Well, it’s still January, there are still more Yostar Pictures shows to check out, so let’s take a look at Azur Lane: Slow Ahead.
So, the first Azur Lane anime, which was done by a different studio, attempted to “adapt” the game. It made some choices that were fairly intelligent even if they didn’t pay off, and thus managed to be at least a little entertaining despite a deeply fractured story and animation that sometimes outright fell through. That’s the nice version; I’m honestly letting it off with a slap on the wrist because it clearly tried to go above and beyond the assignment even if it wasn’t successful.
Rather than trying to remake the action-centric big-ideas Azur Lane, Yostar Pictures decided to assert their dominance with their property by adapting Slow Ahead rather than the game itself. What is Slow Ahead? It’s the slice-of-life comedy 4-koma that functions as a tie-in to Azur Lane. In my big lore writeup that’s now hopelessly out of date, this would be the “port timeline” – where everything is fairly rosy and we mostly indulge in cute girls doing cute things and buckets and buckets of fanservice.
At first it seemed odd that Slow Ahead was the choice of source material. Shockingly, it’s not the only official Azur Lane manga. There’s also Queen’s Order, which while also “port timeline” comedy in nature has more of a plot. 4-koma don’t always adapt horribly to screen, but they are pretty rough. Just ask Chronicles of the Going Home Club what it looks like when you try to fit one-page gags into full size episodes. But then, I noticed the catch, or arguably genius, of Slow Ahead: its episodes are only eight minutes long each. As this is more bite-sized than I usually like to handle, I’ll be grading Slow Ahead on a Pass-Fail scale rather than trying to give it a letter grade.
So, like about half of the first anime, Slow Ahead stars the starter squad: Cute schoolgirl Javelin, flat-affected schoolgirl Ayanami, sleepy drunk rabbit Laffey, and the serious and responsible Z23 (aka Nimi). We start getting the four of them to meet up, of course finding a few seconds for a shower scene on the way. They decide to have a sleep-over. That’s episode one.
Episode two gets us into the “meat” of Slow Ahead, faithfully lifted from the 4-koma: having an encounter with a new girl, seeing her quirk of the day and moving on while providing a little fanservice in the process. Since this is supposed to be a spoiler review, I will inventory the show.
Episode two has Baltimore, a sporty tomboy who seems involved with every athletic club at the same time. Her fanservice shot is a wet white shirt to peep a dark bra. Transitioning by way of a bath scene, we run into Prinz Eugen, who is making chocolate. Her fanservice is being a tease with no sense of personal space.
Episode three picks on Ayanami, who it turns out is a crazy gamer (fanservice of the day: wearing only an oversized shirt). We meet the mad scientist/scam artist Akashi, who has developed adorable spherical cat robots to “help” (Fanservice of the day: Nimi getting piled on by cats)
Episode four is a beach episode. Its fanservice is being a beach episode. Outside the main group we mostly worry about the sweet, busty, and firepower-loving Rodney.
For episode five we open with shy girl Admiral Graf Spee making friends with Ayanami. No fanservice, just cuteness. This segues into meeting pastry chef Dunkerque and talking about date spots. Again, cute.
Episode six is a dress party. It starts with Bismarck, the tough, determined leader of her faction who is also kind of a socially awkward wallflower with a sister who is even worse, shut up in her room. Bismarck’s fanservice is that her dress is a bit daring. Then we check in with Formidable, a “proper lady” who is bored with formality. Her fanservice is spilling a glass of water all over herself when she sits on the wrong cardboard box, resulting in quite the pose
It also leans into a fandom fat joke about her but I refuse to promote such slander even as I am forced to acknowledge it.
For episode 7 we have only one scenario: cleaning the Commander’s room while he’s out. Yeah, “the Commander” exists in this universe, and most of the girls seem smitten, but said character never actually appears so whatever. The girls on feature are Taihou, whose gimmick is being an obsessive yandere type and who provides the episode’s fanservice quota with her mere existence. The other is Mikasa, who provides the episode’s comedy by being too old at heart to understand anything vaguely modern.
Episode 8 does the Inevitable School Festival as its storyline. Here we meet North Carolina (who wears a bunny girl outfit, and ropes her sister into doing the same) and shy semi-tsundere Honolulu (who has been set up with an overly short Yukata by her sister).
Episode 9 puts us with Head Maid Belfast (telling us maid moe is in season) and her… weird mini-me Bel-chan. Like the cat robots, this is a game thing that would take more time to explain than it’s worth so just roll with it. The girls help Bel-chan with her maid training, first making tea for Javelin and Nimi and then fulfilling requests for Laffey and Ayanami.
Episode 10 is the quest for a bath, so you can guess where the fanservice is going. We meet the kind, reasonable Zuikaku, working on installing an onsen, and her cloying troll of a sister Shoukaku. And okay, Shoukaku does nothing wrong in this episode but my review, I can editorialize a little when there is nothing else to do thanks to the nature of this show.
Episode 11 is another that goes for pure cuteness like episode 5. It’s an amusement park set of scenarios with the gang plus super-lucky Yukikaze, the reserved-beyond-her-apparent-years Nagato, and Nagato’s hyper sister Mutsu.
Thus, we reach our… well, it’s not really a finale or capstone or anything like that, so our episode 12. I guess rather than going with another scenario we do sort of revisit everyone, with Laffey seemingly losing her memory but being in search of a pillow, and trying out just about every sizable set of boobs we’ve been introduced to on the way, before the “twist” that she was sleepwalking the whole thing.
And that’s Slow Ahead, in frankly excruciating detail.
For me, the show is a simple “Pass” in as much as it is exactly what it wants to be. It replicates the 4-koma almost perfectly.
But, what’s the value of that? Frankly, if you’re an Azur Lane fan you’ll probably be entertained by the snippets of characters you already know and/or like, seeing how the main squad and at least most of the individual picks are fan favorites. But if you know nothing about the franchise, Slow Ahead will not help and doesn’t really have anything of value either. It’s light on content and while heavy on boobs there are countless shows that have bountiful bosoms and also more to entertain. Might I recommend a date with My Dress-up Darling? Perhaps a spot of Trinity Seven? Or if you’re feeling particularly daring and edgy, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka?
Point being, unless you’re already a fan, there’s really no reason to admit Azur Lane: Slow Ahead exists. I can’t fault it too much for that, hence why I am standing by passing it, but all the meat is in the chests and not the writing, so that is what it is.