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Heavy Cruiser Takao
Portrait | Mental Model | Vessel | Merged with I-401
Takao-portrait
Japanese name 高雄 (タカオ)
Mental Model information
Status Active (manga);
Active (anime)
Affiliation Blue Steel, Chihaya Gunzou
Mental Model's Appearance
Eye color Blue
Hair color Blue
Vessel Status
Status Sunk, later restored (manga);
Merged with I-401 (anime);
Recreated (movie)
Sunk by U-2501 (manga)
Vessel information
Type Fleet of Fog Takao-class heavy cruiser
Displacement 13,460 tons
Length 203.76 m
Beam 21 m
Draft 9.3 m
Maximal Speed up to 90 knots
Armament 22x Torpedo tubes;
73x Photon cannons;
80x Missile launchers;
Depth charges;
Super-Graviton Cannon
Wave-Force Armor Yes
First Appearance
Manga Chapter 2
Anime Episode 1
Voice Actors
Japanese Numakura Manami
German Fabienne Hesse

Takao is a heavy cruiser, originally from the First Oriental Fleet of Fleet of Fog. After her defeat at the hands of Gunzou and I-401, she defects the "Fog", eventually allying herself with Gunzou as the second vessel in Blue Steel fleet. From this point onward she becomes a major character of the series.

Heavy cruiser Takao[]

Takao is a Fleet of Fog reincarnation of WWII Takao-class heavy cruiser Takao. Her three sisters, heavy cruisers Atago, Maya and Choukai, have all made their appearances in the series.

Takao originally had a red and dark-gray color scheme, with glowing red marks on her hull. After she joined Gunzou's Blue Steel fleet, Takao changed her color scheme to blue and dark-gray.

Her weapons include, but are not limited to: Super-Graviton Cannon, ten main Photon cannons on five turrets, several torpedo tubes and a great number of vertical missile-launchers of various calibers. Takao also possesses a powerful Wave-Force armor that can take several hits from Corrosive Warhead Torpedoes before reaching saturation.

She also possesses moderately powerful computational processing power, holding her ground against barrages from U-2501 but shown to be so much more inferior to Yamato, losing control of a hacked destroyer's turret in pico-seconds.

Mental model[]

Heavy cruiser Takao has one Mental Model. She appears as a girl in her late teens with long blue hair and blue eyes. While she was a part of the Fleet of Fog, Takao was seen wearing only a white dress and black pantyhose. After her defection, she gained a fashion sense and is seen in a variety of clothes. She is also the only Mental Model that significantly alters her hairstyle by herself.

Originally, Takao was rather arrogant, haughty and narcissistic as well as prone to be a bit overly dramatic. After she was defeated by I-401, she spent some time around human while thinking of ways to improve herself.

When she's next seen, she is calmer and harbors a not-so-secret crush on Gunzou. Because of this, even other "Fog" ships often call her "Tsundere heavy cruiser". This new Takao appears to be interested in human culture and way of life in general and in the relationships between captains and their ships in particular.

Even though her second meeting with Gunzou started not in the best way, she is eventually accepted into the Blue Steel. She is rather helpful and friendly with I-401's crew and helps them with their escape from Iwo Jima by controlling I-401's active decoy, as well as by creating and maintaining crew members' doubles. At this point, her secondary interest in human anatomy emerges.

Takao is pretty dutiful and loyal, not abandoning the decoy even when under assault from U-2501. Furthermore, even when almost defeated, she refused to dematerialize her Mental Model's body because she'd lose a T-shirt given to her by Gunzou. When reactivated aboard Yamato, she tries to escape in order to rejoin Gunzou, even if Yamato has other plans for her. However, Takao is still rather narcissistic and the device that messes her hair up is enough to keep her under control.

Role: Manga[]

Takao-SGC-fire

Takao fires her Super-Graviton cannon at I-401

Takao first appears as an antagonistic character. She engages I-401 with intent to sink it. However, I-401 dodged a direct shot from Takao's Super-Graviton Cannon and, later, returned the favor with one of her own. Even though, I-401's Super-Graviton Cannon was used to destroy a supporting surveillance submarine 501 that was loaned to Takao. With a bluff, Gunzou had managed to force Takao into surrendering.

After reflecting upon her defeat, Takao comes to a conclusion that she needs a human captain and crews, and the only ones she want is Gunzou and his crew. At the same time, she secretly develops a crush  on him. She lived in the Northern region among the humans for a week, and at one point she meets Gunzou's mother, Saori. Two of them get along quite well as Saori taught Takao how to cook, sew, and doing common chores, as well as her knowledge in birds, and what it means to have a family. In the end, they bid each other farewell with a hug as Saori said "she wished to have a daughter like her".

After she was tracked down by I-400 and I-402, Takao moves to Iwo Jima, where she forms a pact with Hyuuga in order for both of them to get their desired ones. The plan failed, because Takao messed it up. However, Gunzou still accepted her into his fleet. When Iwo Jima was attacked by Japanese Special Forces, Takao created dummies of all I-401's as well as took it upon herself to control I-401's active decoy until such time it arrives to its destination port.

While I-401 was on its way to rendezvous with Hakugei (3), Takao was attacked by U-2501 and her fleet of sea-hound mini-submarines. Takao, despite sustaining critical levels of damage, managed to destroy about a half of the U-2501's fleet and even forced the said submarine to reveal its trump card - Mirror-Ring system. However, the energy shockwave released by this Mirror-Ring system after it absorbed a shot from Takao's Super-Graviton Cannon destroyed Takao's ship-body and heavily damaged her Mental Model.

