Kimi no Na Iowa

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Kimi no Na Iowa, also known as your (name is) Iowa, is a Kantai Collection/Your Name Alternate Universe, Continuation and Fusion Fic cowritten by max_and_emilytate and WarpObscura, with art from bapjart, Hiroki Ree and melisaongmiqin. It can be found at Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity. It ran from February 2017 to December 2021 and was initially marked complete, but returned in June 2022 after a Creator Breakdown-induced hiatus.

WARNING! Unmarked Late Arrival Spoilers ahead for Your Name and the rest of Makoto Shinkai's filmography. Beware.

In one universe, Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu reunite at a certain staircase, and their story ends.

In another, Uileag Greer and Ayaka Godai discover that theirs is not over yet. Aquatic hostiles codenamed "abyssals" emerge to wage war on mankind, while warships of old return in human form to defend us. Ayaka is thrust into the spotlight when she learns that she is really the "Natural Born" reincarnation of USS Iowa (BB-61), specifically the Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls version thereof, and is forced to struggle with what this means both for herself and those around her.

Tropes used in Kimi no Na Iowa include:

• A-Team Firing: Normal weapons have difficulty hitting abyssals if not equipped with hypertech either of their own or to take targeting data from shipgirls. How much is due to the simple reality of conventional antiship weapons not being made to hit human-sized targets and how much is due to exotic factors is debated in-universe.
• Adaptational Badass: Shipgirls have, beyond the physical superhumanity inherent to their being warships, Teleport Spam, full spellcasting, and More Dakka for cruiser-and-above units. They fight abyssal encounters that are larger than in canon, to say nothing of Demons that now can Step, have Anti-Magic, destroyers with barrages and cruisers with Beehive Barriers, or the leadership who as Evil Counterparts have the same supernal magic.
• Aerith and Bob: Most Natural Borns retain their original names, which are normal-for-their-culture ones like Alice or Ayaka. This is contrasted against the Summoned/Manifested who use their ship names rather than bothering to adopt human ones, and many of said names are things not normally used as names.
• Alternate History:
  • The main divergence from history is Japanese migration to North America centuries ahead of real world schedule, preceding even the American Revolution.
  • High-speed rail and maglev are used by American characters several times. Efforts to establish HSR in the US have been infamously troubled in reality.
  • An International Moon Base is mentioned in Chapter Eight.
• Alternate Universe Fic:
  • One of the main differences is a transplant to America with the leads being a NYC Irish American boy and a rural Japanese American girl.
  • What Mitsuha was trying to write on Taki's palm in canon is a mystery. Here, it's clear that Ayaka was writing her name.
  • The swapping takes place over multiple months here, as opposed to the roughly one of canon.
• An Arm and a Leg: Chapter Two briefly mentions missing limbs among the injuries inflicted by the first abyssal attacks.
• Anyone Can Die: Dead major characters include Takanami, Yamashiro and Ayaka herself, the last at least in a bad ending that ends at Chapter 39 but is switched away from in Chapter 40.
• Arc Words:
  • "X in every generation..."
  • "The lamps (are) go(ing) out..."
  • "Just a little more."
  • "We will start over from zero..."
  • "This is my mission."
• As the Good Book Says...:
  • In Chapter Three, “What profit you if you save the whole world and lose your soul?!” is asked of Uileag.
  • "Not one sparrow might fall to the ground outside the gods’ care, and all the hairs on our heads are numbered..."
  • "Maybe those who have not seen and yet have believed are blessed..."
  • Chapter Eight alludes to Peter's denial of Jesus.
  • Or Energy is called "mana from Heaven" in Chapter Nine.
• Asian Gal with White Guy: Japanese American Ayaka and Irish American Uileag. He also previously had a crush on and failed date with his Japanese senior at work. It's left ambiguous whether he has a type, though, or it's just proximity considering that his besties, in the apparent absence of additional Race Lift from canon, are also Japanese.
• Atomic F-Bomb: Combined with Cluster F-Bomb and Punctuated! For! Emphasis!, Uileag shouts in Chapter 39 that all the medals he gained were not "WORTH A DAMN! FUCKING! CUNT! THING!"
• Being Human Sucks: Various Summoned/Manifested shipgirls feel that growing more attuned to humanity, which makes them vulnerable to emotional foibles and suffer longer, is not worth it.
