You just killed her dream, Autumn Cloud-Sensei

Pemano said:

You just killed her dream, Autumn Cloud-Sensei

Hibiki started it.

I see Hibiki is channeling the Yano_Toshinori version of Hibiki there. Except she's not silly large so her figure is more balanced than Hibiki's imagined oppai model there.

Echoes of Rumia the Golden in the first panel.

SCRATCH THAT, CONTACT THE CHIBIS IN THE DRY DOCK AND GIVE THE CHIBIS IN THE DESIGN BOARD BLUEPRINTS FOR THE GIRLS.

Hibiki is slowly becoming like Akatsuki...

Shinhwalee said:

Hibiki is slowly becoming like Akatsuki...

It's only one of her modes. And this isn't even her final one.

Shinhwalee said:

Hibiki is slowly becoming like Akatsuki...

Well they are the same class. Its when they all go Plasma that one should be very, very afraid.

Before this strip I missed that shipgirls don't age. Do this means that Kongou, Nagato and the other spend years of training before becoming shipgirls?

Cypher27 said:

Before this strip I missed that shipgirls don't age. Do this means that Kongou, Nagato and the other spend years of training before becoming shipgirls?

Before it was stated that the shipgirls are just normal girls before they are found to have compatibility with a shipgirl "Spirit". So the not aging must come after they gain the spirit. The training probably comes after the spiriting since high compatibility is supposed to be rare.

That's how the Admiral met Ooi after all.

So their admiral's going to grow into an old man and die while they won't have aged a day, that's a bit tragic.

themadmysterymonk said:

So their admiral's going to grow into an old man and die while they won't have aged a day, that's a bit tragic.

That's assuming the girls don't die in the line of duty. So far in this verse, the army is constantly looking for compatible girls, In a war setting with only a finite amount of ships to be based off of (especically anything that's NOT a destroyer), I think it's safe to say that previous Shipgirls die out in the field and the army picks up more compatible girls from your random highschool and whatnot.

The Admiral is a bit of a extremist as he thought he could try and be a shipgirl himself by coaxing the spirits to get into his body but that never worked.

themadmysterymonk said:

So their admiral's going to grow into an old man and die while they won't have aged a day, that's a bit tragic.

Well, this isn't Touhou where youkais/immorttals/etc get left behind after their human buddies pass away. In most cases the lifespan of a typical modern vessel is not longer than that of humans. (Except for USS Constitution maybe, but that's not exactly modern.)
I guess the girls would either retire when their "life" is over, or get discharged normally and start aging from there on.

Tetsamaru said:

That's assuming the girls don't die in the line of duty. So far in this verse, the army is constantly looking for compatible girls, In a war setting with only a finite amount of ships to be based off of (especically anything that's NOT a destroyer), I think it's safe to say that previous Shipgirls die out in the field and the army picks up more compatible girls from your random highschool and whatnot.

The Admiral is a bit of a extremist as he thought he could try and be a shipgirl himself by coaxing the spirits to get into his body but that never worked.

Would depend on how intense the war actually is and the overall ratio in terms of capability between the Shipgirls and most Abyssals. If it's a "1944 US fleet vs IJN" type situation in the ship girls favor... it's entirely possible they basically never loose capital ships or cruisers and only occasionally lose a destroyer. Another example would be the War on Terror where the Insurgents went over so hugely to IED because their early attempts at "ambushes" were killing scores more of them then they ever did US troops. Indeed the ambushes largely helped the US troops by bringing the enemy out into the open to be butchered.

It's often kind of just assumed the Abyssal are some vast horde that physically controls the oceans with sheer numbers, but they could just as easily be a much smaller force that's a problem as much because they can appear and disappear quickly rather then due to being particularly hard to kill when you can get forces onto them in time. Such a set up could explain why these girls seem to have so much free time, they may well be just sitting around 95% of the time on base waiting for a 'scramble' when an enemy force is finally located.

More whack-a-mole then meatgrinder.

Another thing of note, is that aside from actual capital ships (and Ooi+KTKM) we never seen these girls doing anything battleshippy. (Or I can't remember it.) So maybe DD's are still "shipgirls in training" who have compatibility, but are yet to recieve the spirit.

MAtross said:

Another thing of note, is that aside from actual capital ships (and Ooi+KTKM) we never seen these girls doing anything battleshippy. (Or I can't remember it.) So maybe DD's are still "shipgirls in training" who have compatibility, but are yet to recieve the spirit.

Nah, they are grade schoolers and middle schoolers found to have compatibility with shipgirl spirit.

It just so happens that for all but the very exceptional cases (e.g. Ryuujou, Taihou, Zuihou, Zuikaku maybe), the shipgirl spirits compatible with grade schoolers and middle schoolers are DD spirits.

Tetsamaru said:

That's assuming the girls don't die in the line of duty. So far in this verse, the army is constantly looking for compatible girls, In a war setting with only a finite amount of ships to be based off of (especically anything that's NOT a destroyer), I think it's safe to say that previous Shipgirls die out in the field and the army picks up more compatible girls from your random highschool and whatnot.

The Admiral is a bit of a extremist as he thought he could try and be a shipgirl himself by coaxing the spirits to get into his body but that never worked.

There's also like Strike Witches. As they age, the magic power/compatibility lowers down until it's no longer possible for them to effectively go to war, so the military must look for replacement.

And Admiral could just become like Bomber Grape's Admiral.