YMMV / KanColle

aka: Kantai Collection

The following tropes have their separate pages:

• Fan Nickname
• Les Yay
• Memetic Mutation
• That One Level

Tropes Present in the Browser Game

• Accidental Innuendo: For all of the game's readily-present suggestiveness, here's an unintentional example: Nelson's CG when activating her special "Nelson Touch" attack. The phallic imagery quickly spawned jokes among fans.
• Adaptation Displacement: Initially, although not anymore. The franchise (especially Shimakaze) spawned so many doujinshi and other derivative works that people were surprised to find out that it's a browser game.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • As with any Japanese media franchise focusing on World War II, many Koreans do not like Kantai Collection. In particular, there was an editorial written in the South Korean newspaper, Hankook Ilbo, criticizing Kantai Collection for the conservative political shift among young people in Japan following the long-term economic recession and political instability and glorify Imperial Japan's militarism. Japan Times wrote a counter response to such criticism stating that Space Battleship Yamato had faced similar criticism when it first aired, but had little impact in Japan's domestic politics. ^note It should also be noted that Hetalia: Axis Powers, another Moe Anthropomorphism franchise where major countries that were involved in World War II are represented by Bishonens, had similar criticisms as well.
  • It is also not well-liked in certain parts of the United States (particularly Hawaii) nor among many Allied veterans or their family members, since nearly all the protagonists are personified Japanese warships from World War II. The antagonists are demonic in nature and, though not outright said to be the American military, were strongly implied to be initially.
    • This theory has since been challenged (and possibly even debunked) by the reveal of American 16-inch gun turrets accompanied by a Fairy, along with the debut of Iowa, the first USN ship girl, in both the PlayStation Vita version, and later on in the original browser version.
  • Western players typically can't stand Shibafu's style beyond a few characters (mainly Kaga and Akagi), which lead to the outrage over Intrepid (see below). In Japan, the response is more neutral (although the "potato" memes^note where they make fun of Shibafu's style as being "potato", i.e Only Six Faces are also frequent there).
  • The art style of Acea4 (Helena, Mikura, Yashiro) is also not liked by many fans. It feels like something distractingly out of an older era. Not just limited to the Anglosphere, some Chinese players also dislike it enough that some of their proxies replace the official art of Helena with a fan redraw.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • When the land-based bombers debuted in the Spring 2016 event, they did rather low damage, and were at one point glitched so that ships sunken by them could still attack. After an emergency patch, they deal massive damage upon critical hit, sometimes going upward of 1000.
  • On a smaller scale for longtime game character designer Shibafu: while Mikuma's 2016 Summer Art was hit hard for making her look very anemic, her new Summer Art the year after got better reception from fans.
  • When the game first launched, the usable cast consisted entirely of IJN ships, while early levels were all based on naval battles from the Pacific Theater with American forces replaced with Abyssals. This led to numerous accusations of the game whitewashing history and demonizing the American navy. The game has since introduced several ship girls based on USN and other Allied navies, as well as several Abyssals based on IJN ships.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The release of the canon design for Iowa caused a split between those fans who prefer the Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls design, those who prefer the canonical one, those who don't mind either, and those who dislike both. In her case it has calmed down and is generally liked. This process gets repeated whenever other characters who already have designs in the other shipgirl works make their way over here.
  • Design-wise, Intrepid is a far more extreme example among western players; some are quite enraged, some think with a bit of fixing up she'd be cute, but the majority agreed that some other artist should have penned her art (especially Shizuma Yoshinori, who drew Iowa and Saratoga before her). However, Gambier Bay (drawn by Akira instead of Yoshinori) seems to be unaffected, mostly due to Akira being a better-regarded artist than Shibafu (Intrepid's artist).
• Breather Level:
  • The Arpeggio event in Winter 2013-14, being a newbie-friendly event, was this compared to the events sandwiching it (the infamously nightmarish Fall 2013 event and the Anniversary Spring 2014 event). It was the first event which consisted of only three maps, no boss health regeneration (all other previous events had this feature after the first two maps) and it contained only the second map in the history of the game with a 100% chance to reach the boss regardless of fleet (the May 2013 E-4 map being the first, but it was also a lot harder to clear).
  • The Fall 2014 event, which consists of again three main maps plus an "extra operations" map. Much like the Arpeggio event, this came in the wake of the Fake Difficulty-filled Summer 2014 event, and is much easier by comparison, again allowing for chip damage and no Boss HP regeneration.
  • The Spring 2015 event was also this. When it was announced as a "large scale event", players (especially veterans) expected an event on the difficulty tier of Summer 2014, which was one of the most difficult events in the game's history. What they got instead was an event so easy some considered it to be easier than Autumn 2014. Then again, it had 6 maps, so the developers weren't wrong…
  • Map 5-4, also known as the Tokyo Express Map, has a branching route^note An all-fast fleet that carries 4 drum canisters and two aircraft carriers that allows the players to clear the map with ease, much to the relief of players who had suffered from the map immediately before it.
  • Summer 2015's E-5 was surprisingly easy for a map that had Armored Carrier Princess leading a sub-node and Battleship Princess being the boss.
  • Fall 2021 event is seen as this after the hellhole that is the Summer 2021 event. Not only E1 runs concurrent with the Saury event which by having no tags allows all players to bring their full force on that map before the event officially starts, to the final boss being a Submarine type meaning that all ships that can attack submarines (Except Suzuya/Kumano Kai Ni Kou) will prioritize in sinking the boss first before attacking other enemies that accompany it. This event boasts the highest clear rate on Hard difficulty among the 8 years of Kan Colle history, at 75%.
• Broken Base:
  • A small but loud Vocal Minority of Western fans, mainly from the United States, finds the ability to marry Destroyers and other ship-girls that look very young to be very discomforting. Unfortunately, this may even extend to some people who have never played the game or know anything about it, who then start calling everyone that does like the game a lolicon. The opposition, i.e. people who are very in favour of being able to marry anyone, are just as vocal about it. One wonders if the Silent Majority just rolls their eyes every time about this.
  • The January 29, 2014, update turned into this for non-Japanese players, as it made the game progressively harder to play continuously by introducing a periodic reset for the game's API link. Half of the foreign players declared it the end of the world, while the other half just took it as something to get used to and a minor inconvenience at best (as grabbing a new API link every 90 minutes takes less than five minutes). However, with the periodic need to get a new API forcing countless players to log in simultaneously, the DMM log-in servers got overloaded, making the game inaccessible to almost everyone for hours at a time. The API reset was subsequently quietly removed in the emergency update that followed, much to the relief of many...then the system with some tweak ^note When you fetch a new API link and start playing, after some time API will get locked. Trying to refresh the game after API lock occurs will cause that API link to expire. API link can also expire if you idle in-game long enough (though some people have reported that they don't have this problem, and some theorized that this part was removed by the devs). More explanation here. is reinstated again in October 9, 2015 update, though the cookie method of playing has been discovered by then so it's less problematic for non-Japanese players.
  • Barely hours after the December 2015 ranking rewards were released, which included guns from the US Navy's Iowa-class battleships, paving the way for future inclusion of American ship girls, discussions are already getting... interesting... about whether or not they should be included in the game at all (moreso the fact that there are still a lot of Axis Kanmusu yet to be introduced in the game. See Schedule Slip entry on the Trivia page.)
  • Whether the Abyssal Fleet is actually the Allied Fleet is a sore point of debate, especially for those who come from countries that were Allied in World War II (especially the United States). With the reveal of the USS Iowa, some fans, while relieved that the whole idea of "Abyssals = Allies" is quite possibly false henceforth, do wonder what exactly the Abyssal Fleet is a stand-in for now, given that most if not all of their areas of operation and the ship girls' counterattack operations are uncannily similar to Real Life World War II ones, plus certain enemies use Bland-Name Product versions of American planes and weapons.
    • On the other hand, their Abyssal additions imply they're trying to have them represent every nation involved in WWII, with characters such as Heavy Cruiser Princess, who shares design traits and voice acting with the Italian Zara-class and Destroyer Ancient Demon/Princess, who dresses in a kimono like the Kamikaze-class (and sharing VA with Kamikaze), not to mention the abyssal bosses with evident resemblance to Jintsuu, Naka+Agano, Hagikaze, Mizuho, Harusame and Teruzuki. Even more with Seaplane Tender Water Princess (French Navy's Commandant Teste) and Abyssal Jellyfish Princess (USS Saratoga).
