Okay, this is a no-brainer and the cast of ship girls is obviously the main selling point of Azur Lane asthe entire cast are ship girls—anthropomorphic interpretations of World War II warships from various nations, but mainly from the United States Navy (Eagle Union), United Kingdom Royal Navy (er, Royal Navy), The Imperial Japanese Navy (Sakura Empire) and Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine (Iron Blood). Azur Lane has an impressive roster of 300+ ship girls, but since the anime couldn’t cram all of them in a 12-episode anime adaptation, at least we get some very lovely girls to fixate our eyes on.

On the Azur Lane side, we have the starter ships from the mobile game, Laffey and Javelin. The aces Enterprise, Belfast, Cleveland, Illustrious, Prince of Wales, Hornet, and Unicorn… Oh boy… Unicorn… We’ll get back to her later. Anyway, on the Crimson Axis, we get Japanese and German ship girls from fan favorites like Atago, Kaga, Ayanami, Takao, Zuikaku, Z23, and Prinz Eugen. All of these girls have alluring personalities, and a very distinct look to them like their exotic silver hairstyles, voluptuous proportions, and skimpy outfits. Basically, the Azur Lane cast is so distinct, it’s near impossible to confuse them with the cast of the other ship girl franchise, KanColle.

Azur Lane is also known for its very attractive character designs with some showing a lot of skin in the mobile game. The designs translate well in anime form and give each faction a distinct look. The Eagle Union girls wear sailor uniforms, the Royal Navy wear the usual British posh and maid uniforms, the Sakura Empire girls are your shrine maidens and fox girls, and the Iron Bloods are the ones with the gray-red uniforms with some freaky biological-like ship parts as reference to Nazi Germany’s unethical human experiments and inventing radical technologies that were advanced at the time.

As we mentioned in reason number 1 to watch Azur Lane, the characters wear skimpy outfits and the majority of them are very well-endowed. The characters are designed to catch the eye emphasizing uniforms that showing lots of skin rather than practical ones that will actually protect them from cannon fire and freezing waters. Belfast is a maid with a uniform that is probably too small for her because her boobs are so huge. Akagi and Kaga wear traditional shrine maiden dresses, but with a modern twist like showing off their cleavage and very short skirts. And lastly, Unicorn, a very young aircraft carrier who wears only a pair of panties slightly covered by a very thin see-through white one piece dress. There are certain scenes where the anime teases you that she has nothing covering her young and supple breasts… You feel like you’re committing a heinous crime just by looking at Unicorn, in all honesty...

After watching the first three episodes of Azur Lane the Animation, there were no signs or even a mention of the commander or admiral (the game’s player character), so it’s probably safe to assume Azur Lane the Animation will feature a 100% all-female cast. And since the anime is centered around girl characters, the resulting ecchi fanservice will be of the yuri kind. The fanservice here is very subtle and not very frequent. But when the fanservice does show up, it provides a bit of an entertaining downtime or it stops scenes from taking themselves too seriously. Ecchi moments include groping, girls getting naked, some girl-girl moments, and the usual lewd verbal humor. Don’t expect a Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid kind of yuri fanservice, though, and personally, Azur Lane’s take on fanservice is fitting for its personality: fun and a bit mischievous.