Just as I was talking about the need for a more Sakura Empire/Red Axis episode, we get an episode heavily focused on the Sakura Empire. True, we still got a couple scenes with Enterprise and Belfast as well as the other Azur Lane characters, but the meat or the episode is spent in Sakura territory, dealing with their intrigues.

It is, really, just what was needed at this point. We didn’t get all the answers, in fact I dare say the answers we did get raise more questions than they resolve, but what we get changes the narrative enough that there’s a real feeling of progress and solid reason to believe that in the remaining eight episodes we will probably answer at least most of what we’ve got.

The biggest reveal is probably that the Sakura Empire is not an internally united front. The technical faction leader, Nagato, is uncomfortable with the preemptive strike the current conflict was sold as, but accepts it: the orthodox feeling seems to be that the Azur Lane’s strategy for taking on the Sirens will be too slow and lead to humanity being overwhelmed, and that the Azur Lane factions will oppose, violently, the attempt of the Red Axis to gain power faster by (ab)using repurposed Siren technology. OK, makes sense. However, Akagi and Kaga are playing a different game: they appear to be working with the Sirens, for a goal unrelated to the protection of humanity. What’s their goal? What do the Sirens want? That’s still up for debate, but let’s take a look.

After their meeting with Nagato, Akagi and Kaga have a talk over the Black Box, where Akagi once again goes on about the strength of her love. The thing is, she doesn’t seem to be talking about love for Kaga this time. Akagi goes slightly off into her own little world and Kaga’s right there and at least a little concerned about Akagi’s mania. So to what is Akagi referring? Knowing game lore I can think of at least a couple options, but I’d like to see where they’re going with this.

The fox carriers then check in with the Sakura Empire’s big plan, the Orochi Project. A sinister name for a sinister design – apparently most of the Sakura Empire forces don’t have a hand in it. Even Akashi, the prime repair ship of the faction, who know it exists, doesn’t know what it is and has never seen it before; she gets lost in some tunnels and stumbles across it, questioning whether they should be building something like a gigantic Siren ship. On cue, a Siren shows up to have a chat with Akagi.

Quick aside, but I kind of love how the lead Siren, Observer Alpha, is treated in this. Her introduction is one of the show’s technically most racy moments, seeing that she has tentacles and clever camera angles rather than clothes, but her movements are distinctly weird and unnatural, leading to her appearance being more offputting than sensual even though it’s really, really fanservice-y. She does feel like a strange, even monstrous creature, and the way she clearly has a superior position on Akagi without having to actually threaten or raise her voice sells up her threat.

Observer is summoned by using the Black Box on the Orochi ship, after it’s said the Box is the same kind of Mental Cube that produces shipgirls. Apparently, more will be needed to finish Orochi, and Observer hands over another that they need to work with before Akashi’s unintentional spying is noticed… which nearly gets Akashi killed. Kaga makes a weak claim about territoriality to Observer, clearly not slowing her down, and the real rescue comes from the second plot line of the episode, Sheffield and Edinburgh acting as spies. Apparently it’s not just Ayanami’s conspicuous black cloak in the first episode that works, every faction lets you get away with a lot using a paper-thin disguise and ship parked… somewhere. The two of them manage to steal the new Black Box and rescue Akashi to boot. Akagi and Kaga are tasked with getting the Black Box back, but Akagi doesn’t think that will be all that bad since the Azur Lane will apparently “nurture” it.

Which brings me to one of the odd notes of the episode. Throughout the show so far, the combat scenes have been pretty high quality overall – not always the best blocked, but fast and flowing. Here, it does that… sometimes. The fight between the maid ships (mostly Sheffield) and Kaga, Akagi, and Observer (Mostly Kaga) was really well done and overall clever. The second stage of the fight, where they square off against Takao and Ayanami on their way out, is choppy and features a lot more awkward shots than average. It’s kind of expected and entirely forgivable for some distant models to not look too good or a frame or two look really dopey if you happen to pause on them, but in the Takao fight, the weirdness is actually really noticeable, along with more troublesome breaks in visual storytelling. The action in Azur Lane had been pretty strong on the whole, and even half of it in this episode is. I probably wouldn’t be focusing on this, but the fact that the quality isn’t low but schizophrenic is really something odd.

On the other hand, the writing has by in large stayed on the better end. The Sakura Empire characters we were introduced to (and there were a lot of them, including Nagato, Yukikaze, Yuudachi, Shigure, Takao, Nagato, Shiranui, Akashi… I really wonder how well someone who doesn’t know the game would follow them all, considering that’s not even all of them that get at least a line) are distinctive and quickly make themselves out to be just as personable and colorful as the Azur Lane side. The plot moving is done well, it’s easy to know where people stand and what the stakes are at this stage, and now why our factions are at odds. Zuikaku’s growing rivalry with Enterprise was handled well (if quickly), and over on the Azure Lane side the scenes with Enterprise and Belfast reinforced how their characters were handled in episode 3, with Belfast now trying actively to make Enterprise take better care of herself as a person.

As an anime critic, this episode was alright. It had its ups and downs, but much like the whole of Azur Lane so far I think the ups are a good bit stronger. I liked it well enough, and would absolutely keep watching even if I didn’t have to keep up a weekly series commenting on it.

As someone who knows the game, though, it’s even more intriguing. I’d said previously that the plot of the show seemed to be almost completely divorced from the stories in the game, but now that we’ve gotten the Sakura side of things, I’m not so sure. The stage is set for the Sakura Empire to fracture, Akagi and Kaga on one side with the Sirens backing them, Zuikaku and Nagato on the other – just like in the in-game event stories for “Visitors Dyed in Red” and “Ink-Stained Steel Sakura”. It probably won’t happen until much closer to the climax, but Akashi’s escape is letting us know pretty clearly that not everyone is on the same page in the red team. It seems now like what we’re getting isn’t isolated, but is more of a riff on the Siren-heavy, non-historical end of the game’s story. Very much its own thing because of how differently it sets up, but playing a lot of the same notes. And quite frankly, that’s good. I’m not sure you could make a 1:1 adaptation of the isolated event-based plot of a mobile gacha game work as a narrative told the whole way through. You might be able to get closer than this, but if you’re going to be taking liberties anyway, telling a good story comes before asking “how precisely can I copy this?”

What’s more, the goals of the Sirens have always been fairly enigmatic in game. As I’ve discussed in the past, their stated aims don’t always mesh with what their aims appear to be. Here, we’re getting a lot more answers about the Sirens. Again, this is appropriate. Even if episode 12 isn’t firmly “the end” of the fighting for these characters, we want to see a satisfying climax – that is, we need to see the Sirens thwarted, and as viewers that means understanding them well enough to know we’ve thwarted them. The black Mental Cube that’s somehow charged up by conflict and the sinister Orochi project are new to the anime, but they seem to fit in with the lore of Azur Lane… and though we have more unanswered questions about them than we have knowledge, they still present a more clear game the Sirens are playing than just about anything in game.

The more the Azur Lane anime goes on, the more I get the sense that the creators at least know what they’re doing. Not every scene or moment works, and certainly not every shot is great, but I’m kind of willing to accept the fact that the production may have taken a couple hits as long as the core of the story is strong. And while there’s always room for a show to mess up, Azur Lane is so far on track to be at least a decent action show. I’m looking forward to how this develops next week.

Enterprise “Owari da” Count: 1 (Not going up nearly as fast as expected)

Game Lore: https://harperanimereviews.com/how-much-lore-does-it-take-to-justify-cute-ship-girls-a-prelude-to-azur-lane/

Previous Episode: https://harperanimereviews.com/seasonal-selection-azur-lane-episode-3/