9638


In _Kantai Collection_ , the Ship Girls like
[Fusou](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Fusou) and
[Bismark](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Bismarck) are named from real life
ships.

I am wondering if the Abyssal Ships like
[Wo](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Standard_Carrier_Wo-Class) and
[Ta](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Battleship_Ta-Class) are named with a
particular scheme aswell or if it's just random? (I'm not Referring to Bosses
like Southern War Demon or Anchorage Princess)


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-09T05:56:38.183
9603
2014-05-11T06:38:30.890
1587
question
kantai-collection
Is there a Naming Scheme for the Abyssal Ships?


There is definitely some pattern to the naming of these ships. The enemy ship
classes are named in Iroha order corresponding to the first 18 characters of
the [Iroha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha), a classic Japanese poem which
uses all 47 classical hiragana* (excluding ん but including ゑ and ゐ) once. This
is an old-fashioned way of ordering hiragana (modern Japanese usually uses
[Gojūon ordering](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goj%C5%ABon)). It can be used
to label things in order without resorting to numbers, similar to how one
might use letters A, B, C, etc. For example, the series Sayonara Zetsubou
Sensei [uses the same
ordering](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4273/is-there-a-special-
meaning-to-the-class-name-2-h-2) for classrooms, though in modern day Japan
classrooms would usually be labelled by letters. The main difference between
this and other ordering systems is that Iroha order feels more authentically
Japanese and old-fashioned than the other options.

A table illustrates the relationship between the numbers and the kana. From
[the wiki](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Enemy_Vessel)

[code]

     Ship Class           Normal #           Elite #          Flagship #
    Destroyer I-class       501                514              564
    Destroyer Ro-class      502                515              552
    Destroyer Ha-class      503                516              553
    Destroyer Ni-class      504                514
    Light Cruiser Ho-class  505                515              554
    ...
    
[/code]

You can see that the numbers are ascending, particularly in the leftmost
column. I'm not sure the right columns are correct since there's some
repetitions, but it would be a lot more work to check everything than it's
worth doing here. Anyway, at least the normal numbers very clearly count up
from 500, while the class kana progress in the Iroha.

That still doesn't explain how the ships themselves are ordered, though it
does say how they're named once you know the ordering. The ordering of types
is pretty clear. All the Destroyers come before Light Cruisers, which are
before the Torpedo Cruisers, etc. For the most part, it goes from smaller to
larger ships. It's not exactly the same as the order
[here](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Ship) for your available ship types (for
instance, battleships come after carriers, rather than before), but it's
similar.

How the ships are ordered within each type is a bit less clear. I _think_ that
most enemy vessel classes are based on a class of ship available to you. For
example, [Battleship Ru-class](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Battleship_Ru-
Class) seems to be based on the
[Nagato](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Nagato)-class, while the faster but
less armored [Battleship Ta-
class](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Battleship_Ta-Class) has more
similarities with the [Kongou](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Kongou)-class
battleships, and the [Aviation Battleship Re-
class](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Battleship_Re-Class) is based on the
[Fusou](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Fusou)-class aviation battleships. The
order there is compatible with the order in the [Ship
List](http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Ship_list), in that Nagato-class comes
before Kongou-class, which comes before Fusou-class (at least prior to any
remodeling).

I suspect for the other types of ships, there's a similar relationship, but I
don't actually know which enemy class corresponds to which of your classes,
and some don't seem to match well at all. I'm not even sure the creators
really put that much thought into it. If there is a nice correspondence, I
suspect someone has compiled this somewhere before, if possibly only in
Japanese. However, I didn't immediately find it while searching, and it's a
tangential enough that I'm not sure it needs to be stated here. Even if there
isn't an exact correspondence, it's clear that the enemy ships are numbered in
a way that at least makes sense when you compare it to your ship list.

Anyway, at the end of the day, there's no real meaning to the individual
names. In terms of literal interpretation, they could have just as well used
"A-class", "B-class", etc. (nevermind that those have a different meaning in
English). The use of Iroha order here is consistent with the general mood of
KanColle as a semi-historical game. It probably isn't worth reading much more
into it than that.

Note that the ship classes are actually written in Katakana, e.g. 駆逐イ級 rather
than 駆逐い級. This doesn't really change anything significant, and one can just
as well write the Iroha in Hiragana or Katakana. In this context, it's similar
to writing in italics in English. There's a bit more to it than that, but the
subtleties between Hiragana and Katakana use in this sort of context aren't
really worth going into here.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-11T06:38:30.890
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2014-05-11T06:38:30.890
2017-04-13T12:54:48.523
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answer