| 1 | [[quoteright:271:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/azur_lane_english_release_logo.png]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:271:Glory belongs to us.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ''Azur Lane'' (碧蓝航线) is a FreeToPlay Chinese mobile ShootEmUp with {{Mon}} elements developed by Manjuu and Yongshi, published by bilibili for both [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iOS]] and Platform/{{Android|Games}}. It officially has Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English (US and Canada) servers and localization -- the latter formally releasing on May 20th, 2019 after a period of open beta starting back in August 16th of 2018. The server was also opened for players in Southeast Asia on August 23rd of '18. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | Set [[AnachronismStew (mostly)]] during an alternative timeline of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the player takes on the role of a Commander (CN/JP:指揮官, ''zhihuiguan/shikikan''), commanding and maintaining a fleet of [[MoeAnthropomorphism shipgirls]]. In the midst of an earlier worldwide conflict, a mysterious enemy named the Sirens emerged from the sea, devastating the divided nations of the world and causing humanity to lose more than 90% of its control over the sea. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Decades later, deciding to unite against this enemy and reclaim the sea, the major nations of the world allied and created Azur Lane, a worldwide military organization. The story starts off with a training drill with the USS Hornet, during which the Commander learns of the bombing of Pearl Harbor; the Ironblood (German) nation and the Sakura Empire (Japan) have formed the Crimson Axis, betraying Azur Lane and using Siren technology to attack the Eagle Union (United States) and its Royal Navy (British) allies, while vowing to deal with the Siren threat in their own way. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | However, where did the Sirens even come from? What are they really after, and why would they aid the members of the Crimson Axis? Why do they seem surprisingly uninterested in the conflict itself? And what, precisely, do the leaders of the Crimson Axis seem to know that the rest of the world doesn't?... |
| 11 | |
| 12 | The game also spawned a few official spinoffs: |
| 13 | * Anime |
| 14 | ** ''[[Anime/AzurLane Azur Lane The Animation]]'' |
| 15 | ** ''Azur Lane: Slow Ahead'', an adaptation of the manga listed below. |
| 16 | * Light Novels |
| 17 | ** ''Starting My Life as a Commander with Laffey'' |
| 18 | ** ''Episode of Belfast'' |
| 19 | ** ''Ayanami, Happily Married'' |
| 20 | * Manga |
| 21 | ** ''[[Manga/AzurLaneSlowAhead Slow Ahead]]'', a {{Yonkoma}} by Hori no Su, featuring Javelin and Z-23 as viewpoint characters |
| 22 | ** ''[[Manga/AzurLaneQueensOrders Queen's Orders]]'' by Tsuchii, featuring Queen Elizabeth and Warspite as viewpoint characters |
| 23 | ** ''[[Manga/AzurLaneComicAnthology Azur Lane Comic Anthology]]'', a non-canon anthology series by various authors |
| 24 | * Video Games |
| 25 | ** ''Azur Lane: Crosswave'', developed by Creator/CompileHeart and Creator/IdeaFactory |
| 26 | |
| 27 | See also ''VideoGame/KanColle'', which has a very similar premise with shipgirls, but entirely different gameplay. |
| 28 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 29 | ---- |
| 30 | !!This game provides examples of: |
| 31 | [[folder:A-C]] |
| 32 | * AceCustom: Some of the carrier-based aircrafts have five star AceCustom variants. |
| 33 | ** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F4U_Corsair F4U Corsair]] from the Fallen Wings event are flown by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VF-61 Fighter Squadron 17 (VF-17) aka the "Jolly Rogers."]] |
| 34 | ** The SBD Dauntless [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wade_McClusky McClusky]] Squadron which were responsible for sinking the carriers Kaga and Akagi. |
| 35 | ** The Fairey Swordfish flown by the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/818_Naval_Air_Squadron 818 Naval Air Squadron]] who's famous for damaging the battleship Bismarck which eventually allowed it to be sunk by the Royal Navy. |
| 36 | * AcceptableBreaksFromReality: |
| 37 | ** Torpedoes deal less damage to lightly-armored ships. In reality, torpedoes, especially the [=WW2=] vintage utilized in ''AL'', are more like mobile mines and are extremely explosive, making them a bit closer to HE shells. And since lightly-armored ships takes extra damage from HE shells, torpedoes should, theoretically speaking, deal extra damage to them. There are instances in real life where lightly-armored ships were just torn in half after taking a hit from torpedoes, and bigger ships, of course, would last longer before they could be sunk or require repairing. This is [[AvertedTrope averted]] in case of Kawakaze, because all enemies, regardless of their armor type, will take equal share of misery (115% damage to all armor type) when getting hit by her torpedo. |
| 38 | *** However, this is not much of a determent to sinking light armor enemy ships with your torpedoes as it's possible to boost up your torpedo damage quite a ways and compared with the how Hit Points many light armored ships have, one shots are very likely despite the disadvantageous modifier. |
| 39 | ** Speaking of torpedoes, you can launch them at almost point-blank range in-game (and in fact, this is the most efficient way of utilizing non-tracking torpedoes). First, this is a case of FriendlyFireproof that is acceptable gameplay-wise, and second, in real life, this was an impractical practice, as most torpedoes were equipped with a delayed fuse that prevented them from detonating prematurely if launched from a close distance. |
| 40 | ** Ships can fight without having to worry about the wear and tear of their weapons and equipment. Fuel is the only thing that matters for each sortie. Also there is the instance of BottomlessMagazines, due to the fact that they can continue fighting even when in "out of ammo" state at a cost of 50% of their offensive stats (Bismarck gets a reduction of said penalty from 50% to 35% if she's carrying U-556's pledge of protection). This is even more pronounced in Operation Siren, as your ships can fight as long as you have adequate repair kits, without paying attention to ammo at all. |
| 41 | ** All guns have fixed a ammunition type. In real life, most (if not all) naval artillery is designed to fire different shell types for different purposes. For example, for ship-to-ship engagements, AP shells would be almost universally. For coastal bombardment, the HE shell would be selected, or AP when engaging reinforced bunkers. The "normal" shell in-game might be a compromise between AP and HE shells that have both types' pros and cons. |
| 42 | ** Some of the AA guns featured in the game are designed, in real life, to engage both surface and aerial targets. In-game however, they will only engage enemy planes whenever they get into their firing range. Some auxiliary guns, however, have an anti-air stat that contributes to the overall anti-air capability. |
| 43 | ** When heavily damaged, ships will look like they are burning, but without actual damage over time. This is also a separate effect from the "burning" debuff which ''does'' cause damage and has its own graphic. |
| 44 | * ActorAllusion: |
| 45 | ** If you play ''VideoGame/GirlsFrontline'', you'll recognize a... certain voice in [[JunkRare San Diego]]... [[note]][[MemeticMutation IDW DA NYA!]][[/note]] It doesn't help that both have a construction timer of 1:10:00 in their respective games. |
| 46 | ** When summoned, King George V says "Are you my commander?" which reminds people of another [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight blonde British king]] voiced by Creator/AyakoKawasumi. |
| 47 | * TheAgeless: Shipgirls are more or less immortal. They cannot get old and will stop aging after reaching a certain point of development (as seen in a trailer featuring younger versions of Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet). One prominent example is how Kaga looks now comparing to her version back when she was still a battleship - it was almost decades between the two time periods and Kaga didn't seem to age even a bit). |
| 48 | * AllegedlyFreeGame: Defied and subverted, where the only thing one definitely needs many Gems (which are also available through quests) for are mostly vanity things like skins, Promise Rings, and dorm expansion. While the Dorm allows for automatic stat and level increases, Commissions are completely free (except for oil costs) and do the same thing too. The aforementioned oil required to start missions, do commissions, and buy food for the Dorm to increase stats and levels is also very abundant. PlayEveryDay is enforced, as many of the lucrative quests are refreshed daily and weekly. Players also don't want to miss any of the events, as they are very helpful to level up lower-leveled ships too as well as the opportunity to acquire very lucrative and enticing rewards, for free. |
| 49 | ** As well, some of the commissions actually have a chance to award the player with gems, though generally only in small amounts, ~10 - when these rare commissions come up, and if they do indeed end up dropping gems. Most players recommend saving the gems earned from these and from some missions to get the dorm expansions, as they have one significant advantage over commissions (free or otherwise): the dorm restores morale over time. Low morale lowers how much XP a ship earns from battle, while high morale boosts it. More slots allow for more ships to recover morale simultaneously. |
| 50 | ** If you do want to take a GottaCatchThemAll approach to recruiting ships, however, spending gems on dock expansions is mandatory. The default maximum falls woefully short of the number of characters that can join your roster, and that's putting aside having enough space to avoid having to incessantly offload duplicates mid-mission. Even still, free gems are generaly enough to cover most port expansion. |
| 51 | * AlternateHistory: While several maps and events are clearly based on specific famous battles and events, some changes have been made for drama purposes. |
| 52 | ** "The Solomon Ranger" is supposed to be a recreation of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, yet the second map has Mutsu as the boss. While she was really there, she historically never attacked or was attacked by enemy ships then and would only be lost to a still-mysterious turret explosion in port a year later. Also, Enterprise is shown as being on a suicidal-anger plateau of the DespairEventHorizon from the loss of Yorktown, Wasp and, it's implied, Hornet; while the ''Wasp'' was indeed struck down at the Eastern Solomons, ''Hornet'' was the carrier that ''relieved'' Lucky E and ''Saratoga'' after the pounding they took in the battle. Hornet wouldn't meet her historical end until the Santa Cruz Islands a few months later. |
| 53 | ** "The Hunt for Graf Spee" has the titular Graf Spee scuttling herself in the middle of the Battle of River Plate, against the Royal Navy forces. In reality, she was scuttled after making it to a neutral port looking for repairs to make her seaworthy, following said clash with British forces. [[note]]Following the Battle of River Plate, Captain Hans Langsdorff ordered the crew to get the ship docked at the nearest neutral port, which ended up being Montevideo in Uraguay. The British managed to deceive the Captain into thinking that reinforcements were on their way and would arrive before repairs of damage sustained during that battle could be completed to make her seaworthy enough to return to Germany, which led to the Captain ordering that the Graf Spee be scuttled to avoid having her and the equipment inside her fall into British hands. Two days after the scuttling, Captain Langsdorff committed suicide, following the fate of the ship under his command.[[/note]] |
| 54 | ** "Crimson Echoes" show us Amagi and Kaga completed as a battlecruiser and a battleship respectively (with Akagi also featured and still fitting-out), and the latter two's eventual conversion to fleet carriers due to the Washington Naval Treaty. In reality, none of them were that close to completion prior to the Washington Naval Treaty. [[note]]Furthermore, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 was what damaged a dry-docked Amagi beyond repair, which is why Kaga was chosen instead to become Akagi's sister ship as a fleet carrier. Kaga's actual sister ship, Tosa, is also reduced to a fleeting MyNameIsInigoMontoya moment where Kaga identifies herself as a member of the class, and only in the English version. Although Tosa came with the rerun, reruns have thus far never changed story content, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation meaning she still doesn't get acknowledged]] InUniverse.[[/note]] |
| 55 | ** "Moonlit Overture", a recreation of the Battle of Savo Island[[note]]One of, if perhaps not, the worst defeat the US Navy suffered during World War II[[/note]] somewhat glosses over some of the details regarding Chicago and Australia's role in the communication breakdown that lead to the outcome of said battle.[[note]]USS Chicago's Captain, Howard Bode, never assumed proper command of the Southern group, following Rear Admiral Crutchely, and the flagship [=HMAS=] Australia, leaving the area for a meeting with Rear Admiral Turner, leaving a the chain of command of the Southern group in disarray. Once Vice Admiral Mikawa's Eight fleet attacked, Captain Bode never asserted his command on the southern group and actually had Chicago flee the area without ever alerting the northern group, which led to the decimation of the northern group of Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes.[[/note]] |
| 56 | ** An alternate version of the Battle of the Denmark Strait plays out in the game's beginning introduction, followed "Scherzo of Iron and Blood". In this version Bismarck was given new powers by the sirens, and with this new found power heavily wounded instead of sinking the HMS Hood in one hit. The Royal Navy proceeded to hunt the Bismarck for betrayal of the Azur Lane alliance instead of the context of preventing merchant raid in the WWII. The hunt of the Bismarck then proceeded with some siren intervention thrown in. [[note]]Cornered, Bismarck at first refused to continue using the power given by the sirens, believing it belittles the dignity of humankind, and was heavily wounded by the Royal Navy's concentrated effort. The siren Tester intervines, turning the hunt into a three way battle. Eventually Bismarck gave in to use the power as the situation grew dire, the siren Tester activates more hidden powers given to Bismarck, and Bismarck's power went berserk. At the last moment Bismarck regained control of the power and swallowed off all nearly siren ships, and the Royal Navy stopped for a moment, deciding to let Bismarck go out of respect for her will power. A battered and broken Bismarck fired one last salvo in the direction of the Royal Navy to signal her will to live or die in a battle by her own power, and the Royal Navy decided to sink her to respect her will.[[/note]] Bismarck still sank in this version, but a roaming U-556 spotted the sinking Bismarck, and rushes to fufil her promise to save her. Whether she suceeded or not was not mentioned in the story. In actual history, U-556 spotted the the Royal Navy ships heading to Hunt the Bismarck, and they were not deploying the usual anti-submarine measures. However U-556 had already spent all ammo on hunting merchant ships and was low on fuel, thus she could only relay messages back to the command while witnessing the hunt and sink of Bismarck despite being the closest German vessel on the scene.[[note]]In the game, U-556 also didn't have any ammo to intervene in the situation, for she was busy hunting merchant ships, a situation that was elegantly demonstrated by a 7-day minigame starting earlier than the event which U-556 hunts merchant vessels while navigating minefields and enemy destroyers with a limited number of torpedos. Many players see the reference and the foreshadowing. On JP server, the skill granted by the item "Proof of Promise" is renamed post-event to 'hatasa reta yakusoku', or "A Promise Fulfilled," suggesting that U-556 was able to keep her promise and save Bismarck.[[/note]] |
| 57 | ** The first half of "Iris of Light and Dark" is a retelling of ''Operation Catapult'' and the Attack on Mers-el-Kebir, in the French Algeria[[note]]Churchill ordered ''Operation Catapult'' as a way to prevent the ships of the French Navy, the 2nd most powerful navy in Europe to fall under command of the German forces, following the Franco-German armistice, which would increase their naval power greatly.[[/note]]. One of the differences, is that Dunkerque and the others act as if Vichy France is already in full effect, but ''Operation Catapult'' happened a week before the formal formation of Vichy France, in July 10, 1940. Furthermore, Richelieu is shown as joining the brits, but in real life, she was attacked by Hermes at Dakar following the attack of Mers-el-Kebir. |
| 58 | ** "Ashen Simulacrum" establishes in A2/B2 that NYC harbour is the most heavily-fortified location of the Eagle Union. The now-defunct real world [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_New_York Naval Station New York]] was far from any exemplar of American naval might.[[note]]This is possibly thanks to the writers confusing or conflating it with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Port_of_Embarkation New York Port of Embarkation]], which ''was'' the single biggest military port system in America during [=WW2=] - it was just one mostly utilized by the Army.[[/note]] |
| 59 | ** "Rondo at Rainbow's End" makes it clear that most shipgirls do ''not'' in fact know their historical fates - the High Seas Fleet was unaware of their historical scuttling, Zuikaku of meeting her end at the hands of the Eagle Union, and numerous others including Saratoga of their fate as nuclear test subjects in Operation Crossroads. However, Akagi and Kaga ''are'' aware of their demise at Midway. |
| 60 | * AlternateSelf: |
| 61 | ** The shipgirls that the Commander personally orders to sortie do not seem to be the same shipgirls as seen in historical events (which can be experienced in flashback events or the main story). This is why your shipgirls will occasionally comment on their ultimate fate, unlike in-story characters. There are events like "Ashen Simulacrum", though, where the ships ''are'' explicitly your group. |
| 62 | *** This can lead to some hilariously peculiar moments, depending on how your drops or gacha rolls go. For example, the final boss of Chapter 3 (a chapter set in Midway) is Hiryuu, and the previous mission (3-3) features Hiryuu ''as a drop''. It is entirely possible to obtain Hiryuu as a drop, put her in a fleet, and then have her sink "herself". |
| 63 | ** Also used with the "Ashes" or "META" ships, alternate versions of shipgirls that come from timelines where the Sirens take over and wipe the world clean of nearly everyone. |
| 64 | * AmbiguousSituation: Due to the events scrambling around, there isn't really any way to pinpoint which girls are alive when - for instance, ships such as Helena, Hornet, and Juneau have been shown alive and well, despite being sunk canonically. |
| 65 | * AmbiguouslyBrown: Hazelwood, Minneapolis, the Tennessee class and others. |
| 66 | * AmericanEagle: A few of the Eagle Union aircraft carriers, particularly Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, and a number of the Essex class (including Essex herself) have bald eagles as pets, and these are often featured alongside their owners in official art, merchandise, and related material. And of course, more broadly, the faction representing the USA is the ''Eagle'' Union. |
| 67 | * AnachronicOrder: The events can be problematic this way: they're side stories or additional backstory to the conflict we see and some of the individual ships involved, but unlike, say, ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' (where the event stories usually take place between the story chapters which bracket their release), precisely when they take place in the war jumps around in the chronology and the game expects you to broadly know your history in order to keep up. |
| 68 | * AnachronismStew: |
| 69 | ** For starters, everybody speaks Chinese or Japanese regardless of side (and presumably would speak English if full English voice for the game was considered feasible), flat screen television exists, the Coca-Cola CaptainErsatz use the modern bottle design, apparently video games exist (as shown in Long Island's sidequest), as do idol singers (as shown in Unicorn's sidequest), social media, light novels, manga, and modern romance novels as seen in Visitors From Another Dimension (the ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptunia'' event), and online shopping and thus the internet (Atago's sidequest), but all the characters are based on WWII warships and have appropriate armament for WWII warships and seem to have no prior knowledge of the events of WWII. |
