Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova-

Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova- is a 2013 anime adaptation of Arpeggio of Blue Steel (plus a Compilation Movie, -Ars Nova DC-, and a sequel, -Ars Nova Cadenza-, in 2015). In 2039, humanity is cut off from the sea by the Fleet of Fog, a fleet of incredibly advanced robotic warships that intercept and destroy any vessel that intrudes into the water (or the air or space above it). Without sea commerce, humanity is doomed to a slow, lingering extinction, but in 2056, there is hope with the invention of the vibration warhead torpedo, a weapon that can annihilate a Fog warship in one strike. However, Japan lacks the resources to mass-produce them, so they contract the Blue Steel, a group of mercenaries with a Fog defector (the submarine I-401, known to the crew as "Iona"), to carry the warhead prototype across the ocean to America, where they will be mass-produced to turn the tide.


 * Arc Words: Where do we come from? What are we?  Where are we going?
 * Conspicuous CG: Intentionally used to emphasize the inhuman nature of the Fog ships.
 * Robot Names: Iona comes from the designation I-401 (I-yon...).
 * Shipper on Deck: Hyuga ships (heh!) Takao with Gunzou (not so much for Takao's sake, but to get Gunzou away from Iona so that she can have her).
 * Shout-Out: Some of the show's visual style appears to inherit from Neon Genesis Evangelion:
 * The flashing text in the opening (much as NGE had "Absolute Terror Field", "Third Impact", and the like, Ars Nova has "Human Extinction", "Mental Model", "Vibration Warhead", etc.)
 * The battle theme heard in e.g. the battle against Haruna and Kirishima sounds like The Beast II.
 * The Conspicuous CG used on the Fog battleships and their Klein field manipulations visually resembles the Angels and their AT Fields, especially as seen in Rebuild of Evangelion.
 * Spaceship Girl: Called "Mental Models", the Fog ships formed them to attempt to learn from humanity and improve themselves. They got quite a bit more than they bargained for.