Yamato goes to "Beware the nice ones" pool of TV tropes.
I can see it happening: Yamato finally getting to the frontline awake something in her and it turns out that she's at Kirishima-tier level of brutality.
If Musashi is any indication, Idomiral and Nagato are protecting the abyssals from Yamato, not the other way around. And I love how keeping this beautiful cinnamon roll pure is one of the very few things over which Idomiral and Nagato agree with each other. I also appreciate that Ido is not against evolving his characters in a different direction after flanderizing them for rule of funny. Gangut here is not the "lol Russians drunk with their vodka 24/7" trope or "Russian advocating Soviet communism but secretly enjoying bourgeoisie stuff" trope. She is hearing out Yamato's trouble and trying to lift her spirit. It's not something you see any version of Gangut does.
If Musashi is any indication, Idomiral and Nagato are protecting the abyssals from Yamato, not the other way around. And I love how keeping this beautiful cinnamon roll pure is one of the very few things over which Idomiral and Nagato agree with each other. I also appreciate that Ido is not against evolving his characters in a different direction after flanderizing them for rule of funny. Gangut here is not the "lol Russians drunk with their vodka 24/7" trope or "Russian advocating Soviet communism but secretly enjoying bourgeoisie stuff" trope. She is hearing out Yamato's trouble and trying to lift her spirit. It's not something you see any version of Gangut does.
I always took Ido's Gangut as just paying lip service to communism to get along with Tashkent.
But yeah, one of the strengths of Ido's work is that his characters can be surprisingly complicated.
Also, is it just me, or has Bismark not appeared that much in this arc?
Also, is it just me, or has Bismark not appeared that much in this arc?
She’s in her office hiding from what she’s unleashed helping De Ruyter with the accounting. And also making sure the tied up Gotland doesn’t escape to do Gotland things.
I always took Ido's Gangut as just paying lip service to communism to get along with Tashkent.
But yeah, one of the strengths of Ido's work is that his characters can be surprisingly complicated.
Also, is it just me, or has Bismark not appeared that much in this arc?
As revealed in the first European arc, Gangut lost her motherland twice in her life and what she really seeks is a place to call home, which she got with Idomiral's base. But these losses in her life made her more flexible and able to adapt to changing times. Sure she had the whole "revival of the Soviet Union" schtick during her introduction, but was finally able to put the Union behind after her revival failed. Even Verniy "Proletarian/Bourgeois" judgment became more of an inside joke between her and Gangut, because like the later she had a previous life before ending in the Soviet Navy, and thus is more apt to change. Meanwhile Tashkent lived her entire life in the Soviet Union, so she's not used to change, hence her current existential crisis.
It's the same thing with the German ships: the Germany that birthed them was a heinous entity which everyone agrees should stay in the dustbin of history, and they probably wouldn't be very liked had they been stationed in Germany, as they would remind the German people too much of that shameful past, so they completely embraced modern Japan as their new home, which is also why they took adopted much more Japanese customs than the other foreign shipgirls (they even remodeled their dormitory into traditional Japanese-styles rooms!). Sure they do get a little homesick from time to time and go back to Germany for vacations, but it doesn't change the fact that for them, Japan is their home.
Personally, the shipgirls that are the less developed are the Italians and the French: the firsts being interchangeable lazy bums good with food (with only Pola with her alcoholism and nakedness and Roma as their leader having a notable difference), and the latter being all about Zuinism, food and Teste's perviness, and the Zuinism was recently removed by Gotland undoing their programming.
Personally, the shipgirls that are the less developed are the Italians and the French: the firsts being interchangeable lazy bums good with food (with only Pola with her alcoholism and nakedness and Roma as their leader having a notable difference), and the latter being all about Zuinism, food and Teste's perviness, and the Zuinism was recently removed by Gotland undoing their programming.
Personally I think the problem with the pastabotes is that not only there are a lot of them, but they debut in the series in a group (Littorio, Roma and Libe, although technically Libe doesn't do much...). They share among themselves the tropes and traits of lazy Italians for a while so when the next Italian pops up she just naturally flows with the status quo set by them. Compare them with Iowa (who debut solo for a while before Saratoga showed up) for example. Iowa debut and had all the MURICAN tropes to herself so when Sara showed up she had no tropes left and became distinct from the typical 'Murican Iowa. Zara and Pola are lucky that the latter's nudism and alcoholism became more memorable and the former's entire purpose and existence depends on her sister. From Maestrel onwards, not so much. Absolutely no idea about the French though. I want to know Ido's thought process when he decided to turn Teste into a perv and tied both of them to the Japanese Zuiun. But at least he didn't go with the "France always surrenders" meme.
