Kongou and her sisters are finally getting an appearance. You know what this means. At last, Shimakaze will finally get some screen time!
After a dramatic twist from last time, Nagato and Mutsu now enlist Fubuki and Shimakaze to participate in a special mission with the Southwestern Theater Fleet. I can admit that Kongou and her sisters are funny in their own way. To me, Kongou is probably the most enjoyable girl from her class not because of her energetic personality, but her use of English words and nicknames. At one point, she calls Fubuki “Bucky” and Shimakaze “Zekamashi,” a nickname that Shimakaze doesn’t like.
Most of the eccentricities of the Kongou sisters can be seen through their antics when they tried to do lure Shimakaze from her hiding place. While some of the viewers who are unfamiliar with the franchise find their activities tiresome, to me, most of them were actually funny and pretty ridiculous such as Kongou having an idol duel against Naka, Kirishima trying to calculate what two girls like and Hiel taking Haruna’s bait. Predictably, sweets were the thing that lured Shimakaze out. Even so, I’m glad that they finally focused some screen time on her since she is one of the popular ships that catch people’s interest in the franchise after all.
On the other hand, it felt strange that they would add some comedy after Kisaragi sank last time since I would have thought that the next episode would be melodramatic. Instead, it seems that Fubuki couldn’t bring herself to tell Mitsuki the truth. Eventually, she realizes the potential hardship she would be causing by not telling her when she was on the blink of sinking from going too far ahead during the battle. Thankfully, Kongou protected her and she and her sisters were able to finish off the enemy and gain control of the resources. It’s understandable that it’s difficult to say that one’s love one has passed way from some reason, but I think it will hurt the person more by not telling. Thankfully, she revealed the truth to Mistuki through a form of a hug after returning from battle.
In the end, while the comedy somewhat caught me off guard despite being really enjoyable, I’m glad that this episode finally settled Kisaragi’s death while not being overly melodramatic with Fubuki and Mitsuki crying to each other at the end. Now that Mitsuki is back to her former self after accepting it, hopefully they will become stronger while she remembers the fond memories she had with Kisaragi.
Shimakaze’s screentime was what I’ve been for all along. lol
Kongou’s a popular character pecisely because of her energetic voice and English. That basically took Touyama Nao’s role as Karen in Kiniro Mosaic and ran with it 10x
The comedy after Kisaragi’s sinking episode was a bit jarring (tangent: what kind of KanKore admiral gets their ship sunk), but I’m glad that the series didn’t take a grimdark turn with melodramatics
I admit that Kongou is enjoyable mostly because of the energy and of course all that energy. But I do agree that most players will withdraw the ship before it actually sink for the fact that once they sink, they are gone forever, unless one finds another one (but of course it will be considered a new ship).
But in general, I was happy that Shimakaze got some screentime when I first watched this episode.