High School Fleet - Reviews

Giving Good Girls Giant Guns


So what would they do with them?

Well of course they would only do good things. Meaning the laws of physics and probability have to be altered to see that nobody ever gets hurt and the good girls always win and that the bad guys can only be seen to be like rats.

High School Fleet is a story unsure whether it wants to be a farcical comedy or something more serious resulting in an inconsistent narrative. The best parts are the comedic where our girls try to treat the ship like a domestic setting and the cringing worst parts are where the bridge crew share their feelings in the midst of a life and death fire fight. Fortunately the enemy is always considerate enough to stop shooting at them at these times.

The protagonist Akeno Misaki is another Miho Nishizumi or Nagisa Furukawa clone. The diffident irresolute mousy haired girl. The worst person to captain or command other people. Fortunately she is endlessly propped up by her female fellows as she stumbles forward with the unstoppable power of anime physics behind her to win the day and save everyone. No exceptions. No need for anyone to get hurt in wars. Good message for the young.

The rest of the characters are pretty much the usual mixture of arch types. The first officer Mashiro Munetani fits her role most adequately of all the girls keeping it all from sinking and chief engineer Maron Yanagiwara plays at being Scotty from Star Trek.

The artwork and effects are of a good standard. The music track fits the setting. The ships are modeled accurately and animated nicely. Sometimes the size scales are off a bit.

'High School Fleet' attempts to be 'Girl und Panzers' with ships instead of tanks and a bit more serous. But it does not work and consequently it is not as good. Strangely enough the only foreigners to show up are the Germans again. The only great power of last century the Japanese did not fight, does that say something?

While watching I frequently forgot that this was about girls at school because of all that was at stake - just one shell hits their ship and they all die. High School Fleet has one thing up on most other school based anime, the girls have a justifiable reason for wearing the sailor suits. Go watch Girls und Panzers first and if you like it then give this a try.

This anime must be one of the best anime in 2016!

Story:

Well the story is very good, but pretty deep at that! There just isn't anything to add to that.

Just that if you want to know... RATt were harmed during the story making.

Animation:

The animation is very alike to Girlz und Panzer, if you like that series? Than you are going to LOVE this one. I ABSOLUTLY RECOMMEND IT FOR PEOPLE THAT LIKES THAT SERIES!

Sound:

Well nothing to add to it, just the sound is AMAZING!

that's all ;)

Characters:

Again very Girlz und Panzer like.

OVERALL:

I would love a second season, but next to that...

This Series was deep, but AMAZING!

UPDATE - (fully watched) Hm. After finishing and mulling it over, I'm beginning to appreciate the series a bit more. I think the previous comments below still apply, but I think the writers of this anime were aiming to fuck with you. Just like the characters in the show, the show itself was a series of back-and-forth, back-and-forth action to slice-of-life. At first I was frustrated, but now I realize that there was some level of genius involved in how well they managed to do this. 

UPDATE - (6 eps. in) I'm beginning to understand why the average score is low 3 stars. The issue for me is the almost bipolar mood of the story. From my POV, it seems like the anime can't make up its mind on whether it's a comedic slice-of-life or a riveting, dramatic action flick. I really desperately want the action to pick up and plot to thicken but the show keeps snapping back to lighthearted har-har CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things). I'm starting to get whiplash.

TL;DR - (2 episodes in) Wow. This series is starting out great. I was thinking this would be just a nautical-themed version of every other slice-of-life but the first two episodes went from 0 - 100 FAST. If you're looking for something interesting, give this show a shot.

Animation (8/10)

The animation is good. All of the characters are very pretty and cute, and the general artwork has been good. I haven't paid a ton of attention to the artwork revolving around the fighting and warfare, so I'll update that next time.

**UPDATE** The warfare scenes are animated quite well actually. Good details on the water and smoke.

Sound (7/10)

The opening theme is okay. Not bad, but it's not something I'm gonna add to my iTunes playlist... the closing theme is a little worse. Meh on music. The voice-acting is okay. My only issue is that 60% of the characters sound the same. And kind of annoying. Maybe I'm in the wrong here because they are technically all tweenager girls, but...