• Big Eater: Shipgirls regularly eat several times the amount normal humans do, although not to the full hundreds or thousands that their crews would have consumed previously.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Canon has almost exclusively Clothing Damage, very occasional blood or injury, and only abyssals suffer Body Horror. Here, however, Reality Ensues is in play regarding the effects of high-powered naval artillery and antiship bombs, and similar to Freezing, Clothing Damage is not about titillation, but comes with gore, even maiming and Terminator-style degloving down to the endoskeleton.
• Brick Joke: In Chapter 17, Ayaka suggests bringing Yamashiro to a hedgehog cafe. In Chapter 29, the results of doing so are briefly shown.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In Chapter 20, CAPT Zelben wrinkles his nose while noting that not everyone in his room succeeded at resisting fear from seeing West Virginia Hulking Out. The implication is obvious.
• Cast from Hit Points: Self-cannibalisation to get Or Energy is a functionality introduced in Chapter Nine, though it takes a while to become relevant.
• The Cavalry: Chapter Five detours from Ayaka's POV to show the members of Amalgam Five "Gonzalez" responding to an abyssal attack.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • Chapter Six has a "Mr Solomon" get brought up who was amused by the existence of Skyrangers and real Alien Hunters.
  • Chapter Nine mentions the existence of Shinkai, Tenmon, and what is implied to be Radwimps. Ayaka is also noted to sound like one of the voice actresses in Shinkai's body of work.
• Central Theme: As made explicit in the authors' notes to Chapter 40, there are meant to be four -
  • Duty: The defense of humanity is the reason the shipgirls returned, but how far should they go and how much is acceptable sacrifice to that end? Ayaka for her part finds herself sandwiched between her duties to her bloodline and family as a daughter, priestess and wife and those to her nation and mankind as a whole as a soldier. The abyssals too consider their genocidal work a duty to the fallen that they failed previously, with all the literally deadly serious implications that entails.
  • Humanity: The question of what it means to be "human" comes up repeatedly, both from the Natural Borns who find new ship drives and instincts intruding on their current lives and from the Summoned/Manifested who find that they are no longer unfeeling and unthinking war machines that exist only to be commanded but now have desires and emotions of their own to contend with.
  • Justice: What is "justice"? The abyssals think they are righting a great wrong that was not adequately punished previously, but are willing to commit what an objective observer would consider at least equally great, if not worse, wrongs to do so. Compared to what their still-unrepentant targets did, though, at what point is it "going too far"?
  • Legacy: For Ayaka it is the problem of living up to the example of her bloodline and (believed to be) far more capable mother. Historical baggage also affects others, as all shipgirls are moulded by the accomplishments, experiences and failings of their past lives, and so too are the abyssals driven by the need to deal with their own unfinished business.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Chapter Eight, Uileag is mentioned to be holding something tightly enough as to hurt. It's later revealed to be a ring.
• Code Emergency:
  • In Chapter Five, the spectre of a Case Jötunn - hostile magic user - comes up but doesn't come to pass. This Chekhov's Gun doesn't get fired until Chapter 32.
  • Chapter 19 brings up Code Thorsub - overwhelming air attack - which becomes an issue in Chapter 36.
  • Chapter 36 also introduces Case Exarch for inter-universal attackers.
• Comic Book Fantasy Casting: Charybdis and her Dido-class sisters look like Emma Watson, whose possibly most famous role of Hermione Granger shares a name with a ship of their class.
• Continuation: While there are some small changes because of the different setting, what came before is mostly adherent to what was depicted in Your Name.
• Continuity Porn: There are many, many Call Backs to canon. The authors Shown Their Work on knowledge of canon, but it can be confusing to those coming in from the other fandom.
• Country Matters:
  • In Chapter 31, the abyssal supreme commander lists among their traitorous enemies "courtesans who ceded their cunts for the comfort of Tojo".
  • In Chapter 39, Uileag talks about his medals being not "WORTH A DAMN! FUCKING! CUNT! THING!"
  • In Chapter 41, a destroyer accuses Ayaka (in Translation Conventioned Japanese) of being a "Fucking liar cunt!" after the latter's attempt to reuse the meeting across time spell central to canon so as to speak with Yamashiro again fails.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Ayaka experiences some difficulty due to the clash between human and ship behaviours and instincts.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Chapter Five follows Amalgam Five "Gonzalez" being The Cavalry.
