As they say, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, and indeed, in one fell swoop, with Fubuki being reassigned to a new fleet, we suffer the likely writing out of the beloved Naka-chan’s frequent screen time just as we see Kongou’s increase. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

The second chorus goes “Poi Poi Poi Poi”, unsurprisingly.

Actually, the real injustice in this episode is that the Teitoku can even form a fifth fleet to put Fubuki into. Us poor game players only get to benefit from the four, assuming you’ve actually played long enough to unlock all of them, and given that three of those tend to often be out scouring for resources (at least for scrub-players like myself, anyway), it makes management a pain at times.

Only four fleets, and yeah, my composition here is probably almost as weird as Special 5 in the show…

Mostly, though, this week sees a kind of uneventful, all things considered, episode in which there isn’t a whole lot to say much about. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t entertaining (though, obviously, not a patch on last weeks installment), but not being in the business of summarising everything in the cartoon episodes I watch, there’s not much left in the specifics for me to be expounding upon.

That means she has no boobs, apparently.

The jokes about Zuikaku being as flat as a flight deck are a little amusing, but mostly only because she isn’t usually the butt of those gags in KanColle fandom – those are typically reserved for light carrier Ryuujou, for reasons which are probably obvious from her appearance. The light carriers, like the submarines, have kind of been conspicuous in their absence in the anime thus far, though.

In game terms, the antagonistic relationship between Kaga and Zuikaku pretty much just evidences itself in a single line of dialogue from Kaga, asking not to be grouped with the 5th Carrier Division as she commences battle. Historically, I guess it just derives from the fact that the folks manning the historic and celebrated carriers from the 1st looked down on those manning the ships which came into service much further down the line, though the irony is that, ultimately, the 5th Carrier Division became the 1st after Kagi and Akagi were sank at Midway.

I will say, though, my favourites out of the carriers are the as-of-yet unseen Souryuu class, specifically Souryuu herself. Mostly because they’re cute, but, hey, being superficial is perfectly fine for a property like KanColle. Also, I guess I prefer Shoukaku to Zuikaku, but whatever, I guess Shoukaku is a little too level-headed to be, as Kongou would put it, Funny in the shows situation.

I do rather wonder if this line between Akagi and Fubuki is actually signposting something that is going to happen in these regards in the future, and that as a result, we are actually going to finally learn something about the Abyssal Fleet in some form of KanColle media. Heck, maybe we will actually see Kisaragi again in some form.

Or maybe I’m just being too optimistic.

Ultimately, my takeaway from this episode is that I do have to feel at least a little sorry for poor Ooi and Kitakami, having their precious garden trampled upon by having Kongou as a roommate. I’d kind of rather that particular abode be the focus of the series rather than Fubuki’s, as I’d bet it’d be hilarious…