Arpeggio of Blue Steel Episode 12 (Finale)
Buckeye: And so everything ends where Kongou just needs to have some sense knocked into her, with Iona delivering it into her. It’s a fitting way to end this show considering that the previous episode set itself to be a three-way battle that never was. Changes can be tough to take, but a status quo of unhappiness is even worse, which is something Iona fully understood, but Kongou didn’t until that final battle.
Overall, the first thing that will be noticed about this show is the CG animation, and while it looks great for those battle scenes and backgrounds, it looks terrible for the character animations. How you think about this show will ultimately depend on how well you can stand the overusage of CGI. But for me, I am pretty tolerant even if I don’t like it, which allowed me to enjoy this show for it’s great battles, solid story, and emotional moments. While the concept of having girls as battleships is another one of those silly gimmicks, save for that beach episode, the gimmicky nature takes a back seat to the story at hand. So in summary, the strengths include great battle scenes, a wide variety of characters, nice character development (all of those meetings between avatars at the table are a testament to that), and a solidly crafted story, while the weaknesses of this show include the use of CG for the character animations, a story that develops too slowly, and at times the gimmicky setup of this show will rear its ugly head. That said, I will say that this show is not for everybody since it has aspects that can easily turn viewers away. But this show has some very well-done episodes such as the ones about Makie and the one where Gunzou and Iona are sinking and about to perish.
GingaDaiuchuu: Another extremely packed and top-notch episode to close out the series makes it, as a whole, a far better series than I expected it to be after seeing the first episode of pure CG and questionable morals. But despite the former obviously never changing and the latter staying relatively consistent, the spectacular battle choreography and genuine emotional weight and development explored throughout the characters’ story, it actually ended up being a pretty alright show in the end. It had too many shortcomings to ever become anything amazing, but for what it was, I find myself pleasantly surprised in the end.
EmperorBrandon: First part was crazy overpowered beamspam, and then we get a surprising amount of humanoid-on-humanoid battling (makes sense, though, since they really had no chance fighting against the Kongou Death Star in a sea battle), which was pretty badass. In the end, Kongou just needed a hug from Iona.
Hitsugi Amachi: That’s all Kongou really needed. She was overwhelmed with emotions and didn’t have anyone at all there to help her come to grips with them. I’m glad she got a hug
Also: it shouldn’t be overlooked that they played out something of a revenge fantasy there, as Kongou’s Death Star took out the entire American (Fog) Fleet.
Nork22: Awww…. Kongou really needed a hug. But it’s funny seeing the American Fog ships wiped out like cannon fodder. Definitely a favourite for this season.
Jun Kuga: Why is Kongou so moe? Why? She’s also smoking hot, but before that she’s moe – possibly more moe than even Takao.
EmperorBrandon: Happy end for now, but maybe there will be a sequel at some point. The endcard seemed to tease with a bunch of characters that haven’t appeared in the anime.
Hitsugi Amachi: Yeah, it’s pretty clear that there’s a lot more story in the original source material, so lots of ships never made an appearance.