  • Chapter 22 has Paris Abel, the admiral in charge of Construct Three, attend a summoning ceremony.
  • Chapter 32 and 33 focus on a mission by J-DesRon Two "Riptide".
  • Chapter 34 takes the perspective of Shizuka Minami, the admiral in charge of Yokosuka's shipgirl flotilla, following the events of the previous two chapters.
  • Chapter 35 is a three-in-one, starting with the heads of the various countries' shipgirl forces having a conference on the events of 32 and 33, then a discussion between Ichiyo and a director of BERND, before ending with an attack by abyssal leaders.
• Death Notification: Chapter 38 ends on the door-knocking just before one is delivered. In the bad ending depicted in Chapter 39, it was played straight, but in the alternate universe starting from 40, it is "only" telling of Ayaka's severe injury.
• Death Seeker: As of Chapter 39, Uileag spent some time as this after Ayaka's death.
• Disappears Into Light: As introduced in Chapter 33, a sinking shipgirl starts glowing and disintegrates into Cherry Blossoms. The attached art states it to be a Homage to Your Lie in April.
• Dissonant Serenity: In Chapter 12, "chilling calm" are the words used to describe Yorktown chewing out Willie D for a big screwup. Hammann's mannerisms while hoping that "the problem sorts itself out" are also called "utterly matter-of-fact" and "chilling".
• Distant Finale: Chapter 39 takes place nine years after 38.
• Downer Ending: The bad ending depicted in Chapter 39 by way of inverting Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending. Humanity has won the war, but at the cost of 500 million dead. Ayaka dies. Even nine years later, both her family and Uileag are still suffering the effects of her loss.
• Dramatic Irony: In Chapter Two, the things Uileag-in-Ayaka had done are recounted to Ayaka, who at this point has been made to forget them.
• Drop What You Are Doing:
  • In Chapter Two, Ayaka drops her phone after receiving a certain piece of bad news.
  • In Chapter 13, Ayaka drops her umbrella after seeing Shimakaze in the flesh for the first time.
• Empathy Doll Shot: In Chapter 22, RDML Abel recalls how her younger sister's old doll was all that had been found of her after the first abyssal attacks.
• Everything Is Big in Texas: Such a joke is made in Chapter Nine regarding the sheer size of the ostensibly onsen-style repair baths.
• Extreme Omnivore: Shipgirls can drink oil and eat metal, though the right kind of metal matters where efficiency is concerned.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Shipgirls suffer Clothing Damage like in canon. Unlike canon, losing clothes usually also comes with suffering injuries and burns, losing blood, flesh and skin, and generally being in a state that anyone who experiences sexual arousal from it should see a mental health professional.
  • In Chapter 20 West Virginia succumbs to the much-foreshadowed Enemy Within and Hulks Out into a pseudo-lycanthropic giantess. The tearing of her clothes is described as "savage rather than sexy" and the sight of her and her movements is fear-inducingly in the Uncanny Valley, simultaneously animalistic and mechanical.
• Five Second Foreshadowing:
  • In Chapter Three, Ayaka notices a droning noise like a propeller plane moments before an abyssal airstrike.
  • In Chapter 38, Uileag notices a scraping sound like a vehicle on a road. Shortly afterwards, its occupants make their move.
• Flashback Cut: A large part of Chapter Four involves jumping back and forth between Ayaka's in-universe regaining her memories of what happened previously or in Flash Sideways and her reaction to them.
• Flashback Echo: Ayaka starts regaining her memories after seeing incoming shells that remind her of falling comet fragments.
• Flat Earth Atheist: It is mentioned in Chapters 7 and 24 that there are still people who refuse to believe in the supernatural despite everything going on.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Ayaka is warned in Chapter Four that "some may take issue with your current model". Turns out that old anti-Japanese sentiments don't always die easy...
  • She is also warned then about not being able to save everyone, long before it becomes an issue.
  • Chapter Four also mentions "friends [giving] themselves over to an ideal far beyond reason and [losing] themselves in the process". Similarly, Chapter Eight says "the fanatic or true believer does what he does with the full approval of his conscience and considers nothing beyond the pale." Certain reveals later...