Student takao

Takao as a student of the Japanese National Maritime Institute of Technology

I-402 had collected Takao after U-2501 retreated and brought the 'Tsundere heavy cruiser' to Yamato. There, Takao was reactivated. As she was reactivated, the memory of her battle against U-2501 was locked because she "saw something that she shouldn't have seen".

This may be a reference to the Mirror Ring System installed upon U-2501 which was only meant to be installed upon Yamato Battleships. She immediately tried to run away in order to rejoin Gunzou, but was stopped by Yamato herself.

Following this defeat, Takao is forced to accompany I-402 on her various tasks. Most recently they were seen in Yokosuka city, where Takao enrolled into the Japanese National Maritime Institute of Technology as a transfer student under the name "Aoki Takao".

Role: Anime[]

Up until Iwo Jima, Takao's role in the anime is identical to that in the manga with the exception that she had never met Chihaya Saori while staying in New Hakodate.

When Kongou and her fleet surrounded the Iwo Jima island in order to destroy I-401 and the last Vibration Warhead Torpedo prototype, Takao, along with Hyuuga's, Haruna's Mental Models and Kirishima were providing distraction while I-401 with only Gunzou on board escaped to the seas. The prototype, however, was on board Takao, which allowed it to be safely transported from Iwo Jima.

Ars-nova

I-401 merged with Takao

Once the battle was over, Takao with the 'crowd' on board headed to the rendezvous point, but I-401 wasn't there. Takao then began searching for them, eventually locating the wreckage. Borrowing Hyuuga's egg-capsule, Takao dove underwater and inspected the said wreckage, finding the capsule containing Gunzou and I-401's union core. Takao, realizing that she has no chance of breaking the bond between Gunzou and Iona and the fact that she is merely second, decided to sacrifice her own hull in order to merge with and restore I-401. Although Takao lost her tangible Mental Model, her union core remained intact after her sacrifice, meaning that Takao was still capable of interacting with other characters through the self contained control systems of the boat.

In the last scenes of the anime, it is shown that Takao regains her Mental Model. However, her hull was not restored. This is likely due to lack of nanomaterial rather than an oversight.

Relationships[]

  • Gunzou Chihaya - Takao's crush and her desired captain. For him Takao is ready to do a lot of things...
  • Saori Chihaya -The mother of her crush. Takao and Saori have formed a strong mother-daughter bond though their time together was short they grew very close. Takao having never known the love of either a mother or a close girl friend was happy for the affection Saori gave having been very lonely since her son and husband pretty much disowned her Saori was very happy to have some one care about her for the first time in a long time and see her has the daughter she never had.
  • Iona - Takao sees her as a nuisance for Gunzou's affections so she tends to portray Iona as inferior within her daydreams. Iona doesn't seem to care much about it, though. On the battlefield, however, Takao will assist Iona to the best of her ability and will follow Iona's instructions.
  • Hyuuga - Takao's partner-in-crime when it comes to heart matters. They work together well because Takao has crush on Gunzou and Hyuuga has one on Iona. Outside of this, however, Takao looks down on Hyuuga as she thinks Hyuuga has lost her pride as a battleship.
  • Kotono Amaha - Takao gets interested in Kotono after she learns that she was the only one better than Gunzou and that Gunzou had a crush on her. Takao's interest only grows when she learns that Yamato wears Kotono's face.
  • I-402 - While technically her enemy, I-402 assists Takao during her battle with U-2501, and later saves her core and what was left of her Mental Model. After Takao's reactivation, I-402 was appointed as her minder for the foreseeable future by Yamato.

Trivia[]

  • Takao has Gunzou's mother's blessing and was told that "she wished to have a daughter like her".
  • Takao is the only known Mental Model to have dreams about being with a human.  She also appears to be of a submissive type; at least for Gunzou.
  • Aside from Iona and Maya, Takao is the only Mental Model that was creating sub-nodes, which are moe and short versions of herself.
  • Takao is the first Mental Model that is confirmed to possess the sixth sense of intuition: she predicted that I-401 will survive her confrontation with Haruna and Kirishima.
  • Takao's Super-Graviton cannon's appearance differs between manga and anime. In manga, the pods are lighter in color and arranged vertically, in anime they are dark-gray and arranged horizontally.
  • Takao used fake surname Kirino (That of the Fog) while posing as a human (which was depicted in "Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio special book 2009-2011"). When she enrolled into the Japanese National Maritime Institute of Technology, her fake surname became "Aoki" as a sign that she is now a part of Blue Steel.
  • Takao is voiced by Rina Satō in Drama CD and by Manami Numakura in Anime.
  • It's now known that Takao's "study-tour" at the Northern region wasn't gone unnoticed by the region's Administration, though due to the unprecedented nature of the event (humanity in general have next to zero non-battlefield contact with "Fleet of Fog", not to mention Mental Model) the Administration gave only observation via surveillance system, the apartment Takao used during her short stay was quickly brought and sealed by the Administration for further study.
  • In the end-of-episode guest illustration of episode 7 of the anime, Takao is depicted with another Takao from the Kantai Collection browser-based game.

Gallery[]

Videos[]

『蒼き鋼のアルペジオ_ーアルス・ノヴァー』PV第3弾!タカオver

『蒼き鋼のアルペジオ ーアルス・ノヴァー』PV第3弾!タカオver

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