I Hope You Weren't Fishing For Compliments From the Submarine

One of the rather quirky things about Arpeggio of Blue Steel is that most of the character development is given to the ship girls rather than the human characters. Even the captain of I-401, ostensibly the protagonist, doesn't get a whole lot of character development comparatively.

And honestly, it's pretty generic character development he does get. (I've read that there's a lot of differences from the manga, to the point where manga fans are upset by the anime, but... eh.)

Take this scene:

I've slightly altered the context-I left out the part where context made it clear that this conversation was about his attempt to change the world-but it's pretty amusing nonetheless.

-Signing off.

(Almost) The Only Reason

While I'll acknowledge that we're talking about real-world versus in-universe reasons, it still feels a bit disingenuous when the characters discuss why all the living warships in Arpeggio of Blue Steel are personified as female.

While the given reason-that ships are given female pronouns, so they should be girls-is pretty logical, and is why many, many ships with personalities are personified as female in science fiction, the other obvious reason-because the series creator(s)* felt like occasional fanservice-is definitely a factor in this case, though the series is relatively tasteful most of the time.

(I still think it's a pretty decent series, overall... even if/partly because it's a series that uses the phrase "tsundere heavy cruiser.")

*Arpeggio of Blue Steel is both a manga and an anime adaptation. I know very little about the manga and it's possible it has very little fanservice (though I doubt it), but the anime, erm, flirts with fanservice a fair bit, especially in the intro sequence and a couple of random episodes.

-Signing off.

Don't Pick A Fight With A Living Submarine

Because a living submarine is bigger than you and has built-in weapons. (Screenshots are from the anime Arpeggio of Blue Steel, which is about a bunch of superpowered and essentially living ships showing up and imposing a global blockade on humanity so that sea trade can't happen. They also shoot down all the satellites and jam all forms of long-ranged communication.)

And yes, the white/blue-haired girl is a submarine. (Her "real" body is just offshore, which is about twelve feet away in this case.)

Bonus reason for not picking a fight with a living submarine: There's a chance they'll be good at hacking.

(Incidentally, the reason this post is in the "super robot junk" label is because I've been watching it for the same reasons I watch super robot and mecha series*, and "super robot junk" is definitely my most catch-all category for that sort of thing.)

*Stuff blowing up plus cool technology porn that doesn't feel the need to make perfect sense.

-Signing off.