聞く：戦艦の世界

World of Warships is a free-to-play online game made by the Russian company Wargaming, who also made the more famous World of Tanks. Players take control of World War II era warships ranging from destroyers to aircraft carriers and compete against each other in teams usually consisting of ten players. The game ends either when one team secures 1000 objective points or when one team sinks all the other team's ships. 

The real IJN Fusou (扶桑) in 1933

About a month ago, I changed my game language setting to Japanese because I typically use the Japanese ships, and I thought it would be good fun and practice to set the language to match. The game is difficult enough as it is, and not understanding some of the vocal cues and none of the written ones at first was not much help. However, while I still don't know any of the kanji in the game, I can now say that when the game announcer yells "終了まで、残り五分です" or "敵軍の優勢になりました" or, my personal favorite, "右舷から、魚雷接近," I know my fate is sealed. Among the Japanese ships, the two I play most often are the tier VI destroyer and battleship, Fubuki and Fusou, respectively. As a destroyer, IJN Fubuki has very few health points and anti-air guns, so I get harassed and destroyed (haha) by enemy aircraft frequently. On the other hand, I have no better luck as Fusou, whose massive pagoda superstructure makes an easy target and ensures that I get detected by the enemy right at the start of the match. And the battleship's slow speed and poor maneuverability doesn't help when I hear that dreaded line "魚雷接近" or "魚雷確認."