| 70 | ** However, some lines and biographies have the ships reference things that happen later in the war, such as battles they take part in long after the start of the game, or even after the war, including mentioning their eventual fates [[note]]Nagara refers to both Akagi's sinking and her being sunk by a submarine in her biography, Jamaica references her service in the Korean War, Nevada references her use as a target ship during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads Operation Crossroads]], Z35 mentions being [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard sunk by her own mine]](which happens to be the one she's sitting on), etc.[[/note]]. This is an exclusive trait to your playable ships, as the story ones appear unaware of such things. As such, much of the anachronisms are actually explained: the majority are only seen alongside the playable ships, who seem to be living in an era post-WWII, which is explains why they have modern technology and concepts, while little to none of the anachronistic elements show up alongside the story versions. |
| 71 | * AnimalMotifs: Most of the IJN girls have animal features such as ears and tail or wings (with the broadest association being kitsune), while other IJN girls have Oni horns. A few ships from other nations, such as the Sims or Benson classes, also get in on the action. |
| 72 | * AntiFrustrationFeatures: See [[AntiFrustrationFeatures/AzurLane dedicated page]] for this tropes. |
| 73 | * AnyoneCanDie: The story and events related to them won't be afraid to kill off certain characters. Justified since a part of it is loosely based on World War 2. |
| 74 | * ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: |
| 75 | ** For each fleet, you can only take up to 3 capital ships for your main force and up to 3 screen ships for your vanguard. |
| 76 | ** You can only take a certain number of these up-to-six-ship fleets into each map. It starts at one in the first chapter and increases from there. |
| 77 | * ArbitraryWeaponRange: Battleships' and battlecruisers' main guns cannot fire at targets too near to them, though you'll only see this happen in PVP. This is where their secondaries start firing. |
| 78 | * ArtificialStupidity: |
| 79 | ** The AI controlling auto-battle is frankly not the sharpest tool in the shed. It often blatantly runs your vanguard into projectiles even when there's plenty of room to dodge and uses abilities as soon as the cooldown is over without regard to positioning and timing. At least the game is kind enough to warn you of this when you choose the option, and it's ultimately how Exercises are fought anyway and a huge convenience for LevelGrinding as your ships become basically invincible if they're 15 levels or more higher than the enemy. |
| 80 | ** Transport ships in "Maritime Escort", like almost every other subject of EscortMission, will take the shortest possible route to the destination without caring one bit about enemy ships and mines in the way. |
| 81 | * ArtisticLicenseMilitary: The ranks in [[PlayerVersusPlayer Exercise Mode]] are a weird mix and match between between proper naval ranks (Ensign, Commander, X Admiral) and army ranks (Private, Sergeant, Major) thrown in together. This has been fixed in later patches. |
| 82 | * ArtisticLicenseShips |
| 83 | ** You can, and will, equip armaments from different nations for any ship, leading to setups like Enterprise armed with Zeroes, for example. However, certain ships have skills that only work with specific equipment (Bataan, Graf Zeppelin, Jean Bart, and King George V all have such skills), typically guns or aircraft unique to their nation. |
| 84 | ** Like in ''VideoGame/KanColle'', a fleet with carriers in the backline should realistically never get in range of enemy shells unless something has GoneHorriblyWrong. It wouldn't be much [[RuleOfFun fun]] however if all the vanguard had to do is AntiAir duties. Nevertheless, an update in Dec-28-2020 added a new feature called "Carrier detection" to mimick this real-life situation, in which carriers can only be targeted directly by enemy ships if their detection meter is filled. Of course, stray shells, torpedoes, suicide boats or enemy ships that get past through your vanguard will still damage them like usual. |
| 85 | ** Just like ''Samuel B. Roberts'' in both ''VideoGame/WarshipGirls'' and ''VideoGame/KanColle'', ''Eldridge'' (a Cannon-class destroyer escort) is mis-classified as a destroyer, but her stats like her speed reflect the difference. |
| 86 | ** All light cruisers have "Light" armor class, even though a good portion of the USN's post-[=WNT=] CLs have thicker belt armor than heavy cruisers, most of which have "Medium" armor class. For example, the ''Aoba'' and ''Furutaka''-class are listed as "Medium" despite having thinner belt armor than pretty much every USN CL starting from the ''Brooklyn''-class. |
| 87 | ** Nevada states that she carried two nukes in her biography. The real USS ''Nevada'' didn't even carry one nuke. In actuality, the USS ''Nevada'' was ''hit'' with two nukes, being one of the old ships used as targets in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads Operation Crossroads]](the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests), and was meant to be the bullseye for the first test, having been painted red to help the bombardier target it (he missed). Impressively, while heavily damaged by the second test, it remained afloat, and even being used as a target for gunnery practice failed to sink it, eventually requiring the use of an aerial torpedo to finally put her down. Of course, this is most likely on purpose, as ''this'' Nevada is a living, breathing person, and it would be rather hard to explain why the Eagle Union decided to use her for nuclear target practice. |
| 88 | ** A number of ships appear to have been mixed up with ships with the same name (assuming there isn't some intentional case of CompositeCharacter): |
| 89 | *** Comet is based off of the [=1930s=] ''C''-Class destroyer HMS ''Comet'', pennant number [=H00=]. However, she mentions serving in the Far East Fleet and being fitted for mine laying, which [=H00=] never did. HMS ''Comet'', pennant number [=R26=], is the one that served in the Far East Fleet and got fitted for mine laying, and was a destroyer that belonged to the [=1943=] ''C''-Class, a different class than the 1930 ''C''-Class. |
| 90 | *** Ark Royal says she is the Royal Navy's first purpose built aircraft carrier and served as the prototype for the ones that followed, but she's based on the carrier that fought the Bismarck, HMS ''Ark Royal'', Pennant Number 91 (built and launched in the [=1930s=]), which is a different ship from the HMS ''Ark Royal'' that was the Royal Navy's first purpose built carrier (which was built in 1914). As well, the 1914 ''Ark Royal'' was the Royal Navy's first purpose-built ''seaplane'' carrier, meaning it carried planes that took off and landed on water, deploying and recovering them using cranes. While it was built to be able to launch some wheeled aircraft and did carry some originally, it did not have a proper flight deck and could not recover them, meaning they had to return to an airbase to land. Despite this, they never actually launched any of their wheeled aircraft, and soon replaced them with additional seaplanes. To make this more bizarre, the Royal Navy's actual first purpose-built aircraft carrier ''is'' in the game: HMS Hermes, which was also the world's first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier (though the Japanese Houshou launched and commissioned before her due to construction delays), and they do make several references to her being the first (she's makes mention of it in several lines, she's in the Aviation Vanguard collection alongside the other firsts). |
| 91 | ** That said, despite these goofs, they're also good at introducing [[ShownTheirWork historical footnotes]] that most people would not know. |
| 92 | ** Some equipment in-game also takes some differences from their real life performance. An example would be [=SB2C=] Helldiver dive bomber. Its optimum combat capability is 1,000 lbs of bomb load, yet it carries a 2,000 lbs bomb and two 500 lbs bombs, which is its maximum theoretical payload (which accounts both its internal bay and underwing hardpoint capacity at full load. It's possible to fly it in that condition, but it would greatly decrease its combat range in real life). |
| 93 | *** JustPlaneWrong: While this has been largely averted thanks to the [[ShownTheirWork accuracy of the carrier-based aircraft]] in the game, some of the planes included are not listed in their historical (or in the case of "prototypes", intended) role in addition to their operational condition and ordnance. Glaring examples are the two planes included in season 4 research ships, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_J5N Nakajima J5N "Tenrai"]], whose intended role was a fighter-interceptor rather than [=AP=]-bomb-carrying dive bombers in the game (not helping with the fact that historical Tenrai was only designed to carry a single 500 lb bomb compared to the Helldiver mentioned above at the ''same weight class''), and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109#Specifications_(Bf_109G-6) the ''BR-21'' rocket launcher modification of the Messerschmitt Bf-109G]], which were primarily ''land-based'' fighters of the Luftwaffe. Granted, their inclusion in the game is part of the collaboration with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'', as such they pretty much can be treated as Wargaming's invention. |
| 94 | ** Something like a DubNameChange: In CN and JP clients Kaga identifies herself as a ''Kaga''-class battleship in "Crimson Echoes" B3/D3 preboss cutscene, as per Japanese sources. In EN, however, she calls herself a ''Tosa''-class battleship, as per English sources. |
| 95 | ** Anshan and Chang Chun received retrofits in time for Chinese New Year of 2022 reflecting their steel hull counterparts' Cold War-era missile destroyer modernizations. In-game, however, they are listed as ''guided''-missile destroyers with the requisite DDG hull code, even though, as per UsefulNotes/TypesOfNavalShips, their lack of any sort of surface-to-air missile, much less one with a max range of ten or more nautical miles, should actually disqualify them from having a G on their hull code. |
| 96 | ** The ''Capitani Romani''-class scout cruiser ''Pompeo Magno'' is incorrectly depicted as a [[https://twitter.com/AzurLane_EN/status/1504880311464833035 destroyer]]. While two of the 4 ships of this class (''Pompeo Magno'' and ''Giulio Germanico'') would be refitted after [=WWII=] and redesignated as destroyers (Germanico was in fact completed in DD form, never entering service in her original form, due to the Italians completing her post-war after the ship had been scuttled by the Germans during the war while still under construction), the redesignation has a seperate name (''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Giorgio-class_destroyer San Giorgio]]''-class destroyer), with Pompeo herself being rechristened as the nameship of this new class. The decision to incorrectly depict her original scout cruiser guise as a destroyer may have been inspired by the appearance of two ships of this class, the incomplete ''Paulo Emilio'' (Premium) and the complete ''Attilio Regolo''[[note]]Ceded to the French Navy after [=WWII=] as part of war reperations, rechristened as ''Châteaurenault''[[/note]] (Tech Tree), as Tier 10 destroyers in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships''. |
| 97 | * AscendedGlitch: [[invoked]] [[GoodBadBugs A glitch]] appeared after the November 12 update that allows you to zoom in or out your secretary, which means you can zoom in to see her... assets more clearly. Since fan loved it so much, Yostar decided to let it be, and promised to [[https://www.facebook.com/AzurLaneEN/posts/1017419911955801 implement this feature in the future]]. Well, fans love it so much that [[https://trello.com/c/PoSoNBEk/1217-bug-that-let-you-make-secretary-ships-big-or-small the Trello entry that reports said bug]] has been downvoted... A LOT. This new "feature" got implemented a week later. This feature is not available on CN client (perhaps due to censoring policy). |
| 98 | * AscendedMeme: |
| 99 | ** There is the special dance stage furniture item released in other areas for reaching one million downloads, which is heavily about San Diego (from her face on the screen, and the legion of San Diego backup dancers that appear when you put a shipgirl on it, to her own image song playing when it happens). |
| 100 | ** Her sheer amount of MemeticMutation led to the devs giving Sandy a remodel, making her the first ever playable ship above SR/SSR rarity - Ultra Rare. |
| 101 | ** To a lesser degree, West Virginia, where even the character designer jumped on the "Take Me Home, Country Roads" meme bandwagon. |
| 102 | ** The fanbase's perception of Akashi being greedy is becoming more and more prominent. During the ''Neptunia'' collab, she stated that she will take her share of profit made by the Neptunia girls. |
| 103 | --->'''Akashi:''' I will get my share of the profits you earned from this event down to the last cent. Capiche? |
| 104 | ** [[https://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=2656064 This loading screen]] canonizes the [[Franchise/YuGiOh Egyptian Gods]] trio of Helena, Wichita, and Cleveland. |
| 105 | ** The [[BlindIdiotTranslation original poor translation]] of Hornet's name as "Big Wasp Yo" led to first community jokes and now InUniverse acknowledgement (as the modern, improved translation leads to Hornet warning you to ''not'' call her Big Wasp, a "feature" that isn't present in the other translations). |
| 106 | ** A lot of jokes circulated in the fandom about how the T4 gear boxes Shiranui sells on discount are really just T3 gear boxes she painted gold. The May 23 2019 update actually added a loading screen image of her repainting T3 gear boxes, confirming players' suspicions about her practices. |
| 107 | ** Some fans like to portray Enterprise as a kind of military police who comes knocking when Ark Royal gets too pervy with destroyers. The English version canonizes this in "A Prayer for Peace" when Georgia threatens to call Enterprise on Ark after the latter's in bliss from the presence of so many destroyers at the party. Later, one Spring Festival Juustagram shows a rather excited-looking Ark taking a photo of a scared-looking Little Bel featuring an angry Enterprise standing behind Ark with a pair of handcuffs, with Enty captioning the picture "We caught her red-handed". Ironically, it's revealed that Ark was actually innocent, as she isn't interested in anything other than destroyers and the Commander[[note]]The Royal Maids had actually asked her to take some pictures of them, Little Bel was simply nervous, and Ark's expression was from accidentally accessing a picture of a destroyer on her camera[[/note]]. |
| 108 | ** "Apologems" is a very common fan catchphrase in any gacha game community, referring to the premium currency given to compensate players every time an unexpected issue or maintenance happens. In a Juustagram, the player can choose "#Apologems" as a comment to the post where Akashi hoards a lot of red training books (the most desired kind) in a secret room. |
| 109 | * BalanceBuff: Originally battleships were the preferred boss-killers over aircraft carriers due to aircraft damage being greatly reduced by the high anti-air stats of late game enemies. Then the December 2020 update introduced a carrier detection mechanic that reduces enemy resistance to aircraft damage by 10% as long as the carrier remains undetected, which in practice results in a massive damage boost in the late game. As an added bonus undetected carriers also cannot be targeted by enemy battleships. The new preferred boss-killers are carriers that can field multiple slots of Ryuusei torpedo bombers in conjunction with skills that slow or stop enemy movement. |
| 110 | * BigBreastPride: A RunningGag with the more ''blessed'' InnocentFanserviceGirl and ShamelessFanserviceGirl characters like Atago, Bremerton and Prinz Eugen is to offer the Commander to bury himself in their breasts for comfort or making passes at the flatter ship girls. St. Louis in the comic anthology also spends Chapter 2 of Volume 3 convincing [[ReluctantFanserviceGirl Honolulu]] to adopt this mentality. |
| 111 | * BlackBox: Wisdom Cubes. They're [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum inherited from Siren technology]] and allow your ships to manifest as human girls in the first place. The purpose of the Lab and its Technology tab is to research its properties and try and decipher how they function. Akashi and Yuubari tried to study it multiple times, without much success (other than the incident where they accidentally cloned Belfast (as Little Bel) when trying to study the cubes with captured Siren laser, and later 6 more girls (Akagi, Hiei, Graf Zeppelin, Cleveland, San Diego, Helena) before Akagi tells her to cut it off). |
| 112 | * BlandNameProduct: |
| 113 | ** Gamaha, Kuwai as a stand-in for the real world city of Yamaha, Kuwait. This was before the promotional partnership with Yamaha which features the [[ProductPlacement real brand of motorcycles]], but this continues for the loading screens. It also applies to Jamaica's motorcycle and South Dakota's piano. |
| 114 | ** Some loading screens have Steinway & Sons piano with the logo blurred out and disfigured. |
| 115 | ** "Crescendo of Polaris" also has stand-ins for social networking sites: Juustagram for Instagram, and Portxiv for Website/{{Pixiv}}. |
| 116 | ** The [=McLaren=] P1 in St. Louis' "Luxurious Wheels" anniversary outfit has the [=McLaren=] logos on its wheels' centre caps altered. |
| 117 | * BlindIdiotTranslation: |
| 118 | ** The quality of the English translation early on is...poor, to say at least. Like translating Hornet's name to "Big Wasp Yo". Even after the game goes into open beta/release, the quality of translation, while serviceable, can be pretty inconsistent, including some completely unnecessary translation like translating Indianapolis' "All or Nothing" skill into "Vice Defense", even though "All or Nothing" is ''already'' in English in the Japanese version (which the English version is based on). |
| 119 | ** Another example is Enterprise's eagle being named "God of Death" in the English version, a valid translation from "Shinigami", but it's clearly meant to be a reference to her VF wing, the "Grim Reapers", which is also a valid translation. |
| 120 | *** The translation team seems to have realized this mistake. A [[GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals stuffed doll in her eagle's likeness]] that was given out as a login reward in March 2021 is named "Grimmy" in the English client. |
| 121 | ** Instead of the Free French faction being called "Iris Libre" like in the other versions, the English version initially called the faction "Iris the Liberty". According to the translation team, this was an order from [[ExecutiveMeddling the higher-ups]], and they weren't allowed to change it back. Recently, they seem to have gone back on this, with most of the references to the faction now being "Iris Libre". |
| 122 | * BoringButPractical: |
| 123 | ** It's possible to beat even the level 70 version of the Escort Cargo challenge by simply heading straight to one corner when it starts and then moving only as little as necessary to dodge the incoming torpedoes. It doesn't look as cool as staying in the centre and trying to dance through the patterns, but is much safer. |
| 124 | ** In general, lower rarity ships, especially if they have a retrofit. They tend not to have as impressive of stats as their higher-rarity counterparts and with very few exceptions, have simpler and less-flashy skills, but they cost less oil to field and are easy to limit break, retrofit, and in the case of commons, are easily fed duplicates for faster gains in enhancement, and a large portion of a ship's overall power comes from her equipment. As a result, when well-equipped, low-rarity ships can still be very useful. |
| 125 | * BornAsAnAdult: The various ship girls are born[=/=]created looking whatever age they look in game, and only grow if they receive a retrofit. This is established as canon in Little Bel's event, during which Belfast mentions that she was never a child, being born in the form seen in-game. This also seems to be a {{Retcon}} of earlier, pre-release material, however (specifically a brief scene used in a few trailers) in which the Yorktown-class girls were shown as kids. |
| 126 | * BossWarningSiren: A giant "EMERGENCY STATUS" blares up in the middle of the screen, and the music abruptly changes into the boss battle theme. |
| 127 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: |
| 128 | ** In the Lively Afternoon Tea Party mini-event, Inazuma tells Ikazuchi that if she stays too long in her room, her portrait in the Archives will grey out. |
| 129 | ** Inazuma and Ikazuchi can generally see right through it. |
| 130 | ** In the 4th chapter of "Visitors from Another Dimension" event, there's a lot of discussion going on about gameplay mechanics like the mood bar or running out of fuel by grinding stages. Not a surprise considering it's a crossover with the ''Neptunia'' series, where breaking the fourth wall happens very often. |
| 131 | * BroadStrokes: |
| 132 | ** Many of the European-centric events do have something of a basis in real history, while the Pacific ones more tend towards complete works of fiction. Even in the former case, the protagonists and circumstances are often changed, partially due to not every ship involved being a playable character at the time of release, and at the same time to promote the newly released characters. One can infer that the following major in-game events roughly equate to the following real world events: - |