  • The introduction of the Kaiboukan (lit. coastal defense ships) had caused a considerable debate within the English community, since the community generally uses USN hull codes as the shorthand for their ship classes. However, the (perceived) closest ship classes in USN to these ships were destroyer escorts (DEs), which are essentially mini-destroyers designed for convoy escorts, with next to nothing^note Most of the American DEs have full armament of a destroyer despite their slower size and speed, making them closer to Matsu and Tachibana-class destroyers in terms of combat capability in common to each other than their anti-submarine role^note and even then, the DEs were purpose-built vessels compared to the Kaiboukan that were originally multipurpose patrol ships improvised into this rule to IJN's inability to afford proper convoy escort ships. Due to this disconnection between vessel specifications, some of the more informed naval historians would prefer the Patrol Frigate^note as in RN's Flower-class corvette equivalents, with several historical navies reclassified the postwar Kaiboukan as, although it's also inconveniently overlaps with the much-larger USN Tacoma-class frigates (PF) or Escort Ship (ES, EV or EE) instead. For the record, when an actual destroyer escort, USS Samuel B. Roberts, was introduced into the game, the issue is sidestepped entirely via intentional mis-classification as a destroyer. Became Hilarious in Hindsight after August 15-17 2018 update canonized the kaiboukan = DE thing.
  • 2019 saw the game cracking down on foreign players again by only allowing Japanese IPs to access it after a series of DDOS attacks from foreign IPs, with even the cookie method being defeated. This inspired a new wave of abandoning ship, with some jumping over to Azur Lane, but other diehards simply got VPNs and played on.
• Character Tiers: Houshou, Maruyu and Ryuuhou are blatantly inferior to all the others within their type, though less glaring ones exist. For example, Furutaka and Kinugasa's Kai Nis were somewhat weaker compared to Choukai and Maya or the Myoukou sisters'. For Carriers, there was a long time Kaga and Akagi were hard to top by other carriers even before gaining Kai Ni.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Some of the girls are so high on the Character Tiers that they'll almost always be used if possible. For example, the combination of Kaga Kai for having the largest air wing and Maya Kai Ni or the Akizuki sisters for their Anti-Air Cut-Ins is a very common sight whenever one expects to face many enemy carriers.
• Crossover Ship:
  • There is a lesser known fan crossover between KanColle and Hetalia: Axis Powers, see Friendly Fandoms below.
  • From the Touken Ranbu/KanColle front, there are several:
    • Mikazuki Munechika/Mikazuki in a grandfatherly relationship. This is to be expected since the shipgirl is ostensibly named after the sword (aside from the fact that it is also a month name, thus still confirming to the class' theme naming). In fact, shipping artworks featuring shipgirls and swordguys sharing a common kanji in their names is quite popular (i.e. Yamato-no-kami Yasusada/Yamato, Tsurumaru Kuninaga/Shoukaku).
    • Shokudaikiri Mitsutada/Tenryuu is also quite popular, because of their resemblance to each other and the fact that both has a predilection for taking care of others.
  • Iowa and Clownpiece, due to the former being the game's first US Navy kanmusu and the latter having an outfit modeled after the US flag.
  • If both Kantai Collection and Azur Lane have characters based on the same ship, you can expect to find art of them together.
• Demonic Spiders: Just about any kind of enemy with a Flagship or Flagship Kai version qualifies.
  • Ru-class battleships are extremely resilient, accurate and more than capable of reducing any of your non-battleships to critical damage with a sideways glance.
  • Wo-class standard carriers. Especially the late model versions that are equipped with Hell Dive, Cat and Revenge planes, which will absolutely destroy your fleet if you don't bring a ton of fighter planes and a ship that can perform anti-air cut-ins. And they don't even have the courtesy to obey the same rules that prevent your carriers from launching at night or at medium damage^note with the exception of Shoukaku-class Kai Ni A, Taihou, or the night battle-capable Graf Zeppelin..
  • Re-class Battleships, especially the elite version. Seen only in 5-5, is the bane of all admirals as they have a fighter-bomber slot with the amount seen only on Installation bosses as well as a closing torpedo attack... and the elite version can also launch an opening torpedo strike. This means that the Elite version can take part in every single combat phase and potentially deal massive damage in each of them.
  • Na-class Late Model II Elite and Flagship destroyers, true to their name, they will destroy your shipgirls. They already sported the highest HP pool amongst all Abyssal Destroyers, but coupled with Firepower and Armor comparable to Ru and Ta-Class Battleships in their Elite or Flagship version, the torpedo stat of a Re-class Elite Battleship, and the Anti-Air stat of a Tsu-class Elite Light Cruiser. Sounds frightening on paper, right? Wait till you hear this: They can perform Opening Torpedo Attack. You hear that right, this petty little destroyer can and will often critically damage your ships before the battle even started. Your only chance to evade this is by taking it out during LBAS and Air Strike phase, which is difficult given its Anti-Air and Armor stats. What's more, it is the backbone destroyer, often the only destroyer variant, that the enemy boss will have in their fleet since Rainy Season/Summer 2020 event, and they often come in at least a pair, meaning you will have to face at least 2 opening torpedo attacks from the enemy should they survive into the Opening Torpedo phase. Luckily, they are only found in events only(And even in events, only in higher difficulties), for now.
• Difficulty Spike: A number of events have pretty easy E-1 maps even on Hard mode, giving admirals a false sense of security. Then they get sucker punched by the E-2s, which are much harder even on Easy.
• Discredited Meme: A portion of the fanbase is tired of the "Ryuujou the Flattop" meme since the game lacks lines or official art of Ryuujou having A-Cup Angst or poking fun at her lack of breasts and has a line leaning more towards her having Petite Pride (specifically the "distinctive silhouette" line). Pixiv even has a tag that goes along the line of "Stop bullying RJ".
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Among the ship girls released in Fall 2015 Event, Kashima has more fanart than the other three combined. Indeed, she's come to rival long-time fan favorite Kongou for sheer volume of fanart. This is likely due to her youthful caring nature and good looks. It to the point where her debut in the arcade game skipped a lot of other girls, including the Kai Ni and the Kriegsmarine ships that were debuted in the browser game and advertised for the arcade before her appearance.
  • Surprisingly, Kaga is gaining a bit of a larger fanbase as well. Previously, she was seen as more of a boxy character with her stoic personality... Until Cape Kaga happened.
  • For a low-tier character, Houshou is surprisingly popular in her own right thanks to her more old-fashioned looks and mannerisms. As the "mothership of aircraft carriers", she's often paired up with Akagi and Kaga as their maternal figure.
  • Yamakaze quickly gains popularity due to her meek, sad personality that provokes protective instincts on many Admirals.
  • Kamoi quickly gains popularity the same way Kashima and Iowa did, despite being a humble fleet oiler. Her unique design and, ahem, "assets" help.
  • The "Enemy Lifebuoys" that come with the Escort Carrier Princess are also surprisingly popular. Recently, though, they seem to have become some sort of mascot.
  • Tanikaze used to be the oft-forgotten member of DesDiv17, but the moment her D Kai remodel was released, fans flocked to her again.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Touhou Project, partially due to how various Pixiv artists appeared to have stopped doing Touhou fanart in favour of this game, and partially due to how the Touhou Popularity Poll made a simple question asking whether the person heard of the game. Not helped by the fact that, during a Reiteisai (an annual Touhou fan gathering), several KanColle cosplayers "invaded" the proceedings. While this resulted in more than a little ruffled feathers, ZUN himself didn't seem to mind, and went on record to say that the two series actually work well together. Then again, Touhou and KanColle have quite a bit of overlap and while many artist jumped off Touhou and onto the KanColle bandwagon, many tend to draw both - also, many doujin circles still arrange both KanColle and Touhou, sometimes even on the same album. One could say that Touhou's and KanColle's Fandom are more friendly rivals than bitter enemies.
  • Some World of Warships players, particularly those who do not play KanColle, get irritated with the influx of KanColle fans who play the game, especially those who spam memes in the text chat, most notably Yuudachi's "poi" Verbal Tic. Irritated players refer to those who do such as "Shipfuckers".
  • Azur Lane, as a game with a similar premise of anthropomorphized warships but very different gameplay (and often very different take on a ship) has a degree of rivalry. However, there's a decent chunk of fans who are on friendly terms with each other.
• Fanon: Because of Warsprite's unique battle rig stance (in form of a throne with turrets), some fans believe she is actually crippled from the waist down (due to the damage the historical ship took on the rudder). This is despite having a battle mode that makes her stand up.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Whenever a kanmusu is shipped with someone/something from the Abyssal Fleet. The fact that the one of the Abyssal girls, Wo-Class, has tentacles does not help.
  • The fandom has taken the history between Bismarck and Ark Royal (one of Ark Royal's planes scored the crucial rudder hit that kept Bismarck away from Luftwaffe air cover), and info from Ark's hourly lines, and ran with it, turning Ark into Bisko's Stalker with a Crush. Before Ark Royal, there was one between Bismarck and Warspite (who also have history as enemies), although this isn't touched upon as much in their lines.
  • On a lesser note are Iowa and Katori (the former having sunk the latter), where the latter usually tries (and fails) to get revenge at the US battleship, often with hilarious results. The most common of which is Katori trying to seduce Iowa, which backfires horribly.
