Akagi2, read as Akagi Squared, is a Slice of Life Webcomic by Ethan Forsythe based on the Azur Lane franchise.
It mostly follows the adventures of a young Akagi-chan following Akashi's experiments with Wisdom Cubes that ended up creating her.
While it follows the Yonkoma format, it is read left-to-right.
Can be read here
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This webcomic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Compared to the game, Akagi-chan's rougher (brattier) aspects got smoothed out though her reaction to the commander's popularity shows she has some deviousness.
- The Alcoholic: Laffey. It's even pointed out that her dinner usually consists of a heavy amount of Jack.
- Beleaguered Boss: The base chaplain, while not technically a boss per se, has his hands full with all the girls in the base, though both Friedrich der Grosse and Richelieu have stepped up to help him with his job. That said, the time he was almost set on fire by Saint-Louis was totally his fault.
- Big Ball of Violence: How Grim Reaper and the older Akagi's fracas turns out.
- Big Sister Worship: Akagi-chan adored the older Akagi, until the older Akagi made it clear she wanted nothing to do with her.
- Broken Pedestal: Akagi-chan "defects" to the Eagle Union after her image of the older Akagi is shattered.
- Cuteness Overload: Akagi-chan, particularly when she's asleep and flicks her ears. It gets to the point that the Eagle Union girls have to take turns in brushing her tails.
- The Dreaded: Grim Reaper, Enterprise's bald eagle to the current Kaga and Akagi. Oddly enough he warms up to Akagi-chan incredibly fast.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Bismarck, who wants to patch things up with Hood, and Hood just being somewhat of a Jerkass to her, decides to get plastered at a rundown bar during their Roadtrip. Ultimately, they sort of smooth things out and come to a mutual understanding.
- Evil Brit: As Akagi-chan tries to adjust to her life in the Eagle Union dorms and reads about US History, she sees the Royal Navy as this. Warspite, Cleveland and Queen Elizabeth have to dissuade her of this notion, although by then, Queen Elizabeth's Tea had already fallen victim to Akagi-chan's attack, much to QE's chagrin.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Amagi-chan's default expression — even when getting kidnapped, her expression doesn't change.
- Fence Painting:Cleveland somehow manages to avoid getting Akagi-chan disciplined by Queen Elizabeth for her displays of patriotism against the brits, when she convinces that she'll take the punishment instead — said punishment is to give up her chance to brush Akagi-chan's tails and have QE do it instead — ultimately, QE admits she got played but she doesn't mind it one bit.
- Gun Nut: Bataan, but with Hellcats. She's rather adorable and motherly about it.
- Hypocrite: The older Akagi. Akagi tells Enterprise one of the reasons why she couldn't bear to train her younger self as an aircraft carrier was because the young Akagi has no memories of Midway, so the older Akagi claims she doesn't want do it because she had to watch her sister burn during that fight while Enterprise watched hers slip beneath the waves peacefully, nevermind that Yorktown "peacefully" agonized for 12 hours, nor acknowledged her role as flagship of the fleet during the attack at Pearl Harbor.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Akagi, when she sends Akagi-chan to kidnap Grim Reaper and bring him to her. Akagi expected the younger Akagi to be mauled by Grim Reaper or be held up by Enterprise, instead she succeeds... Grim Reaper then proceeds to maul the older Akagi.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The chaplain, having to deal with the shenanigans around the base. You later see him drinking next to Scharnhorst and Laffey.
- Interservice Rivalry: The Army-Navy Game is serious business, as seen in the comic.
- Irony: When telling her editor about all the ways her comic for Combiket kills off the elder Akagi, Akagi-chan guesses he thinks constantly killing off a main character might be a bit excessive. But said editor is strongly implied to be none other than George R. R. Martin, who often does that in his most famous work.
- Kid Sidekick: While most of the young clones acclimated themselves with their older selves, Akagi-chan ended up tagging with Enterprise instead.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The April Fools' Day' strip — drawn by Akagi-chan herself.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Much like other versions of Akagi, she'll do anything for Amagi, including pushing Akashi to do experiments in order to fix Amagi's damaged cube — it is rather toned down compared to what happened in the anime, but it is still present.
- Mistaken for Aliens: Because Enterprise forbade Akashi's experiments on the base, Akashi decides to this at White Sands, quickly leading to her activities to be mistaken for those of aliens.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Leave it to Amagi to make the simple act of opening an umbrella threatening.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Nagato explicitly states that her bias in regards to nuclear weapons is why she cannot participate in a joint conference along with the other leaders of the respective factions, since nuclear weaponry is part of the talks.
