Well way to kill any gravitas you had going for you Arpeggio. I know you love all of your moe moe battleships, but don’t make something seem like a sacrifice if it isn’t. Takao still being alive also just didn’t make any sense whatsoever. If she had enough nanomaterial mass to make an upgraded submarine, why couldn’t she spare any of it to keep her body intact? Either I’m not getting something or this new development is just stupid and I shouldn’t think about it too hard.

It’s hard to really feel for what Iona is going through in this episode. There hasn’t been a whole lot established about how Iona acted with her “sisters”, so once she gets all emotional now it just seems out of place. She’s been wholly content with blowing up the other ships, albeit a bit melancholy about the whole endeavor. Is it just because they’re the same class that we’re supposed to buy that she actually has feelings towards them? That doesn’t even really make any sense. This fight also seemed to have a lot less action than I was expecting despite the ominous nature of the 400 class subs. The choreography was still good and I enjoyed it, it just seemed a bit anticlimactic.

Kongou’s scene seemed unnecessarily dramatic. It’s the most cliche thing in the world that she’s just able to go NOPE and then all the limits that are containing her disappear. These things are still machines right? Why would the 400 class subs leave her with an avenue to escape? That must have been the case if their system lockdown is beaten by basically channeling the Incredible Hulk. I also don’t quite get her new body. I know the ships have nigh-magical sci fi properties, but since when could they float? If I were The Fog and my technology could be used on a floating vessel, why wouldn’t all my ships be floating vessels? The Arpeggio series uses WW2 era naval vessels as some kind of homage to the time when naval power decided wars, but guess what, there’s a reason why we don’t use battleships anymore, they’re completely irrelevant in the modern aeronautical age. I know this is was a style over substance decision, but by God I reserve the right to be irked by it. It would appear this is the last fight before the end of the season. As far as I know only one was planned so far, so I can only wonder what this battle will spell for the future of the franchise.