  • South Dakota being paired with Kirishima, a ship she battled at Guadalcanal, isn't much of a surprise. She's also paired with Washington despite (or perhaps because) of the strong rivalry between their crews after Guadalcanal. To make a long story short, a series of mistakes saw South Dakota being caught out in the open by Kirishima after suffering a full power failure, resulting in South Dakota taking a lot of damage until Washington pounced on Kirishima while she was distracted with South Dakota, sinking the Japanese ship. South Dakota's crew blamed Washington for wandering off and letting Kirishima attack them before swooping in for the kill, while Washington's crew blamed South Dakota for being The Load and needing rescue, then stealing the credit.
• Fountain of Memes: Just about anything that Kongou shouts in Gratuitous English sticks with the fandom.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Hetalia: Axis Powers. It probably helps that Japan's default outfit is the uniform worn by Kaigun officers, the fact that both series are themed around World War II^note Though Hetalia eventually moved away from World War II as its main focus and it now covers many different parts of history, and the focus of both of the series isn't about the Japanese politics in World War II. With the introduction of Italian ships in the Spring 2015 Event, the Axis are now fully represented in both series.
  • Also with Touken Ranbu, mostly because said game is KanColle's Spear Counterpart and also hosted on the same website.
  • Kantai Collection players also often play World of Warships at the same time, and it's not uncommon to find gameplay sessions of the latter with the ship girls' voiceovers slapped into them. However, not every WoWs player is amused by this; see Fandom Rivalry above.
  • With Strike Witches and Girls und Panzer. Strike Witches has gender flipped famous World War 2 pilots, and Girls und Panzer has the omnipresence of good-looking teenage girls who operate military vehicles. The three are even called "Kadokawa's Armed Forces" in Pixiv.
  • There's a lot of overlap with the Uma Musume fandom, as it's another game on DMM featuring a Cast of Personifications and many fan artists have done works for both games.
  • There's a good number of art crossing this with other naval themed/shipgirl works like High School Fleet, Warship Girls and Azur Lane (another Chinese shipgirl game, but localized to Japan), as well as recursive crossover with fan works like Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls, in a friendly light.
  • With Godzilla Minus One, given the presence of the ship versions of Yukikaze, Hibiki, and Takao, prompting fanart of the three shipgirls interacting with that version of Godzilla.
• Game-Breaker:
  • This is the reason why Shinden Kai is to date still unavailable other than from the Spring 2013 event; fighter power is one of the very few mechanics unaffected by RNG, and Shinden Kai gives a lot more fighter power than the normal Reppuu^note A whopping 15, compared to the stock Reppuu's 10. The next best two, Reppuu Kai (from Spring 2014) and Iwamoto Squadron's Type 0 Fighter Model 53 (from Shoukaku-class quests) are this to a smaller extent, as they only give a bit more^note Only 12, but still enough to make a difference.
    • Trumping even the Shinden Kai is the aircraft proficiency system, which allows the planes to gain and lose ranks, essentially turning them into capable but fleeting pilots. However, having max-ranked fighters in your aircraft carriers can significantly inflate the fleet's air power regardless of plane slots, allowing the largest plane slots to be freed up for max-ranked bombers which can now break the damage cap, enabling the aircraft carriers to perform overwhelmingly powerful preemptive airstrike strong enough to annihilate almost anything at the receiving end of their critical hits.
  • The very first second remodels to be introduced in the game refits Kitakami and Ooi with the same quintuple torpedo tubes that was historically equipped on Shimakaze, boosting their already high torpedo stats to overwhelming proportions, allowing them to perform preemptive torpedo attacks and utterly destroy anything at the receiving end of their attacks in night battles with only two guns and a midget sub. The slight nerf to them making them consume more ammo at Kai 2 has not helped much. The best part about them, however, is that, being the earliest second remodels, they don't have as much requirements compared to the later shipgirls^note In comparison, Bismarck requires two blueprints to gain the same torpedo tubes that was historically refitted to Tirpitz, whereas Shoukaku and Zuikaku can't be remodeled until Level 80 and 77 respectively, and they requires a blueprint and a catapult for their remodels.
  • The Fog ships from Arpeggio of Blue Steel, who were usable for the duration of the December 2013 event. Despite starting at level 1, Iona, Takao, and Haruna all had high base stats that rival or outright beat fully-upgraded kanmusu, and what's more the latter two had a Graviton Cannon attack that can hit all ships in an opposing fleet. Iona herself was an egregious example, as she had 70 Health, which was ridiculously high for a sub, never mind her high Attack, high Evasion rate, high Speed, and long Range^note Range is useless for a submarine, which can't attack in the shelling phase unless they carry certain planes, which only Aircraft Carrying Submarines can carry. As Iona is in her Ars Nova (anime) incarnation, she doesn't have the aircraft complement that her manga incarnation carries.. Within a day of the start of the event, there were anecdotes of players clearing whole (non-event) maps with them, and their presence in a PvP team caused a lot of headaches.
  • Submarines in general are this. It is well-known that almost any map can be "subcheesed" (submarine cheesing), saving tons of resources that would otherwise have been spent clearing a map the conventional way. (To prevent this, late word maps have insanely high enemy ASW capacity and/or a high probability to encounter a dead end if you attempt subcheesing. Sometimes subcheesing outright fails fleet composition requirements) This also meant that Iona was on two levels of game breaking. At least she didn't have the Graviton Cannon, unlike in the anime.
  • Musashi's Second Remodel may also count due to the premise of giving her 5 equipment slots (for a maximum of 6, with the Reinforcement Expansion item), thus allowing for a multitude of equipment setups. A very popular configuration would be to give her both a boiler and a turbine item (the latter on the Reinforcement Expansion slot) alongside two main guns (including in particular the 510mm Prototype guns she comes with in her Kai-2), an AP shell and a recon plane on her 8-count slot. This would apparently make her a more potent Fast Battleship than Iowa^note Basically her contemporary in the Fast Battleship roster, despite not being one to begin with... Well, were it not for her absurd fuel and ammo consumption and the blueprints and resources required to remodel her in the first place.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Surprisingly popular in China, to the point of having its own doujinshi convention there, considering that it's a Japanese game based on World War II. It probably helped that the Kaigun was nowhere as involved in China as the Japanese Army was. ^note This is mainly because the Kaigun was used for Pacific operations while the Army was used for Chinese invasion operations The existence of Warship Girls (and lots of... actual plagiarisms) is proof of that.
  • Also very popular in Southeast Asia, another region that ironically was invaded and occupied by Japan during the War, with some of the ships even directly supporting the invasion by bombarding those countries. Filipino fans in particular are surprisingly aplenty; partly due to the massive number of the game's namesake ships sunk within and around its internal waters; and partly because one of the more popular browser addons that allow playing the game outside Japan was actually Philippine-made. Which kind of explains the fact that the Anime debuted on the local TV station TV5, and with a Filipino dub to boot.
  • Unsurprisingly, Iowa is a hit with American fans. It helps that the real-life USS Iowa is such a well-famed battleship to the point that all the ships of her class were spared from the scrapyard, and were kept afloat to this day as museum ships.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Tsu-class light cruisers aren't that powerful or tough, but their high AA will destroy large numbers of your bombers, greatly weakening if not outright disabling your carriers' offence.
  • PT Imp Packs introduced in Fall 2015 Event. They have insane evasion, meaning that it's very hard to do even the tiny amount of damage needed to sink them. In the first two days it was even worse, because a bug meant that their designated counter, destroyers, didn't have the bonus against them that they were supposed to have. Bad enough when it's just them; when they're present alongside stronger abyssals, they become real nightmares as they distract your capital ships and leave the stronger foes free to wreak havoc. The stronger forms, being able to use Torpedo Cut-Ins, become Demonic Spiders.
  • Submarines in Practice Sorties against other Admirals, at least during the game's early years. While vulnerable to light cruisers and destroyers, many Admirals preferred to fill out their fleet with heavy hitting battleships or carriers, which made defeating fleets with multiple submarines exceedingly difficult. This was remedied in a later update that let players select fleet formation during practice sorties, allowing one or two light cruisers/destroyers in line abreast to effectively counter submarines. That said, a mixed fleet of surface combatants and multiple subs is still a pain if you're hoping for a S-rank.
  • The Atlanta-, Fletcher- and Akizuki-class ships are this in PvP. None of them are particularly powerful, but they all have high Anti-Air stats that will drive up your bauxite consumption.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Enemy carriers, be it in sorties or in PvP, used to be able to launch planes at orange or even red HP due to a bug. This created jokes on how Ryuujou should be the only carrier to be able to do that. This bug has since been fixed.
  • Taihou and Akitsu Maru used to have swapped repair times (giving Taihou the repair time of a destroyer). This used to be attributed to damage done to armored flight decks being much easier to deal with than that to standard flight decks until this was fixed about a month after LSC started.
  • Due to a quirk of the game's programming, the same bonuses and penalties are applied to your fleet and the opposing fleet. This leads to ridiculous situations where getting, for example, a T-Cross Advantage (which is supposed to increase attack damage for your ships and decrease it for the opponent's, actually increases it for both sides. Similarly, getting a T-cross disadvantage decreases the attack damage for both sides.
    • Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when T-crossing an enemy ship in World of Warships gives a similar effect as T-Cross Advantage in this game. While you might be able to fire with the entire broadside, you're exposing the flat side of your ship, and in particular your citadel, to penetrating hits in such an engagement.
  • Aircraft conversion quests prior to the introduction of the jet bombers retains the improvement ranks through the conversions, allowing players to upgrade the base planes to max before going through the conversion quest. It is especially glaring for plane conversion for 601 Air Group, since player can improve the base plane but cannot improve the converted plane itself. This loophole was closed for plane conversion quests from 2017 onwards, which requires max-ranked planes and resetting it to zero post-conversion.
  • At the start of Spring 2017, the devs had mistakenly make Yamashiro Kai 2 a drop at E1's boss node. It got fixed very quickly, however.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • As soon as Kantai Collection got extremely popular, fanvids started popping up crossing the Armored Core series with it, due to how completely nerdy the fanbase is when it comes to mecha (that is, everybody; it eventually got it own tag called "Kan-CORE" and people have parodied the commercials for AC with KanColle characters). Several months later, in early-mid 2014, Kadokawa announced they acquired 80% of FromSoftware (developer of AC; it should be noted Kadokawa has had a stake in From long before this), and this made the crossovers even more popular online. Time will tell if From ends up developing a KanColle game for Kadokawa.
  • This 4koma as uploaded by Pixiv user "koketsu-ya" in 2014 depicts Kaga singing Enka, much to the amazement of the other fleet girls. Fast forward to mid-2015 and the debut of Cape Kaga.
  • With the rise of Arpeggio of Blue Steel, the developers eventually recognized the possibility of Fandom Rivalry and fired the first shot... by including several major Fleet Of Fog ships during an event, including I-401 Iona, in the game itself. Thus, for a short period, players could have their own legitimate Crisis Crossover stories between the cast of both KanColle AND Arpeggio!
  • One of the Unusual Euphemisms about Atago refers to her large "fuel tanks". Come Summer 2015 Event, there's an actual replenishment oiler, Hayasui, and while she's nowhere near as endowed as Atago, she still has sizable assets.
  • Also, this was not the first time fans heard of Kongou's infamous Catchphrase.
  • The announcement for the Winter 2016 Event to center around Operation Rei-Go comes off as this thanks to the brief debacle about DMM temporarily blocking IP addresses from the Philippines.^ExplanationConducted on December 1944, Operation Rei-Go was the IJN's Bombardment assault against the Allied forces stationed at San Jose, Mindoro Island, Philippines.
  • Back in 2015, DeviantArt user dishwasher1910 drew two pictures of RWBY'sYang Xiao Long as Iowa. Come 2016 and the release of Iowa's canonical design, which does indeed look like Yang. Then, more than half a decade later, he would eventually join the roster of CG artists for KanColle's most prevalent competitor.
  • One which crosses with the Anime adaptation: The mishearing of the "Weigh Anchor" line from the Opening theme comes off as this as of the introduction of the Royal Navy in the Summer 2016 event.
  • The Greatest Generation, had it not been scrapped, would have eventually, in the context of the fic, revealed the mastermind behind the Abyssals, and the reason why the US Navy in-story was having nowhere the same degree of success in their ship girl summons as their Japanese and European counterparts: The abyssalized re-incarnation of USS Arizona is discovered to not just having interfered with the US Navy's attempts to summon ship girls, but has also been actively stealing them to serve her.^note The fic pre-dates the existence of any ships from Allied powers in the game itself, as it was written in mid-late 2015 when the "THE ABYSSALS ARE THE USN" rhetoric was still going strong. Come the release of the Vita game, and subsequently, the Spring 2016 event for the browser game, we have Central Princess, who is an Abyssalization of Pearl Harbour centered around the Arizona Memorial, making her effectively an Abyssal Arizona, having co-opted the 16-inch triple guns of the Missouri museum ship. Defeating her in either game would earn players the first playable USN ship girl ever, the USS Iowa.
    • It also predicted a recreation of the invasion of Malaya and the sinking of Force Z long before the Summer 2016 event made it canon.
  • All the way back in 2013, a RocketNews article on KanColle pointed out the existence of a Moe Anthropomorphism poster of three ships. One of those depicted? Kasuga Maru, introduced in Spring 2017.
  • A fan-video from November, 2015 had a gag about Akagi being able to improve Combat Rations, the same way one is able to improve other equipment like guns or torpedo tubes. Come the July 14, 2017 update, and you're able to improve Combat Rations in the same way!
  • Many fanarts portray Hibiki/Verniy with dog features. Then in 2017, the Turkmenistan leader presents a gift to Vladimir Putin: a white dog which then gets named Verniy.
  • Coinciding with the Autumn 2017 event that focuses on the battle of Surigao Strait, a team of divers led by Paul Allen of Microsoft (the same guy who discovered the wreck of the real-life Musashi back in 2015) found the wrecks of Yamashiro and Fusou, and then those of Michishio, Asagumo and Yamagumo not far off.
  • The story Belated Battleships was released in late 2015. It was about the United States summoning its first ship, the Iowa-class New Jersey. Fast forward to the Spring 2016 event, and we get to see the very first US ship in the browser game: an Iowa-class, specifically Iowa herself.
  • Nagato's second remodel (which prominently features a Badass Longcoat) ends up as this, with her voice actress Ayane Sakura landing the role of Ogin in Girls und Panzer das Finale. For bonus points, Ayaneru's portrayal of Ogin sounds very close to Nagato than any of the other shipgirls she has voiced.
  • This game's version of DesDiv 17 has Hamakaze, Isokaze and Urakaze be well-endowed, with only Tanikaze being flat. Come Azur Lane's release of these destroyers, three of them are flat, with only one (Urakaze) being busty.
  • Kujou Ichisou's depiction of 8 of the 10 Shiratsuyu sisters occasionally feature them with canine-like hair flaps. All but one Azur Lane's incarnations of this class (ie. All the ones drawn by saru) are dog girls.
  • Azur Lane's depiction of Shimakaze is a rabbit girl with very long rabbit ears.
  • Isokaze gets a lot of Saber jokes because of sharing Ayako Kawasumi as a voice actress, but she is also infamous as a Lethal Chef. Azur Lane released in May 2019 King George V, who not only also has Saber's voice actress, but looks like her and can actually cook.
  • As mentioned on the game's main page, Zara is one of three cruisers that are allowed to use torpedoes they never actually had. Jump forward to July 2019, in which Zara is seen in a preview for the upcoming Italian cruiser line in World of Warships. A torpedo launcher can be clearly seen◊ in her preview.
  • Takao and Myoukou have been drawn together a number of times due to their Commonality Connection of being the Sole Survivor nameships of their respective heavy cruiser classes who lived out the last days of the war in ignoble condition in Singapore. Come July 2019, Myoukou's sister Haguro has been "reborn" as a member of the Maya-class destroyers, who are named for one of Takao's.
  • The incessant fanart portrayals of Gambier Bay getting lost all the time, oftentimes ending up in other games, become this after Girls' Frontline released its "Girl's Secret Talk" special CG for FABARM S.A.T.8 which, thanks to her twintails, makes her look suspiciously identical to Gambier Bay.
• I Am Not Shazam: Parodied; Fubuki's obscurity has led some fans to call her "Kantai" as a joke.
• Incest Yay Shipping: A somewhat unusual case; fans have no qualms about shipping sister ships with each other (Kitakami/Ooi and Nagato/Mutsu, for example), but canon doesn't make it clear whether "sister ships" are actually blood-related or if being "sisters" is just a figure of speech for being in the same class. Interestingly, in-game, not all ship classes actually refer to themselves as sisters, judging by their in-game lines, such as the Akatsuki class or Kuma class or Mogami class.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: With Arpeggio of Blue Steel, another series with anthropomorphized Kaigun warships, care of the anime's endcards:
  • Haruna/Haruna.
  • Kongou/Kongou.
  • Takao/Takao.
  • Maya/Maya◊.
  • In a break with the previous pairings used, episode 11 puts together Akashi and Ooyodo with Shizuka and Iori instead◊, due to their similar character attributes (that, and the fact that Arpeggio version of Akashi and Ooyodo hasn't appeared yet when the anime is out).
  • The entire Winter 2013-14 Event, which ran from 24 December 2013 to 8 January 2014, was a lovefest between the franchise and Ars Nova, with Iona, Takao, and Haruna being (temporary) obtainable allied units.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Every event after Autumn 2013 has been seen as this by veterans, as the developers removed gauge regeneration for every event thereafter. To a smaller extent, every event after Summer 2015 hasn't been considered a "hard event", either. Even Spring 2016, being That One Level: The Event, was not spared, with AL/MI usually being considered harder as well.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Akatsuki's Kai Ni has caught flak with parts of the Western fandom for not changing a lot of her design and being plain. Shoukaku's Kai Ni has received similar criticism.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The biggest appeal of this series, apart from the varying character designs, would be the numerous well-known Japanese voice actresses behind the multiple shipgirls (most noticeable voice actresses include Ayane Sakura, Rina Hidaka, Sumire Uesaka, Aya Suzaki, and Nao Tōyama, among others).
