Talk:Anime/@comment-203.217.72.157-20150123142656/@comment-26009184-20150124125813

Relating to the issue of historical portrayals in the game and anime, in my opinion you can't really say whether they follow history or they don't.

I think the game began without the expectation of the huge fanbase it has amassed, so I doubt they thought too hard about the specifics of it. After all, the game is about shipgirls, a concept that is completely absurd if you think too much about it. So I doubt portraying things 100% historically was one of their goals. There are certainly historical references in-game, presented through dialogue, names and other various things, so saying it has base in history wouldn't be wrong.

The anime, on the other hand, is being made with knowledge of the fanbase. It is, however, based on the original game, so there are some things they still can't do, like changing everyone's weapons so that they make sense. They can make whatever plot they please, but there are a few things that would stop them from basically making it an animated documentary of WWII, the most basic of them being the setting of the universe - the enemy is different, their motivations are different and some ships can't be represented yet - more than one Japanese ship sank during the Battle of Wake Island.

There is of course one larger issue preventing them from making either of them too historical, that being the Japanese population itself. WWII is something that the Japanese people would rather forget, something that they would like to just move on from. Despite this, lately there has been more talk about Japan and WWII due to the current Prime Minister of Japan having expressed the view that war criminals convicted during the Tokyo Trials aren't criminals and having basically denied the existence of 'comfort women', causing many problems with their relationships with South Korea and China (and America to an extent). Since textbooks used in the school curriculum are regulated by the government in Japan, for a very long time Japanese people had been brought up without knowing about what atrocities their country committed, so they're still working out that stuff. Making something too historical could easily alienate a huge audience and you can see them trying to avoid that with the Abyssal Fleet, who are easily identifiable as enemies.

I also don't think you could ever describe either the game or anime as portraying war, especially that of WWII. Over half of the people killed during WWII were civilians. Many people who survived would've lost their homes, their belongings, everything they had. Technology made huge leaps and bounds. America and the Soviet Union became superpowers whilst the British Empire that had ruled for so long lost its superpower status. The world changed. There was a lot more to WWII than just a lot of people fighting and dying, and this should apply to war in general too.

But of course, essentially everything I've said has been my opinion, so I can't say I'm right.