The Autumn 2022 anime season is two-thirds over. Still, we’ve gotten a late-starting new series to check out: the second season of Kantai Collection, called KanColle: Itsuka Ano Umi de, aka Someday in that Sea. It’s a solid offering that will be greatly appreciated by loyal Kancolle fans. Still, the question remains: will the new series be able to attract viewers with so much competition? Also, why the hell did Kadokawa make fans wait seven years for the anime to continue?
Kancolle is Back! What’s the New Season Like?
If anime studios have learned one thing, it’s that a popular IP can be continued endlessly by focusing a new series on a set of new characters. What worked for so many iterations of the Idolmaster and Love Live! idol series is now being applied to the Kantai Collection universe, with a new story that focuses on a new batch of characters while providing shout-outs to the originals.
Kancolle: Itsuka Ano Umi de tells a different story from the 2015 first season. It focuses on First Strike Force, Section Three, comprised of destroyer Shigure, battleships Fusou and her sister Yamashiro, heavy cruiser Mogami, and three cute destroyers, Yamagumo, Asagumo, and Michishio. Other characters make cameos, but the story focuses on these new characters (at least so far).
It’s also a much darker military story, focusing on the mechanics of the battles between the KanMusu and the Abyssal fleet. So if you liked Kancolle because of the cute “poi!” memes, you might feel differently about this show. It’s a lot closer to the (outstanding) KanColle film than the original series.
It also has the most relaxing opening theme I’ve ever heard, a famous existing song by Toshi of X Japan. Listen to it below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S1PwgzPipY
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The series is being animated by ENGI, a newer studio that’s already brought us several hits, including both seasons of Uzaki-chan, The Detective is Already Dead, and Hatage! Kemono Michi, a.k.a. the Princess Buttocks pro-wrestling show.
Visually, the new KanColle is amazing, with great quality across the first three episodes. I’m happy to report that they’ve improved the sea battle animation so it doesn’t look like annoying low-frame CGI, as in the 2015 series.
Why Did Kadokawa Wait So Long to Bring Kantai Collection Back?
The 100,000 yen question, why did Kadokawa wait so long to give fans a new season of KanColle? Making fans wait for seven years with no reason to think the show would ever return is stupid since we’ve all got a dozen or more quality anime, manga, and game IPs competing for our time and money.
It reminds me of an electronics store we used to be customers of here in Japan. For several years, we purchased TVs, air conditioners, and other products at the store, but then one day, they closed up shop, so we naturally found a new store to be customers of. Then the first store re-opened after a multi-month delay. They had only closed to renovate their store but failed to communicate this to us, so we naturally moved on.
A bigger question is, what happens if a giant anime behemoth goes into decline, faltering slowly over several years due to too much debt or too many bad decisions. Kadokawa was already a bit of a laughing stock across Asia by keeping the Kantai Collection browser game in Flash for too long and not embracing international fans, allowing Azur Lane to eat its lunch. Let’s hope they make fewer bad decisions as a company going forward.
What did J-List think of Kadokawa’s purchase of Anime News Network? Blog post here!
The Real Reason We Enjoy KanColle!
In summation, it’s great to have season 2 of KanColle to watch, even if we had to wait seven years for it. It reminds me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place: the lewd fanart!
Thanks for reading this blog post on the second season of Kantai Collection. What do you think of the new series? Tell us your comments below, or chat with us on Twitter!
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