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • The Admiral, for very obvious reasons.
  • Among the fleet girls though, Kongou is getting such treatment from fans. Counting the Anime, she has been shipped with the abovementioned Admiral, her sister ships, Fubuki (anime-wise), Iowa, and more later, Warspite.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Submarines are generally agreed to not be very good. They seem useful on paper, being able to perform opening torpedo attacks and being untargetable by heavier enemies, but their poor Torpedo stats mean they have pathetically weak attacks, and their poor stats in every other category means they'll be torn apart by anything that can attack them. Torpedo Cruisers not only fill the opening torpedo niche, but do it better due to having higher Torpedo stats on top of being able to attack during shelling phase and contributing to the fleet's total Line-of-Sight and Anti-Air, which submarines can't do. On top of that, enemies with anti-submarine capabilities are very common and routing rules for maps often punish the player for using submarines. One english-language wiki calls submarines nearly useless.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Fan artists (particularly on pixiv) have portrayed Kirishima as this due to the track record of her real-life counterpart. This is evident in the pixiv tag "It's mic check time, dammit!" (Related Danbooru pool)
  • Both historically and in-game, Tenryuu has poor performance, statistically speaking. However, her badass appearance and attitude has led to a small part of the fandom playing her up as someone who can punch out of her weight class.
  • Many fans agree that Samuel B. Roberts, despite her non-American character design, is a match for any battleship.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Ryuujou, as seen in a popular fan depiction.
  • Colorado was, historically, a formidable ship and is a pretty good character in-game. Fanworks, however, prefer to focus more on Colorado's height.^note The USS Colorado was significantly shorter than almost all of the other battleships portrayed in-game (particularly in comparison to her fellow Big Seven Ships), which translates into her personification being drawn as shorter This is despite the fact that Colorado is quite proud of herself and never expresses any concerns with being short.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Tatsuta is infamous for being this, a Memetic Troll, or both at the same time, especially to Tenryuu.
  • The same can be said of Nagato, particularly towards destroyers and other cute things (see Alternate Character Reading on her profile in the Character Page.) Made more evident via danbooru's infamous "Nagamon Collection".^note The likely reason for this portrayal is that the Nagato class, in its early days, was advertised to the Japanese children as their best battleship at the time, with Mutsu in particular being partly funded by children's money. This explains Kancolle Nagato's desire to be liked by children (i.e destroyers), but fans tend to give humorous twists to it.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Fanworks sometimes portray Gotland as a Yandere who tries to brainwash the Admiral into thinking she's been serving under, and romantically involved with, them since the first days of the game. Or even earlier.
  • Jingei in-game is a Team Mom with a bit of a jealous streak. Fanworks often exaggerate this to the point of taking a knife to her admiral for looking at other girls.
• Memetic Troll: Tatsuta tends to be this in fanon, as a result of exaggerating her Gadfly tendencies towards Tenryuu. Danbooru has an entire pool devoted to these tendencies, called "God Damn It, Tatsuta!"
• Moe: All the ship girls' designs definitely lean in this direction.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The critical hit explosion, especially when your fleet makes one after the other, sinking or crippling enemy ships one by one, and punctuated by their battle cries. In contrast, the explosion sound from a regular hit feels pretty small.
• Narm:
  • Some of the girls' expressions in their damaged art are so over-the-top it's hard to feel their pain. The infamous Myoukou pose is one of the worst, but hardly the only offender.
  • The position of Nelson's rigging in her Nelson Touch CG is extremely phallic.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Despite なのです (nanodesu) appearing in only one line (or two, depending on technicality) for Inazuma in the game^note her Battle Start Line is なのです; it's also sometimes used when she attacks(initially, at least; she was later given two new lines with nanodesu in it, which is still not that frequent), fanon has it as her Verbal Tic and/or Catchphrase. In-game, she says "-nodesu" more frequently.
  • Kashima apparently gets this treatment as well. Thanks to some of her lines which come off as flirting and her "openly suggestive" default damaged art, she has garnered a lot of Rule 34 art. This is even despite fans generating a Danbooru art pool of her as an innocent fleet girl, aptly titled "Kashima is a Good Girl"
  • Akagi and her "eating" tendencies may apply here as the glitch that caused it has long since been fixed.
  • Apart from the examples listed above, quite a few jokes that surrounds certain other characters die hard despite the presence of Characterization Marches On elements as reflected in newly-added voice lines over the years.
• Nightmare Fuel: Central Hime's damaged artwork is, plainly put, gross. While most damaged Abyssal boss artwork only applies Clothing Damage with some Tainted Veins, Central Hime's skin is torn off, showing the black and red muscles beneath her skin.
• No Yay: People who don't like shipping the kanmusu with Wo-class often cite that the latter has tentacles, which somehow makes the yuri no longer 'pure'. (This is logic stated about things with girls with something 'extra' in general)
  • Among some Western fans, any ship that involves Northern Ocean Princess, a Destroyer or the younger looking submarines.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The entire concept of World War II-era warships personified as cute girls? It started back in 2009 through a manga series called Battleship Girl, penned by an artist who goes by the name zeco. Yes, the same zeco who, nearly a decade later, would pen the design for USS Samuel B. Roberts.
  • The Spring 2013 event is chock full of this. Sortieing restrictions were first introduced then (although they were much more lenient than now); this mechanic made its return 18 months later and has been a regular mainstay ever since. Zuikaku is the Ur-Example for powerful ships as rare event-exclusive drops in the Spring 2013 event, long before the Italian battleships took over the spot in future events. And for drops in general, having more new ships as drops than rewards was first a thing in Spring 2013, and wouldn't be again until Spring 2017. This is missed out often because all the new ships from the Spring 2013 event became available in normal construction within three weeks after the event ended.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The Latter Stage operation during Spring 2016 Event has a well-deserved BGM for the overworld map and boss battle... but the normal battles have an upbeat soundtrack that sounds like a music straight from a clown fiesta, which would've been better suited for airfield construction at E3 rather than recapturing an allied anchorage.
• The Scrappy:
  • For normal ship construction (which has since spread to map drops as well), Light Cruiser Naka. This is due to her high-than-normal chance of appearing in any crafting recipe where a light cruiser is a possibility, particularly in battleship or recipes used for rare ships. Disgruntled admirals, annoyed at how their hard-earned resources went to waste, just scrap her on sight as a result. She gained a second remodel (who actually has good stats, particularly against submarines), but this generally just means people just keep one, and still scrap the clones.
  • For Large Ship Construction, Light Carrier Jun'you if one is trying for Armored Carrier Taihou. Disappointed admirals joke (like on Twitter) that their "Taihous" are always drunk as a result. Same goes for Mutsu if one is trying for Bismarck or a Yamato-class, to the point where fans have decided her main armament is the "MNB" (Mutsu ni Naru Beam, a.k.a. "Turn Into Mutsu Beam").
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • An aircraft carrier must carry torpedo bombers but not dive bombers in order to be able to attack installation bosses. For example, a carrier carrying just one torpedo bomber can attack them, but a carrier carrying three torpedo bombers and one dive bomber cannot. In addition, the situation is reversed during the aerial phase; dive bombers can attack installation bosses but not torpedo bombers. On top of that, when carriers attack installations, the divebomb stat counts towards the damage done, but not the torpedo stat. This mechanic has naturally led to much confusion among the players and is only partially alleviated as of March 2019, where an update allows CERTAIN dive bombers^note 634th Air Group's Suisei Model 21 when loaded with Type 3 bombs, the Prototype Nenzan, certain variants of the Grumman F4F Wildcat (F4U-1D and FM-2), and the entire Ju87C kai line. to attack installation bosses during the shelling phase.
  • Ranking. Only a fixed number of players from each server can get the monthly ranking rewards, which makes ranking in the larger servers much more competitive. And as the game wasn't made for so many players, only 500 players from each server get any ranking rewards. The smallest server, Sasebo, has 44700 players. The largest server, Hashirajima, has as many as 140000; in fact every server after the first 7 has over 100000 players.
  • The night to day battle during the Autumn 2013 event. Sinking too many enemy ships at night ends the battle prematurely, instead of transitioning to day battle for an extra chance to sink the enemy ships. This was one of the reasons for E4's difficulty. It has made only one appearance since that event (Autumn 2017 E4), and even then you got to transition to day battle as long as at least one enemy was still alive.
  • The ship lock mechanism in the events, where a girl used in certain maps cannot be used in others, is very troublesome for less experienced admirals who don't yet have a large number of high-level girls across all classes. Even for more experienced ones, the increasing complexity of maps, where large events can have up to seven maps each with their own lock, and some maps possibly having multiple locks, will test anyone's organisational planning, to the point some admirals raise duplicates.
