A combined gathering for Kancolle and Azur Lane fans at Anime Expo in Los Angeles turned violent this Saturday when the two groups suddenly turned on one another. The two franchises both feature anthropomorphic WWII era warships in the form of school girls. Due to their similarities, Anime Expo scheduled fans of both to meet up at the same time mistakenly believing the two groups of fans would be able to mesh.
“Things seemed like they might go alright at first,” stated convention attendee Christopher Doutun. “Then one of the Kancolle fans saw someone playing Akagi in Azur Lane on their phone and started complaining about how that wasn’t what she was supposed to look like. Before anyone knew what was happening, this guy in a Prinz Eugen outfit just started yelling ‘Fire! Fire!’ and the two sides were going at it.”
Anime Expo staff initially were not aware that a fight had broken out, assuming it was a cosplay reenactment of the battles that occur in the games. After a Kongou cosplayer was body slammed into a tree however, it was realized that the fight was real and staff began to intervene.
“Azur Lane is just a trash ripoff of Kancolle anyway,” Kancolle fan Aaron Wesley told Anime Maru. “That game shouldn’t even get recognition at AX at all. I refuse to share space with such tasteless individuals.”
“At least Azur Lane has actual gameplay, you know, like an actual game,” stated Azur Lane fan Samuel Turvolds. “The Kancolle game is basically a slideshow with how fast it plays. You don’t even get to do anything during the battles, just watch some cheap animation play.”
By mid-evening, the situation has been dealt with and the convention was able to resume normal operations. The cosplay gathering area was last seem to have been cleared out apart from a single Touhou fan who continued to sit in a corner waiting for when they would be considered relevant again.