I'm a fan of KanColle and AzurLane and have played both games, but whenever the Manjuu CEO and her "genius" is brought up, I will always make the point:
"AzurLane owes it's existence to Kancolle's initial popularity"
If DMM/Kadokawa weren't assholes by leaving money on the table, as well as if jellyroll Tanaka and the team weren't adverse to US/foreign ships, KanColle could have been a farther reaching, long-term success. Not taking advantage of it nearly unseating Touhou's popularity in Japanese weebspace was a big financial mistake. Granted, leaving things niche is what has allowed it to retain some of it's appeal, and it hadn't really reached that deep into Western weeb circles, arguably sparing it from the bullshit flung at AL. However, as of now, the devs keep making each subsequent event harder for the lulz and ruining the game.
All that was required of AL was taking KC's concept and making it sexier to appeal to coomers while making a fuckton of non-Japanese ships missing from KC. Anyone with some resources (In this case, the Chinese/Hong Kongers) could have done this, but I've run across cultish fans who won't admit it. The irony is that there's more concentrated fanart from KC fans, whereas for AL fans there's maybe 10% of characters that are still popular while a bunch are "girl of the month" and most disappear, being forgotten. And the designs have gotten so out of hand, you can't really pick more than 5 decent girls without asking "is this actually a ship?", ignoring the ship rigging
I'm a fan of KanColle and AzurLane and have played both games, but whenever the Manjuu CEO and her "genius" is brought up, I will always make the point:
"AzurLane owes it's existence to Kancolle's initial popularity"
If DMM/Kadokawa weren't assholes by leaving money on the table, as well as if jellyroll Tanaka and the team weren't adverse to US/foreign ships, KanColle could have been a farther reaching, long-term success. Not taking advantage of it nearly unseating Touhou's popularity in Japanese weebspace was a big financial mistake. Granted, leaving things niche is what has allowed it to retain some of it's appeal, and it hadn't really reached that deep into Western weeb circles, arguably sparing it from the bullshit flung at AL. However, as of now, the devs keep making each subsequent event harder for the lulz and ruining the game.
All that was required of AL was taking KC's concept and making it sexier to appeal to coomers while making a fuckton of non-Japanese ships missing from KC. Anyone with some resources (In this case, the Chinese/Hong Kongers) could have done this, but I've run across cultish fans who won't admit it. The irony is that there's more concentrated fanart from KC fans, whereas for AL fans there's maybe 10% of characters that are still popular while a bunch are "girl of the month" and most disappear, being forgotten. And the designs have gotten so out of hand, you can't really pick more than 5 decent girls without asking "is this actually a ship?", ignoring the ship rigging
The splash art power creep is really funny but as long as they keep putting out boats with big knockers I will keep chasing 100% completion.
I could be wrong, but I think Unzen has the largest official CG. The size of her backing is insane.