  • Improving and upgrading equipment has been requiring more and more development materials (devmats) and improvement materials (screws), especially for newer equipment. While devmats can be more easily obtained from daily quests, screws are not so easily obtained, making it very hard for players to fully improve or upgrade even one of them. The Submarine Radar & Waterproof Telescope needs 20 devmats and 7 screws for each upgrade level up to +6, and 30 devmats and 8 screws for each upgrade level from +6 to max. Without the slider. And that's before counting the plan to give it an upgrade in future. And conversion quests (especially the newer ones), such as the ones that convert a T2 Seaplane Fighter Kai to its skilled variant, require a fully improved T2 Seaplane Fighter Kai as a conversion prerequisite.
  • Gimmick mechanics in general, the first one being the debuff mechanic introduced in Summer 2015, also fall under this. In particular, the one introduced in Winter 2017, where you had to scrap a Saiun twice to have a chance to chip the transport gauge (scoring less than A rank against an Abyssal Combined Fleet, or failing to reach the boss node meant the player lost the Saiun for naught), was not well-received.
  • Switching between reversible remodel levels strips a ship of all the modernisation she's received (other than luck). It also requires resources for every switch, and in the case of Shoukaku-class, 15 development materials. On top of that, due to how reversible remodels work, having one means having no stock equipment for that ship.
  • Certain event-only shipgirls are drops that require you to struggle against RNG rather than being guaranteed rewards on completion, to the frustration of unlucky players. To make matters worse, not all of these are destroyers or auxiliaries that are more trophies than anyone potent; some capital ships have also suffered from being drop-only, most infamously Roma.
• Self-Fanservice: Due to the varying artist qualities and fan ideas, various shipgirls often get this treatment. The most extreme would be giving Ryuujou or destroyers (those that don't already have them) large breasts, but in general many shipgirls would be given more curvy bodies. For your reference, this is how they actually look like.
• Shipping (heh heh): With over a hundred female characters, yuri shipping is inevitable. Touhou Project girls beware, they have a real contender this time. There are also pairings between the fleet girls and the Admiral (regardless of said admiral's sex), but this ultimately falls under the Admiral-Artist's personal preference. Just look at the sheer variety of Admiral-Ship pairings available in Pixiv, for example.
• That One Boss:
  • The Fall 2013 event's Ironbottom Sound boss, Airfield Princess (飛行場姫, Hikoujyo Hime, aka Evil Henderson Field to Western players) is the prime offender of this trope. She has 500HP, can't be attacked by torpedoes, is accompanied by other strong mooks, and is capable of dealing significant damage to your girls enough to bring them down to low HP. Not only that, without Sanshikidan/Type-3 (三式弾, an anti aircraft ammo), any damage dealt to her is considered insignificant and bringing her down is going to be a lot harder than it already is. To make things worse, the stage leading up to the boss itself is entirely night based. Which means all stats, including yours and the enemy's, are severely raised to critical levels where, if you're unlucky, you're most likely going to retreat halfway for repairs, making reaching the boss itself even more of a challenge.
  • To a lesser degree, the second stage of the above mentioned event is a lite version of Ironbottom Sound. Not hard, but extremely frustrating. The only difference is that Airfield Princess actually regenerates if you don't clear the stage as quick as possible, while the boss of the second stage at least can be cleared at your own pace.
  • Summer 2015 E-3 (out of seven maps) boss medium final form and hard all forms composition has Seaplane Tender Princess (350HP) escorted by two Aircraft Carrier Demon (250HP each). The Seaplane Tender Princess has a preemptive torpedo, meaning she can potentially strike one of your girls to orange or red right off the bat, while the Aircraft Carrier Demons carry a large number of enemy planes, meaning you'll probably need to take slots away from bombers in favour of air-to-air if you want air superiority. For a map only halfway through the Event, it's a major pain.
  • Summer 2015 E-7's boss, Air Defense Princess, has a whopping 395 armour in Hard mode, making every other previous boss look thinly-armoured, and 390 Anti-Air stat, rendering bomber aircraft effectively useless. It is escorted by a Battleship Princess (two in Hard Mode final form). It is possible to lower her armour, but that requires sinking the flagships of certain other nodes led by Flagship Kai Wo class, Isolated Island Demon or Seaport Princess, and this effect resets daily. To add insult to injury, bringing any torpedo cruisers will send you to dead ends, meaning without Abukuma Kai Ni you can't bring powerful preemptive torpedoes to take out her escorts as you could against previous bosses. Post-event statistics show that of the about 70% of players who took part in the event, only 45% of them actually managed to beat her at all!
  • Seaplane Tender Princess returns in the Fall 2015 event due to appearing as the boss of the third map. Unlike the Summer 2015 event, where her opening torpedo would miss due to the accuracy penalty from the formation she is in, this time, her formation raises her torpedo accuracy, thus making it highly likely that she will incapacitate one of your ships.
  • Central Princess from E-6 and E-7 of the Spring 2016 Event takes Damage-Sponge Boss to truly insane levels, sporting an incredible 900 HP in her final form in E-6. Making matters worse, she's always accompanied by other Princesses. While her health is lowered slightly in E-7 to 850 HP, all of her other stats have been buffed.
  • 6-5, released in the 5th October 2016 update, has Combined Fleet for the Abyssals as the boss composition, while the player is still limited to a normal fleet. Worse yet, the branching route only lets you bring up to 3 capital ships and a total of 4 capital ships and heavy cruisers combined, leaving the player's fleet rather strapped for daytime shelling and air power.
• That One Sidequest:
  • There are a number of quests that require you to clear maps without using battleships or standard carriers. They are as much of a pain as you might expect, since the maps in question often involve fighting the very classes you're not allowed to bring. Even worse if the quest calls for a S-rank, as not having a battleship means you lose out on a second shelling phase, which can easily make the difference between getting it and letting even one Abyssal survive.
  • Additionally, any quest that requires a Rare Random Drop ship. Examples include getting all four Kongou class battleships to unlock your fourth fleet, having Akashi as your flagship, getting Akagi, Kaga, Soryuu and Hiryuu, and clearing Expedition 39, which requires FOUR submarines and Taigei.
  • B44, 海上突入部隊、進発せよ！/ Deploy the Marine Rush Fleet! To even unlock it, you must first go down a very long chain of quests: Bd5^note Sink 3 enemy Transport Ships -> Bw2^note Sink 20 Aircraft Carriers -> Bw5^note Sink 15 submarines -> Bw6^note Defeat 12 bosses in World 4 -> Bw8^note Defeat the boss in 4-4 -> Bw9^note Sortie to 5-2 and get an S-Rank at the boss node 2 times. All of these need to be done within one week, with all the resource expenditure you might expect from rushing that. And even after you have unlocked it, the required fleet composition^note Hiei, Kirishima, Nagara, Akatsuki, Ikazuchi, and Inazuma means you're not even guaranteed to be sent to the boss node. To top it off, the reward for clearing it^note 2 development materials and 5 improvement materials, all of which can be acquired in other waysis quite unrewarding^note compared to Nishimura Fleet quest on the same map, which awards a medal and have a fleet composition forgiving enough for a guaranteed boss route. for all the troubles you have went through to clear this quest.
  • Any quests that involve you playing the gambling game with RNG for map routings in order for you to be able to complete it. For example: daily quest Bd7 (defeat 5 bosses in World 2). Sounds easy on paper, until you remember the only map in World 2 with guaranteed path to the boss node is in 2-5, and that's not taking into account the damages that your fleet will get inflicted with before you make it to the boss node. If you choose to clear the simpler maps in World 2, you can be thrown off route despite fulfilling some requirements - for example in Map 2-2, 2 carriers give you a 70% chance to be routed to the boss node if you go to node E, but the starting point is random which means you can always start at A and go way off-course without hitting node E even once. And even if you land at node E, you can always be led away from the boss node despite fulfilling the routing requirement mentioned.
  • The infamous Souryuu Kai Ni 4-3 quest requires you to S-rank the boss node of 4-3 with Souryuu Kai Ni, Hiryuu Kai Ni, two destroyers and two extra ships. While the comp is powerful enough to fight the boss, the problem is getting there; having two destroyers automatically sends you to the north of the map where there is very little chance to get sent back to the center of the map where the boss node is.
  • The quest to obtain the landing lights and/or American mid-war planes requires Saratoga Mk2 and sortie to score an S-rank at Map 5-5, 6-2 and 6-5, and requires you to bring 1 light cruiser and 2 destroyers on top of the already notoriously difficult maps.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • There was an outbreak of remarkably racist commentary in the Japanese fandom when the slightly tanned Hiryuu Kai 2 dropped, with a vocal minority of Japanese players calling her a "Filipina/Indonesian Whore" just because she had a light tan. Where these people were when the actually dark-skinned Musashi happened is anyone's guess.
