Let's be honest. If you're here, you're one of three things.

1. You played Azur Lane and heard they had an anime adaptation
2. You're a history fanatic who wanted to see anthropomorphized ships interact with each other
3. You're both

Azur Lane brought about a very fine second wind to the shipgirl subgenre. Continuing the legacy of Kantai Collection and giving it a modern twist that has attracted millions of players on its app. However, many fans, including myself, were dismayed at the anime adaptation. As a very new person to this community, who hasn't even accumulated 5 hours on the game and only heard about this entire franchise through a chance encounter during Spring, even I was disappointed at the overall effect of this adaptation.

Story

As I said earlier, I'm an extremely new addition to the Azur Lane community, as of such, I have no idea what the general game plot is. However, I was aware of the general gist. Humanity was attacked by alien vessels sorta like that Battleship Movie, and in response they turned their most famous battle vessels into cute anime girls. The Anime adaptation helps newer players like me clear up a lot of specifics of the system. How do these girls control these ships? Are they gijinkas of ships? Or actual humans possessed with the spirit of these ships? No, they're ships, that, through the mental cubes that were the bane of my gacha luck, become human, and they're able to convert their ship bodies into battle armor to use. Alright, understandable, frankly, that's actually a very comprehensible explanation, and I have no complaints with it.
But that's where it sorta all goes downhill. Following generic anime timelines, they yada yada the background information so they can capitalize on it later for plot convenient flashback scenes. Suddenly, ~~Japan~~ the Sakura Empire attacks! That's where the first issues I noticed came in. Most importantly, I realized that the anime really loves their Deus Ex Machinas. Belfast saving Enterprise, Enterprise saving Ayanami, we get it, animes love to flaunt their character's speed but if it gets repetitive it really takes out of the main feeling. Second is the overall spread of the story. 6 episodes for Enterprise to figure out that she's not invincible, 3 episodes to figure out the Sakura Empire is up to something, 2 dramatic action scenes, and of which one is completely backstory fodder, and whatever's left is thrown to the fanservice machine. Anyone who's watched any show before knows that this isn't good pacing. the 6 episodes of Belfast vs Enterprise eventually feels like it drags on and on and on, while they did try to amend this by having other character interactions, like Kaga and Akagi, the Shokaku sisters, Ayanami vs Javelin and Laffey, etc. But that doesn't curb the dragging feeling. Meanwhile, the last 3 episodes are super rushed. Barely any explanations are made about Akagi's motives, Enterprise is still the Deus Ex Machina Queen, and hell, it honestly feels like we're members of the Sakura Empire in that last battle, just as confused as everyone else.

Characters

Arguably the most anticipated part of the series, everyone, including newcomers like me knows that Azur Lane's selling point is its vast diversity of shipgirls and their quirky personalities. The Anime adaptation literally didn't do anything on it. Sure, they made sure to include cameos for the minor ships like Cleveland, but even with their main cast they struggled to make sure every character was well rounded and at least presentable as somewhat human. With their rushed attitude most of the characters were forced to stick to one central theme and crank it to 1000, which overall is a detriment to their personality and sets them as way more dull versions of their in game counterparts. On top of that, even if they spent 6 episodes fixing Enterprise's personality it overall still feels bland. All she did was realize that the ocean was scary. That's literally it, sure she's eating normal food a lot more, but in the grand scheme of things it was a very minor change.

Even with these flaws I still found myself gradually able to like a few characters. Even if the screentime isn't representative of how well they build as a character, it still is noticeable enough for certain characters to stick out. People will most likely love the Starter Squad for their quirky personalities, the two floofy tailed carriers will still be ara ara AF, and I personally loved the Shokaku sisters. At least not all of the personalities were sunk with the adaptation

Animation

The thing about converting big badass ironclad warships into cute anime girls is that you deliberately sacrifice many great opportunities for killer animation by opting for the more conventional approach. The main appeal of warships is that they're intimidating, they kick ass, and they are the most alpha way for nations to flex their biceps. It would've been great seeing these iron giant duke it out with shells and torpedoes, but now that they're kawaii anime girls, we really just get to see them use peashooters and swords... really? Meanwhile, the CGI. It's good in some places, but bad in others, especially when these human avatars are riding on their ships in ship form and not battle body form. The animations of the ship's turrets turning and firing is really chunky and looks like something straight out of Super Mario 64.

In all cases, the anime was a good watch. Not a great watch, but at least it isn't absolute bullcrap like others. Watch it if you're bored, watch it if you want to see shipfus, but don't watch it expecting to get something cool.