- Odd Friendship:
- Akagi-chan and Grim (Enterprise's eagle) as the latter is noted to be snippy with most others and has a "Visceral" hatred of the 1st Carrier division.
- Another may be forming: Battleship Kaga and Little Enterprise
- Amagi-chan and the naval academy's goat is another as the goat is noted to be very ill-mannered towards newcomers yet when we see them, she's sleeping on him with his banner being a blanket.
- Off with His Head!: Queen Elizabeth originally has a fit upon finding Akagi-chan re-enacted the Boston Tea Party on her personal cargo of Tea and another when Akagi-chan says "Flat Tax" to her.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: As Kaga notes after overhearing an angry rant about how Akagi treated Akagi-chan, one sure sign that their sister Amagi has well and truly lost her temper is that when angered, she drops the Incurable Cough of Death.
- Other Me Annoys Me: One of the reasons why Akagi can't stand her younger self.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Enterprise. The only time she loses it, she has a good reason, considering Akashi decided to continue with her experiments, this time near White Sands, not only causing a flap of UFO sightings, but also accidentally creating even more young clones of several of the girls.
- Among the Sakura fleet, Amagi takes this role, albeit unofficially — being able to talk in a one-on-one basis with Enterprise and make arrangements so Akagi-chan can live at the Eagle Union dorms under Enterprise's tutelage.
- Queen Elizabeth, in a way. While she's very prone to saying "Off with her head" in regards to Akagi-chan's antics, she's quick to forgive Akagi-chan for hitting her with a water baloon once the misunderstanding behind her reasons for such is cleared...and ends up being perfectly ok with brushing Akagi-chan's tails as compensation for her dumping Queen Elizabeth's Dragon Empery tea into the sea.
- Religion of Evil: Played With. The Chaplain at the naval base has no love for Catholics, and when he gives the very religious and very catholic Saint Louis a Chick tract, Enterprise has to step in to prevent Saint Louis from burning him at the stake.
- He has toned it down since, and Richelieu now helps him with service, although it could also be interpreted that he's relieved he doesn't have to officiate to Catholics, even so he's still seen inside a confessional.
- Revenge via Storytelling: One of the ways Akagi-chan gets back at Akagi for her abusive behavior is by drawing comics where Akagi ends up dying in horrible ways.
- The Rival: Akagi sees Enterprise as this, and is rather open how she feels about the latter. Ultimately, this is one of the reasons why Akagi-chan "defects" to the Eagle Union, as a way to stick it to her older self.
- Shout-Out: When Enterprise and company find themselves in a tight spot during their cross-country road trip, they end up getting bailed out by Enty's Uncle Willie and Uncle Joe.
- Stiff Upper Lip: Lil' Renown comes out of a Helo dunker training with the aplomb befitting a rugged marine.
- Straw Nihilist: Friedrich describes Roon as basically this, so when Roon started to cause a commotion in the base, Fried put her in her place by actually showing her what real darkness is.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Akagi-chan "defects" to the Eagle Union, after the verbal abuse she received from the older Akagi. She does so by leaving a note that simply reads "Owari Da".
- Tempting Fate: The army cadets that kidnapped Amagi-chan stowed her and Bill the Goat in a turret and claim its walls are so thick that nothing short of naval artillery would make a hole in them... not knowing Amagi-chan has such power.
- Third Line, Some Waiting: You got the main story revolving around Akagi-chan, you got Akagi and Akashi's sub-plot of wisdom cube experiments (including BB!Kaga and Lil' Enty) and then just random shenanigans going around the base.
- There is now another storyline now, dealing with Amagi-chan joining the Eagle Union Naval Academy.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Kaga's reaction to Akagi-chan bringing back a sleeping Grim.
- Through His Stomach: Grim comes to like Hiei-chan after she brings Grim and Akagi-chan some sashimi.
- Tranquil Fury: Only Amagi can make opening an oriental umbrella seem threatening.
- Truth in Television: If you think the West Point cadets were going overboard when they kidnapped Billy the Goat and Amagi-chan then you'd be surprised to find out that Billy has been kidnapped several times prior to the game, with the latest successful kidnapping happening just three days prior to the 2021 Army-Navy Game.
- Unfazed Everyman: Roz, the old lady that is giving a ride to BB!Kaga and Lil' Enty is completely unaffected by their appearance and even offers them a summer job at her farm.
- Unreveal Angle: The one time the commander is seen in the strip, only a portion of him is shown, but Akagi-chan clearly takes a liking to him, not unlike her older self.