• Four Is Death:
  • Doom Magnet William D Porter, whose outrageously bad luck causes harm to those around her, has the callsign Uatu One-Four. Later, Ayaka is Casting from Hit Points in her attempt to save everyone during the retreat from Southeast Asia and runs out after the 256th - 4^4 - rescue, and she is once again to blame.
  • In Chapter 33, it is on the fourth attack of each combo that Northampton manages to get through Naganami's defences.
  • The first shipgirl to sink is Takanami, callsign Riptide Four.
  • The abyssal attack on the Task Force VALKYRIE armada that claims the lives of Ayaka (in a bad ending) and Yamashiro is the fourth one directly involving one of their leaders.
• Framing Device: Chapter 40 opens with "TERMINATING OBSERVATION OF UNIVERSAL BRANCHES WITH SUBOPTIMAL OUTCOME", implying that the narrator is some sort of multiversal observer and justifying the jump from the bad ending depicted in Chapter 39 to a universe where Ayaka survived.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Hardly anyone likes Willie D for her accidental fratricidal tendencies, not helped by everyone else being unwilling to take her off of Uatu's hands.
• Full Name Ultimatum: Ayaka gives Uileag the full three-name treatment in Chapter Three out of her Anger Born of Worry.
• Fusion Fic: This world sees the events of an Alternate Universe Your Name happen in the backstory and it progresses into the abyssal attacks and returning shipgirls of Kantai Collection.
• Ghost City: In Chapter 42, one of the signs of how public perception about the war is worsening is that while Yokohama and Tokyo haven't outright been abandoned yet, they are getting awfully quiet in ways that no big city should be even on a weekday morning.
• Godzilla Threshold: After the initial abyssal attacks on China out of the Yellow Sea penetrated deeply enough inland to do damage to Beijing, fatally wounding none less than the then-president, the dying man told the PLA to do whatever it took to defend the people. They turned to the Nuclear Option and succeeded. The idea of a LAMP RUB comes up a few times later as a kind of Black Comedy Running Gag, only to be used for real in Chapter 36. With a massive abyssal air attack underway that a human armada has been forced to retreat from, the PLARF CO is brought to the realization that nukes are the only way to drive off the attackers before they sink the armada and turn their attention to Chinese cities once again.
• Gory Discretion Shot: What exactly happened to a would-be mugger in Chapter 40 is left ambiguous. Uileag only notices some kind of distant mess and red stains around Ayaka's mouth.
• Hands Go Down: In Chapter Nine, Stingray asks the class if they think they can juggle the requirements of spellcasting in their heads. A few hands rise. She asks further about doing so in the heat of combat. The hands drop.
• He Who Fights Monsters:
  • Discussed in Chapter Eight -

You fight monsters long enough, though, sometimes you start believing that anything's acceptable if it means protecting you and yours from them.

• • The abyssals want to genocide Japan to avenge the 30 million dead and war crimes. Bad enough. They also want to exterminate the USA for failing to exterminate Japan the last time, and see any other country that fought in World War II but is now helping Japan as Les Collaborateurs who must also be destroyed unless it does a Heel Face Turn (from their perspective) and turns against Japan.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Ayaka spends most of Chapter 40 in one following the events of the preceding chapters. Naganami has been in one the whole time she's been around, at least until Chapter 33 when a fresh source of trauma springs a Tomato Surprise and causes her to regain her original personality, but also pushes her into Heroic BSOD instead.
• History Repeats:
  • Once again, an attack on Pearl Harbor is begun with a command to climb a mountain.
  • The sinking of Takanami occurs in the Solomon Islands from an attack led by Northampton, but not before she plays a vital part in the counterattack.
  • The sinking of Yamashiro occurs in Filipino waters once again, though also averted as it takes place in day from air attack rather than night from surface action.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Shipgirls have a tendency to use nautical substitutions for human expressions.
• Homage:
  • In Chapter Three, an unknown voice(?) delivers an adaptation of the G-Man's speech from Half-Life 2. It comes up again at least once more, and is implied to be given to every shipgirl.
  • The American version of the summoning speech, as shown in Chapter 22, combines and adapts the Day of Infamy speech, Declaration of Independence, and Gettysburg Address.
