Arpeggio Of Blue Steel
When mysterious aliens close of all ocean passage in the world, mankind is on the fast track to extinction.
What They Say:
In the year 2039, global warming has caused a sudden rise in sea level, leading mankind to lose a great deal of land territory. At the same time, a fleet of mysterious warships clad in mist, known as the “Fleet of Fog,” begin to appear throughout the world’s seas, attacking humanity’s warships with their powerful superweapons. Humanity threw all the military strength it possessed at the Fleet of Fog in a decisive battle, but was crushed by the fleet’s overwhelming might…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga series by Ark Performance that began back in 2009 and has eight compiled volumes so far, and a domestic license by Seven Seas Entertainment, Arpeggio of Blue Steel is a twelve episode series animated by studio Sanzigen. The series is one that received a lot of promotion prior to its release and was easily one of the most accessible to check out simply because you had so much material, music and teasers for the show that you could get a good feel for the flow and nature of the show. While it was one I was curious about, I didn’t jump into the simulcast due to scheduling issues. That worked out pretty well though since I got to marathon it over the course of a day and could see some of the larger themes laid out in a clearer and pretty enjoyable manner that might have frustrated me if I had done it weekly.
Working with the climate change aspect to some degree, the series takes place a few decades from now where the land masses are different than what they are now due to rising sea levels, which has impacted population level and more. Where things go really badly though is the arrival of a mysterious alien force that dominated the largest part of the planet in days – the ocean. Known only as the Fog, they dropped in numerous various types of naval vessels into the seas around the world, destroyed the navies and made it so that mankind lost contact between continents. With satellites down and being unable to fly over oceans and being targeted the moment you go out in any sort of seafaring vessel quickly, the Fog laid down a change that was essentially strangling mankind.
What the Fog does that’s different but is explained in-show later on is that each of the ships is essentially sentient. They’re given form through something called a Mental Model which takes the form of different types of girls. It’s obvious fanservice in the usual way, though none really go for the skimpy outfits or anything, but since ships always shes when you get down to it, it’s a nice nod that works well. All of these Mental Models work off of an Admirality Code that tells them the rules and laws of what they’re supposed to do in order to pin down and strangle mankind in the way that they are. The twist is that during the original encounter, one human ended up being drawn into the Fog and was never seen again. But now, the ship that he was on has surfaced again years later and it’s very different from all the rest of the Mental Models.
The series has a pretty standard structure to it when you get past all the foundation material in the first couple of episodes. Because of the way Iona is different, and the fact that she and Chihaya operate outside of the proper Naval structure and are kind of rogues all on their own, the Fog does make a regular and concerted effort to take them down. And that has us being introduced to the various different Fog vessels that are out there and their Mental Models. Each of which is slowly but surely corrupted in different ways by their time spent dealing with Iona and Chihaya. The most interesting and dealt with for me is the heavy cruiser Takao who intends to claim the victory but is drawn to Chihaya and the thought of having a human captain herself. She’s one of the ships that’s dealt with early on and has a regular inclusion in the other stories as it goes forward. Others come in and through the way they all interact, we get to see some neat things to how the Fog is designed while also understanding that these Mental Models have only so much understanding themselves of what the Fog wants. For them, it’s all about the Admirality Code.
The series doesn’t rely on just a series of random encounters or small missions as there is a larger story that comes into play which touches on the military, plans to fight back against the fog, the way Chihaya and Iona manage to exist separate from everything else and a nod towards a goal of crossing the vast Pacific Ocean in order to reach America. The fun that comes is in the way the core crew operates and seeing the kind of strong nature we get from both Iona and Chihaya as they lead the way to trying to save humanity. The larger story is one that is definitely nicely done here, even if it is like closing out the first major chapter in a larger story, as it does give us a sense of completion of at least something. Since it’s an ongoing series in manga form, obviously it doesn’t wrap everything up, but we get significant changes along the way, some solid growth and a conclusion that does work while still being very open for more.
Over the years, I’ve definitely had a lot of shows that take place on the sea, which is unfortunate since they truly are few and far between. Arpeggio of Blue Steel gets a very polished look here from studio Sanzigen with a good chunk of it focused on underwater and surface level battles, some creative ways of dealing with the Mental Models in how they interact and just the color design in general. The CG aspect with the ships is pretty much on par for a very good quality design these days as it blends well enough and definitely has some great detail to it and some well placed vibrancy. We get a number of good locales here to deal with and the ship interior aspects are also very well designed, providing for a good bit of detail along the way that really makes it fun to watch and pause so you can check it all out.
In Summary:
Apreggio of Blue Steel is a series that definitely does a lot right and left little for me to really complain about when you get down to it. The biggest complaint is that it’s only twelve episodes as I wanted to see more of where it was going to go from here, which definitely makes it easy to increase my desire to get my hands on the manga. The show plays with some good near future material, a creative way of strangling mankind through invasion and glossing over a whole lot of situations that need to be tackled. I had been kind of overwhelmed by all the promotional material during the lead-up to the series and it just felt too hyped for me in a way that made it easy to put it to the side until it was over. And it’s a series that I think really makes out better by marathoning and soaking up over a day or two. It does make me wish I had watched it weekly, but I think I got more out of it here. Definitely a good semi-military style kind of show to watch that ticks off a lot of boxes with what I want from a show of this nature.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.