Haifuri

High School Fleet (ハイスクール・フリート Haisukūru Furīto?) or Haifuri (はいふり) is a new anime series airing this Spring Anime 2016 season; it’s produced by Production IMS which are well known to produce anime series such as Active Raid, The Testament of Sister New Devil, Hundred. Haifuri is based on an original story with manga adaptation serialising on Media Factory’s seinen manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive’s December 2015 issue released on October 27, 2015.

Synopsis

Haifuri sets on a fiction Japan where it lost many of territories area due to being submerged by seas. As a result, many marine cities start to emerge along with the development of sea route and advancement of ships as main transportation.

Haifuri tells a story about two childhood friends Akeno Misaki and Moeka China who enrol in a marine high school in Yokosuka. Their dream is to become a Blue Mermaid, a security task force keeping the seas safe and it easily has become every female student’s dream job at the marine high school.

Akeno and Moeka made a promise 9 years ago that they would become a Blue Mermaid and now, they’re enroled in a marine high school as the first step of their dream. Unfortunately, they are assigned to two different ships. Akeno is assigned to Harekaze, a destroyer class ship while Moeka is assigned to Musashi, a large training ship.

Akeno who is assigned as a Captain of Harukaze is on her way to a rendezvous point to meet up with Sarushima ship, however, out of nowhere, they were attacked by Sarushima who’s captained by Instructor Furushou. They were thought that they got bombarded because they were 3-hours late, however, they got attacked with live ammunitions and Akeno has no chance but to attack back with a training shell with which renders Sarushima not moving.

As a result of their action, Maritime Bureau mutinied Harukaze and they are considered as a rebel.

Thoughts

If cute high school girls, military and ships are on your list of must watch anime or up on your alley, then, you no need to look further, Haifuri is definitely for you. You can totally skip my thoughts below and check out my other first impression for spring 2016 anime season. Otherwise, read further.

The creators put an interesting twist or what you may call it “cliffhanger” in the first episode. It started as your normal high school life type of anime with military flavour but it ended the first episode with a huge cliffhanger. I thought it’s brilliant to have a cliffhanger on the first episode and was definitely on a great start; I looked forward to more episodes each week.

The following episodes up until episode 7, the story slowed down quite a bit and focused more on few Harekaze crew members i.e. development for each main character and some supporting characters. There’s still a main or bigger plot behind what has happened so far and each episode adds a little bit to the main plot. I found this was a great way to remind viewers that there’s still a bigger plot and kept us in suspense and in excitement to see the next episode. Last,  but not least, the characters were drawn beautifully and they all are such an eye pleaser.

The main character, Akane, was your typical heroine, the stupid and brave type. On the other hand, Mashiro Munetani was the opposite of Akane; she’s the type that went everything by the book. It was refreshing to see interactions between the two. Another main character, Kouko Nosa, was hilarious in her own way with her over-the-top reading of any situation and came up with her story plot about what about to happen. All the main characters were likeable in their own way.

OP and ED wise, I don’t have anything negative to say about them. OP “High Free Spirits” was sung by TrySail and ED “Ripple Effect” was sung by Haruna Luna who is a well-known JPOP singer. If I have to pick, I’d prefer the ED more and the ED animation was done beautifully.

Haifuri is definitely worth a shot if you haven’t watched this series. I do realise the theme was too similar to other anime series such as  KanColle, Strike Witches, Ars Nova, Girls und Panzer, however, the main story plot looked pretty promising and it’s definitely still my watch list.

What did you think about the series so far ? Is still on your watch list ? Or did you drop it already ? if so, why? let me know in comments below.

Source: MyAnimeList, Wikipedia, AnimeNewsNetwork