Personally I think the problem with the pastabotes is that not only there are a lot of them, but they debut in the series in a group (Littorio, Roma and Libe, although technically Libe doesn't do much...). They share among themselves the tropes and traits of lazy Italians for a while so when the next Italian pops up she just naturally flows with the status quo set by them. Compare them with Iowa (who debut solo for a while before Saratoga showed up) for example. Iowa debut and had all the MURICAN tropes to herself so when Sara showed up she had no tropes left and became distinct from the typical 'Murican Iowa. Zara and Pola are lucky that the latter's nudism and alcoholism became more memorable and the former's entire purpose and existence depends on her sister. From Maestrel onwards, not so much. Absolutely no idea about the French though. I want to know Ido's thought process when he decided to turn Teste into a perv and tied both of them to the Japanese Zuiun. But at least he didn't go with the "France always surrenders" meme.
I've heard Ido's something of a francophile. I've also heard that Nonco was Ido's inspiration for Kancolle comics, and Ido's Teste seems exactly like one of Nonco's characters. And... honestly, from what I can tell, neither of the Baguettebotes was a very colorful character in KanColle proper.
Iowa was actually pretty controversial with anglophone fans when she debuted because she was seen as too stereotypical. But then none of the subsequent American ships were so stereotypical (save Dakota, who has a pretty memorable personality anyways), and that view pretty much died out.
@Kaktus_Lata IIRC wasn't Riche quite controversial too when her design was revealed? Think Ido and Munmu are the only artists with memorable versions of Richies. And Teste is only memorable through Ido and Morinaga (the bar manga) (poor girl needs an entire manga just to catch up with Gamby and Tashkent's popularity ;_;). And your point about Iowa was what I meant. She appeared in Idobase solo for quite a while, and coupled with her outfit that screams MURICAN it's not hard to give her all the tropes Japanese people think of Americans. So by the time later American ships like Sara, Gamby and Intrepid showed up, all the tropes went to Iowa so they get different characterization paths. Gamby is especially lucky because she has so many memes, like her > < face, her crying mouth, her "Baaayyy!!" cry, and her getting lost. Like you said in the Italian food strip, the pastabotes are not that distinct from each other, so they often appear in groups. Luigi gets a few pages to shine in the Colorado Mansion arc, but that was about it. The Americans rival them in sheer number, but many of them have their own quirks and own arcs (Iowa, Gamby, Sammy, Johnston, Atlanta, Colorado, SoDak, Hornet) so they are more memorable.
Scotty_rex said: Absolutely no idea about the French though. I want to know Ido's thought process when he decided to turn Teste into a perv and tied both of them to the Japanese Zuiun. But at least he didn't go with the "France always surrenders" meme.
THe first part seemed to be as much about Uzuki being an unfortunate influence than anything, but...well, inertia took over after that. Still don't understand the Zuiunism stuff myself though.
@Kaktus_Lata IIRC wasn't Riche quite controversial too when her design was revealed? Think Ido and Munmu are the only artists with memorable versions of Richies. And Teste is only memorable through Ido and Morinaga (the bar manga) (poor girl needs an entire manga just to catch up with Gamby and Tashkent's popularity ;_;). And your point about Iowa was what I meant. She appeared in Idobase solo for quite a while, and coupled with her outfit that screams MURICAN it's not hard to give her all the tropes Japanese people think of Americans. So by the time later American ships like Sara, Gamby and Intrepid showed up, all the tropes went to Iowa so they get different characterization paths. Gamby is especially lucky because she has so many memes, like her > < face, her crying mouth, her "Baaayyy!!" cry, and her getting lost. Like you said in the Italian food strip, the pastabotes are not that distinct from each other, so they often appear in groups. Luigi gets a few pages to shine in the Colorado Mansion arc, but that was about it. The Americans rival them in sheer number, but many of them have their own quirks and own arcs (Iowa, Gamby, Sammy, Johnston, Atlanta, Colorado, SoDak, Hornet) so they are more memorable.
I think that the italians are more developed as a group if we consider that Zara and Pola also share those lazy coward traits with the rest of the italians so they dont have problems to sinnergyze with them unlike the americans. The only time that I saw them having personality as group was in the Halloween strips.
Meanwhile Saratoga(aside of been tatamized like the germans, nothing much to said),Intrepid, Houston, Fletcher, Helena and Washignton(Im aware of her rivalry with Sodak but Ido isnt doing too much with her at the moment) have been the ones who got the shortstick in that regard, there isnt too much to say about them both as a group and as individuals in Ido's comic but personally I think the biggest missopportunity was Helena: She is been protrayed by the fandom as the serious one of the group with a fondness for order and "accounting for every detail" kinda mentality with zero patience for jokes or mistakes(and all of that was just taken from her hourlies voicelines related to writting reports), all of those things going on for her and Ido doesnt seem to do to much with it.
I readed previous comments here mentioning that Ido wasnt too fond for some american ships, but probably has to do more with the fact that in previous chapters Iowa was stealing all the show by been the ultimate stereotype making it harder for him to put more of those traits to the rest of americans wihout turning all them into Iowa clones instead of a group of americans with sharing traits. And this is even more enforced in a previous strip when Iowa wanted to talk about her Hero Pose and everyone just decide to ignore her.
