[2][3] The central theme of the game is the representation of World War II warships personified as teenage girls and young adult women with personality characteristics reflecting the history of each ship.

Gameplay involves all aspects of naval warfare, including not only combat but also maintenance, repair, upgrading, resupply, morale, logistics and mission planning.

[12] Construction, resupply and repair of ships is reliant upon four types of resources, namely fuel, ammunition, steel and bauxite; these supplies will gradually increase automatically as time passes.

[12] Ships can be customised through the addition of various equipment within their empty slots, which add attribute bonuses and even provide special effects in some cases;[10] such equipment include naval guns, anti-aircraft guns, torpedoes, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, fighter aircraft, seaplanes, recon planes, radars, steam turbines, special artillery shells, depth charges, sonars, drum canisters, searchlights and anti-torpedo bulges.

The effectiveness of ships in combat depend on its attribute parameters, namely hitpoints, armour, evasion, aircraft capacity, speed, attack range, firepower, torpedo, anti-air, anti-submarine, line-of-sight, and luck.

[31] The traits of each fleet girl are based on aspects of the historical ship they are based on; for instance, Japanese battleship Kongō frequently adds English words and phrases into her dialog as a reference to her British origins, whilst Japanese destroyer Shimakaze is depicted as a speedy girl in artworks and official print media, since Shimakaze was one of the fastest destroyers of World War II.

[33] Unlike other online games in Japan, Kantai Collection was designed with the intention of not forcing the player to spend money or participate in "gacha" lotteries.

[34][35] The purpose of this stems from Kadokawa desiring a larger target market and to establish the game as a well-known name, eventually allowing for merchandising and sales of franchise works.

[39] The Famitsu website also hosts a webcomic titled KanColle Play Manga: Blazing Ships Weather (艦これプレイ漫画 艦々日和, Kankan Biyori) by Tadashi Mizumoto which focuses on gameplay aspects of Kantai Collection.

A manga by Kensuke Tanaka and illustrated by Sakae Saitō titled KanColle: Someday as the Seas turn Calm (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- いつか静かな海で, Itsuka shizuka na umi de) began serialisation in Monthly Comic Alive in the December 2013 issue (released October 28, 2013), with a focus on an original story revolving around Tenryū and Tatsuta.

A manga titled KanColle: Torpedo Squadron Chronicles (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- 水雷戦隊クロニクル, Suirai sentai kuronikuru) and illustrated by Yasuhiro Miyama began serialisation in the January 2014 issue (released November 9, 2013) of Comp Ace, with the plot focusing on the Akatsuki sisters.

[47][48] A manga series by Hiroichi titled KanColle: The perched naval base (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- 止まり木の鎮守府, Tomarigi no chinjufu) began serialisation in the July 2014 issue (released May 27, 2014) of Dengeki Daioh,[49] focusing on a storyline revolving around the heavy cruisers Kumano and Suzuya.

[50] Kadokawa website also hosts a webcomic titled Loose Ship: Woman Admiral Play Diary (ゆる艦〜女提督プレイ日記〜, Yuru Kan: Onna teitoku purei nikki) by Sau Nitō and illustrated by Sōta Wakui which focuses on gameplay aspects of Kantai Collection.

(艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- 今宵もサルーテ!, Koyoi mo saruute) began serialization in the December 2018 issue (released November 10, 2018) of Comptiq, focusing on a storyline where Gambier Bay, Tashkent, and Commandant Teste discover an old bar on the naval base they're stationed at, eventually learning the skills of being bartenders and the history of cocktails.

A short story series featuring aircraft carriers Zuikaku and Shōkaku written by Hiroki Uchida and illustrated by Matarō, titled KanColle: Bonds of the Wings of Cranes (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- 鶴翼の絆, Kakuyoku no kizuna), began serialization within the January 2014 issue (released November 20, 2013) of Dragon Magazine.

[54] A novel project featuring aircraft carriers Kaga and Akagi involving the illustrator Koruri and the authors Kei Shiide, Kazuyuki Takami and Dai Akagane has been announced,[43] with the title KanColle: A day at a certain naval base (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- とある鎮守府の一日, Toaru chinjufu no ichinichi).

A novel series featuring light aircraft carriers Zuihō written by Yukiya Murasaki and illustrated by Satoru Arikawa, titled KanColle: Beautiful sea, Phoenix sky (艦隊これくしょん -艦これ- 瑞の海、鳳の空, Mizu no umi, ōtori no sora) was released on February 1, 2015.

He also cites the ability to charge players for in-game premium items on the PS Vita platform as an upside for Kadokawa Corporation business-wise.

The series is produced by ENGI and directed by Kazuya Miura, with scripts written by Kensuke Tanaka, the game's original writer, character designs handled by Chika Nomi, and music composed by Kaori Ohkoshi.

[9][79][80][81] Whilst the original game does not have a particular storyline, and largely focuses on "gameplay", each of the official media works feature various settings with separate and differing canons.

The fleet of the Abyss, consisting of monster ships, lock down access to the seas and indiscriminately fire upon vessels and aircraft, and feed on the corpses of dead sailors in the water.

This manga depicts the story of a newly appointed, rookie officer by the name of Ensign Akai who arrives at the Maizuru Naval Base for duty as the assistant to the vice-admiral, however has to deal with a stubborn and difficult Shimakaze who spends most of her time alone, and does not have any friends.

Most of the scenarios are taken from the point of view of Fubuki, and feature the girls doing fun things with one another, which include attending school, drinking tea, celebrating various holidays like Tanabata, Halloween and Christmas, in addition to the occasional sortie.

The ship girls retain memories of their previous lives from World War II, at times displaying signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

[90] An expansion for a trading card game Weiß Schwarz based on Kancolle theme was released on March 28, 2014, and reportedly sold 1.7 million packets within its first shipment.

[95] She has since become a mascot for her successor, which continued when Kaga participated in the Indo Southeast Asia Deployment (ISEAD) exercise in 2018 where she sailed to the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.

[96] Upon her return to Kure, Kantai Collection provided new art of Kaga wearing her predecessor's insignia, with her rigging updated to match that of the new ship and featuring helicopters instead of World War II aircraft.

[105][106] As of April 2015, there are over 345,000 different artworks on Pixiv tagged with "KanColle" created by 67,000 individual artists, and KanColle-related videos on Niconico were watched 460 million times.

Among these developers, Naoki Yoshida of Square Enix, who produced and directed Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, stated that Kantai Collection is Japan's answer to World of Tanks, and that he was impressed by the business model;[114] meanwhile, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA director Seiji Hayashi of Sega referred to the game as "innovative".

This led to widespread unrest amongst Chinese players of the original game, resulting in large-scale internet raids on forums and social media, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and website defacing via SQL injection[128] by hackers against those running the bootleg server.