 **UPDATE** The opening song grew on me, I guess.

Characters & Story (6.5/10)

Characters are likable and fun. There are a variety of personalities on their ship, although it seems like more than a few of them have a tsundere-esque attitude. They're maintaining the separate personalities pretty well, and so you can definitely pick out your favorite characters and remember their names. My only issue is that their situation is pretty serious, but they're not really fazed. Sure, a few of them are scared, but the anime is kind of trying to take the less serious route and be a slice-of-life. It feels... mismatched. So far, I'm a little surprised by how the story took a turn in a direction I was not expecting. But the characters are falling a little short of the story for me.

 **UPDATE** I intensely dislike our captain. After spending some time really thinking about it, the story has a lot of coherency and it actually fits. The notion/concept is somewhat ridiculous, and it turns out to be a whole lot more comical than what you would have expected based on the first few episodes. But it flows and it fits. A fairly entertaining story overall, although I still can't rate it much higher because sometimes when it switches back to slice-of-life from the action, I found myself skipping snippets because I just didn't give a damn. I wanna see the action!!

Overall (7/10)

Not bad so far! I'll keep watching and update once I get to 6 episodes in.

**UPDATE** Hmm. After 6 episodes, I'm beginning to understand why the average score is low 3 stars. The issue for me is the almost bipolar mood of the story. From my POV, it seems like the anime can't make up its mind on whether it's a comedic slice-of-life or a riveting, dramatic action flick. If I had to compare it to something, it's like when your mom played Peek-a-boo with you as a kid. It's like "Ooh, today's such a nice day, let's bathe together and eat cake and party lala~" and then BOOM, "Holy shit, we just ran into landmines. They're opening fire on us! We're gonna die!" and I dunno. It's getting a little old. I really desperately want the action to pick up and plot to thicken but the show keeps veering back toward Cute Girls Doing Cute Things. And personally, that's really disappointing, because I can both enjoy a really relaxed, funny show as well as a gut-wrenching, seat-gripping drama. But jumping back and forth (this violently) is giving me emotional whiplash.

**UPDATE** As mentioned in my TL;DR, there is some level of genius involved with how they managed to whip back-and-forth. Sort of like the Harekaze dodging artillery, I found myself emotionally seasick. But you know, I just was thinking that maybe this is exactly what they were aiming for. Watch the ending - it says it all. "Just fucking with ya! Bye!" Well played... well played.

Before I get started!: I would like to point out a few things, most importantly I do not post spoilers in my reviews, This anime is similar to anime such as Strike Witches and Girls und Panzer! If you do not like them you better go find something else.

Story!: 

I must admit im a very big fan of the story! However it will be hard to convey how good it is without spoilers, but I will try my best, The story of this anime starts out slow! and I am talking lucky star slow, (not quite slow I know), but not long into the first episode it will start to speed up and more and more things will become apparent, It is a very gripping story with a nice amount of emotions and good pacing, while there are a couple of filler episodes those fillers actually serve their own purpose, you will understand that if you watch either way, Overall I feel the story of this anime is pretty special!

Animation!:

The Animation in Haifuri is not exactly what I was expecting, its good but not really the best, at points the animation looks a little lacking while in other scenes the animation is really good, not quite Hyouka good but close enough, most of the animation budget seems to have been spent on the effect rather than making the anime look beautiful, but considering the story It suits the anime.

Sound:

Sound is alright! was as I was expecting from watching similar anime such as strike witches and Girls und Panzer, However! some of the music in this anime can strike up emotion and the voice acting is right up there at the top, look up you might see it, no? you do not see the flying Loli? oh well!

Characters:

I loved the characters in this anime almost as much as I loved the story, there is a perfect range of different characters, and some nice conflict to add to the equation, I feel the character development was pretty good too! lolis need lots of good development! By the way did I mention the loli army in this anime? THERE IS LITTERELY AN ARMY OF LOLI PEOPLE, okay I shall calm down now.

FINAL VERDICT: 

This Anime was extremely enjoyable, and I am talking about watch all in one night enjoyable, I hope anyone who watches this anime will enjoy it as much as me, the ending is perfect and leaves nothing left open or atleast nothing a loli could fit through, the Story was gripping until the end and the characters were not just fun to watch but you also feel attatched to them, like you would feel attatched to puppy only after it has gone missing and you cant find it! you always expect something to happen during the anime!.

An interesting anime, yet the story is quite confusing. And quite a few random moments throughout the episodes.