| 133 | *** Crimson Echoes - The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Washington Naval Treaty |
| 134 | *** Winter's Crown Pt 1 - Battle Of The North Cape |
| 135 | *** Winter's Crown Pt 2 - Operation Catechism |
| 136 | *** Empyrean Tragicomedy - Battle of Calabria, Battle of Taranto, and Battle of Cape Matapan. |
| 137 | *** Scherzo Of Iron & Blood - Hunt for the Bismarck |
| 138 | *** Iris Of Light & Dark Pt 1 - Operation Catapult |
| 139 | *** Iris Of Light & Dark Pt 2 - Naval Battle Of Casablanca and the Scuttling of the Vichy Fleet at Toulon. |
| 140 | *** Skybound Oratorio - The Battle of Madagascar (very loosely) |
| 141 | ** Even so, the main playable story does focus on the Pacific and also has a basis in real History, including Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guadalcanal, and so on. |
| 142 | * BrokenPedestal: In "Ink-stained Steel Sakura", when Nagato asks why she can't sortie during the cutscene unlocked when opening the second phase, a mysterious voice asks her how she thinks the people will be affected if they see a seemingly invincible battleship like her hurt. |
| 143 | * BulletHell: Pretty much every boss stage has incredibly dense bullet patterns. At later maps, even regular stages will become this. Unlike other BulletHell games, you are expected to tank hits, especially if your levels are far higher than the stage you are currently playing if you LevelGrinding. |
| 144 | * BulletTime: When battleships fire their main guns, the time will be slowed down a bit. The second and third volley, however, don't benefit from this effect. |
| 145 | * ButThouMust: Many cutscene dialogue options either only give one choice or have "choices" that have largely the same result. |
| 146 | * CastingGag: |
| 147 | ** [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight This isn't the first time]] that Creator/AyakoKawasumi has voiced a blonde female knight [[BigEater with a huge appetite]]. |
| 148 | *** On that matter, this also marks the second time Creator/MiyukiSawashiro voiced [[Literature/FateApocrypha a knight with a complicated relationship]] with Kawasumi's character (a complicated parent-child one in ''Fate'', compared to them being half-sisters here). |
| 149 | ** A tsundere vampire loli voiced by Creator/RieKugimiya... Are we talking about Vampire or [[VideoGame/GranblueFantasy Vania]]? This also isn't the first time she's played a character who can manipulate time and space.[[note]]To be specific, Ann from Eternal City (also known in other regions as Forever 7 Capital), [[VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd Herrscher of the Void]], and to an extent, [=KeA=] from VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZero.[[/note]] |
| 150 | ** [[Creator/YuiIshikawa Enterprise]], [[Manga/AttackOnTitan Mikasa Ackerman]], and Literature/VioletEvergarden are [[BrokenAce Broken Aces]] who rely on and hold onto their loved ones. |
| 151 | *** In the Latin American Spanish dub of the anime, Enterprise is voiced by Marisol Romero, who voiced Gaila in ''Film/StarTrek2009'', a GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe dating Captain Kirk, aka the captain of the USS ''Enterprise'', the spaceship named after the RealLife sea ship. |
| 152 | ** Due to controversy with her initial VA, Kaga was recast to Creator/YukaIguchi, the same voice actress behind her counterpart in ''VideoGame/KanColle''. |
| 153 | * CasualDangerDialogue: During their fight in "The Enigma and the Shark", Bulldog and U-110 argue over whether U-110's hair looks like a shark fin or a garlic bulb, and compare Amazon and Admiral Hipper's ACupAngst, to Amazon's consternation. |
| 154 | * ChekhovsGun: "Swirling Cherry Blossoms" introduces one in the form of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watatsumi Watatsumi]], an artifact that the Sakura Empire can use to evidently bring ships that have no other grounding in reality (e.g. no history) into being. [[spoiler:The gun then has ammo placed next to it on the shelf when, during the event, Prinz Eugen wonders if it might just help the Ironblood with "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z Plan Z]]", and a bit later Akagi is receptive to sharing the artifact with Eugen and the IB for this purpose in exchange for IB technical information and what exactly they ''really'' know about the Sirens... and cut to black.]] |
| 155 | * TheChosenOne: As revealed in [[https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/Khorovod_of_Dawn%27s_Rime Khorovod of Dawn's Rime]], the Commander was chosen from Navy as one who had the strongest affinity to the Wisdom cubes. As cubes are used to create shipgirls, having strong affinity to them is a plus when commanding the girls, as it is supposed to make commanding easier and more effectively, while forming strong bonds when shipgirls are naturally attracted to their Commander. |
| 156 | * CollisionDamage: Bumping your ships against the enemies will cause damage to both sides. Glowworm's main skill increases the CollisionDamage she deals to enemy ships while decreasing the CollisionDamage she takes. |
| 157 | * ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Gameplay-wise, AP shells are light-blue, HE shells are light-red, normal shells are yellow, and SAP (semi AP) shells are purple. |
| 158 | * CombatStilettos: If a kansen isn't wearing high heels in her default CG, there's a good chance that she's wearing them in another skin. Given that they slide along the water's surface ice-skating-style during missions, high heels wouldn't be that much of a hindrance. |
| 159 | * ComedicShotacon: Volume 2, Chapter 3 of the comic anthology reveals that [[ClingyJealousGirl Prinz Eugen]], [[{{Yandere}} Akagi]], Graf and especially [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl Atago]] are this when they fight over a Commander who got himself turned into a young boy because of Akashi's powers, arguing that they alone deserve the right to be his sectary and smother him in their chests. The manga plays their fight and obsession for laughs and the young Commander himself is more concerned about getting them to stop fighting instead of running away from the four perverts. The last gag is Atago forcing Akashi to turn the Commander into a young boy whenever she pleases. |
| 160 | * CommonalityConnection: Deconstructed in Portland's character quest. She tries to get more fans for her Indianapolis lover club by reaching out to other sister-loving kansen, only to find that while they are also sister lovers, they only love their own sisters and have no interest in loving others' sisters. |
| 161 | * CompositeCharacter: There's hints that kansen are partial composites of all ships that shared the [=WW2=] ship's name. [[spoiler:Deutschland's character story concerns the fact that she's a composite of both the name ship of the Deutschland class and the Admiral Hipper class Lutzow, which she was renamed to replace.]] |
| 162 | ** In the "Parallel Superimposition" event, they released ships that were later incarnations of some ships, including USS Northampton, USS Yorktown, USS Hammann and USS Hornet. The cutscenes implied that these ships were the same shipgirls as previously, just with augmented rigging. However, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation the game treats them as different ships.]] (A similar setup was used for the "Muse" idol singer ships). |
| 163 | ** On the other hand, Baltimore gets a line implying that the game's USS Quincy (which is a New Orleans-class cruiser) is a different girl from the Baltimore-class Quincy that fought later in WWII. |
| 164 | * ConservationOfNinjutsu: Due to the opaque way fleet power values are computed, a PVP fleet with only one main and one vanguard unit both at level 120 with maxed equipment and skills can be a tougher nut to crack than a fully-staffed fleet with lower individual levels. |
| 165 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 166 | ** [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AzureLane/comments/h9a9ig/i_cant_be_the_only_one_that_made_this_connection/ One of Surcouf's lines has her tell the Commander about a secret napping place. A line from Jean Bart's later-released Private Après Midi skin has her confusedly wonder how Surcouf found the place she's now in.]] |
| 167 | ** Continuing skins including such nods, Zara in her animated bikini skin offers to teach the Commander how to swim at the pool if her affection is high enough and even before then suggestively asks if he had something else in mind. Her sister Pola would later go onto have an animated bikni skin at the beach, where the Commander ([[TheVoiceless inaudibly]]) tells her that Zara taught him how to swim and used those skills to sneak up behind her. Given Pola's suspicious facial expressions and the fact that Zara is TheTease and ShamelessFanserviceGirl of the duo, practically throwing her chest to the Commander, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything stroking the railing]] and speaking with inneounedos, Pola clearly suspects a TwoPersonPoolParty took place between Zara and the Commander. |
| 168 | * CosmicHorrorReveal: At first the main campaign just looks like a CuteEmUp retelling of the naval front of World War II, but the event stories quickly turn this way. Mankind is but a gnat against the threats it's facing. It was getting soundly beaten by the Sirens prior to their leaking access to Wisdom Cube technology, with the strongest Sirens being in-story fleet or country killers, and even then every victory is for naught because the Sirens can just discard the timeline while keeping what they've learnt. Communications from the Sirens are arrogant and mocking at best, enigmatic and inscrutable at worst. Yet despite all these advantages, Siren perspectives imply there's ''something'' out there even they can't beat, hence all this tomfoolery to both improve themselves and [[INeedYouStronger force mankind to accelerate its technological development]] rather than simply crushing mankind like a bug. |
| 169 | * CrosshairAware: A red line will appear to show where an enemy unit's torpedoes will go. There's also red circles to warn where bombs or shells will drop. |
| 170 | * {{Crossover}}: |
| 171 | ** There's a crossover with the ''VideoGame/{{Neptunia}}'' series with a few event maps, special furniture, and the ability to get the four main characters and their Goddess/HDD forms from a mix of tasks (Neptune, Vert), and construction (everyone else). Interestingly, it seems that the ''Neptunia'' crossover was just the start of their collaboration with Creator/CompileHeart and Creator/IdeaFactory, with both of them being revealed as the developers of ''Crosswave''. |
| 172 | ** There was a mini-event doing a bit of crossing with ''Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS'', where the amphibious Marshydog AT ends up appearing with the girls having no idea what to do with it; it ends up being the prize at the end (a furniture piece that you can stick a shipgirl into to start it up). |
| 173 | ** This game's Priority Research system is a cross-promotional campaign with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'', as the new ships in said system are based on the latter's high-tier "paper ships"[[note]]i.e., ships that were never completed in history or only existed in blueprints[[/note]]. In turn, ''World of Warships'' received fully-voiced captains and unique camouflages for certain ships that are also featured in this game. |
| 174 | ** The CN and JP servers had a crossover with ''{{VideoGame/Utawarerumono}}'', specifically the [[VideoGame/UtawarerumonoMaskOfDeception latter]] [[VideoGame/UtawarerumonoMaskOfTruth games]], featuring several of the female cast as new ships. |
| 175 | ** There's the long-awaited (for both long-time fans of the game and long-time fans of the character) crossover with WebAnimation/KizunaAI where she ends up in the game world and deals with clones running amok. Players got the original/Destroyer one by logging in (and more from a mini-event), and acquired the other variations from the event build. |
| 176 | ** Following the success of the Kizuna Ai event, November 2019 saw the release of the WebAnimation/{{hololive}} "Looking Glass of Fact and Fiction" event, which centers around seven of the [[VirtualCelebrity VTuber]] agency's (at the time) most popular characters. Its story also references a lot of said group's out-of-character livestreaming shenanigans on Website/YouTube. |
| 177 | ** An event in November 2020 was a crossover with ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive Xtreme: Venus Vacation'', centering on seven of the female ''Dead or Alive'' cast participating in a festival alongside the Kansen so that they can return to their world. The April-May 2023 rerun added two more girls that debuted in ''Venus Vacation'' (Luna and Tamaki). |
| 178 | ** An event in June 2021 was a crossover with ''VideoGame/TheIdolmaster'', centering on seven of the 765 Pro girls helping out with an Azur Lane concert testing the Muse System while looking for a way home. [[spoiler:In the girls' world, it's revealed that [[NestedStoryReveal they returned from a photoshoot implied to have the same theme as the collab event]].]] |
| 179 | ** An event in November-December 2021 was a crossover with both ''Anime/SSSSGridman'' and ''Anime/SSSSDynazenon'', centering on seven girls from both series finding themselves in a Mirror Sea. |
| 180 | ** An event in November-December 2022 was a crossover with ''VideoGame/AtelierRyza2LostLegendsAndTheSecretFairy''. Six girls from that game (plus one girl from the then-upcoming ''VideoGame/AtelierRyza3AlchemistOfTheEndAndTheSecretKey'') find themselves on a light-hearted adventure in a Mirror Sea. |
| 181 | * CrossoverCosmology: The Sakura Empire has strong Shinto styling, but their reverence of a solitary Creator rather than a pantheon of ''kamisama'' has more in common with monotheistic faiths. Some of the shrine maiden themed ships you get are more prone to talk about multiple gods, making the implication Creator worship is tied to the Sirens, more so given the main one talking about it is Story mode Akagi. |
| 182 | * CuteEmUp: More or less. Your units are represented as cute girls fighting equally cute girls on the opposing side. |
| 183 | * CuteLittleFangs: Plenty, though some girls will only show their cute fangs in chibi form, such as USS Craven or USS California. |
| 184 | * CutsceneIncompetence: Contrasting the strongest Sirens that are allegedly far more powerful narratively than in gameplay, the friendly fleets in many cutscenes will claim that they are having difficulty with their foes even if the player brings an overleveled fleet with optimised equipment that freely curb stomps. |
| 185 | * CutscenePowerToTheMax: |
| 186 | ** Some of the strongest Sirens are said in story text to be OneManArmy or PersonOfMassDestruction that can do things like destroying whole fleets or threatening to destroy entire countries. While such bosses' EX or SP stage incarnations are the sort of thing Commanders will indeed need optimised, fully-leveled shipgirl compositions with fully-upgraded gear to deal with, it's still a far cry from the sort of thing the story claims they're capable of. |
| 187 | ** The climax battle of Operation Siren Chapter 5 is basically this with rotating Main and Vanguard fleets as you whittle down the Arbiters, including teaming up with a pair of [[GuestStarPartyMember METAs]], whom at that point of the [[GameplayAndStorySegregation story had not joined your fleet yet]]. |
| 188 | ** The final fight against "Compiler" during "Rondo at Rainbow's End" features a similar mechanic as the fight listed above, with fleets constantly rotating as you whittle down "Compiler"'s HP. |
| 189 | [[/folder]] |
| 190 | [[folder:D-H]] |
| 191 | * DamageSpongeBoss: The Tactical Training Daily Raid features bosses with over ''150'' HP bars for a level 60 fight -- in contrast, most flagship fights of this level hover between 30 and 50 HP bars. There's an option to pick one of three modes of attack (Aviation, Shelling, and Torpedo) to boost one source of damage to hopefully kill this boss in [[TimeLimitBoss 90 seconds (60 if you want the full reward]]). |
| 192 | * DamageIsFire: Your own ships including even submarines will look like they are on fire if their HP drops low enough without suffering damage like [[{{VideoGame/Starcraft}} terran buildings]]. This is different from burning, which deals damage over a certain period of time. |
| 193 | * ADayInTheLimelight: |
| 194 | ** The "Pursuit of Graf Spee" event features Ajax commanding a vanguard of Achilles and Exeter to intercept the titular Ironblood ship, and Ajax gets the bulk of the dialogue and character development as a tactician, overshadowing even Graf Spee herself. |
| 195 | ** "Crimson Echoes" revolves around Amagi and a younger Kaga, around the era of the Washington Naval Treaty. |
| 196 | ** "Visitors Dyed in Red" focuses on the 5th Carrier Division, Zuikaku in particular. |
| 197 | ** "Divergent Chessboard" revolves around the Ironblood Faction in general |
| 198 | ** "Strive, Wish and Strategize" features Repulse and Prince of Wales at the Naval Battle of Malaya. |
| 199 | ** "Solomon Ranger" focuses on Saratoga, Enterprise, Atlanta and Portland as they defend Guadalcanal in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons [[note]]Also known as The Battle of the Stewart Islands or Second Battle of the Solomon Sea[[/note]] from the likes of Shoukaku, Zuikaku and Ryuujou. |
| 200 | ** "Winter's Crown" provides revolves mostly around Duke of York, Victorious, Belfast as they hunt Scharnhorst in Battle of North Cape, and Tirpitz in Operation Tungsten. Surprisingly, [[spoiler: it also has a Code G cameo.]] |
| 201 | * DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: A shipgirl running out of HP merely deducts a small amount of morale with no other penalty, contrasting ''VideoGame/KanColle'' where they can be KilledOffForReal. Averted, however, in the story mode where characters both good and evil are suffering plotline death with Hood as the first casualty. |
| 202 | ** [[spoiler:Later events show this to largely be happening in-universe as well, as several characters thought to be sunk have been reappearing. Hood was shown in Operation Siren, and Bismarck was confirmed to be alive in “Rondo at Rainbow’s End”.]] |
| 203 | * DecapitatedArmy: Defeat the boss on her node and you complete the map regardless of how many mooks or planes are left, even if they were one more shot away from destroying your vanguard or flagship [[note]]However this only applies if at least some other mooks have spawned after the boss is still in the field. In some circumstances it's possible to defeat the boss before the other mooks spawned in, resulting in you having to destroy those mooks too in order to complete the stage[[/note]]. Also applies to the player in PVE, though, as you lose as soon as your flagship is defeated even if there are still healthy members of the backline around. That said, it is downplayed with the player, as the fleet will simply retreat from the battle and reform with its surviving members. It will only be removed from the mission map if the entire vanguard or main fleet is sunk. However, as shown in KaizoTrap, if your vanguard gets destroyed by a stray shot during the explosion animation, it counts as a defeat on your part. |
| 204 | * DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler: Mikasa and the 5th Carrier Division defect from the Sakura Empire and the Crimson Axis, joining Azur Lane as the New Sakura Empire, in order to oppose the sirens and the 1st Carrier Division]]. |
| 205 | * DifficultyByRegion: In the Chinese version of the game, ships can be leveled up to 100 without limit breaking, while in the Japanese and English versions, limit breaks are needed to remove the caps at 70, 80, and 90. The Japanese and English versions also require approximately 12% more experience for ships to reach level 100. |
| 206 | * DigitalBikini: Compared to the Japanese and English versions of the game, some shipgirls get more modest outfits for the Chinese and Korean versions. |
| 207 | * DiscOneNuke: Besides shipgirl examples (such as Ranger, who is detailed in her respective [[Characters/AzurLaneEagleUnion character page]]): |
| 208 | ** The [=SB2C=] Helldiver Type 3 (aka Elite rarity) is infamously the strongest Dive Bomber in the entire game for raw power despite its slow rate of fire, even above higher-rarity Dive Bombers, but it can be farmed much earlier in 3-2. |
| 209 | ** The Repair Toolkit Type 3 (Elite rarity) can be farmed in 3-4 (or obtained via any T3/T4 tech boxes) and gives a high chunk of effective hit points, even to the end game to destroyers. Tellingly, it shows up as a droppable item all the way back in 10-3. |
| 210 | ** The humble Fire Extinguisher Type 3 (Rare rarity) can be farmed even earlier in 2-3. While it's ultimately a situational item against fire damage, the fact that a blue rarity item is ''still'' commonly used late game and has decent raw HP bonus regardless of fires speaks for itself. |
| 211 | ** Some event gears can be obtained easily by new players, especially if the gear only requires completing some easy daily missions during the event. |
| 212 | * DramaticIrony: |
| 213 | ** In the Moon Rabbit mini-event, Saratoga tells Lexington that she hasn't been sunk yet. Players with historical knowledge will know Lexington was the earlier of the two to get sunk. |
