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The light aircraft carrier Kasuga Maru as represented in Kantai Collection. Her name (春日) means "Spring Day". Upon remodeling, her name is changed to Taiyou.
Kasuga Maru notably is modeled upon classic Japanese falconry, and carries an aircraft (a Mitsubishi A5M, immediate predecessor to the famous "zero" fighter) on her left forearm with jesses tied to a her equipment, and refers to her aircraft as "children". She otherwise has a shy and nervous personality, lacking in self-confidence. Due to sinking at night, she also is in the group (alongside Asakaze and Hagikaze) that are severely afraid of the night, as well as submarines, as represented in her official hourly lines. She also claims to be a good cook of Western-style meals and that she won't be beaten by Yamato, apparently as a reference to her service as a passenger liner.
Kasuga Maru has long dark brown hair in a folded ponytail held in place with a blue hair ribbon, and swept bangs. She has brown tareme-style eyes. Similar to Shibafu's fleet carriers, Kasuga Maru wears a white dougi top with a red hakama skirt, and black socks. On her left hand, she wears a thick falconry glove.
Her rigging involves a flight deck strapped to her right arm, falconry-related steel pouches strapped to her torso, and steel platform boots.
Historically, the Kasuga Maru was last of the three Nitta Maru class passenger-cargo liners, but was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy and converted into a light aircraft carrier, similar to the fate of the Hiyou and Jun'you. One of her lines references an advertisement where she was anthropomorphized alongside her sister-ships even back in the 1940's. She was never completed as a passenger liner, however, and was requisitioned and converted into a carrier before ever performing any duties as a passenger liner.
As the Kasuga Maru, the ship only served as a ferry for aircraft, bringing them from the mainland to strategic airbases in the various islands that Japan had occupied. On the 31st of August, 1942, she was formally renamed Taiyou. On the 28th of September, 1942, she was struck by a torpedo from the USS Trout while en route to the naval base at Truk, but could still manage to make for Truk for repair. After resuming aircraft ferrying duties, while en route to Truk again on April 9th, 1943, she was again struck by four torpedoes from the USS Tunny, but dud torpedoes prevented her demise. In September of that year, she was again attacked by two more submarines, the USS Pike, which missed, and the USS Cabrilla less than three weeks later, which destroyed her right propeller, and forced her to be towed for repairs. After engaging in further escort duty and aircraft ferrying, she was finally sunk by a fifth US submarine, the USS Rasher on the 18th of August, 1944.
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The following tags implicate this tag: taiyou_(kantai_collection) (learn more).