  • Murakumo's Kai 2 didn't even come out for a day before receiving a torrent of derision from Western fans. It was received quite a bit more positively among Japanese fans, as the amount of fanart of her new design shows. It also eventually died down in the west.
  • U-511's change to Ro-500 has very mixed reactions from both sides of the sea as the former's design was unique compared to the latter's (which is similar to most subs in the game but with a tan). The fact that this second remodel hardly boosted her stats at all is insult to injury despite coming with one of the strongest torpedo weapons in the game. Gag comics have been made about Hitler finding out and being unhappy, as well as a Hitler Rants video.
  • Kawakaze's Kai-2 art also got a bit of flak from fans as the smug smile and midriff she had in her base and Kai forms were removed for a supposed ninja-like appearance.
• Unexpected Character: While the US Navy was speculated to be coming someday ever since the first introduction of foreign navies, most people thought that the developers would stick to the other Axis powers, filling up their navies for the most part, before using the Allies' navies. And even then, Libeccio mentioning Warspite in her lines led to some thinking that this was a Foreshadowing for Warspite to be introduced as the first shipgirl of Allied origin. Thus, the appearance of a shipgirl from the US Navy ahead of the Royal Navy comes as a shock, that being Iowa. This combined with said shipgirl's fame led to a pandemonium among the fanbase. Also, not that many people expect Kadokawa to introduce two new nations within the same year of 2016 when the news was announced during the Third Naval Review.
  • Despite the surprise introduction of the US Navy and the Royal Navy into the game in 2016, nobody expected yet another nation - France - to appear in the roster for the year, and certainly not introduced with a relatively obscure vessel, or that the initial reveal would be with a wine collaboration instead of in-game.
  • Normally, Libeccio would be on the lower end of potential picks for Italian destroyers, being the very first of her class to sink and her service can be summarized as "Torpedoed by a British submarine while trying to rescue survivors".
  • Downplayed for Gangut. "Yes" because the Soviets aren't well known for their naval activities in WWII (the Imperial Russian Navy was, however) to the point of being a joke among naval fans. "No" because the game already had a Russian ship, albeit a convert from the Japanese (specifically Hibiki) and Gangut herself was at least among the more popular Russian warships.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Some fans can't help but view the Abyssal Fleet sympathetically; after all, in-game they exist only to be sunk by the players' fleets. Of particular note is that the Abyssals that got the most attention from fans were the Wo-class aircraft carriers, of all things. Said vessels were also the frequent subjects of various Heel–Face Turn situations in fan depictions (the reverse is also true especially when you let your ship girls sink, at least according to popular fan assumptions anyway), not to mention being the numero uno fan favorite for couples either involving the Admirals themselves or other ship girls. It's got to the point even the official anthologies feature sympathetic Wo-class.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Fubuki is essentially made to be this, which probably explains why she's so low on everyone's radar. Likewise (at least in the 4koma) Ise (sometimes with Hyuuga accompanying) is made into the main mentor figure as, like Fubuki, she doesn't stand out compared to most other battleships. Many chapters involving introductions of a new ship girl (or a whole ship class) involve the two together, sometimes along with Fubuki's sisters as well.

Tropes Present for the Anime

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Both the Admiral and Nagato are subject to this after episode 3. Are they commanders forced to make tough decisions that might result in having to sacrifice some of the girls? Or are they completely incompetent commanders that get their girls sunk for no real reason? Take note that, historically, Destroyers were the most numerous ship type fielded by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and were constantly in harms way...
  • Episode Seven notes that the Abyssal Fleet may be tapping into radio communication, which may explain some of the unforeseen surprise attacks.
  • The accusations of incompetence mostly come from players viewing details in the anime through the lens of the game's mechanics. For example, the so-called shortage of instant-repair buckets mentioned in the series is something that no self-respecting player would allow to happen (especially during build-ups to seasonal events). In the real world, though, things aren't so simple, and historically the Imperial Japanese Navy's supply lines were stretched thin, especially after the Allies started interdicting their merchant shipping. Another example comes in the infamous "sink at full health" complaint.
  • Kongou, particularly when we get glimpses of a much more mature and sensitive side of her. Is she really that ditzy yet competent? Or is the goofball all a facade? Or is she loopy because of being a Shell-Shocked Veteran?
• Americans Hate Tingle: English-speaking watchers (or those who bother to post on it) have a rather dim view on the adaptation (see both the Himeuta.net and World of Warships threads on it), to say the least. That didn't stop Crunchyroll and Funimation from releasing the anime on home video, though.
• Ass Pull:
  • Episode 11 has one. Abyssal dive bombers still manage to find the carriers, even though the ship, Arashi that unwittingly led the USN dive bombers back to the carriers in reality isn't present, nor was there anything they could've followed back. (In-universe, Akagi had all of the Kagerou-class DDs removed from escort duties and replaced with her selections, while out-of-universe, Arashi would be months away from implementation at the time of the final episodes of the anime).
  • Episode 12 is also highly guilty of this.
    • First, Zuikaku and Shoukaku, who in Real Life could not participate in Operation MI due to previous battle damage, suddenly appear as reinforcements by explaining that instant repair buckets suddenly appeared for them to use.
    • Second, Taihou's introduction is sudden and appears out of nowhere, and she only shows up to provide some extra air support without further development.
    • Third, the Admiral suddenly returns to the Naval District, with absolutely no word on how exactly he got back or what he was doing the entire time he was absent.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Miiro" by Akino from bless4. Double points for sounding remarkably similar to the first theme song of Arpeggio of Blue Steel - Ars Nova. If the English translation of the song is to be believed at the link, it has quite a tear-jerking theme. Even if you somehow disregard the vocals, the off-vocal version still has epic riffs. It's also used as the music for the boss nodes in the winter 2015 event in the game.
  • Fubuki, the ED.
  • The soundtrack is noted for its full use of slow and powerful orchestral pieces at the most crucial moments, while also incorporating a mix of lighthearted themes.
• Broken Base: Boy, is it ever. Vocal Minority is well and truly in effect, especially for English-speaking critics.
  • Kisaragi's sinking in episode 3 split the fanbase into several factions. Some fans don't like the direction the series is going, while others are looking forward to it. Others feel the event in question was incredibly contrived and done merely to stir up drama.
  • The fact that the bulk of the episode 3 was a Cliché Storm of generic anime death flags and it all happened nearly identically to Mami's death in episode 3 of Madoka Magica left quite a few people rather annoyed.
  • Episode 4. Showing Mutsuki in denial, and the morale of all the Destroyers at an all-time low? Expected. Dropping the wacky antics of the Kongou sisters into the middle of all this gloominess? Not so much.
  • An example from before the anime begin airing: The fandom is divided on whether they want to see the Admiral's character appear in the anime, or not. Despite an excerpt of an interview mentioning the Admiral's existence won't be shown on-screen, some fans who wanted to see his character have blasted the series for it after it began airing. Unfortunately, events late in the show wind up not helping the matters, as the events make the Admiral, an offscreen character, suddenly important by having the Abyss seemingly kidnap him and by having some intrigue as to why he elected Fubuki of all people to be a Flagship. Some of the discontent the fans felt regarding this was also caused by the fact that in the metagame, the Admiral is an entity similar to the Producer character in The Idolmaster series. Within the same season the anime is airing, THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls also aired, and it featured a Producer character who exploded into popularity just within hours after its first episode aired and topped the popularity poll multiple times. As a result, some fans also wished that the anime did the same.
  Q: What's the current take on the released key visuals for the anime (referring to Kaga, Fubuki and Akagi)?
  A: The basic story is on the main character, Fubuki's growth, her yearning to be like Akagi, and Kaga as Akagi's partner. Other appearing characters are still secret for now. The admiral exists but he will not be shown on-screen.^note Article in Japanese.
  • Fubuki herself is a point of contention among watchers, due to her somewhat bland nature compared to her co-members of the fleet. This, despite the fact that in staff interviews prior to the airing of the anime repeatedly mentioning that the anime was a vehicle to increase her appeal. Granted, this perception was not helped in the eyes of some players by the fact that Tanaka, the lead producer for the game, is a big fan of hers.
    • In addition, the fact that the anime shows the Admiral dreaming of marrying Fubuki has further polarized Fubuki fans from non-Fubuki fans.
    • Further polarization occurred and accusations of "Special Snowflake" were leveled at Fubuki from those who have seen the movie. To set the stage, the anime and the movie subscribes to the Ship Girl-Abyssal cycle, which means that a ship could exist as either a Ship Girl or an Abyssal at any point of time, and sinking them in one form causes them to come back as the other, and vice versa, with all the implications of a Forever War that this carries. So what do these accusations of "Special Snowflake" to do with Fubuki in the movie? Her existence is an impossibility: She's the only ship to exist as both a Ship Girl AND an Abyssal (Lycoris Fubuki) simultaneously.
  • People are split over whether or not the show should follow its historical routes or stick with Slice of Life. It doesn't help that the anime teeters on both, occasionally dipping into one extreme one episode and diving into another extreme almost immediately.