| 214 | ** In "Crimson Echoes", the Sakura Empire characters talk about how they are inadequately prepared for the age of carrier warfare and need to rectify that. Historically, the IJN never managed to properly shore up their AntiAir weakness and drowned under the superior aviation of their American foes. Even in game, low AntiAir is a common trait among the ships. |
| 215 | * DoubleUnlock: Priority ships require the players to meet certain milestones in ship collection or faction tech in order to begin research, then a large investment in accumulated EXP and consumables to actually construct. Finally, for PR ships to be at full potential rather than doing barely a third of their maximum damage output and missing essential skills, the player needs to collect 343 strengthening blueprints (''513'' for Decisive or "Rainbow" ships) which can take several months. |
| 216 | * DualBoss: Some stages, including the final battle of the Urgent Ops, throw two bosses at you at the same time. |
| 217 | * DubInducedPlotHole: |
| 218 | ** "Skybound Oratorio" suffers from quite a few of these due to the story dialog in some cutscenes being completely re-written in the Japanese version, which was used as the basis for the English version. Details available [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AzureLane/comments/h92zkc/the_english_story_of_skybound_oratorio_is/ here]]. |
| 219 | ** Because the EN server never got the scripted dialogue scenes of Chapter 4 that the CN and JP servers had, [[spoiler:Hornet II and Northampton II's scenes in "Parallel Superimposition" lose some of their impact since the Chapter 4 scenes of Hornet and Northampton's fates weren't showcased]]. |
| 220 | * DubNameChange: |
| 221 | ** In the Chinese version, all [=IJN=] ship girls are given completely fictional names in Chinese, in order to comply with the letter of Chinese content law. Additionally, all the USN ship girls teased near the end of May 2021 have also been given this treatment, but the Chinese names at the very least make reference to the ship's actual name, or whatever they were named after, rather than being completely random for no rhyme nor reason like the IJN ship girls. |
| 222 | *** USS ''New Jersey'' is listed as Garden (花园), referencing her namesake state's moniker of "The Garden State". |
| 223 | *** USS ''Boise'' is listed as City of Trees (树城), the nickname of her namesake city, named so "when settlers summited a hill, looked down into the Treasure Valley and were astounded by the vast river forest." ("Boise" being the French word for "wooded", although the French word is pronounced differently) |
| 224 | *** USS ''Ticonderoga'' is called Carillon (卡莉永), which was the original name of the ship's namesake fort, prior to it being captured by the British from its French defenders during the Seven Years' War, and subsequently renamed to what it is now. |
| 225 | *** USS ''San Francisco'' is called Foggy City (霧城), referencing how foggy San Francisco can get during the later months of Spring. |
| 226 | ** The Japanese version meddles with the designations for the purple ([[https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/w/images/thumb/e/e3/Elite.png/50px-Elite.png Elite]]) and gold-colored ([[https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/w/images/thumb/a/a5/SuperRare.png/50px-SuperRare.png Super Rare]]). It drops Super Rare (shortened to S-Rare) down to the purple rarity to allow the gold rarity to be called SS-Rare. The chinese version would join suit later on. This brings the rarity names in line with most other japanese gacha games, which use the same names. |
| 227 | ** All of the non-IJN Meowfficers have their names (based on actual naval staff) altered in the Japanese version, which also made it into the English version. While some of the names are still tangential to the original (eg. The Bismarck-looking Meowfficer is named after Ernst Lindemann, but in JP/EN, it's instead named after Oskar the cat, with one her skills referencing one of Oskar's other names, Sam or ''Unsinkable Sam''.), others are not (There's an Ironblood meowfficer named ''TOFU''!). |
| 228 | ** One of the ships in the fifth PR wave, Harbin, is called ''Bijiang'' (滨江) on the Chinese server. This refers to one of the towns that was annexed into Harbin city proper. |
| 229 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Due to the English version trying to play keep-up events-wise with the Asian countries' versions, event cutscenes are prone to introducing players to shipgirls that haven't been made available for English version yet. Some girls are also introduced early via chat emotes, most notably Neptune where her [headnod] emote reaches memetic levels. |
| 230 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 231 | ** The 2nd trailer showed younger ''Yorktown'' sisters, but kansen in the game proper are BornAsAnAdult; the later existence of the young versions comes as a surprise. |
| 232 | ** A number of Eagle Union girls show this in places due to it being the first faction to be worked on, thus lacking for a while a coherent theme seen in others. This results in, amongst others, a cat-eared maid destroyer and a heavy cruiser with horns and mechanical arms. |
| 233 | ** Some ships are woefully underrepresented for their history (e.g., Norfolk and Pensacola) in a number of areas, compared to later on where most ships with historical weight got their due. |
| 234 | ** A large chunk of earlier ships and skins had no facial expressions based on their dialogue compared to later ones. However, the game is trying to alleviate it by adding facial expressions from the ''Crosswave'' spinoff to earlier ships based on events - as of this writing, Saratoga, Cleveland, Hornet, Enterprise, and Helena have updated expressions on their original skins. |
| 235 | * EasyLogistics: Oil is the only resource of concern when sending your ships into battles. Ammo and equipment are [[HandWave automatically handled]], unlike ''VideoGame/KanColle''. Also unlike both KC and ''VideoGame/GirlsFrontline'', ships are automatically and instantly repaired post-battle. However, in Operation Siren ship repairs and Action Points must be tracked. |
| 236 | * EmpoweredBadassNormal: Shipgirls normally possess physique comparable to a normal human (though they can eat stuff like oil, and walk on water), but they can summon their riggings more or less at a moment's notice, at which point their physical abilities become superhuman and they can access various abilities and weapons befitting their identities. |
| 237 | * EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: You, the protagonist of the game and the commander of the fleet, are usually simply called the Commander. Some ships will either call you Master (some Royal Navy maids like Belfast, Dido, and Sirius), Milord (Fusou and Yamashiro), Your Excellency (London), and so on. Anchorage calls you Teacher, which everybody else regards as really weird, but her reason is revealed in "Parallel Superimposition": [[spoiler:she has memories of a different timeline]]. |
| 238 | * EvilIsBigger: Enemy shipgirls' sprites are bigger than your own, even when using the same one. Inverted in term of wandering non-siren shipgirls on some event maps. |
| 239 | * EvilKnockoff: In "Ashen Simulacrum", the Sirens deploy copies of Eagle Union shipgirls against the originals. In fact, expect most events that take place in the Mirror Sea to have knockoffs of other ships, regardless of faction. |
| 240 | * ExperienceBooster: A number of ships have skills boosting exp for select ship types, mainly those noted for being the first of a ship class or type. An example would be Langley (Eagle Union CVL) boosting experience for carriers. |
| 241 | * {{Fanservice}}: |
| 242 | ** Some shipgirl designs lean more towards this compared to the other ship games, with some designs that may make the other games' racier ones pale in comparison. Particularly infamous are Albacore's base art and Deutschland's swimsuit skin, which are so suggestive that the game's official Discord won't let them be posted, and South Dakota's base art, which somehow got past all censors despite showing a part of her left areola. |
| 243 | ** ''Slow Ahead'' has a number of incidentally fanservicey poses in an otherwise clean slice-of-life 4koma, with chapters with Suzuya and Prinz Eugen among a few others really taking it up to eleven, or the extra chapters advertising '''''official''' lewd dakimakuras''. |
| 244 | * FanservicePack: A decent chunk of shipgirl retrofits will result in some combination of OvernightAgeUp, increased size in their chest armor, or less clothing. Foxhound's is the best-known example, featuring the former two changes plus the less-common new seductive pose "upgrade". Many skins also result in cup size upgrades even for shipgirls who were far from flat already. |
| 245 | * FixedForwardFacingWeapon: Averted. All guns have the Angle stat which determines how big their arc of fire is. Some smaller guns even have 360[[superscript:o]] of traverse, allowing the ship to fire behind them. |
| 246 | * FlunkyBoss: Almost every boss has mass production ships or another shipgirl with them, and more mass production ships may spawn if you go too long without sinking the boss. |
| 247 | * ForcedLevelGrinding: New ships always start at level 1. In the beginning, this isn't much of an issue, but when you're up to three fleets that are averaging around level 60, you're going to have to grind the heck out of that new ship before it becomes useful. However with the dorm and large commissions, this isn't as painful or long as you'd think, especially the higher your commander level is. |
| 248 | ** Now completely averted with the introduction of EXP Data Packs, which allow you to just arbitrarily give experience points to ships, and the complete redesign of the Lecture Hall ensuring you have a steady supply of them. |
| 249 | * ForegoneConclusion: If you know history, you know how several fights in the main story or in events will play out. |
| 250 | ** The tutorial battle involves Suffolk, Norfolk, Prince of Wales, and Hood against Prinz Eugen and Bismarck. It doesn't take much knowledge of naval history to know that [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait this won't end well for Hood]]. |
| 251 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: If you don't know history, the game still gives you clues, like the eventual sinkings of [[spoiler:Yorktown and Hornet]][[note]]at Midway and Santa Cruz, respectively[[/note]], specially if you've seen the 2nd trailer that shows [[spoiler:a photo of the sister trio, in their younger days, with Hornet and Yorktown fading away eventually]]. |
| 252 | * FragileSpeedster: Destroyers have the quickest movement speed, highest Evasion, and strongest torpedo attacks of all the escort/screen ship classes. Such advantages are offset by a general lack of HP, armor, and gun firepower. |
| 253 | * FreemiumTimer: Oil is used mainly for sending shipgirls on missions. The game is actually quite generous with this: there's a slowly-refilling canteen from which more Oil can be collected, various commissions can also be used to collect Oil, and the developers frequently send out gift mail containing additional Oil, usually as compensation for maintenance downtime. Nevertheless, hardcore players who still somehow run out of Oil can buy more with real money. While there are a number of timers, they ''aren't'' considered this because there are no purchasable items to accelerate them. |
| 254 | * FriendlyFireproof: You cannot damage your own ships from your own gunfire and aircraft. |
| 255 | * FrontlineGeneral: Dialogue from "Ashen Simulacrum" mentions that the Commander is going into battle alongside the shipgirls, presumably onboard a friendly mass-production ship. |
| 256 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: |
| 257 | ** The game tends to play from one faction's point of view for each story, but it won't stop you from using ships from the opposing faction as more likely that not, you'll have ships from differing factions. Similarly, the game won't stop you from using certain ships that have been canonically sunk in the story, and ships not in your dock can still appear in cutscenes. |
| 258 | ** It inverts upon finding out that [[AlternateSelf your ships are separate entities from the ships seen in the story]]. This actually comes up in [[spoiler:Akagi's Secretary Quest, where your Akagi is indeed aware of this]]. |
| 259 | ** You can easily sink Ember if your fleet is beefed enough, but that won't stop her from kicking your girls' asses in cutscenes after battle, as she demonstrates to the Eagle Union girls in "Ashen Simulacrum" and Zuikaku in "Swirling Cherry Blossoms". |
| 260 | ** "Crimson Echoes" makes a big fuss about carriers being revolutionary, being set in the 1920s, but it falls flat when you can go into battle with a three-carrier main fleet and the characters still act like it's something new. |
| 261 | ** In Portland's Secretary Quest, she takes up the flagship role for a training exercise. Gameplay-wise, the flagship position always belongs to backline ships (battleships, battlecruisers, aircraft carriers, repair ships, and monitors); since Portland is a heavy cruiser that belongs to the frontline, it is impossible to assign her as flagship (though you can assign her as the vanguard's lead ship). |
| 262 | ** A funny example regarding some ships with yandere tendencies like Akagi and Taihou: they are blatantly and obviously in love with the Commander, to the point of lusting after them, but you still need to send them into battle to increase their Affection (from Stranger to Love), if not for marriage, then at least for stat increases at the 100-point mark. Their in-game dialogues (aside from their Secretary Quests) don't even mention anything related to relationship development (specifically, how their initial lust turns into genuine love). |
| 263 | ** Most Secretary Quests (Ajax's is a prime example) often mention you, as the Commander, having to deal with "paperwork": making reports, checking inventory, etc. Your gameplay most of the time involves pressing buttons, confirming changes, and so on, as most behind-the-scene procedures have been automatically done for you. Your secretary in their story is mentioned or shown helping you with such works, but on the main interface all they do is announce unread mail and completed commissions and missions. |
| 264 | * GenderBlenderName: As the girls are the MoeAnthropomorphism of naval ships, many of the ships made anime girls still retain a masculine name even if their namesake was a man. For example, the ship ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cruiser_Prinz_Eugen Prinz Eugen]]'' was named after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Eugene_of_Savoy Prince Eugene of Savoy]], while [[https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/Prinz_Eugen Prinz Eugen in Azur Lane]] is a MsFanservice with GirlishPigTails. |
| 265 | * GlassCannon: A few ship types would apply. Some torpedo-focused destroyers (Ayanami being a main example) are able to do a lot of damage but can't take much punishment in return. There are also monitors which pack a remarkable punch in their barrages but lack the armor and HP normal battleships have. Even a few heavy cruisers like Wichita have excellent attack power for their ship class but lower defenses/hp. |
| 266 | * GottaCatchThemAll: The collection system gives you rewards for acquiring and leveling related ships. And the recently introduced Fleet tech gives in a few ways stat boosts for getting and leveling ships. |
| 267 | * GottaKillThemAll: One of the requirements to get 3 stars in each map and optionally help clearing that map more easier. Also, almost every battle will only end in victory when all of enemy ships are destroyed. |
| 268 | * GuideDangIt: |
| 269 | ** Quite a few stats are hidden and require wiki-diving or research to discover how they exactly work and how effective gear that affects the stats are. |
| 270 | ** Some campaign levels don't seem to behave like normal. For example, chapter 11-4 has Sendai as boss, whose torpedoes act like gun shells, scale with her firepower, and are extremely lethal against light armor ships but can be blocked by torpedo shields from some ship (like Algerie's or Littorio's), contrast to what torpedoes work in the game. It is unknown, however, if this was intentional or a bug that wasn't fixed to date. |
| 271 | ** The LuckStat was an infamous example until it was unhidden; without looking at game data, it was solely mentioned in-game by Mikasa's unique Zulu signal flag equipment until a Q2 2019 UI update (exact date depending on server). While the stat's exact formula remains unknown, LCK affects a ship's chance of hitting or evading an enemy's attacks and her chance to land or avoid critical hits. It's still a mystery how strong Mikasa's 5 extra Luck points would be, but the Zulu flag gives other strong buffs anyway so it's mostly a non-factor. PR ships also get a flat Luck boost on the track to a skill upgrade, which is a good thing even if it's unknown ''how'' good the +15 Luck boost is. |
| 272 | ** The hidden Speed stat (which is occasionally confused with Evasion). Unlike Luck, its effects are fairly well-understood ''if'' a player manages to dig up external resources to run the numbers; higher speed leads to higher combat movement and greater tactical movement on Siren-based maps. In-game, auxiliary items like the gyroscope and the improved boiler add a small amount of Speed which may seemingly due nothing, since the hidden formula depends on the average speed of the entire fleet and the individual value of each item is so minuscule, besides the whole-fleet-bonus Beaver Badge. |
| 273 | ** Aircraft like dive bombers have their raw damage based entirely on the [[BiggerIsBetter size of their bombs]], making a 4-Star Helldiver one of the most powerful aircraft in the game. This doesn't come without a few drawbacks: Bigger bombs have a lower spread and more blast radius (better for bosses/worse for mook clearing), and lean more towards heavy armor. A fighter's damage also depends on whether or not it carries bombs. There's a number of nuances in carrier equipping that require a wiki to do particularly well. |
| 274 | ** Anti-air has a number of fine details that also require wiki surfing if you want to super fine tune it, as it's more advanced than simply summing or averaging all the anti-air stats on a fleet. Manual play tends to optimize the number of anti-air shots before an aircraft goes off the screen versus the damage per shot, not to mention the radius. The fact that [=PvP=] is reliant on AI control also requires a different anti-air setup than manual, as radius and damage is more important than hypothetically hitting as many shots as possible as it would be up to [[ArtificialStupidity pure chance]]. |
| 275 | ** Burning is also one of the most elusive topic to bring. The thing about burning is that the stronger burns always override the weaker one (for example, battleship burn will always override burning caused by your vanguard), and burning of the same type (having same burn ID) would not replace each other (for example, a ship with weaker firepower that fire first will apply its burning to enemy, and stronger one will not replace it, only extend it). This makes some skills like Atago's Arsonist lose some of their effectiveness. However, weaker burning can extend/refresh the stronger one's duration. |
| 276 | ** The [[Main/CollectionSidequest Data Archives]] from the Operation Siren game mode. As of March 2021, there are nine categories of archives, each with six entries. Each entry within a category must be collected in order or they will not spawn. Not so bad, right? Well, some of them will only spawn the first time you clear a sector in an Operation Siren cycle. Others will [[Main/RandomDrops randomly appear]] when revisiting sectors you have already cleared. These two types of spawns can alternate ''within a single category''. So it is entirely possible for you to have cleared a sector that has a first-time-only archive spawn prior to having collected all of the previous archives in the category, locking you out of getting it. Mercifully, the clear status of every sector resets every month, preventing them from being Main/PermanentlyMissableContent. This still means that making one mistake could lock you out of attaining Main/HundredPercentCompletion for a month, and trying to figure out the order yourself could take ''years''. |
| 277 | * HarderThanHard: EXTRA stages in major events are available only after clearing the last Hard mode stage. It costs no Oil to play, and there are no [[{{Mooks}} trash fleets]], for good reason: not only do the EXTRA bosses do enough damage to shred even StoneWall characters such as Prinz Eugen to ribbons in seconds, but they are also the only fights in the game that follow a certain classic ShootEmUp rule: ''stat-based Evasion is completely disabled''. If a bullet touches you, it does damage, period. And not only do you lack the [[HitboxDissonance small centralized hitbox]] of most BulletHell games, but you indeed have up to three rather large hitboxes, two of which [[AllInARow are lagging behind you as they follow your point ship's movements]]. This leads to a completely different style of play from all other content in the game. Evasion equipment (normally very powerful on cruisers) is useless here and HP boosting equipment (almost universally considered great for all frontline ships) becomes woefully inadequate, but all of those [[SprintShoes Gyroscopes]] gathering dust in your Depot suddenly become very attractive options to help you weave your way through the bullet patterns. The devs considered this to be such a difficult departure from the rest of the game that they didn't even bother with so much as a CosmeticAward for beating them for over three years. The "Inverted Orthant" event in December 2020 finally introduced a tangible reward: the first clear of an EXTRA stage awards 500 Cognitive Chips. |
