Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-73.220.89.40-20150318192417/@comment-101.99.147.238-20150324085520

Sshinka, all you have to do is look at the enemies the game has been introducing recently and you can see that they've gone from an absolute Allies = Abyssals" theme to a more general "Sunken WWII vessels = Abyssals" theme. I'm not against the idea of Abyssals being represented as the Allies myself, but just be open to the trend we've been seeing these past few events: Compare the earlier Abyssals which are blatantly based on Allied-inspired ships/strongholds (Anchorage, Airfield & Harbor Himes, Hoppou) to the just as blatantly IJN-inspired Abyssals we've been getting recently (DD & CL Onis, BB Water Demon), it's pretty dang obvious you can see a shift towards Abyssals not only representing Allied/USN ships, but sunken Axis/IJN ships as well.

Lore-wise, the game did start off with exclusively Allied-inspired enemies early on, painting a sort of anti-Allied image that a lot of players like yourself really dig, and I get that. But with the introduction of these sunken IJN Abyssals since then, it would seem the game's lore about the Abyssals wasn't ever really "set" to begin with... they can't poop on the lore they've established thus far when that same exact lore still seems to be in development. We don't even know the origins of the Abyssals in the first place, it's all been fan speculation up to this point. In any case, the fact that Kadokawa chose to introduce Abyssals that represent  anything other than Allied ships is pretty big as far as lore/storyline connotations go. We can only speculate on where they'll take things from here... It's something I think we'll be doing for a very long time.

But the thing that actually matters the most here is that Kadokawa itself seems to be slowly distancing itself from the game's initial "absolute Allied vs. Axis" vibe. Like JaSM mentioned, the reason for this probably has to do with Kancolle's public image. Like any good self-interested business/publisher/developer, KDKW needs to manage Kancolle's public image the best way it can to prolong its success. Now, it's no surprise that WWII is a topic of serious contention in Japan: Any sort of glorification of Imperial Japanese military is drawn into sharp criticism by the Japanese public's eye. Kancolle might just be about cute IJN shipgirls blowing up deepsea aliens that represent the Allied forces that Imperial Japan fought and lost so horrifically against in World Wa.... oh, wait. ...yeeaah, you can kinda see why KDKW would want to ease off on that aspect of the game's story, eh? Especially when considering how unexpectedly huge the franchise has become since the game's launch. Could what they're doing with the Abyssals now be seen as a way of selling out? Maybe, but with a franchise revolving around a such a sensitive topic becoming this big, KDKW has to do what it has to do to keep Kancolle's image as clean as possible. If that means opening up new story avenues so that Allies don't neccesarily = Abyssals, hey, it'd be easy for them.

Of course, all of this is just my own personal theory. For all I know, we could see a ballz2thawall, F-subtlety Abyssal Hood and Enterprise appear as future event bosses... and man I'd be all for it, if it ever were to happen. I also believe the addition of Allied kanmusu is a possibility - I honestly don't think it'll happen for a long, LONG time, if ever, but I'm not ruling their addition out. Sorry for the wall of text, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out, and hey, some good discussion is always nice.