Review: Arpeggios of Blue Steel

"Cebu" (animoo) 09/05/2014 at 10:51 • Filed to: I FINALLY DO JUSTICE TO MY URL

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TL;DR review:

I was introduced to the Arpeggio anime by the manga, which, frankly, wasn't that great. If we're bleedingly honest, neither is the anime.

In Depth review (for those with infinite patience)

In the Arpeggio of Blue Steel world, the Earth has been ravaged by global warming and the subsequent sea-level rise. At the same time, humanity has been denied access to or communication across the ocean by a mysterious (possibly alien) fleet that calls itself "the Fog". The "Fog" takes the form of WWII-era warships- apparently those of the country nearest where they are patrolling. You get the Kongo in Japanese waters, the (incredible and indestructible) Iowa -class in American waters, et cetera.

Arpeggio of Blue Steel focuses on the submarine, I-401, a mysterious defector among the Fog. Captained by the pointy-chinned Gunzou Chihaya, the I-401, codename Blue Steel, wreaks a one-ship war on the flabbergasting and fortress-like Fleet of Fog. it is unique among the Fog in that it is captained by a human- Fog ships normally run by themselves.

Since a ship fighting a bunch of other faceless ships would have been impossibly boring (at least, for those not keen students of naval warfare), the author created an interesting mechanic of Mental Models. Mental Models are humanizations of these warships- and, since we call ships "she", they're all girls. This lends them not only anthromorphization, but human emotions and thought, making them a genuinely interesting opponent. It reeks of sexism a bit, granted- after the first couple of battles purely between Mental Models, you realize it's a transparent appeal to the women's mud-wrestling fan types.

The Fog is, in fact, a morasse of several different alien mythoses- there's some Posleen knocking out airpower and using brute force, a hint of Troy Rising holding the orbitals, some vaguely Yellow Eyes ships-as-chicks, and even a very Vorpal Blade submarine. You'll notice that I've only mentioned books written by John Ringo- that's because the concept seems to have been inspired by all his works, but at the same time, not informed by them. This leads to a technically faulty plot and badly written dialogue, but the series isn't without merit.

The characterizations of the (human)crew of Blue Steel somehow manage to be neither stock nor deeply written, but still manage to present themselves as actual flesh-and blood human beings. Frankly amazing, given the miniscule amount of lines they get per episode. The Mental Models are also developed as charachters- there is genuine life to them. Fair dues for the author- it would have been all too easy to go all damsel-in-distress-of-the-week on them.

If you've read the manga (like I sort of did- Barnes and Noble only had the first volume), you'll be surprised at how much better- it looks on-screen. Arpeggio ' s art flourishes in color, clarifying previously confusing action scenes . The warships don't have quite the physical depth and weight they seemed to have on the page, but the characters of these warships are rendered with so much more depth and weight it more than makes up for it.

Verdict: *** out of 5. Interesting concept, but not rooted in what has come before.

I watched the anime on Crunchyroll's TiVo app, FYI.

Crossposted from my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Party-vi > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 10:53

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The hell is Crunchyroll? Have I been living under a rock?

Cebu > Party-vi 09/05/2014 at 10:58

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It's an anime streaming site. Since they don't allow free users to watch new stuff until like weeks afterwards, I normally use Daisuki or animeshow.tv , depending on which comes up first in the Google results. Crunchyroll is available on the TiVo under WebVideoHotlist, making it one of only two (2nd being Netflix) ways to get anime on the TiVo.

spanfucker retire bitch > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 10:59

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Honestly, sounds like a far less interesting version of Blue Submarine No. 6.

CKeffer > Party-vi 09/05/2014 at 11:00

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Crunchyroll is a streaming service similar to Hulu or Netflix that specializes in Anime and Japanese drama shows. In addition to older stuff, they also simulcast shows as they air in Japan subtitled in English. I think you can watch it for free on your PC with ads, or pay for the premium member ship to view without ads and on other devices.

CKeffer > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 11:07

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Arpeggio was fun, and pretty, but yeah it definitely wasn't what I would consider a great show. Not bad, mind you, just not great.

Cebu > CKeffer 09/05/2014 at 11:11

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Wait, so there's somebody else attempting to make a legit anime news blog on Kinja?

What's the URL?

(Mine's animoo.kinja.com, I think...)

Anon > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 11:34

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Awesome review! It would be an awesome post on Animelopnik!

spanfucker retire bitch > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 11:43

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http://animelopnik.kinja.com/

CKeffer > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 12:03

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There is? I mean I know there are periodic pieces over on TAY (Talk Amongst Yourselves), a sub blog of Kotaku, but I haven't seen an entire blog about anime.

Snooder87 > spanfucker retire bitch 09/05/2014 at 12:40

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The review doesn't really do it justice.

There's a key point that he misses about the mental models and their relation to humanity. See the ships were originally just ships without mental models, but they developed the mental models as a way to better understand humanity. Which leads to one of the central themes being about AI who slowly learn to be human.

And I'm not sure why he thinks the works of John Ringo had anything to do with this. I like Ringo and all, but the concept of ships taking on anthromorphic form is neither unique to his work nor particularly original.

Cebu > CKeffer 09/05/2014 at 13:02

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Why don't we start one? There's plenty of fanbase, and Kinja's kind of democratic that way.

Cebu > Cebu 09/05/2014 at 13:05

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*corrects self after seeing how many authors Animelopnik already has*

Um, can I be added as an author? I post about anime way more than I post about cars nowadays. My Tumblr's full of nothing else (granted, it's mostly stupid gifs, but Tumblr exists for stupid gifs.). I read a lot of shonen and watch a hell of a lot of anime, so I can easily do reviews.

CKeffer > spanfucker retire bitch 09/05/2014 at 13:07

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How did I not know this was a thing!?!