| 278 | * HardModePerks: Hard mode versions of normal and event stages each have their perks compared to normal levels. |
| 279 | ** For normal stages, higher enemy levels, thus more experience, dropping Core Data (which can be exchanged for valuable equipment and characters), retrofit blue prints. The "skip straight to boss fight" trait that can be unlocked makes for a way to try getting certain rare ships. |
| 280 | ** For event stages, much higher enemy levels, far better equipment blueprint drops (often with event-exclusive gear), and more event materials per clear. In most events they have to be cleared to unlock the SP stage, which is a once-per-day stage that rewards a great deal of event mats upon completion. |
| 281 | * HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: The Commander, who represents the player and commands the shipgirls, is never seen in the game even though the menus and VN-style Secretary Quests are from his POV, with the shipgirls directly talking to him. The Commander also manages to be all three variants across the franchise: he is TheVoice in questlines where the player can select dialogue options and listens to his thoughts, TheGhost in the 4-koma and story missions where the shipgirls frequently mention the offscreen Commander, and finally TheFaceless in the Comic Anthology where he ''finally'' appears, only to have the top of his head always obscured. |
| 282 | ** One of Vittorio Veneto's animations with her bikini skin is to casually take a picture of the Commander, and when the photo comes out, it's completely blurred, with the player unable to see his outline or even something resembling a head. That, or [[TheUnreveal the player only sees the back of the photo while Vittorio Veneto is looking at the front]]. |
| 283 | ** After five years of having no onscreen physical presence, his ''hands'' finally make an in-game appearance in 2022, in Taihou's animated schoolgirl skin. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_exMCI4uA While taken in first-person]] like other skins are assumed to be, this one outright confirms it's the Commander's perspective, as his hands can be seen scrolling through his phone before he runs into the classroom to greet Taihou. |
| 284 | ** His hand [[https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/wiki/File:Bg_2022.09.15_3.png also appears]] in official art featuring Musashi and Brunhilde, where the two shipgirls are in sports uniforms getting doused and wet by the Commander spraying a hose at them. While it's still just his hands, the perspective of the shot and the way Musashi and Brunhilde look up at him indicate that he's rather tall. |
| 285 | * HiddenDepths: A number of characters have sidequests activated by setting them as secretary and tapping on them. These often impart CharacterDevelopment and reveal facets of them not shown in their normal lines. |
| 286 | * HistoricalBadassUpgrade: This game is BasedOnATrueStory, but there are some upgrades compared to the historical equivalents for the Crimson Axis. These upgrades are perhaps justified by Siren involvement and assistance. |
| 287 | ** The Sakura Empire is the in-game incarnation of the real-life Imperial Japanese Navy. Towards the end of the war in the Pacific Theater, the IJN suffered one defeat one after another, mostly due to outdated technology compared to their opponent, the United States Navy. One prominent example was their anti-air capability; it was so bad, the IJN could no longer stand against USN air power (one of the reasons why Yamato and her escort fleet could do so little against Task Force 58's relentless air assault, with few plane casualties on the USN side). Later chapter in the campaign, however, have IJN ships and boss fleets gain tremendous power and anti-air stats that make friendly carriers' air raids (more so Dive Bombers than Torpedo ones) deal reduced damage and encourage more battleship use mixed with torpedo bomber and/or fighter heavy carriers instead (which is ironic, since the Pacific theater was dominated by aircraft carriers with dive bombers during the later stages of World War II). And recent events reveal they're using relics to strengthen a number of ships (Shinano being a big example) if not materialize paper ones. |
| 288 | ** The Iron Blood navy represents the real life Kriegsmarine. The Third Reich's navy wasn't as strong as their army, and they got severely outnumbered by Royal Navy, suffering a lot of limitations due to the Versailles treaty after World War I and only having a few reliable battleships/battlecruisers. Aircraft carriers were almost non-existent (they relied instead on the Luftwaffe for air power), a number of U-boat ships eventually got rounded-up and eradicated by the superior numbers and technology of the Royal Navy, and the only completed carrier (Graf Zeppelin) was in a rather woeful state. Ironblood leaders, in fact, was aware of this trope, so they had to resort to some sorts of technology (mostly revolving around Wisdom Cubes) that can realize so-called "paper ships" (either incomplete or never got out from design phase), resulted in the like of [[MightyGlacier Friedrich der Große]] or [[SuperPrototype Roon]] in order to even the odd against their Azur Lane opponents. |
| 289 | ** The Dragon Empery. Sure, they did take part in the fight against the Axis, but mostly on land, and there weren't many fights on the sea against their main enemy, the IJN. Their navy had some prominent moments before World War II, but often with disastrous results. To say that they are a core member of Azur Lane is a bit of an exaggeration, at least, from a naval perspective. |
| 290 | ** Northern Parliament. Russian Navy and then Soviet Navy only played secondary roles during two World Wars, unlike other powers like U.S. Navy or Imperial Japan Navy; their ship composition was far from formidable, and their combat records left much to desire, aside from their destroyer and submarine flotillas. In-game however, the Northern Paliarment gained access to some wisdom cube secrets and thus they managed to manifest powerful ships like Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship sisters, or made use of some technology to further reinforce their naval power, that led to their navy pulling more weight than most people perceived them to be. |
| 291 | * HistoricalInJoke: The game more or less ''runs'' on this, which is what gives it such a significant PeripheryDemographic of history nerds and naval warfare nerds; just about every ship has some amount of reference to its real-life history built into it, and a lot of the character stories and more humorous side stories also reference the history of World War 2 in some way (usually hilarious, for the more light-hearted stuff). Inevitably, frequent comparison is made to ''VideoGame/KanColle'', where its original target audience of Japanese military otaku meant the focus is much more tightly on ''just'' the IJN (it took ''[=KanColle=]'' years to add foreign navies, and they still haven't added many USN ships - the ''Enterprise'' most infamously - whereas AL is willing to be a lot more even-handed about adding vessels from various navies, albeit losing out to ''KC'' regarding the Regia Marina or minor navies like Svenska Marinen or Koninklijke Marine) and where DMM tend to be more subtle subtext and GeniusBonus about the details of the war itself with Axis focus, as opposed to Manjuu being more in your face about the trauma of the whole thing and having Allied focus. As such, in-jokes for the individual ships would be impractical to list here and are noted on each ship's [[Characters/AzurLane character entry]]. |
| 292 | [[/folder]] |
| 293 | [[folder:I-O]] |
| 294 | * IdleAnimation: When the player does not drag or poke the girls, or when they are not in combat, they may exhibit some idle animation. Example would be Ayanami stabbing her sword forward, Laffey drinking her Oxy-cola, Javelin spinning her "javelin", or some married girls will throw their flowers away and then retrieve it out of nowhere. |
| 295 | * ImmediateSequel: Inverted with a cutscene unlocked for "Crimson Echoes" by replaying B3 or D3 after it's completed that reveals it is an Immediate Prequel for "Visitors Dyed In Red". |
| 296 | * ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: Siren technology (and, of course, their mere existence) has caused the [[AlternateHistory main deviation in the world's timeline]] in World War II and the events leading up to it. |
| 297 | ** The opening cutscene shows Hood being blown apart by Bismarck's secret Siren weaponry. |
| 298 | ** The entire premise of the game is based on shipgirls who are built with Wisdom Cubes, which are a BlackBox that allows ships to manifest as humans. |
| 299 | * InterfaceScrew: Introduced in the Northern Overture event, the Omitter and Intruder can black out most of the screen limiting your vision and disabling your equipment attacks, and unlike the Kizuna Ai ones, these can't be clicked away. Players often dub this attack "Dahkness". |
| 300 | * AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: The Dorm, which you can decorate with various furniture ([[TemporaryOnlineContent most of it being limited-time only]]). Acquiring more furniture will increase the amount of [[NonCombatEXP passive experience points]] your ships in the dorm will gain, though this eventually suffers from severe diminishing returns. Your shipgirls will interact with some of the furniture (primarily chairs, beds, bathtubs, and anything they consider to be a suitable dance floor). |
| 301 | * IntimateLotionApplication: Surcouf enjoys being TheTease towards the Commander, and in her swimsuit skin has dialogue where she coyly asks him to rub lotion on her. |
| 302 | * IntrepidMerchant: Akashi during Operation Siren will randomly appear on the map and sell you various essential items. |
| 303 | * JackOfAllStats: Light Cruisers; being the in-between of the other two escort types, though some vary between focusing more on their guns or torpedoes. |
| 304 | ** The Yorktown class and a couple other carriers have an evened out efficiencies and nearly evened numbers of all three plane types. |
| 305 | * JigsawPuzzlePlot: Information about the state of the world and what the Sirens are and want is given out very sparingly. |
| 306 | * KaizoTrap: If you happen to defeat a boss and during their explosion animation, your last unit(s) gets killed by a stray shot, the game counts it as a defeat on your part and your fleet is considered destroyed, meaning you have to attempt the battle with a different fleet or do the whole map over again. |
| 307 | * KickingAssInAllHerFinery: The skins system means that it's fully possible to send shipgirls out in wedding dresses or ball gowns. |
| 308 | * KudzuPlot: While it initially seems to be a pretty straightforward recreation of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII with ship-girls, later story chapters, the side story events and even some of the lines from the playable ships themselves suggest that the situation is significantly more complicated, and it's left to the player to piece together what it means. The general interpretation is that the ''player's'' Azur Lane is a much different entity than the historical, Allies-equivalent one and seems tasked with combating the Sirens (and whatever else that may entail). [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AzureLane/comments/kla2r9/why_does_azur_lanes_story_suck_a_breakdown/ This Reddit thread]] handily lays out some of the biggest issues with the narrative style. |
| 309 | * LargeHam: Some skill activation lines are quite hammy. For example, Akagi will loudly announce that her love is unrivaled, Kaga will say no mercy for the weak, and so on. See their character pages for more information. It is rather creepy to hear two Akagis' skill activation line at the same time in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] with a little offset between lines. |
| 310 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: One of the comment options in response to Aurora's Juustagram post is "Trying to make a new meme here?" |
| 311 | * LevelCap: Ships are limited to a certain level when they first drop and to go past that you need to LimitBreak them with either a copy of the same ship or with a special Engineer ship. Note that doing so also increases oil consumption. Upon hitting 100, you can extend the cap further by 5 by spending coins and cognitive chips, and it can be repeated every 5 levels until 120. At 120, you can do one final extension to 125 by spending coins, cognitive chips and cognitive arrays, with the arrays being rather hard to get. |
| 312 | ** The Chinese server is an exception in that all ships can reach the level 100 cap without limit breaks. Shinano and New Jersey gacha ultra rares is another exception, applicable to all servers, in that she can naturally reach the level 120 cap, again without the use of limit breaks. |
| 313 | * LevelUpAtIntimacy5: Married ships' stats will rise above the normal 6% bonus from 100 affection (needed amount to marry them), up to a 12% bonus at 200. This can be done at any level, though with how you raise affection, the shipgirl may be at a decent level by the time she gets to 100 affection. This also changes some of their lines towards you. |
| 314 | * LighterAndSofter: Given still existing controversies over depictions of fascism in Asia, this version of the Axis has Italy, Germany, Japan's and Vichy France's alternate counterparts remain imperialistic and militaristic, albeit not fascist. None of the characters in those factions are indicated to believe in racial purity, social darwinism and extermination campaigns for the master race even if they are part of nations that are overtly aggressive. Even the counterparts of the Soviets, Chinese United Front and Western allies have their negative attributes toned down. |
| 315 | * LostInTranslation: This trope hits hard, at least in the animated adaptation for Latin American, Brazilian, and Spaniard viewers, in a meta-sense: One of the main reasons why all the ships are depicted as girls, besides cuteness or fanservice-y reasons, is the fact that sea ships, at least in the Anglosphere and some cultures, are normally called with feminine terms. This is ''not the case'' in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world, where ships are named with the gender of the person to whom the name was given or depending on the gender of the name itself, since Spanish and Portuguese do not have gender-neutral pronouns. In RealLife, ships like the Enterprise, San Diego, Yamato and the like are addressed as "el Enterprise", "el San Diego", "el Yamato", etc, because their names had male-oriented, while the girls named after those ships are addressed with female pronouns. This could be handwaved that those are their birth names, but many people who doesn't know about the game or that cultural tidbit would find the whole thing weird to having a very feminine character with a very masculine name, like those characters. |
| 316 | * LuckStat: Luck exists as a formerly-hidden stat that was solely mentioned in-game by Mikasa's unique Zulu signal flag equipment until a Q2 2019 UI update. While the stat's exact formula remains unknown, LCK affects a ship's chance of hitting or evading an enemy's attacks and her chance to land or avoid critical hits. Often, LCK is one of the few distinguishing factors between otherwise identical {{Moveset Clone}}s. Besides its mechanical effects, it's often [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration tied into the ultimate fate of the ship during World War II in real life]], leading to lots of Historical In-Jokes for those curious enough to dig up the stats: |
| 317 | ** In general, ships that are sunk or scuttled during [=WW2=] have low Luck stats (30-40s) compared to those who survive (and have 60-70 Luck). Oklahoma, Langley, and ''most'' Sakura or Ironblood ships (since they lost the war after all) hover at this low Luck stat, for example. |
| 318 | ** On the other hand, ships with particularly astounding battle careers or are preserved for historic purposes get much higher Luck stats -- San Diego has 85, Enterprise has 93 (with her signature Lucky E skill to boot), and Mikasa has a staggering 95 with the aforementioned Z Flag bonus to hit 100. Yukikaze has an even more absurd ''98'' in reference to the seemingly charmed life that ship led. |
| 319 | ** Ships that suffer particularly disastrous fates from true unluckiness sometimes have even lower Luck stats: |
| 320 | *** Some ships that are among the first victims of war in their respective class have sub-30 Luck: Prince of Wales and Repulse were the first capital ships sunk by pure air power on the open sea; Kisaragi was the second IJN ship lost in [=WW2=]; Shouhou was the first IJN aircraft carrier lost. |
| 321 | *** Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes have 15 Luck or less (some of the lowest numbers in the entire game, with Quincy at ''9'') due to their loss in the Battle of Savo Island due partially to miscommunication. |
| 322 | *** Spence has 20 Luck due to being lost during a typhoon, as well as the victim of mishaps involving her being accidentally rammed or fired upon by other friendly ships beforehand. |
| 323 | *** Arizona, unlike fellow Pearl Harbor sink-mate Oklahoma, has 17 Luck due to being turned into an (unfortunately) environmentally-unfriendly, oil-leaking war monument. |
| 324 | ** PR ships always have 0 luck, as they were never constructed or finished in real life. Along with the second wave of PR ships, there was an added "Fate enhancement" for the first wave ships which aims to up it (and buffs a skill at the very end of the process). |
| 325 | * MadeOfExplodium: Seriously, nearly everything, when reaching 0 hitpoints, will explode, no matter if they are your own ships or enemy ones. The boss ships deserve special mention: they go out like a nuclear bomb whenever they get destroyed. Graf Spee during her event can even initiate her own self-destruction when her HP reaches low and go out in a rather spectacular fashion. |
| 326 | * MagikarpPower: In general, everyone gets this to some degree, since the limit break mechanic unlocks fairly significant amounts of power for everyone - a 5* ship is a lot more powerful than the same ship at 2*, for example. There are, however, some standout examples in terms of broad ship classes: |
| 327 | ** Heavy Cruisers get this in terms of survivability. Early on they have decent firepower and hp with poor evasion and speed but past level 100 they'll start gaining some stats like evasion in rather large amounts, turning them into something more akin to a LightningBruiser. |
| 328 | ** Backline ships are this more generally, with battleships being the most dramatic. Because of the way their volleys work, a battleship straight out of the box is going to seem like a really weak unit because it only does one shot of its guns every time you activate it (poor [[Characters/AzurLaneRoyalNavy Repulse]] is infamous for giving newbies a poor opinion of battleships as a result). The first and third limit breaks cause each activation of the guns to fire an additional volley, however, so a fully-limit broken BB or BC fires three times each activation instead of one. Needless to say, when combined with the huge increase in Firepower that comes with limit breaks (battleships being [[OneStatToRuleThemAll ruled by their Firepower stat]] to a large degree) the difference between an limit broken BB and an un-limit broken one of the very same model can be ''dramatic''. |
| 329 | ** Some refits have such an effect due to the stat boosts/new skills they can bring. The stat boosts can get to the level of surpassing higher rarity ships in the same ship class. One example being Leander (Normal/Gray rarity) who upon refitted is comparable with Belfast at least. |
| 330 | * MaintainTheLie: The ''Queen's Orders'' official manga has Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, and Akashi doing this in order to maintain the illusion that the Commander's still working on the base and needs to be away occasionally while he's actually gone on extended medical leave due to a [[HeroicBSOD stress-induced]] [[HeroicRROD breakdown]] caused by overwork and thus cannot work at all. This is because very few people in the base (even many who don't know about the situation) want to see the Commander replaced by someone else. |
| 331 | * MarketBasedTitle: Not the game itself, but the Ironblood-centric event. In the Chinese and Japanese versions it's called "Opposite Colored", but the English version gets the more poetic name "Divergent Chessboard". It gets a third name in the "Year in Review" feature for the English version, [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/174170976022560769/612775078488309760/Screenshot_20190817-030650.png Operation Dichotomous Chess]]. |
| 332 | * MascotMook: Manjuu (same name as the devs) are baby chicken-looking critters that can be see in various places (on torpedo boats, kamikaze boats, and various official character artworks). |
