplanationIn 2021, several arts depicting Yura's head with her long ponytail (No body) as either a Ridiculously Cute Critter or a giant Kaiju meancing the base. Similar to Tokitsukaze's case, this quickly got off with several other artists joining in the fun, sometimes even with other shipgirls, the more prominents one being I-47, dubbed Yona-Unagi.
• Samidare, the Honorary Ambassador from Japan. ^ExplanationWhen the German Frigate Bayern visited Japan at the tail end of 2021, some of the sailors took the liberty to inspect other ships docked in Tokyo Bay. One of the ships docked there at the time was JS Samidare, which had a placate of KanColle's Samidare on board. The German sailors, and some officers, quickly took notice of this and took pictures with her, resulting in somw Japanese netizens dubbing her as an unofficial Ambassador.
• Yuudogchi ^ExplanationWhat started off as a joke about Yuudachi's hair flaps looking like dog ears grew into a common joke of having her act like a dog, such as being walked on a leash, chewing up newspapers, or being made to wear a plastic cone around her neck.

Originating from the Anime

• Water Skating! ^note Barely an hour after Kadokawa released the first preview of the anime adaptation, people started replacing Akagi with all sorts of characters from other series, to real life people, to everyday objects.
• WANKER! ^note A mutation of "Weigh Anchor" from the last line of the opening verse for Miiro, the anime's opening theme. Used as a derogatory term for those who have already heard of the browser game, but have yet to play it (particularly fans who have only seen the anime adaptation.)
• WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA? KI-SA-RA-GI!^note  Following Kisaragi's sinking in episode 3, someone posted this in the comments section in one of the sites streaming the anime and the comment spread, with some people coming up with different variations of the Spongebob Squarepants opening song. Someone else then followed suit with an appropriate image.
• MORPHBALL! ^note  Haruna and Kirishima curled up rolling during a scene from episode 4 specially Kirishima's looks very similar to the game-play mechanic from the Metroid series particularly the Metroid Prime version.
• WEEKLY LESBIAN! ^note  Referring to the Once an Episode focus on Ooi fawning over Kitakami, and her increasingly over-the-top reactions to anything and everything getting in the way of their private time, up to threatening to sink the moon for having the gall to peek out of the clouds, and thus ruin her chance to hold Kitakami's hand.
• Poi~! ^note Yuudachi's infamous Verbal Tic, which technically started in the game but really exploded due to the anime. Began mutating, unsurprisingly, in World of Warships, where players seem to have a habit of spamming "poi" ad nauseam in the in-game chat. It only became worse once the Japanese Destroyer tree was split and the Shiratsuyu was added (moreso when the actual Yuudachi was introduced.) Basically became an Ascended Meme after the introduction of her hourlies, where every line had the verbal tic.
• Kongou's memetic reputation continues into the 2015 anime with the following quotes:
  • Chu chu! Chu chu!! ^note The Japanese onomatepeia for kissing. Kongou said this after catapulting herself on Ooyodo, albeit by mistake. The English dub changed this to "Smoochie smoochie!" instead.
  • What? ^note In Episode 4, Kongou said this to Nagato due to not listening to what the latter said during the briefing.
  • Kongou has a pencant for giving nicknames to other Ship Girls, such as "Yodo" (Ooyodo), "Bukki" (Fubuki), "Zekamashi" (Shimakaze), "Zuki" (Akatsuki), and "Raiden" (Ikazuchi and Inazuma).
  • Kongou's British slang. ^note Kongou is well-known for adding English words in her sentences. Her dub voice contains British slang to accomodate her "British-built warship" upbringing. Fubuki lampshaded this in the fifth episode.
  • Bollocks! ^note A British profanity said by Kongou in the dub version of Episode 5 after her attempt in leading Mobile Unit Five ended in a failure. The actual line Kongou said is "Bollocks! That was a disaster...".
  • No problem -dess! Maybe... ^note Said by Kongou in the Japanese version of Episode 8.
• Kawaii dechu ne~! ^note In the Japanese version of Episode 8, Nagato said this after seeing, and then grabbing a squirrel while she's taking a bath. Mutsu would later bring this up in the same episode.
• Yamashiro is Doraemon ^note At the end of Let's Meet at Sea Episode 1, Yamashiro is told to give Mogami several Zuiuns and a Kyofuu Kai from Hyuuga. The fact that she store those seaplanes in her sleeves has led to fans thinking that Yamashiro's sleeves contain some sort of 4th dimension hammerspace just like Doraemon's pouch.
• Engine Trouble ^note Said by an outraged Yahagi in Episode 6 of Let's Meet at Sea in response to Yukikaze having a stomachache from eating too much mikan.

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