  • As introduced in Chapter 33 and confirmed in the relevant art, the way a sinking shipgirl disintegrates into Cherry Blossoms and Disappears Into Light is based on Your Lie in April.
  • In Chapter 37, some of the last words of Uileag to Ayaka in this bad ending mirror what Kousei says to Kaori, also from Your Lie in April.
• Horror Hunger: Early on after realising her true nature, Ayaka grapples with a newfound unrelenting desire for semen. She comes to learn that it's a common issue across all shipgirls, one that most of them happily indulge. She eventually lets herself go after marrying Uileag, though the boyfriend-turned-husband is understandably concerned about her enthusiasm.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Happens to Takanami from Northampton in Chapter 32.
• In Vino Veritas: In Chapter 42, Ayaka wonders if Harumi's OOC frankness is due to the alcohol the other shipgirl is drinking.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Uileag crying in Chapter 39 is explicitly described as "loudly and uglily".
• Instant Expert: It is mentioned in Chapter Seven that fairy pilots can just hop between plane types without needing to relearn how to operate them.
• Ironic Echo: In Chapter Three, Uileag gives not being able to leave anyone to die as the reason for his actions in Chapter One, something that Ayaka gives him grief over. In Chapter 36, it's Ayaka's turn to do just that, something she acknowledges in Chapter 37.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Starting from Chapter 12, there are a few mentions of rolling successes, as if throwing dice in tabletop gaming.
• Libation for the Dead: In Chapter 39, Uileag offers this at Ayaka's grave.
• Magitek: Called "hypertech" in-universe, it is described as the bridge between conventional technology and the magic used by shipgirls.
• Mama Bear: In Chapter Two, Uileag's mother erupts in a fierce enough motherly anger as to frighten the war-hardened senior NCO father.
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Averted; shipgirls have no physiological problems having sex with humans, which works out well for all involved considering that semen intake is vital both as an immediate "mana potion" and a long-term boost to their abilities.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In Chapter Four, Nijimi wonders if the wisdom she had was entirely mundane or actually of magical origin.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In Chapter Four, "Mitsuha" was considered as one of the names to give Ayaka.
  • In Chapter Five, Washington projects an icon of her scout plane followed by two holographic banners of her guns when entering Artillery Spotting mode, similar to in the game.
  • The narration mentions starting with land-based planes before using naval aviation and then reaching shelling range, which is how the order of combat phases goes ingame.
  • Quincy points out that Albacore and O'Bannon look like sisters. The fic uses the Warship Girls versions of them, which are drawn by the same artist, Saru.
  • A Running Gag starting from Chapter Six is for others to expect Ayaka to look like the canonical version of Iowa.
  • Also in Chapter Six is talk of Iowa discussing corn production with Khrushchev, which happened in Pacific canon.
  • Chapter Seven mentions failed experiments producing plushies of crying penguins and clouds, referring to what happens in the game when you fail a development.
  • In Chapter Eight, "you can rely on me more", a catchphrase of Ikazuchi from the game, is used.
  • Also in Chapter Eight, a joke is made about Hitomi being a Natural Born. As related in the authors' notes, the authors had previously noted that the redesigned Pacific version of Yorktown resembled Sayaka.
• No Conservation of Energy: Shipgirls may be Big Eaters, but they don't need to eat the hundreds to thousands of men's worth of food that their ship selves' crews would have needed in order to function properly.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: In Chapter One, Uileag gets caught in an abyssal bombing that briefly knocks him out, but he is still able-bodied enough after he regains consciousness that he can lead multiple rescue expeditions. It takes a second bombing, which has him Blown Across the Room, to inflict internal injuries that lead to a month-long coma. One Corpsman remarks on his luck.
• Out-of-Character is Serious Business: Even years after the Cometfall, Ayaka still finds strange that her once staunchly exclusive grandmother is willing to consider applicants to the shrine who aren't linked to the family either by blood or marriage.
• The Oathbreaker: The abyssals consider themselves this. Halsey made a promise that they couldn't fulfil, and now they're going to set things right, whatever it takes.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • The fall and later retaking of Pearl Harbor take place at some point in between Chapters One and Three. The readers get naught but brief comments as to what happened during these two vital battles.
  • Chapter 32 starts in the midst of a campaign to liberate Southeast Asia, one that has retaken Singapore by the start of Chapter 36, but none of the intermediary battles are covered onscreen.