| 333 | * TheMedic: Repair ships, obviously. Not only they can equip repair cranes to passively heal your ships in battle, they also give minor buffs and provide extra ammunition/emergency repairs for your fleets. |
| 334 | * MightyGlacier: Heavy Cruisers generally have the most raw power and HP of the escort ship classes, but suffer from a low speed and evasion which might make leveling a new one up tricky. |
| 335 | * MinMaxing: Thanks to LevelGrinding, it's not really required in earlier story missions but as the game progresses the enemy fleets get more and more difficult and you really need to start paying attention to fleet composition, skills, equipment, and making sure your ships work off of each other. |
| 336 | * MoeAnthropomorphism: The base skins of each shipgirl shares features of the actual warship's rigging -- for example, destroyers carry torpedoes, carriers have various flight decks and planes, and battleships [[SmallGirlBigGun carry giant guns that are often bigger than the actual girl]]. The story is a bit more complex since these [[SpaceshipGirl shipgirls actually are the ship]] ([[AlternateSelf or shares her former life's memories]]) manifested as human girls via ImportedAlienPhlebotinum. Additional skins of each ship tend to downplay their warship origin in favor of emphasizing their new fictional human personality, quirks, and appearance (derived from their base skin). |
| 337 | * {{Mon}}: The game is basically a Mon-style game (with the ships as acting as a summonable sapient being subtype), just with only one commander acknowledged InUniverse. Well, until the WebAnimation/KizunaAI collaboration event that explicitly notes that Kizuna herself must've been a commander with her own set of ships that you fight in [=SP4=] (these being ships she actually oathed in her videos of the game). |
| 338 | * {{Mooks}}: Non-anthropomorphized ships fill this role, having smaller health pool and damage output compared to shipgirls. |
| 339 | * MoneyForNothing: Quick Finishers are only useful for instantly finishing the construction of a ship, and they are generously given as commission rewards and side-mission rewards. This in and of itself is fine. Except the Wisdom Cubes required for initiating ship construction in the first place are generally ''much harder'' to come by, leading to some players easily amassing hundreds of Quick Finishers with absolutely nothing to use them for. |
| 340 | * MoneySink: The game has several for Fuel and Coins. Considering that they easily become MoneyForNothing if the player idled on their expenditure, they have pretty good reason to be around. |
| 341 | ** The primary Money Sink for coins in the game is Construction, with both Wisdom Cubes and Coins consumed for each ship built. If the Commander doesn't keep other expenditures in control, they can easily find themselves running short of coins during events. |
| 342 | ** More Money Sinks for coins are introduced as time went on, such as Retrofits and Cognitive Awakening which are more expensive for higher rarity ships. The biggest Money Sink by far though, is the Prototype Rare ship developments, which costs huge amount of fuel (and time) for the required combat experience and even more Coin for the blueprints. |
| 343 | * MoraleMechanic: Keeping a shipgirl in high spirits (by putting them in the dorm and making sure they don't get sunk on missions) will confer additional EXP. Conversely, a shipgirl with low morale will gain reduced EXP and can even end up losing affection toward you (although getting to this point in practical terms requires actual dedication as the game has a number of warning signs in regards to this). |
| 344 | * MoreDakka: Eagle Union cruisers (minus the Atlanta and Omaha classes) favor this, having a secondary gun slot instead of being equipped with a torpedo and gaining the bonus "Main Gun +1" on their second limit break, meaning that they fire their main guns twice every time they fire. Many ships across all factions also have barrage or "All Out Assault" skills that fire a large burst of shots, limited by cooldown based on either time or number of normal shots fired. |
| 345 | * MultinationalTeam: |
| 346 | ** This is the norm when building teams, especially since certain nations' ships, like Ironblood (German) ones, have much less variety compared to the massive number of Eagle Union or Royal ships. |
| 347 | ** And, of course, the two sides also count: |
| 348 | *** Azur Lane, the equivalent to the Allies, consists of the Eagle Union (the United States), the Royal Navy (the British Empire), Iris Libre (the Free French), the Eastern Radiance[=/=]Dragon Empry (a combination of the various Chinas), the Northern Union (the USSR), and [[spoiler: the New Sakura Empire (no historical equivalent)]]. |
| 349 | *** The Crimson Axis, the equivalent of the Axis Powers, consists of the Sakura Empire (Imperial Japan), the Ironblood (Nazi Germany), Vichya Dominion (Vichy France), and Imperium of Sardegna/Sardinia (Fascist Italy). |
| 350 | * NationalStereotypes: |
| 351 | ** Eagle Union: Kind of {{Averted|Trope}}, the Eagle Union has a wide mixture of designs [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness as many of them were conceptualised in the early years of the game's development]] - but perhaps might be interpreted as a reference to America's "melting pot" culture. More recent releases (around Helena's Retrofit onwards) give the American shipgirls a unifying sci-fi "sleek high-tech in white" ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''-style look to their rigging, combined with flashy costumes reminiscent of {{Comic Book|s}} superheroes and {{Shonen|Demographic}} heroines. |
| 352 | ** Royal Navy: OfficerAndAGentleman, RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething, EnglishRose, sometimes KnightInShiningArmour, sometimes BattleButler and NinjaMaid, usually refraining from medieval designs (as this is more Iris Libre's niche) in favour of the Victorian, Edwardian and the Neo-Victorian visual - periods when the British Empire was at the apex of its power and prestige. As for the rigging, it oozes {{Steam Punk}} and {{Clock Punk}}. |
| 353 | ** Ironblood: CuteMonsterGirl, RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver ([[AntiVillain but not necessarily always the evil part]]), BloodKnight represented through militaristic designs with lots of visual intimidation, [[HellbentForLeather lots of black leather]], and kind-of "high tech {{Diesel Punk}}" rigging reminiscent of the Nazi technology from the ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' games. |
| 354 | ** Sakura Empire: YamatoNadeshiko. Also LittleBitBeastly and HornedHumanoid, to reflect the {{Youkai}} and other creatures of Myth/JapaneseMythology. |
| 355 | ** Dragon Empery: AnimeChineseGirl. Pandas as an AnimalMotif. Largely OutOfFocus. |
| 356 | ** Northern Parliament: TheBaroness, SensualSlavs, sometimes VodkaDrunkenski. [[PhenotypeStereotype Pale skin and white hair to match]]. At best, ChummyCommies; at worst, the TokenEvilTeammate of Azur Lane. Rigging tends to look more crude or resilient. |
| 357 | ** Iris Libre: LightIsGood, SaintlyChurch (and the associated visual splendour), JeanneDArchetype and KnightInShiningArmor. Lot of focus on medieval fantasy costumes, armour and weaponry. |
| 358 | ** Vichya Dominion: Similar to above, but DarkIsNotEvil and BlackKnight. More strongly represents ChurchMilitant, religious institutions as drivers of war. |
| 359 | ** Sardegna Empire: The AristocratTeam, TheFashionista, and the IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Represents the [[BlingOfWar visual pomp]] of war, as every girl wears a stylish dress uniform and often a BadassCape (complete with DramaticWind). |
| 360 | * NecessaryDrawback: |
| 361 | ** All weapons have a number of stats including angle, damage, range and reload rate, such that rarely will there be any weapon that is an upgrade in every way to another. |
| 362 | ** Torpedo bombers have two different types of patterns. One, usually found on Eagle and Royal planes, fires torpedoes in parallel lines down the screen, which is more likely to get a hit and can hit multiple targets, but deals less individual damage if the target doesn't sail into them by itself. The other, usually from Sakura planes, has all torpedoes converge on a targeted point, which is much more powerful but also easier to miss completely. |
| 363 | * NoCampaignForTheWicked: Played straight until the first half of the "Scherzo of Iron and Blood" event, which is played from the perspective of Bismarck and U-556 of the Ironblood navy (the second half shifts to the Royal Navy's perspective). Until this, no events were played from the perspective of the Crimson Axis, with the IJN events either predating the Sakura Empire leaving Azur Lane (Crimson Echoes) or focusing on LaResistance - Mikasa's "New Sakura Empire," revolting against the Crimson Axis aligned Sakura Empire (Return of the War God, Visitors Dyed in Red, Ink-Stained Steel Sakura), the main campaign being the Pacific Theater of WWII from an American perspective, and various other events being either from an American or British perspective. "The Enigma and the Shark", the U-110 event about the capture of an Enigma device, actually flips perspectives between missions, with the denouement flipping between the RN and IB squads as needed. |
| 364 | * NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: In a similar vein to the Chinese server for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'' (and likely inspired by this exact practice), each of the participating nations in this game go by fictional names. Sometimes there are variations between the game's translated versions, though; for example, the Royal Canadian Navy is mentioned in Fortune's biography as-is in the original Chinese version, but is obfuscated as "Land of Maple" in the Japanese version, and further obfuscated as "Maple Monarchy" in the English version, due to using the Japanese version as a base. Achilles, meanwhile, mentions New Zealand by name in all versions of the game. |
| 365 | * NoHeroDiscount: As elaborated on in their respective character quests, Shiranui and Akashi are selling items and gear provided by the military to you, even though they are the exact same shipgirls that the commander can deploy on sorties. In other words, they're basically selling items to themselves (via the Commander and the fleet at large). They still justify their shopkeeping as doing a service to the fleet, and there are often (mechanical, not story-based) discounts on their wares. |
| 366 | * NonEntityGeneral: |
| 367 | ** In a manner similar to ''VideoGame/KanColle's'' Admiral, the Azur Lane Commander is a featureless entity who commands every action taken by shipgirls during combat in all fleets present and micromanages the equipment assigned to all ships, but nonetheless interacts with the shipgirls much more than most examples of this trope, being able to form relationships with and eventually marry them. |
| 368 | ** Moreover, cutscenes for the shipgirls' personal questlines and for some events that explicitly take place at your naval base do have the Commander interacting with the girls directly, though early on the Commander is never heard talking (though it's made clear that they do say stuff). Later questlines and events introduced a "branching dialogue" system similar to other games, and often there's only one dialogue option - this is still meant to reflect "you" saying things and thus requires your input. |
| 369 | ** This does end up raising some questions as to precisely ''who'' we are, since it becomes clear that [[spoiler:''our'' Azur Lane is a much broader multinational entity than the "historical" one being observed by the Sirens]]. |
| 370 | ** Subverted in "Ashen Simulacrum", where ''the Commander themselves was targeted''. |
| 371 | * NoSwastikas: Ironblood shipgirls have their swastikas replaced with X symbols resembling [[VideoGame/MetalSlug Morden's Army]]. That said, Z46's head decoration comes ''awfully'' close. Furthermore, the actual faction symbol has nothing to do with a swastika and is instead a heavily stylized Iron Cross. However, other Nazi symbols make it through - in particular, several Ironblood shipgirls wear ''Reichsadlers'' with the very distinctive styling of the ''Parteiadler'', though the swastika in the circle the eagle is perched on has been replaced with a plus sign and the facing of the eagle is inconsistent (left-facing is the ''Parteiadler'', right-facing is the ''Reichsadler''). While far from all Ironblood shipgirls wear them, Z46 wears a large ''Reichsadler'' hair ornament on her bangs, Bismarck has a ''Reichsadler'' lapel pin, and Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau all have either a ''Reichsadler'' or ''Parteiadler'' on their caps. |
| 372 | * NuclearWeaponsTaboo: |
| 373 | ** In the Japanese version of the game, the atomic bomb that USS ''Indianapolis'' is sitting on[[note]]Inexplicably the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, when it was the "Little Boy" uranium bomb that the real-life ''Indianapolis'' delivered to Tinian[[/note]] has its radiation symbol replaced by some sort of angry horned face. Same goes with the collection reward furniture for the Portland class, which changes from a Fat Man model to lewd Indianapolis posters. |
| 374 | ** Indy's introduction-line also has her say "A nuclear bomb? What's that?" |
| 375 | * OddFriendship: Despite having different personalities, preferences, allegiances... many odd friendships have formed throughout the game: |
| 376 | ** The starter destroyers (Laffey, Ayanami, Javelin and Z23). This is also [[LampshadeHanging mentioned]] by Z23 herself, stating she couldn't think four of them could become friends, despite their differences. |
| 377 | ** Ajax and Graf Spee considering the former caused the latter's undoing and it's stated that they get along pretty well. |
| 378 | ** Ayanami is noted to be friends with Long Island (a nod to both being sort of starters) due to shared interests. |
| 379 | ** Prince of Wales and Prinz Eugen, despite the latter being the former's greatest failure. It appears they are on good term with each other. Justified, as they are now fighting on the same banner under the Commander, there are no reasons why they should be hostile towards each other. |
| 380 | * OffTheRails: The basic theme of the historically-inspired events like "Winter's Crown" or "Scherzo of Iron and Blood" with regards to the real history of the events covered in battles. While the reasoning may differ in the first half, the events of the first part tend to play out historically or close to historically, and then the Sirens often try to derail events in the second half of the event and force another outcome; Azur Lane forces must both accomplish their original mission ''and'' deal with the Sirens. |
| 381 | ** Duke of York and Victorious push on with Operation Tungsten during "Winter's Crown" despite the creation of a massive Mirror Sea by the Sirens that threatens not just the operation, but the entirety of northern Europe. |
| 382 | ** The main story mode is based off of the Pacific Theater, but unlike the actual war, the Sakura forces continue to get stronger and a number of previously sunk enemy ships return to have another go. This last bit is explained in the [[spoiler: Visitors Dyed in Red event where it turns out Story!Akagi was overseeing the creation of cloned ships.]] |
| 383 | ** Throughout the events, the Sirens seem much more directly involved in the Atlantic Theater and nearly always take a direct role in trying to bring about results that favor Ironblood and/or themselves, presumably because they see Ironblood's use of Siren technology as a more productive avenue for their research and attempted "forced evolution", while events in the Pacific are much more often carried out through proxies in the Sakura Empire with little direct Siren presence on the scale of what is seen in "Scherzo of Iron and Blood" or "Winter's Crown". [[spoiler: This is understandable, as it's shown that several high-ranking members of Ironblood, including Bismarck, dislike the Sirens and want nothing to do with them, even managing to go against attempts to manipulate them. They are also outnumbered by the Royal Navy, meaning they need more support. The Sakura Empire, on the other hand, is lead by Akagi and Kaga, who are 100% onboard with working for the Sirens, and are more evenly matched with the Eagle Union, at least at the start]]. |
| 384 | ** The "New Sakura Empire" chain of events is another example as it has Shoukaku and Zuikaku changing sides and eventually being joined by Mikasa, Hiei, Nagato and Mutsu, which is a significant divergence from actual history, even as otherwise, the shipgirls mostly stick to their historical roles. |
| 385 | ** The "Empyreal Tragicomedy" event sees the Royal Navy make efforts to persuade the Sardengian empire to return the Azur Lane alliance, and as such none of the Italian ships are sunk or really injured and ends with the possibility that the other party may avoid their historical fate. |
| 386 | ** "Aurora Noctis" is based on an amalgamation of several Arctic convoy raider battles, especially the disaster of Convoy [=PQ17=], which was historically abandoned due to fears of Tirpitz, which are also raised in the event along with false orders to retreat, lest the escorts be sunk by Tirpitz, but in the event, the order to retreat is ignored and the convoy makes it through. However, the part where the event veers far, far from any such historical occurence comes at the very end, when the entire attack on the convoy turns out to be a distraction for Ironblood to launch a surprise attack on Scapa Flow with their entire remaining surface forces. |
| 387 | * OneSteveLimit: Used on the Chinese server in a few cases. Here are some: |
| 388 | ** Let's start with an aversion: [=HMS=] ''Crescent''. An alternate meaning for Crescent is ''New Moon'' and thus on the Chinese server, she is listed as the direct Chinese translation, 新月. However, that sequence can be read in Japanese as ''Niizuki'', and indeed the Akizuki-class destroyer of that name is featured in the game. However, this trope is averted simply because in the Chinese version, ALL Japanese ships are given fictionalized names in Chinese, while in the Japanese version, Crescent is rendered in katakana. An English version maintenance note actually made this mix up. |
| 389 | ** [[VideoGame/{{Neptunia}} Neptune]] and [=HMS=] ''[[VideoGame/WorldOfWarships Neptune]]''. In the Chinese version, the former is rendered in Chinese using a transliteration of her name (涅普顿), while the paper ship uses the Chinese translation of the celestial body she's named after (海王星, Star of Poseidon/Neptune). The Japanese version has their names nearly identical, though both girls' renderings in this version are based on different Japanese pronunciations of the same word (ネプテューヌ, Ne-pu-tuu-nu) vs (ネプチューン, Ne-pu-chuu-n). |
| 390 | ** [=USS=] ''St. Louis'', and [=MN=] ''[[VideoGame/WorldOfWarships Saint-Louis]]''. In the Chinese version, in order to prevent a name conflict, the French paper ship is, as her name in Chinese, named after the in-game ship's namesake historical figure, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_IX Louis IX]] (路易九世), the real Saint Louis.[[note]]Indirectly, this is also the namesake of the American ship; the city of St. Louis, Missouri was founded by Frenchmen and named after King Louis IX.[[/note]] This is unnecessary in either the English version, due to different spelling, or the Japanese version due to different pronunciations of the same historical figure for each ship. Notably, the French ship uses the ''French'' pronunciation of her namesake's title (Sant-Luis). |
| 391 | ** Averted with [=USS=] ''Juneau'' and [=HMS=] ''Juno'', as no such measures were taken in the Japanese version, where both of them appear with the same katakana sequence (ジュノー). The Chinese version at least makes a distinction by rendering the American cruiser phonetically, and rendering the British destroyer, just like in the case of [=HMS=] ''Neptune'', using a direct translation of the Greek deity she's named after. This is lampshaded in one of the trailers for the anime, where both Juneau and Juno appear together in a scene at the very end. It also led to confusion in one of Javelin's English dialog lines, where she talks about going shopping with Juneau, when she was almost certainly meant to be talking about her sister J-class destroyer Juno. |
| 392 | ** The Pallada-class cruiser ''Aurora'' is listed in English as ''Avrora'', directly from the Cyrillic for her name, to avoid a name conflict with the Arethusa-class light cruiser HMS ''Aurora''. This is carried over for [[http://puu.sh/DBmjr.jpg her entry]] for the Azur Lane collection in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'', even though [[http://puu.sh/DBmkc.jpg the ship itself]] is listed in-game as ''Aurora'', and while HMS ''Aurora'' is also in that game, she appears in her PLAN ''[[http://puu.sh/DBmkS.jpg Huang He]]'', and ROCS ''Chung King'' guises. |
| 393 | ** The ''Angel of Iris'' event in June 2022 includes the ''Emerald''-light cruiser HMS ''Enterprise'' as one of the new additions. She is distinguished from USS ''Enterprise'' by being listed in-game as "Enterprise (Royal Navy)". |
