Western fans of the Senran Kagura series have been pretty much abandoned by Marvelous over the past several years, but a new event in the popular mobile game Azur Lane will bring the popular shinobi back to English-speaking audiences.
The event, revealed during a livestream from Japan, will start in Azur Lane after the maintenance on November 23, and it'll last until December 7.
Specifically, it'll be a collaboration with the aging mobile game Shinobi Master Senran Kagura: New Link, which has been the only incarnation of the series supported by Marvelous as of late. Unfortunately, it has never been localized outside of Japan.
As you may expect, it'll involve plenty of Senran Kagura's most popular characters implemented in the shipgirl-focused game by Yostar.
To be precise, we're getting Asuka (SSR Light Cruiser), Ikaruga (SSR Heavy Cruiser), Homura (SSR Submarine), Yumi (SSR Carrier), Fubuki (SSR Battleshio), Murasaki (SR Light Carrier), and Yuyaki (SR heavy Cruiser).
Ikaruga, Homura, and Murasaki can be acquired simply by playing the story and events, so you won't need the gacha to unlock them.
Funnily, the folks at Yostar opted to stay true to the Senran Kagura series with a unique costume break feature.
Below you can also take a look at a trailer of the event.
Of course, like with every major Azur Lane event, there are plenty of skins available for purchase, including all the Senran Kagura girls mentioned above and a special Ninja shinobi skin for Takao.
On top of that, during the event, we also saw the reveal of Erebus Meta and an exclusive skin for Hatsuharu as rewards for the Cruise pass on top of Kirov Meta.
You can check out all the related images below alongside an illustration created by Senran Kagura's traditional artist Nan Yaegashi to celebrate the event. Of course, keep in mind that we're talking about Azur Lane and Senran Kagura, so you can expect them to be on the revealing side.
If you're unfamiliar with Azur Lane, it's a free-to-play mobile game for iOS and Android based on the Shipgirl concept popularized by Kancolle. Unlike Shinobi Master Senran Kagura: New Link, it's fully localized in English and rather successful.
The Senran Kagura series has been pretty much completely abandoned by Marvelous' console gaming arm despite its popularity. The latest game considered mainline, Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash, was released in 2017, followed by a few small spin-offs and remakes.
The next mainline game of the series, Senran Kagura 7even, was announced in 2017, but never released nor officially canceled. It's lost in limbo and fans have been asking about its status for a long time without receiving any official answer.
We did get the Neptunia X Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars crossover, but Marvelous wasn't directly involved, as the game was developed and released by Compile Heart and Idea Factory International (which also announced a sequel of Azur Lane: Crosswave some time ago, but we haven't heard much in a while).
In the meanwhile, Senran Kagura's popular producer Kenichiro Takaki has left Marvelous and moved on to Cygames, where he's now leading console game development and personally working on Garnet Arena: Mages of Magicary, previously known as Project GAMM.