• Overranked Soldier: Discussed and inverted in Chapter Seven. Ayaka asks why a captain is commanding a mere six shipgirls, something that seems like a junior NCO's assignment. Cecil points out to her that, command of the support staff notwithstanding, having a battleship and a carrier means this would normally be for an admiral to take instead.
• Painting the Medium:
  • In Chapter Four, Uileag makes "A desperate prayer for one more time, one more chance to", and then the text cuts to a link to "Make This Right" from Furi.
  • Also in Chapter Four, a spoiler character says “Embracing the", and the text cuts to "Wisdom of Rage" also from Furi.
• Power Perversion Potential: In Chapter 41, Ayaka manages to recreate the method of remotely projecting herself to Uileag that occurred in Chapter 37 that only happened then unconsciously because of trying to contact him one last time as she lay (apparently) dying. After some initial resistance, she succumbs to the temptation to use it to keep up the sex-having despite their physical separation.
• Precision F-Strike: In Chapter Seven, hitherto composed Cecil drops the F-bomb in response to Ayaka's concern that someone might see shipgirls as monsters.
• Pun-Based Title: It is an obvious play on Kimi no Na Wa, the Japanese title for Your Name.
• A Rare Sentence: "A rare statement" are the words RDML Abel uses in Chapter 10 regarding China providing fire support in aid of Japanese forces.
• Reality Ensues:
  • A small town in the middle of nowhere with less than a percentage point of its country's population just isn't going to be missed by the world at large, no matter how exotic the cause of its disappearance or affected the former inhabitants are.
  • Some of the difficulty conventional forces have combating abyssals arises from the fact that normal antiship weapons aren't meant to hit human-sized targets whose Super Toughness means direct hits are needed.
  • Shipgirls don't just take Clothing Damage, but also real injury that needs medical or mechanical treatment.
  • Ayaka doesn't magically become a stone-cold Badass just because her true nature has been activated. Having had less than two months of admittedly intensive training by the time of her first mission and no prior experience with fighting, she takes quite badly the suffering of what would have been serious wounds for a normal human.
  • Averting Rock Beats Laser, anti-abyssal guerillas are not having a good time; unlike normal human invaders, even the weakest PT Imp is Immune to Bullets and retaliates with heavy weapons that will tear a tree in half, never mind a man. Anything that does work, the abyssals have the numbers to push through, and their not having a civilian populace to be Slave to PR to means that they have no rules of engagement forcing them to play nice with humanity.
  • William D Porter being a clumsy, fratricidal The Jinx is not Played for Laughs like in most other Kantai Collection stories, but instead results in her being The Millstone, The Friend Nobody Likes, and developing suicidal ideation from the guilt of her repeated wrongs however accidental.
  • People don't universally react to an Inhumanly Beautiful Race with attraction or desire. Some have Uncanny Valley reactions.
  • A Man Is Always Eager? No. When Ayaka turns out to be an Insatiable Newlywed whose newfound postmarital hunger drives her into Making Love in All the Wrong Places, Uileag is more than a little disturbed and reluctant.
• Recap Episode: A large part of Chapter Four is dedicated to covering the events of Your Name as Ayaka regains her memories of them in-universe.
• Running Gag:
  • Ayaka being described as a giant beanstalk.
  • "CLOSE RANGE?" (Allcaps mandatory)
  • People expecting the canonical depiction of Iowa.
• Sacrificial Lion: Takanami is a major occupant of Naganami's orbit, spends several scenes together with her, and is the first shipgirl to sink a decently large number of chapters in.
• Snow Means Death: In Chapter 37, it is snowing as Ayaka has a premortem conversation with Uileag.
• Something Only They Would Say: In Chapter Four, Nijimi proves that she's not a hallucination by telling Ayaka something only the two of them would have known.
• Sorry That I'm Dying:
  • In Chapter One, a badly-hurt Uileag who thinks he's dying asks that his apologies be passed along to Ayaka.
  • Chapter 33 has "osaki ni shitsureishimasu", a common Japanese expression of apology for leaving early, being the last words of Takanami.
  • Chapter 37 has Ayaka repeatedly apologising for (what she thinks is) her imminent death.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Chapter 15 has an in-universe montage video of Choukai violently going to town on abyssals that has been set to Offenbach's Can Can.
