Honestly, she doesn't deserve to take her own life. Her "dark" side is telling the truth in a lot of parts. She was being overly, incredibly, naive. She didn't even realize how horrible the mental effects constant warfare, killing and tension between different ideologies (and the fact that number of shipgirls are already pretty unstable) was having on the shipgirls.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, I have no sympathy for her. If you are trying to live up to a certain job, you bloody well put your all into researching, learning and growing in how to operate it with the best methods and abilities available to you.
Instead she went purely for "showing everyone kindness" rather than using common sense of any degree.
At some previous page someone mentioned that the author's idea (or yamagumo's theory of his intentions) was that almost all of us would likely end up with similar issues (though likely not as excessively exaggerated). I tend to disagree. Most folk are at the very least of average intelligence and have some amount of common sense and lack the same level of naivety as this girl did.
Almost anyone would have been a better leader/admiral than her. Even if things didn't escalate to this degree, it is clear as day that she is 100% incompetent at this job. Anyone that didn't have their head in the clouds would likely have gotten the message the first outslash that occurred among the shipgirls.
She isn't incompetent because she is naive, she is incompetent because she *never tried* to change her naivety or grow up. I love keeping to good and often naive ideals, but I will be more than willing to throw it all away if it keeps the fleet operational, sane and actually not at each other's throat. This kind of job isn't a joke, this is leading people into war, not a picknick or an adventure.
She isn't incompetent because she is naive, she is incompetent because she *never tried* to change her naivety or grow up. I love keeping to good and often naive ideals, but I will be more than willing to throw it all away if it keeps the fleet operational, sane and actually not at each other's throat. This kind of job isn't a joke, this is leading people into war, not a picknick or an adventure.
You forget a few things : 1) she's a literal teenager, she was still in school when she met the two boats, 2) if I understood it right, she was never trained as an admiral, she just was operating a naval base with some training from the boats, but she never learned the human part of the army, the Marine saw she had boats and could make raids so they went "okay lol", 3) she is naive and childish because SHE IS A LITERAL CHILD. I doubt she's even legal, so it's hardly a surprise she has no idea how the world works.
You're being unfair and blaming her for being untrained and unskilled, but the blame lies to the army who accepted to make her an admiral despite her lack of experience. They probably never met her face-to-face, or they would've noticed that she was far too young to send people to their deaths. She did her best under the circonstances, but she simply had no idea what to do. Don't hate her for being unskilled, hate the boats for accepting to push this on her, and blame the Marine for making her an admiral when she had neither the skill, the experience, the cool needed to operate. She repeats it often : "I did nothing wrong." She genuinely believed that by being nice, everything would go nicely. And that is a very teenage-like mindset : thinking that everyone is open to dialogue, that you can get along with everyone, and that if you're nice, good things will happen to you. She probably never had to face irrational hatred, anger, insanity, bigotry, Danbooru's approving service, Reddit's hivemind thinking your joke was offensive, people stabbing each others in front of your house because you live next to a fucking kebab, and she probably never gazed in a dying man's eyes and saw nothing. She is an innocent child who didn't know any better, and blaming her for that means blaming kids for being, well, kids. Will you always claim that you have no sympathy for my 8-years old neighbour who believes in Santa?
I laughed at the danbooru line, I give ye that. That was pretty clever. And you make a fair point that huge part of the responsibility, if not honestly around 80% of it lies with the navy, but the issue is that by the time the navy took note that she was doing this stuff, the shipgirls had already gotten emotionally attached to her. To the point of threatening insubordination towards the naval command if memory serves (was relatively early in the story, but I could be remembering wrong, do point it out if I was).
But even then, you are right in the regard that the Navy should have taken action, even if it was just to educate her on admiralty and leading trained soldiers into war. How to deal with PTSD, mental instability and so on among her shipgirls.
She looks like she is in her early 20s to me, though that could just be the stress. She begun when she was in high school, judging from the clothes we saw at the flashback when she rescued the first shipgirl. Which means she was at minimum 16 years old, and considering how they talk about the past, it seems like number of years have passed since then.
Nevertheless, 16 isn't much of a child anymore. Even if modern times is relatively peaceful compared to most of human history. She should have some awareness. But she didn't. Whether that was a coping factor and she merely did that to try to hide behind reality of things doesn't matter. She is old enough to take responsibility to her own actions.
That may just be my personal moral code. I have always been hard on that if I do something wrong, I face it straight on and admit it, try to grow from it and improve. No excuses if the failure was on my end. I admit the parts I did wrong and adapt.