| 394 | ** The lineup of shipgirls introduced in the December 2022 event "Parallel Superimposition" consist of successor ship classes of existing shipgirls. One example is the ''Yorktown'' and ''Hornet'' as ''Yorktown II'' and ''Hornet II'', representing their Essex-class versions that succeed the Yorktown-class. |
| 395 | * OnlySaneMan: While plenty of ships in can count as this for their faction, the Commander in general is the biggest contender for this trope. As the story progresses, the ship girls note the Commander's competence and being adjusted enough for them to confide in him in their questlines. Justified out of universe given the Commander needs to be a blank slate for the player and thus can't have any major quirks and in-universe given that commanding a variety of powerful ship girls with a wild variety of personality traits requires someone to keep them cohesive. Also a pretty a literal example with both uses of the word "man", given the Commander is implied to be the only regular human around, with the incidental use of male pronouns and depiction in the Comic Anthology making him TheOneGuy, and a rather tired normal guy surrounded by powerful ship girls at that. |
| 396 | * OvershadowedByAwesome: |
| 397 | ** Javelin is considered the "worst" of the four starters, but she's by no means a ''bad'' ship. |
| 398 | ** Formidable outclassed the all of the Sardegnia Empire's ships during the Empyreal Tragicomedy event. Zara is functionally a very good heavy cruiser, but Formidable has a mix of being very eyecatching and the first to have an enemy stop skill. |
| 399 | [[/folder]] |
| 400 | [[folder:P-Z]] |
| 401 | * PlayEveryDay: The game gives you rewards for logging in each day. For the first week of playing, there is a separate set of log in bonus that gives Prinz Eugen when completed. In the middle of the monthly log in rewards sheet are destroyer ships generally not available for the time being (past ones have been added to the normal construction pool) or unique furniture. There are some limited events that require this as well. |
| 402 | * PowerCreep: To keep the playbase interested and playing, newer ships are generally stronger than existing ships. |
| 403 | ** The developers have publicly stated that their goal is to have four Ultra Rare events a year. These ships are so strong that things like faction synergy (excepting Nagato) have for the most part fallen by the wayside and the best fleet is as many of these as you can shoehorn in. |
| 404 | ** Even outside of the newer Ultra Rare category, generally ships have gotten more powerful and have greater numbers of more sophisticated skills and newer battleships, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers completely eclipse those that were present at release. That said, carriers have proven comparatively resistant to power creep, with Enterprise remaining one of the most powerful carriers in the entire game even without getting a retrofit and other release-date carriers like Illustrious, Shouhou, and Unicorn remaining hihgly relevant for their powerful defensive skills. |
| 405 | ** There's a marked difference between the ''Neptunia'' and ''Kizuna AI'' collaboration events (the ships are collectable at best, the developers at the time didn't want them overshadowing regular ships) and the ''Dead or Alive'', ''Idolmaster'', and ''SSSS Gridman/Dynazenon'' events (the ships are quite strong so fans of those who start playing during the event have a decent base to start with). |
| 406 | * PowerEqualsRarity: |
| 407 | ** [[ZigZaggingTrope Rather zig-zagging]] regarding ships. Often, high rarity ships perform better than their lower rarity peers, but with an oil price to match, with [[CripplingOverspecialization some]] [[AwesomeButImpractical exceptions]]. On the other hand, some low rarity and common ships can outshine their rare sisters, such as USS Ranger (if RNG favors her then she can theoretically deal near-infinity damage), or be more useful and more cost-effective, like the HMS Leander (a valuable support piece in a cruiser or HMS fleet, even in the end-game) or the USS Cassin and USS Downes (very cheap to use and very resilient due to their self-healing nature), as player should manage their oil supply well if they want to grind their account. Still, a common theme is that purple (Elite) and golden ships (Super Rare) are usually highly appreciated and sought after more than teal (Rare) and gray (Common) ones. |
| 408 | ** Equipment also zigzags this trope. One notable aversion is the Helldiver listed under DiscOneNuke; the community finally, decisively figured out that the lack of a gold border doesn't stop it from blowing its competition out of the water in raw Dive Bomber power. Several weapons are also competitive with higher rarity ones (such as the purple Twin 120mm Main Gun versus the gold Twin 127mm [=MK12=] Dual Gun) or outright superior to competitors (the best Battleship weapons have been the purple Triple 406mm [=MK6=] Main Gun and the 410mm "Twin" Mounted Gun) until various prototype weapons at higher rarity were released, over a year since the launch of the game, to play the trope straight. |
| 409 | ** Played straight with Retrofits. These power upgrades on ships increase their rarity, so a common Leander gets a teal (rare) border, for example. Some have far more dramatic effects than others, to the point of enabling a refitted common ship to be about on par with a high rarity one. The only exceptions are the more controversial Retrofits that completely change a ship's functionality (such as converting a battleship to a partial carrier) and may make synergies more difficult. |
| 410 | * ThePowerOfLove: |
| 411 | ** Enforced. Girls with high affection towards the player (up to a certain threshold) will have their stats increased. Maximum bonus is 12% when reaching 200 Affinity (after swearing the oath). It is theorized, but not canonically confirmed, that shipgirl becoming stronger the more she loves her Commander is likely linking to how she [[HumanityIsSuperior becomes closer to a human being rather than a weapon]]. There are some hints regarding Enterprise and Code G (Alterprise) becoming who they are now due to the fact that there are presences of the [[MoralityChain "Commander"]] they adored and loved, but in Enterprise's case, she managed to live a rather happily life with a real presence of her Commander, but the same cannot be said for Code G. |
| 412 | ** Some of the gloomier shipgirls cheer up noticeably at high affection levels. |
| 413 | * PunBasedTitle: "Azur Lane" is a play on a line from the British patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!": |
| 414 | -->Arose from out the '''azure main''' |
| 415 | * PunnyName: Kansen, the proper term for the ship girls, is this twice over. It's not only a ShoutOut to [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'s own G.U.N.D.A.M OS but also a wordplay on 'senkan', the Japanese word for 'battleship'. |
| 416 | * PurposelyOverpowered: |
| 417 | ** With the sole exception of [[CripplingOverspecialization Izumo]], Priority Research shipgirls have incredible stats and skills, including one that gives them damage bonuses against Sirens, who make up many of the most powerful bosses. This comes at the cost of needing weeks to months to grind up the EXP needed to unlock them, and likely even more time to acquire the blueprints needed to bring out their full power. |
| 418 | ** Portland's retrofit boosts her stats by a ridiculous amount - the developers want to make sure a ''good'' heavy cruiser is available for everyone. |
| 419 | ** Centaur would apply, as she's a ship that was designed at the end of the war to be cutting-edge. While in reality she was behind the times by the time of her completion (the 1950s, where carrier tech had advanced dramatically), this game puts her in the heat of [=WW2=] where she is indeed ahead of most others. |
| 420 | ** Unicorn's retrofit turns her into possibly the best healer in the game (after the event-exclusive debut of Perseus dethroned her for a good while). This was done so that even newer players have a good enough healer to help them clear later Chapters. |
| 421 | * RagtagBunchOfMisfits: |
| 422 | ** The Polaris band (Cleveland, Sheffield, Gascogne, Akagi, Admiral Hipper) is just a bunch of volunteers selected by Akashi as a way to experiment on rigging and music performance. All five have no idol experience at all and they still have fun performing against other bands (composed of the Starter ships, Fubuki, Eldridge, and Graf Spee). |
| 423 | ** Another such musical group is seen in ''Crosswave'' as San Diego, Cassin, Hornet, and Hipper end up forming a band. |
| 424 | ** "Universe in Unison" has another makeshift band of Illustrious, Dido, Tashkent, Albacore, and Balitmore, and their chief rival is the duo of Roon and Taihou. |
| 425 | ** Portland's character story has her lead a group consisting of herself, Hiei, Doreshire, I-56, and Yuudachi in an exercise. |
| 426 | * RandomDrops: As a gacha game, everything is pretty much set up this way. It's a little more forgiving than average: |
| 427 | ** There is a traditional gacha currency in the form of Wisdom Cubes (which is given generously on a daily basis) to build new ships from a giant pool. The typical rate is 7% for a Super Rare ship, 12% for an Elite, 51% for a Rare, and 30% for a Common. |
| 428 | ** The maps in which combat take place also have a chance to drop ships, equipment, and other resources. A good plurality of ships are available without even touching the build menu. There are even several ships, including some SR ones, that are obtained ''only'' from drops in maps. The extreme end include Akagi, Kaga, Yudachi, Maya, and Choukai, who are obtainable from a single map each with user-polled rates of ''0.75%'' per attempt. This even extends to most events with similar high-rarity ships and occasionally low-rate low-rarity ships like Fiji. |
| 429 | ** To downplay this trope, there are two types of [[RareCandy Bulin]] ships that [[JokeCharacter aren't intended to be used for battle]], but are usable in place of a copy of the same ship to LimitBreak and increase the LevelCap and stats. Several Bulins are given every week as part of simple PlayEveryDay quests, with additional purchasable supplies in the Merit Shop (daily) and Medal Exchange (weekly), no randomness required. |
| 430 | ** Several ships, including [=SRs=] such as Warspite and Takao, are also purchasable through the Medal Exchange to bypass the randomness factor. |
| 431 | ** Finally, the Priority ships, which are among the most powerful in the game, zigzag this trope. The ships themselves aren't random; players must complete a sequence of specific and very grindy tasks in order to obtain each one. On the other hand, unlocking their full power requires blueprint items that can't always be obtained in a "guaranteed" manner. |
| 432 | * RandomNumberGod: World 14. Between the spotlights, flares, overpowered bomb ships, shots on your backliners, ''and'' submarines, you are just as likely to lose ships instantly as you are to come out with 100% health, especially when playing on auto. |
| 433 | * RankScalesWithAsskicking: |
| 434 | ** Played straight with cases like Bismarck -- being the fleet leader of Iron Blood (as stated by Z23), she is a powerful battleship, and one of the best units in the game. |
| 435 | ** Inverted with the case of the Commander. We never see the Commander fighting directly, but the Commander is the highest ranking military officer in the naval base and is put in charge of the entire fleet, consists of warships from different factions, and each faction leader will report to the Commander directly. |
| 436 | * RareRandomDrop: |
| 437 | ** Drop-only ships, especially SR ones. [[Characters/AzurLaneSakuraEmpire Akagi and Kaga]], for example, are a pair of deliberately meta-defining Super Rare carriers commonly seen in [=PvP=] and some of the most famous aircraft carriers in history. They are ''only'' obtainable from defeating the boss of chapter 3, stage 4 (at about a .75% chance per run of getting either one). There are also some blue ships that have a sharply reduced rate and limited stage selection. |
| 438 | ** The ship-building pool gradually grows as events run their course and event-only ships -- which are themselves a style of RareRandomDrop since they're advertised as appearing for only a limited time, though at above-average individual rates -- are added to the pool without an associated rate-up. This means that certain individual ships are obtainable only from the build menu, and at a terribly small chance even if they're advertised as "common" or "rare" rarities. And sometimes some ships that could be built or drop are made drop only to adjust for it. |
| 439 | ** Events often have exclusive equipment blue prints dropping from hard mode versions of later levels |
| 440 | * RealEventFictionalCause: The sinking of Hood in the prologue by Bismarck in a single shot really ''did'' happen, but while it was a consequence of thin armor plating in reality, here it's caused by secret weapons supplied by the mysterious Sirens. World War II seems to be precipitated by the Sirens in the first place, as the betrayal of Azur Lane and the formation of the Crimson Axis is very sudden. It's telling that in ''Crosswave'', [[spoiler:the lower amount of direct Siren meddling in that timeline results in the nations co-existing rather peacefully.]] |
| 441 | * RedemptionDemotion: On higher levels, many of the shipgirls you encounter have special attacks, but if you acquire them they don't have those same attacks, and of course, they start at level 1. On the flip side, the skills the playable versions have don't really trigger as enemies. The last bit isn't true in ''Crosswave'' however, making some special exercises difficult. |
| 442 | * RegionalBonus: |
| 443 | ** The Japanese version of the game has gotten a few events and shipgirls before China and often having easier versions of events that ran in China, overlapping with DifficultyByRegion some. This has decreased with time with events being at the same general difficulty, though it does get a few unique events still. |
| 444 | ** English ver: Lower difficulty for Fallen Wings (to make up for not having the ability to increase the final level cap), Enterprise and Cleveland casual/bike skins for a time. It has gotten the Arte skins for both Fubuki and Yamashiro also. It also got the easier version of World 12 from the initial addition. The first area to get Z23's book store skin, Z23's oath skin, and Amagi's swimsuit skin. Lucky Skin boxes come with most events in addition to major skin periods (chinese new year, Anniversary, etc). |
| 445 | ** Japanese ver.: Votoms collaboration mini event, first to get Arte Akihabara mini event with skins for Fubuki and Yamashiro, Nico Nico Skin for Ayanami. |
| 446 | ** Chinese ver. : Bilibili shipgrils, Bilibili skins for Javelin and Laffey, Lawson Mini event (though this may become available to Japan in the future though not likely) with skins for Yuudachi and Rodney, cheaper 5* equipment upgrades and ability to level up past level cap (though not lv 100 one) without limit breaking them. An exclusive skin for An Shan. They do have regional penalty of more censored artwork (particularly in 2021) with some ships rendered unobtainable, however. |
| 447 | ** Taiwanese Ver.: A summer/non swimsuit themed skin for Yamashiro for a while (it's only in June 2021 that other areas got a shot at it) |
| 448 | * RelationshipValues: Each girl has an "Affinity" level with the player, ranging through Upset, Stranger, Friendly, Crush, and Love. In most cases their lines at each level reflect them growing to like the player more. While several of the Japanese aircraft carriers are {{Yandere}}s who are blatantly obsessed with the player from the start and instead their lines indicate the opposite, that the player is becoming more affectionate to ''them'' with each increase in Affinity level. |
| 449 | * ReverseCerebusSyndrome: Unlike other collab events, "Looking Glass of Fact and Fiction" actually starts off pretty seriously, with Mio and Fubuki struggling to stay alive against the Sirens in the Mirror Sea. Things progressively get lighter as more of the Hololive cast are introduced, especially Matsuri, but it's when they start facing the clones of themselves that the tone fully shifts to the wackiness that is always pervasive in Hololive characters and streams. |
| 450 | * ScienceFantasy: You have the high-tech production ships and planes of the Ironblood and Sirens, the futuristic technology of the Sirens, and the Memory Cubes making the game seem to fit into the realm of ScienceFiction… but you also have stuff like the Royal Navy's ''York''-class being able to use magic, Vampire and Duke of York being [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], Centaur being an elf, Nagato and the Sacred Sakura Tree, a number of carriers that seem to use magic to conjure their planes from cards, paper, or fire, various ships being a LittleBitBeastly, Oni, or non-vampiric undead, and Grenville having a pet griffon skewing things towards the fantasy side. |
| 451 | * SchizoTech: While most shipgirls are based off real-world [=WW2=] warships that utilize cannons, torpedos, and piston-engine aircraft (fighters, torpedo bombers, and dive bombers) as their primary armament, some shipgirls showcase technology that wouldn't be in common use until a decade or two after [=WW2=], like the Silkworm anti-ship guided missiles available to the Dragon Empery retrofit destroyers An Shan and Chang Chun. |
| 452 | ** This is seen even more prominently in "Parallel Superimposition", where the the Commander and several Eagle Union Type II shipgirls fight both alongside [[GameplayAndStorySegregation and against]] [[OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture 21st-century warships]] that use guided missiles, jet fighters, and even quadcopter drones in several exercises before the real combat begins. |
| 453 | * ScunthorpeProblem: The English version's chat censor isn't exactly the best. Examples include: |
| 454 | ** Censoring the "ass" in "class"... in a game about warships of various ''classes''. Fixed by putting any form of punctuation at the end of it. |
| 455 | ** Censoring the "pedo" in "torpedo"... again, in a game about warships that use both ship-launched and air-launched torpedoes. Also fixed by putting any form of punctuation at the end of it. |
| 456 | ** Censoring the "Jap"[[note]]A racial slur used to address a Japanese person[[/note]] in "Japan"... in a game heavily influenced by Japanese culture with a boatload of Japanese ships and voiced only in Japanese. |
| 457 | ** In an inversion of the above, "Essex" will be censored due to the word "sex" if there's punctuation or other texts before or after her name. |
| 458 | ** Strangely, the word "shit" ''isn't censored at all''. |
| 459 | ** What seem to be obscure Malay or Indonesian profanities are censored, including the "peli" in "zeppelin", "kimak" in "dakimakura", and "ewe" in "newer". Considering ''only'' the offending substring is replaced with asterisks (*), calling someone "newer" is... [[NWordPrivileges ill-advised]]. |
| 460 | * ShownTheirWork: |
| 461 | ** Despite being a game well known for its fanservice, it contains a lot of historical accuracies, in many cases as [[HistoricalInJoke Historical In-Jokes]], be it something as small as Hood having failing eyesight, which is a nod to Hood mistaking Prinz Eugen for Bismarck in their fated encounter on the Denmark Strait, to whole Battles like in stage 3 - Battle of Midway - where the order of the flagships matches the historical records in which the Japanese carrier fleet was sunk (Kaga, Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu) and, of course, Yorktown's demise at the end of said stage. That said, they've also committed quite some goofs, as seen in the ArtisticLicense entry near the top of the page. |
| 462 | ** Even some of the commission names get in on this. One potential one in the English version is "BIW Gear Transport". BIW is a common initialism of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_Iron_Works Bath Iron Works]], a famous shipbuilder in the US, considered to be one of the best American shipbuilders during the Second World War, who have built a huge number of ships for the US Navy, primarily destroyers. |
| 463 | ** The Beaver Squad respects the origin of the destroyer squadron's true nickname (the ''Little'' Beavers, referencing the Native American character Little Beaver in the ''Red Ryder'' comic strips) with a featured cap similar to those found in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bonnet war bonnet]]. Of course, a ''literal'' beaver is [[RuleOfCute cuter as a logo]] for the in-game unlockable item than an angry man with a bow, who is the squadron's true mascot. |
| 464 | ** Some English players were unhappy with Z23's party skin dialogue talking about apple juice when the Chinese and Japanese line, and even the Japanese voiced dialogue, says orange and the [[https://i.imgur.com/ysJ6ro8.jpg concept art]] shows censored Fanta. However, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanta#History wartime Fanta was indeed made with apple]], so the English version was actually more accurate... until said line was seen as a typo and corrected back to orange. |
| 465 | ** ''Slow Ahead'' does this for both how characters are portrayed (often taking nods from their character stories or details from their lines) as well as a few additional nods to history/ship traits. Examples include North Carolina seeing I-19 (the crew of both ships wound up on friendly terms after the war) and Kaga easily handling the sauna (a nod to how hot the ship can get in a number of places). |
