青葉 ("Green Leaf")

The personification of the [i]IJN Aoba[/i], lead and name ship of the [i]Aoba-class Heavy Cruisers[/i] in [[Kantai Collection]].  

The historical Aoba famously had a war correspondent onboard, and as such, Aoba has been made out into being the "reporter shipgirl.":/pools/8444 At best, this makes her optimistic and enthusiastic, but at worst, she's portrayed as a stalker or paparazzi (whether she's portrayed as one or the other is largely artist- and/or story-dependent).  (In fact, due to the heavy overlap of artists between [[Touhou]] and Kantai Collection, she's oftentimes just drawn by former Touhou artists as [[Shameimaru Aya]] with the serial numbers filed off, due to the shared reporter stereotypes.) 

h4. Appearance
[tn]See post #1964044.[/tn]
Aoba has [[messy_hair|messy]] [[pink hair]] or [[purple hair]] (depends on the artist) in a [[ponytail]] that is tied up in a blue [[scrunchie]], and [[blue eyes]].  She wears a [[white shirt|white]] [[sailor shirt]] with a [[blue sailor collar|blue collar]] and a yellow [[neckerchief]], and blue [[shorts]].  She also wears [[black_thighhighs|black]] [[thighhighs]].  

Her [[machinery|combat gear]] consists of a pair of twin-[[cannon]] [[turret|turrets]] carried on a strap like a purse on her right, with a [[flight deck]] on her left.  On her back, she carries a mockup of the real ship's bridge like a backpack.  

In the "supplementary material for the 2016 anime film":[https://twitter.com/tayotayo1224/status/1518217102226001920], Aoba is revealed to have a second remodel/kai ni, but remains unimplemented in-game due to her original artist [[hatsuko]] no longer contacted by C2 Kikan since 2015. Her kai ni transforms her back rig to her real-life bridge superstructure with a mast, a crane on the left/portside, and a catapult on the right/starboard. Her two 20.3 cm twin mounts are also remounted to a new portable rig similar to [[Kinugasa Kai Ni (Kancolle)|]]. In addition, she also gains a third 20.3 cm twin mount attached to the left side of her shorts.

h4.The real-life [i]Aoba[/i]
Historically, [i]IJN Aoba[/i] was the flagship of Cruiser Division 6, which consisted of her sister ship, [i][[Kinugasa (kancolle)|Kinugasa]][/i], as well as [i][[Furutaka (kancolle)|Furutaka]][/i] and [i][[Kako (kancolle)|Kako]][/i]. She served in numerous naval battles like Coral Sea and Leyte Gulf before being sunk in an air raid in Kure in July 1945.  

h4. Aoba-class Heavy Cruisers
* [b]Aoba[/b]
* [[Kinugasa (Kancolle)]]

h4. See also
* [[Aoba (Azur Lane)]]

h4. External links
* "Wikipedia: IJN [i]Aoba[/i]":[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Aoba]
青葉 青葉(艦隊これくしょん) 青葉(艦これ)