  • In Chapter 31, the abyssal supreme commander makes a genocidal speech while the BGM is the heroic theme of The Avengers.
• Statuesque Stunner: Ayaka is a towering 6'8", appropriate considering how her original ship self was among the longest of its generation. Saratoga is roughly as tall/long both then and now, such that Ayaka fits into one of her spare outfits.
• Steel Ear Drums: In Chapter Three, Ayaka wonders how her eardrums are still intact after firing naval artillery.
• Take That: Chapter Nine mentions "Dumblr idiots of the late 2010s".
• Talking Is a Free Action: Mentioned to not be the case in Chapter Four with a mid-battle conversation only possible because of Time Mastery. Several other times that extended conversations take place are either explicitly during lulls or there are intercuts to show the battle still continuing around the talkers.
• Technology Marches On: Chapter Two mentions that Ayaka uses an iPhone 9. It was written before Apple announced that they were skipping 9 and jumping straight to X.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Chapter Seven mentions that no abyssals have been observed using magic yet. Guess what.
  • Chapter 12 mentions the cooldown to restart Stepping and how Ayaka's magical defences are protecting her. A short while later, they fail at a bad time.
  • In Chapter 29, Naganami mentions that no abyssals fight in melee. Guess what happens a few chapters later.
• Thirteen Is Unlucky:
  • In Chapter One, after completing 12 runs of search and rescue, it is on the next one that Uileag falls victim to a second abyssal bombing.
  • The abyssal attack on the Task Force VALKYRIE armada that claims the lives of Ayaka (in a bad ending) and Yamashiro takes place on December 13.
• Throwaway Country: In Chapter Three, several countries like Indonesia, Malta and Singapore are mentioned as having been harmed by the abyssals.
• Toe-Tapping Melody: When Missouri sings, others follow along in singing, headbanging, dancing or otherwise.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • Unlike in Pacific canon where Iowa came with the hat, Ayaka here inherits it from her late mother.
  • In Chapter 41, Ayaka is passed a set of tassels from now-sunken Yamashiro's spares.
• Translation Convention: Various bilingual or multilingual characters exist, including all shipgirls, and their use of non-English languages is mostly rendered as English in curly brackets instead of quotes.
• True Sight: As of Chapter Eight, following Ayaka's Reawakening, some of the people around her develop the ability to see her true nature even when she doesn't have her rigging out.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future:
  • Practical holograms and Holographic Terminals are mentioned at various points.
  • Chapters released in 2017 imagined a 2023 where 4Ks had fallen in price to where Blu-Rays were back then, with 8Ks taking their old place in price and rarity.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • Most Summoned/Manifested shipgirls are inhumanly mechanical and precise in their motions, to the discomfort of observant humans. Also inverted in that they find Natural Borns too human.
  • In Chapter Eight, the more humanlike abyssals are called simulations that still wouldn't fool the sober.
  • In Chapter 12, Shimakaze tells Ayaka of how she finds fourth-plus generation Japanese diaspora off.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • "Hardware diagnostics" is used to describe Uileag-in-Ayaka's exploration of her body, as well as that of her-in-his.
  • The fact that consumption of semen is the most effective means for a shipgirl to gain manpower for her crew leads to "recruitment" (as in recruiting sailors) being used extensively when shipgirl (hyper)sexuality is discussed.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: On one side is Shinkai's Original Flavour refusal to spoonfeed the viewer, combined with much drawing from the canon of his filmography. On the other is that many instances of Foreshadowing draw on knowledge of naval history and technical specifications. Put them together and this was probably inevitable.
• Villain Opening Scene: After the summary, the prologue is about the abyssal supreme commander starting the attack on humanity.
• Worst Aid: In Chapter One, Uileag briefly contemplates the wisdom or lack thereof in moving someone who's been injured. He also tells a constructionman not to remove shrapnel lest the victim bleed out faster.
• You Have Failed Me...: In Chapter 12, an abyssal battleship is destroyed by friendly fire. The other two with it promptly execute the perpetrator without bothering to confirm whether the treachery was accidental or deliberate.
• You No Take Candle: In Chapter Six, Alice's brief attempt at speaking Japanese to Ayaka is presented as this after going through Translation Convention.