But again, you are right that the Navy should take large part of the responsibility for this catastrophe, but there are still parts where there is only her to blame and no one's else... well, minus the stable shipgirls, they should have helped a lot more than they did... but honestly, if I go down that rabbit hole, then the story just ends up being plot holes with some story in-between rather than story with plotholes ^^,
In short, everyone is to blame, but unlike her, most of the others were already mentally insane, already trying to deal with the issues with the limited influence they had, or being threatened insubordination if they did anything.
Due to how emotionally attached many of the girls were to her, she was the one that could have influenced them the most in a positive manner, but since she never tried to figure out what was going on behind the scenes (and it was never much behind the scenes, just barely behind thin curtains), she never even tried.
But to be fair, she seems like she is the weak willed type to begin with and I wouldn't have been surprised if exactly the same thing would have happened if she was 10-20 years older than she was when she began.
but honestly, if I go down that rabbit hole, then the story just ends up being plot holes with some story in-between rather than story with plotholes ^^
It pretty much is exactly that, but the ride is fun nevertheless. It's like a yandere/gire Michael Bay movie. Kind of wonder how many sins we could give it with the Cinema Sins treatment.
This happen when Schoolgirls play Admiral in a war. War isn't a fucking game.
The reason why I don't really dig at why many artist puts a kid in charge in many Azur Lane/KanColle/Girls Frontline doujins. While I understand the intentions, thinking logically, are you sure that placing what is basically a kid that just passed 13 years old to manage a bunch of war machines is a good idea? These are no girls, these are personified weapons meant to bring death and destruction wherever they go.
The reason why I don't really dig at why many artist puts a kid in charge in many Azur Lane/KanColle/Girls Frontline doujins. While I understand the intentions, thinking logically, are you sure that placing what is basically a kid that just passed 13 years old to manage a bunch of war machines is a good idea? These are no girls, these are personified weapons meant to bring death and destruction wherever they go.
On the other hand, those kids are either hyper competent, the front is miles across the ocean so the Kidmiral never gets dragged into it, or the warships are on rehab and it's the kid's job to play the cute little doggie. (Shiba Inu is hyper competent at doing his job, thank you.)
When you put an average teen in the middle of a warzone? Yeah, shit happens. A lot.
Honestly, she doesn't deserve to take her own life. Her "dark" side is telling the truth in a lot of parts. She was being overly, incredibly, naive. She didn't even realize how horrible the mental effects constant warfare, killing and tension between different ideologies (and the fact that number of shipgirls are already pretty unstable) was having on the shipgirls.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, I have no sympathy for her. If you are trying to live up to a certain job, you bloody well put your all into researching, learning and growing in how to operate it with the best methods and abilities available to you.
Instead she went purely for "showing everyone kindness" rather than using common sense of any degree.
At some previous page someone mentioned that the author's idea (or yamagumo's theory of his intentions) was that almost all of us would likely end up with similar issues (though likely not as excessively exaggerated). I tend to disagree. Most folk are at the very least of average intelligence and have some amount of common sense and lack the same level of naivety as this girl did.
Almost anyone would have been a better leader/admiral than her. Even if things didn't escalate to this degree, it is clear as day that she is 100% incompetent at this job. Anyone that didn't have their head in the clouds would likely have gotten the message the first outslash that occurred among the shipgirls.
She isn't incompetent because she is naive, she is incompetent because she *never tried* to change her naivety or grow up. I love keeping to good and often naive ideals, but I will be more than willing to throw it all away if it keeps the fleet operational, sane and actually not at each other's throat. This kind of job isn't a joke, this is leading people into war, not a picknick or an adventure.
That's all well and good, except it fails to address one core issue with the female shikikan here.
That being - she's as average as you, me, and the other guy over there. People tend to talk big and how things should be, but I dare anyone here say they'd steel up and take command of a naval base full of overpowered and unstable shipgirls, all the while reciting empty oaths of duty and honor and other BS that, in an actual war situation, have the same value as dirty toilet paper.
If there's anyone to blame in all this, it's whatever Navy let female shikikan actually build up her base and fleet. She got involved when she rescued Takao and Atago, and that should've been it - return the shipgirls to the Navy, get a commendation for your efforts, and be on your way as a civilian.
Alas, it was not to be, and now we have this situation. And I really, really hope none of us will ever find themselves at a point where we honestly wish we were never born.
pihip said: Alas, it was not to be, and now we have this situation. And I really, really hope none of us will ever find themselves at a point where we honestly wish we were never born.
I do. Every single day.
But my situation isn't like most people. I'm from Singapore.
But my situation isn't like most people. I'm from Singapore.
im from SG too what happened bro.
shouldn't be here!I shouldn't be here!!I only cause trouble in this world!It's a mistake for me to even exist in this world!Let me go!Commander!!From the very start, someone like me