  • The announcement of a second season has one set of fans happy that the series will be continued, while another set are angry because they feel Diomedea dropped the ball on the series and they would rather have the series stay dead or see a different studio take the reins.
  • The Reveal in the final episode that implied Kisaragi was turned into an Abyssal had her fans up in arms.
    • Somewhat confirmed in the movie: while she DID became an Abyssal, she still retains her humanity, as seen when she shows up to help Mutsuki and Yamato in holding off a horde of Abyssals so Fubuki can escape. Kaga also mentioned about the Ship Girl-Abyssal cycle, and then admitted that she used to be an Abyssal herself.
  • Among fans of the game (and the subsequent anime adaptation) in the Philippines though, the localized dub. Most of them are panning down the dubbing (with the first run of the anime completed as of February 2017, and a rerun is under way), though they have made certain exceptions as to the portrayal of some of the characters; in particular, they have given decent praise for how Fubuki and Nagato were handled in the said dub.
  • The very notion that this anime is getting an English dub in part of the Funimation/Crunchyroll partnership has drawn mixed receptions from fans. Some fans, particularly anime fans who are familiar with Funimation, are more welcoming with this news, noting of Funimation's great dubbing tracking record and have high hopes for the English dub ^note particularly anime titles that are aimed towards a more niche audience that Funimation licensed in the past. such as many Fanservice heavy titles and of course, Love Live! Sunshine!!. Other fans, particularly those who are used with the Japanese voices from both the game and the anime, are more critical to this news. Still others believe that the anime was so bad to begin with that it's better off not being dubbed at all, as that would mean a second exposure to the anime's general mediocrity. From those who are more critical about the anime getting an English dub, some claim the anime itself is incredibly difficult to dub mainly because of 1) the heavy use of Acting for Two and Woman of a Thousand Voices that would be incredibly hard to pull off ^note Noting Ayane Sakura as a prominent example of these tropes, comparing her high-pitched Shimakaze to her contralto take with Nagato, 2) Funimation's track record of awkward and sometimes controversial script writing that caused many of their dubs to be polarizing, especially the Prison School Gamergate reference and most of J. Michael Tatum's script writing, which leads to 3) the concerns about how Funimation will handle many of the characters' various Verbal Tics and personality quirks such as Yuudachi's "poi" ^note which is roughly translated into Valley Girl speech in English, Inazuma's "nanodesu" ^note which holds no meaning in Japanese and it's hard to translate into English, and Hibiki's use of Russian words and phrases ^note which more or less requires the English voice actress to pull off some sort of Russian accent or at least have some understanding of the Russian language, noting that unlike the competitor Sentai Filmworks, Funimation rarely keeps any Verbal Tics and Japanese Honorifics in their dubs barring a few rare exceptions like Love Live! Sunshine!!. Regardless, the announcement of the anime getting an English dub has drawn hopes and concerns for several KanColle fans.
• Critic-Proof: The series is, by all measures, a best-seller, forecast to sell more than twenty-thousand units in total. Among many fans however (especially the older ones), the series was panned particularly badly, especially the final two episodes.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: Making an animated adaptation wasn't going to be an easy task. The game has loads of well-liked characters - making choosing a protagonist or even core group difficult - that nonetheless have many fan interpretations, little-to-nothing in the way of story, lore, or worldbuilding, and a potential Audience-Alienating Premise from dealing with a dark and rather sensitive era of history in a lighthearted manner where the majority of the good guys are the Imperial Japanese Navy.
• He's Just Hiding: A good chunk of people spoke up about Kisaragi's sinking, saying that she'll either come back or that she can be savable, the latter often getting pointed out that sinking in the game is essentially Permadeath. It repeats again during Episode 7, as some people are mixed on whether Shouhou sank or not. Half say yes due to the historical accuracy and the other half say no due to, among other reasons, the person not saying her sink line.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Big Damn Heroes intercept on an abyssal's dive bomb for Akagi, courtesy of a Yamato-led main attack force (though to be more accurate, it was Fubuki who fired the intercepting shot). Someone went ahead and superimposed◊ the Freedom Gundam in the scene, just to drive the point home.^ExplanationFreedom's debut involved intercepting a mobile suit attack on the protagonists' Cool Starship. It also helps that the pilot of the Gundam in question is named Kira Yamato.
  • Fubuki's worship of Akagi comes off as this to those who watched the anime first and then read the manga Fubuki Ganbarimasu. In the anime, Fubuki reaches for every chance to prove herself worthy of becoming Akagi's escort. In the aforementioned manga, Akagi's appetite and Kaga's overheating rigging means that Fubuki and most of the other ships are quite wary of the two carriers. At one point Fubuki is looking for a carrier escort and sees them, only to quickly rush past them and plead for Hiryuu and Soryuu to join the mission instead. Later, Fubuki finally asks them to join a mission out of pity.
  • With added Casting Gag: Cherami Leigh's casting as Mutsuki for the English dub, seeing as one of the latter's sister ships is Mikazuki (thus bringing to mind her role as Kudelia Aina Bernstein, and her Ship Tease relationship with male lead Mikazuki Augus).
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In episode 4, the Slasher Smile one of the Ru-class gives a floundering Fubuki is so unnerving, it wouldn't be out of place on the Joker. It all but screams 'I'm going to enjoy killing you'.
  • In episode 11, seeing Operation MI going wrong, with the girls growing increasingly desperate and haggard under the Abyssals' onslaught. Twice.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • The first episode is pretty much twenty-four minutes of fanservice to players of the game.
  • On the other side, there are some fans of the game that feel that the anime is deviating too much from the source material (Heavy emphasis on yuri despite being very subdued in game, simplification of characters like Hibiki and Ooi, implementing references to game mechanics only when its convenient for drama, etc).
• The Scrappy:
  • Most people are quick to blame Nagato, as she was the one in command during the mission that resulted in Kisaragi's sinking. This is later died out in The Movie, however.
  • Ooi and Kitakami's appearances are prone to being considered the low points as they tend to disrupt other scenes.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The opening song, "Miiro" by Akino of Bless4, to "Savior of Song" by Nano and MY FIRST STORY (coincidentally from Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Abyssals in general, especially the humanoid ones. It's established that they are intelligent since they have the capability to intercept radio messages and use the intelligence to plan counterattacks and sacrifice themselves to protect other Abyssals, but otherwise never speak (with the exception of a single line of dialogue) nor show any signs of characterization or self awareness. Their only role is to act as Monsters of the Week.
  • There are questions as to who thought it would be a good idea to introduce Taihou in the very last episode of the first season with only a cursory introduction.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The destruction of the main anchorage and the disappearance of the Admiral in episode 9, in any other show, could have been used to fuel all sorts of drama and even a few deaths. Here? It's immediately brushed aside because Nagato happened to have the ledger where the operations instructions were written. It says a lot when the disappearance of the commander doesn't even merit panic or a drop in morale, eh?
  • In a show about Kaigun ships, there will always exist the possibility to tell epic tragedy as the war turns against them and one by one they die in pointless battles far from home, either magnificently like Yamashiro fighting to the end, embarrassingly like Chokai losing a gun duel to a ship vastly her inferior, bushwhacked like Haguro, or sailing to a meaningless end like Yamato.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Reveal in the movie that both Ship Girls and Abyssals are brought back in the opposing sides when they sink. There's also a possibility that some Ship Girls rescued from the Abyss might turn into Abyssals even if they aren't sunk, which provoked this reaction in many viewers, as it essentially means the Ship Girls and Abyssals are doomed to a combined Forever War and Pendulum War. Both elements have been touched upon by a good amount of fanworks prior, but the anime's continuity pretty much confirms this.
• Uncertain Audience: What is Kantai Collection? Is it a slice of life anime with cute boat girls and a Monster of the Week formula? Is it trying to be Puella Magi Madoka Magica but with boat girls? A show where History Repeats Itself with Screw Destiny sprinkled in? Not even the writers are sure, as the tone bounces from one episode to the other.
• Vanilla Protagonist: The anime is mostly Fubuki's story as she learns to be an effective part of the fleet. But she is alongside many more colorful characters that many viewers wanted more focus on.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The Arming and Launching sequence for the ship girls has probably the best animation in the series.
• Vocal Minority: Despite the show's infamous reputation among the franchise's fanbase, ratings on sites like Anime News Network and Amazon show the series as having a generally positive response.
• Woolseyism: On Running Gag about Kongou is that no one understands her when she starts spicing her lines with English. This joke's natural form obviously doesn't work in English, so when Funimation dubbed the anime, they took the fact that Kongou was, in her own words, born in England and ran with it by spicing her lines with British slang that no one understands.
• You Don't Look Like You: Due to the girls being done in a single style in the anime compared to the myriad different artists responsible for the game's artwork, a large number of the girls who appear in the anime look quite different between the two media, with Fubuki the most notable due to being The Protagonist.