| 466 | * SmartBomb: Air raid is a downplayed version of this. An air raid will always clear the screen of enemy projectiles (including torpedoes), but whether or not it wipes out everything on-screen depends on how many planes are in it, how powerful they are, and the carrier's aviation stat. |
| 467 | * SpaceshipGirl: Wisdom cube technology actually lets ships manifest as human girls. They can still equip their rigging and guns and float on water, but otherwise they function as normal human beings with a few ship-related quirks off-duty (notably, there's still a building called a Canteen that serves oil, even though they can eat human food just fine). |
| 468 | * SpiceUpTheSubtitles: Used liberally in some of the newer English translated content. Profanity, memespeak, and occasionally contextually nonsensical references abound. In some cases it generally works well (the Kizuna AI crossover was basically built for this kind of treatment, and the game already has assets such as the "deal with it" shades to encourage meme overload), in other cases it's a bit more debatable. |
| 469 | * SpreadShot: Certain guns and all non-homing ship-mounted torpedoes behave this way. Some trade off range for huge close-range damage potential. |
| 470 | * StalkerWithoutACrush: The Commander resorts to this in [[PerpetualFrowner Shiranui]]'s Questline just to find out what she's up to and what she's like. |
| 471 | * StarterEquipment: Ships themselves typically come equipped with two items of poor quality (Common or Rare) so they have something to fight with until the commander remembers to give them proper equipment for all five item slots. If it's a destroyer or torpedo boat, they get a main gun and a torpedo; gunboats and battleships get a main and secondary gun; aircraft carriers might get second aircraft or an anti-air gun coupled with a primary aircraft. These items may be useful for stripping off to fully equip a new player's fleet, but quickly become obsolete. |
| 472 | * StarterMon: |
| 473 | ** The classic example of the trope occurs in the beginning: Commanders start the game by picking one of three Elite-rarity ships that are usually {{Cast Herd}}ed as the starters across national lines. The choices are [[JackOfAllStats Laffey]] for the Eagle Union and [[FragileSpeedster Javelin]] for the Royal Navy in all three servers, and [[MightyGlacier Z23]] for Ironblood in the Chinese and English servers or [[GlassCannon Ayanami]] for the Sakura Empire in the Japanese server. You can unlock the fourth ship in either version by getting the other three and uncapping them. All four ships are bundled together in maps, which will always have a chance of dropping any of the four (once the fourth one is unlocked) if they drop at all. All of them besides can be retrofitted and upgraded to endure well into the endgame. |
| 474 | ** The beginner rewards questline gives Portland, a fairly strong Rare heavy cruiser who, like the starters, receives a substantial boost with a retrofit. |
| 475 | ** Prinz Eugen is given as a seven-day-streak log-in reward, and is often a new player's first SR ship as well as a strong heavy cruiser for diversity. She isn't that ''offensively'' strong, [[StoneWall but she's an utter cockroach]], and is able to survive a player making a lot of dumb newbie mistakes that would get other ships killed. |
| 476 | ** Saratoga can also count for many players, as she's a reward for purchasing Gems for the first time. While that might make her seem like BribingYourWayToVictory, even ''the $0.99 pack'' counts. Needless to say, one buck barely even registers on most people's pay-to-win radar, and she's a very common pickup, especially since she's also extremely useful. |
| 477 | ** While the prior examples are strong ships throughout the game, the cheaper variant of this trope occurs with two Rare-rarity ships. In all three versions, Long Island is your starting backline ship and Repulse is one of your first battleships (actually a battlecruiser) as a very early quest reward, with both functioning as CrutchCharacter backline ships. |
| 478 | * StatusLine: It displays the characters' responses to certain stimuli, such as being low in one of their meters or their reactions to certain commands. |
| 479 | * TheStinger: After an event campaign is cleared, continuing to play the final mission can unlock further cutscenes. |
| 480 | * StoneWall: There are some heavy cruisers that have more HP and/or stronger defensive skills than most but lack either offensive stats or skills. Prinz Eugen is a prime example of this as she has HP that rivals Battleships but her offensive stats are rather low for a SR/SSR. |
| 481 | * StopPokingMe: The ships have three kinds of pokes: |
| 482 | ** Normal (areas besides the chest or head) is generally not minded. |
| 483 | ** Special (the chest) gets a mix of reactions: some are angry it's being done at all, some are angry you're doing it in public, a few unique ones like Akagi are generally eager for you to continue, the various marriage skins have the girls not mind being risque with you, and some have ''pointed'' reactions to your boldness. |
| 484 | ** Headpat (the head) tends to be varied since it's only present on a smaller number of ships. |
| 485 | ** Notably, the [=Live2D=] secretaries (the starters, Akashi, Yukikaze, and others with [=Live2D=] skins) have different animated reactions to all three areas. |
| 486 | * StupidJetpackHitler: Nazi Germany's equivalent, the Iron Blood, have some of the most high-tech looking ships, with most of them appearing to have mechanical limbs on their riggings (or mechanical shark heads), and use the same production model ships as the Sirens, most of which are sleek, black, covered in TronLines, and look like the love-child of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_(IX-529) Sea Shadow]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer USS Zumwalt]], and a giant mechanical shark, as well as using the same aircraft as the Sirens when faced as enemies, which look like a mix between an [[CoolPlane SR-71]] and a [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse Quinjet]]. |
| 487 | * SuicideAttack: Any enemy ship, especially suicide bomb boats will self-detonate and damage your ships off-screen if you fail to destroy or evade it in time and let them get past your vanguard. |
| 488 | * SuperPrototype: Prototype Rare ships have markedly superior stats over the rarest ships in their respective categories, and they come with extremely powerful skills to boot. Though they are not obtained from gacha or otherwise time-limited or event exclusive, they require an absolutely ''massive'' time and resource investment to obtain and reach their full potential. Players need to obtain 3 million (for Priority rarity) or 3.6 million (for Decisive rarity) EXP in combat with the specified ship classes and nationality ''for each ship''. No [=PvP=], no NonCombatEXP from backyard and auditorium, you must sortie your ship out and LevelGrind the required EXP. The only saving grace in the long grind is that all ships that meet the research criteria contributes towards the required EXP, so if you have the fuel to burn, you can sortie three ships at once to triple the EXP gain rate, possibly even more if one of them scores the [=MVP=]. The EXP grind, time consuming as it is, is nothing compared to the amount of Strengthening Materials (which looks like blueprints) required to fully Limit Break them, requiring a total of 343 blueprints for Priority rarity or 513 for Decisive rarity. While they don't require active grinding and the Prototype Rare ships doesn't require Limit Breaks to reach max level, the amount of research required is a huge MoneySink and takes so much time that it's faster to grind out the required EXP than to collect all the blueprints. The time-limited events always provide 30 blueprints that can be traded for Priority Rare blueprints, plus 10 for Decisive Rarity ships in their exchange shop, but it costs a lot of in-game currency to purchase them all, meaning you'll have to grind ''a lot'' in several events. They also have powerful weapon associated with them, easily some of the best equipment in the game. |
| 489 | * SurprisinglySuddenDeath: In "Parallel Superimposition", [[spoiler:Hornet II, Hammann II, Northampton II, and Langley II]] are all wiped out in an instant by Arbiter: The Tower XVI once Arbiter: The Devil XV is disconnected from the Reality Lens. Even with the scene happening in a simulated world, on the rare occasion that someone has actually died onscreen in previous events they normally get to say their last words or let the player see their last thoughts; the casualties in this scene get ''none'' of that, only Yorktown II desperately trying to contact them on the radio. |
| 490 | * TellMeHowYouFight: Discussed in "Ink-Stained Steel Sakura", where Mikasa tells Nagato that one battle reveals character better than a thousand words. |
| 491 | * TemptingFate: In the starting cutscene of "Iris of Dark and Light" B2/D2, Cleveland complains that she won't get to show off if the enemy has no planes, and is immediately beset by Siren aerial units. |
| 492 | * TheOneGuy: While the Commander is supposed to be a blank slate due to being a representation of the player, multiple instances of in-game dialogue refer to said Commander with male pronouns, inadvertently making him this even if the person playing is a woman. Played more straight in the Anthology comics, where he's the only male to show up, albeit with generally blank features aside from black hair that's long enough to cover his eyes. |
| 493 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: This could happen if you bring a superpowered, supercharged fleet to engage a much weaker enemy fleet (with a level difference of around 30 or more), and watch your fleet one-shot most enemy ships. Chapter 1-1 is actually an ideal place to increase a ship's Affection: the enemy is a mere Level 2, and a fixed ambush spot can be exploited to farm Affection over and over again, with your shipgirl(s) of choice dealing tons of damage to ships with a few hundred HP ''at most''. On the other hand, the enemy can do the same to you should your fleet be too weak to handle them. |
| 494 | * TheoryTunnelvision: In "Inverted Orthant" A1/C1, Peter Strasser can't seem to consider that [[spoiler:the alleged bug in their testing facility might actually be due to an actual fleet wandering into its waters. Later subverted; she reveals that she knew all along and pretending that she didn't was part of the plan.]] |
| 495 | * ThirdPersonPerson: A number of ships speak in third person in place of saying "I" in the Japanese version. Most of these don't survive the official English translation. Even for those that do, sometimes normal "I" slips through. |
| 496 | * ThoseWereOnlyTheirScouts: In "Khorovod of Dawn's Rime" B3/D3, the "Recorded Voice" explicitly tells the Commander that the forces under him are much smaller than the friendly forces depicted in the recording he sees, and so are the enemy forces he's fighting now compared to what was recorded, making it clear that what he's fighting now is a pale shadow of the enemy's true strength. |
| 497 | * ThrivingGhostTown: A downplayed example in Academy section, as it is not a town, but rather a special zone that is somehow connected to the mainland via a bridge, nevertheless it contains enough essential facilities to provide accomodate for your girls. You can command up to hundreds of shipgirls, but at most you can see 5 girls wandering around (some shipgirls that you have already retired will still appear here from time to time), when you expect it should be at least like in anime with myriad of shipgirls doing various things. |
| 498 | * TitleDrop: The title of "Microlayer Medley" is eventually revealed to refer to a compound that creates a signal-jamming mist ([[BlindIdiotTranslation since "Medley" makes no sense in this context]], a more accurate translation would be "Microlayer ''Mixture''"). |
| 499 | * TokenHuman: In a setting full of HumanOutsideAlienInside shipgirls and Sirens, intelligent, birdlike Manjuu, and robotic, catlike Meowfficers, the Commander is the only regular human around, leading the shipgirls and keeping them cohesive without special powers. In certain adaptations where he does appear, he's drawn as a generic human guy with no outstanding features like crazy rainbow colored hair to emphasize his normality compared to the wildly designed shipgirls. This makes the ''Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation'' collab units notable, as the girls are humans [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative (and one tengu)]] from another explicitly Earth setting that can use rigging. |
| 500 | * TooDumbToLive: In "Microlayer Medley" A1/C1, [[spoiler:Enterprise]] goes on a solo scouting mission despite knowing full well that [[spoiler:Baltimore, Helena and Memphis]] disappeared into a FogOfDoom nearby. To nobody's surprise, she too falls victim. |
| 501 | * TrappedInAnotherWorld: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the WebAnimation/KizunaAI collaboration event, where Kizuna finds herself in the world of ''Azur Lane''. The ''Hololive'' collaboration event has Zuikaku and Kawakaze immediately say [[OhNoNotAgain how familiar this sounds]] when they meet the Hololive girls. |
| 502 | -->'''Ikazuchi:''' I see, I see! So this is that "summoned from another world" trope! |
| 503 | * UnbreakableWeapons: Played straight in combat, and subverted in in-game cutscenes. When fighting, you can go full throttle without paying a single heed to your weapon status (in fact, it is recommended to maximize your damage output via decreasing their cooldown time by any possible mean to quickly take out all enemies). In-game cutscenes, it is possible your girls' weapons can work for an extended period of time, but they will still take damage if getting hit or interfered by the enemy weaponry. There are some equipment however that will have debuffs in prolonged battles, referencing the low endurance of its historical counterpart. |
| 504 | * UnstableEquilibrium: If the flagship is sunk, the fleet can still retry the encounter if there are still surviving main fleet shipgirls. That's in theory. In practice, if the enemies were able to sink the flagship even with two or three main fleet members present, they're even more likely to be able to do so with a now-diminished main fleet, especially given that damage from the failed attempt will carry over. |
| 505 | * VeryFalseAdvertising: The English version ads are rather notorious for doing this, along with making their game look like a waifu simulator. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgHX4Rmdf2s Examples here]]. It's due to outsourcing to another company which takes some liberties to say the least. |
| 506 | ** Averted with other versions which aren't misleading if they don't show some gameplay also. |
| 507 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Your ships start off as subordinates but gradually learn to trust, like, and then love their commander. This even culminates in marriage. They get gameplay bonuses at each stage of their relationship, encouraging healthy relationships with commanders who give them reasonable time off, let them serve when they ''are'' motivated with a good mood, and keep them alive during sorties. |
| 508 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: |
| 509 | ** For [[ParodiedTrope intentional comedy]] or [[ChildSoldier otherwise]], destroyers are mostly little girls, from kindergarten kids like the Mutsuki sisters to other elementary students, and are among the youngest girls in the entire base (though some seem to be early/mid-teens, this doesn't make it any better). They fight exclusively on the front line, serving as the vanguard along with light and heavy cruisers, bearing all damage before "it comes to backline". The fact that in real life, destroyers and other escort ships often had to partake on the most dangerous naval missions, such as patrolling, screening capital ships, escorting, fighting against submarines, bombarding coastal defense, etc... doesn't make things look any lighter. |
| 510 | ** Negative affinity does exist for those who truly despise certain ships. Players can repeatedly send her into battles to decrease her mood, give her poor or no equipment, make her the only vanguard (or backline) ship and take all the damage, and get her sunk more often to decrease her affinity. This is especially [[KickTheDog horribly cruel]] on those who were already suffering mental trauma like Helena, Arizone or Yorktown, who otherwise should not suffer anymore abusement. One must be an extreme sadist to do that to those girls. |
| 511 | ** Suicide boats utilize Manjuus as pilots, if you consider those birds organic creature. |
| 512 | * VillainEpisode: |
| 513 | ** The first half of "Scherzo of Iron and Blood" is in the perspective of Bismarck as you fight Suffolk/Norfolk, Victorious, and Ark Royal as the bosses. |
| 514 | ** Certain levels of the first half of "Empyreal Tragicomedy" involves this in the perspective of Littorio as she tries to outsmart the Royal Navy by claiming an alliance. [[EpicFail It doesn't work, and they see right through the ruse]]. |
| 515 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: The Sirens and whoever is behind them. Despite being the scourge that invaded most of the sea and kickstarted the entire plot, The siren bosses are usually hardly hostile in dialogue, but rather, indifferent. In their cutscenes, they appearantly do not consider the human alliance as their enemy, but as collections of experimental subjects across numerous parallel universes, subjects they are trying to force "evolution" upon in order to contend with some unmentioned GreaterScopeVillain. And in their view, "evolution" entails sacrifice in the form of war and strife, and therefore they pose themselves as the enemy of mankind in order to force them (and their ship girls) to evolve. Case in point, they are also the source of the mysterious [[BlackBox Wisdom Cubes]] that spawned the ship girls, our main arsenal againt them, in the first place. |
| 516 | * WhamEpisode: |
| 517 | ** "Khorovod of Dawn's Rime" is really the first true breakthrough in the overarching plot of Azur Lane. It's the first episode to treat the commander as an actual character that is actively participating in conversations. It also sees them and an the North Union [[spoiler:access a long forgotten facility with ties to the Sirens, but more importantly the faction that the Ashes seem to have once been affiliated with. It establishes the commander as someone [[TheChosenOne genuinely special]] not only as the person with the single highest affinity for Wisdom Cubes and all associated technology on Earth, but as someone who the Sirens cannot figure out even with all their overwhelming knowledge. technology, and continuous testing. It even ends on an ominous note revealing that even after all of that the North Union still has one massive secret they've kept from the commander and few of the North Union members furious that Soyuz approved their return to New York with Azur Lane.]] |
| 518 | ** "Rondo at Rainbow’s End" blows the the previous example out of the water. Where to begin? The shipgirls [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou learning]] the AwfulTruth of the fate their RealLife counterparts, and how the same thing would have happened to all of them [[spoiler:had the Sirens not intervened]]? The [[ShesBack glorious, three-years-in-the-making return]] of [[spoiler:Bismarck]]? The fact that the first thing she does upon returning is to [[spoiler:''dissolve the Crimson Axis'' and reunite Iron Blood with Azur Lane]], officially ending one of the biggest plot points in the entire series, and doing it with all the epicness that such a moment deserves? Or how about the fact that, for the first time, [[spoiler:an Elite Siren is KilledOffForReal, and in a [[AlasPoorVillain rather sad way]]]]? One thing is certain: This game’s story will ''never'' be the same after this event. |
| 519 | * WholeEpisodeFlashback: |
| 520 | ** The ending of "Crimson Echoes" reveals that [[spoiler:Kaga has that whole event as a flashback during the climax of "Five Minutes of Fate" at the Battle of Midway]]. |
| 521 | ** "Scherzo of Iron and Blood" is a retelling of an event right after the player's tutorial, shown through the perspectives of both Bismarck and her Royal Navy hunters. |
| 522 | * WhatTheHellHero: A number of shipgirls at the lowest affection levels will greet you with such a line in their status screen. And given how getting them to that level is very difficult to do accidentally (constant battles/sinkings without break), it's not unwarranted. |
| 523 | * UndyingLoyalty: A mild case, given that the girls will always be with you all the times. But judging from their various lines, one can conclude that those girls, regardless of their faction and their personality, will do everything for their Commander's sake, will risk their own well-being to protect him (example: South Dakota vows to be the Commander's shield, and she literally took the hit meant for her superior during Northern Overture event). They answer only to the commands issued by their leaders, and dedicate their victories for the greater cause. See character page for more information about how the girls express such loyalty. |
| 524 | [[/folder]] |
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