Intrepid, Houston and Fletcher seem to be only the "friendly american girls" of the fleet but not all americans can partake on that like the Italians with their lazyness. Either way now that Iowa has more going on(Nerdy Iowa) with her in his comic we can say that he can give a second chance to the idea of spreading a lil bit of freedom to the rest of the US shipgirls without overshadowing her or the others like Colo, SoDak, Gamby, Sammy, Jojo, Hornet and Atlanta.
I think another reason Ido doesn't do much with Intrepid, Sara, Houston and Fletch is that their personalities are too tame to shake things up. As in, TOO tame and normal for his standard stories that changing them too much to fit the stories would be basically rewriting their entire characters. Writing the boisterous Iowa into secretly a nerd worked, because we can see that boisterous show as a front to hide her (shameful) hobbies.
Pola stands out from the rest of the pastabotes because of her drunken antics and Naked People Are Funny. Zara barely manages the same feat all thanks to Pola to begin with (her "talking to veggies" quirk). Ido himself acknowledged that Zara is only known as Pola's ever-suffering caretaker. Search his work featuring Zara and you can see the poor girl gets to shine on her own for... 2 pages, until Pola showed up.
Meanwhile Saratoga(aside of been tatamized like the germans, nothing much to said),Intrepid, Houston, Fletcher, Helena and Washignton(Im aware of her rivalry with Sodak but Ido isnt doing too much with her at the moment) have been the ones who got the shortstick in that regard, there isnt too much to say about them both as a group and as individuals in Ido's comic but personally I think the biggest missopportunity was Helena: She is been protrayed by the fandom as the serious one of the group with a fondness for order and "accounting for every detail" kinda mentality with zero patience for jokes or mistakes(and all of that was just taken from her hourlies voicelines related to writting reports), all of those things going on for her and Ido doesnt seem to do to much with it.
The real shame about that is Ido probably won't ever use Helena much. The Atlanta book came out right before Helena was introduced, which portrayed Atlanta as an uptight stickler willing to strongarm people into following the rules- which makes her too close to the usual interpretation of Helena. Unless Ido could come up with some interpretation of Helena that made her significantly different from his version of Atlanta, she'll probably remain a background character. Which disappoints me as a Helena fan.
If Musashi is any indication, Idomiral and Nagato are protecting the abyssals from Yamato, not the other way around. And I love how keeping this beautiful cinnamon roll pure is one of the very few things over which Idomiral and Nagato agree with each other. I also appreciate that Ido is not against evolving his characters in a different direction after flanderizing them for rule of funny. Gangut here is not the "lol Russians drunk with their vodka 24/7" trope or "Russian advocating Soviet communism but secretly enjoying bourgeoisie stuff" trope. She is hearing out Yamato's trouble and trying to lift her spirit. It's not something you see any version of Gangut does.
well, if I remember right, during the last Zuiun Festival, she sent a fellow battle ship *FLYING* with a flick to the forehead. so Yeah, they're protecting everything else from her.
@Kaktus_Lata IIRC wasn't Riche quite controversial too when her design was revealed? Think Ido and Munmu are the only artists with memorable versions of Richies.
I don't recall it being so, but rather more indifference then active dislike. I will say his choices to make her face and hair look like someone had bungled the exposure on the camera on her first two CGs didn't do her any favors. Starting with her Kimono art though he went over to a sharper and more conventional shading on her face and hair that I think basically everyone agrees was a major improvement. I think that was also when you started seeing her fanart take off a bit too as people realized "oh hey when you can actually make out the details of her face and hair she looks pretty good"
I like how ido saw fit to make a revision pointing out that Yamato is drinking water, as opposed to another suspiciously clear liquid that resembles water.
I like how ido saw fit to make a revision pointing out that Yamato is drinking water, as opposed to another suspiciously clear liquid that resembles water.
She looked like it was sake that she was drinking in her previous panel, so Gangut is probably making her drink water to keep her coherent enough to tell her her worries.
Her worries from back in the Zuinist plot have bubbled to the surface again...So to make a long story short, you're frustrated because you haven't had any opportunities to fight?Sometimes I just get the urge to power up and get all kablooie... you know?Yes......Iowa really sang your praises before, da?...sure, those words really gave me some emotional support, but...There's no way that the Admiral and Nagato would be actually hating on you here, is there.This has the feel of a little pampered princess acting up...Something like... Even if she's not going out on sorties, Yamato always doing her best for the fleet back at the base is something pretty wonderful...Let's just let her be herself.I'm sure it's just that they're both hesitant to send the kind-hearted Yamato off to the brutality of the front lines, yeah?That's a pretty nice line, coming from the likes of her.A whole bunch of radish sprouts popped up!
They're so cute!That's... well, I appreciate the thought...But even so... when it comes down to it, I am a fighting ship!I'm at the age where I just want to be a rascal!Water