Kimi no Na Iowa

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Key visual by be-ta/bapjart

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 is now complete.

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:
  • 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.
  • Arc Words: "Only just a little more."
  • A-Team Firing: Normal weapons have difficulty hitting abyssals.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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!"
  • 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.
  • The Cavalry: Chapter Five detours from Ayaka's POV to show the members of Amalgam Five "Gonzalez" responding to an abyssal attack.
  • 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 Case Thorsub - overwhelming air attack - which becomes an issue in Chapter 36.
    • Chapter 36 also introduces Case Exarch for inter-universal attackers.
  • 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.
  • Death Seeker: As of Chapter 39, Uileag spent some time as this after Ayaka's death.
  • Distant Finale: Chapter 39 takes place nine years after 38.
  • Downer Ending: 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.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Shipgirls can drink oil and eat metal, though the right kind of metal matters where efficiency is concerned.
  • Five Second Foreshadowing: In Chapter Three, Ayaka notices a droning noise like a propeller plane moments before an abyssal airstrike.
  • 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.
  • 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". 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 and Yamashiro is the fourth one directly involving one of their leaders.
  • 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.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: 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.
  • 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.
  • Homage: In Chapter Three, an unknown voice delivers an adaptation of the G-Man's speech from Half-Life 2.
  • Inelegant Blubbering: Uileag crying in Chapter 39 is explicitly described as "loudly and uglily".
  • 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.
  • Libation for the Dead: In Chapter 39, Uileag offers this at Ayaka's grave.
  • Mama Bear: In Chapter Two, Uileag's mother erupts in a fierce enough motherly anger as to frighten the war-hardened senior NCO father.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Pun-Based Title: It is an obvious play on Kimi no Na Wa, the Japanese title for Your Name.
  • 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 or affected the former inhabitants are.
  • 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.
  • Shout Out:
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • Unusual Euphemism: "Hardware diagnostics" is used to describe Uileag-in-Ayaka's exploration of her body, as well as that of her-in-his.
  • 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 No Take Candle: In Chapter Six, Alice's brief attempt at speaking Japanese to Ayaka is presented as this after going through Translation Convention.
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