>As do I, though I have to ask - what's the deal with the "-in" thing?
>I've seen it before, often but not always with other girls' names that
>end in I (Saori in Girls und Panzer calls Yukari "Yukarin" and
>Miho "Miporin"); assuming it's some kind of abbreviated variant of
>"-chan", but it's a hard thing to craft search terms for when you're
>looking for confirmation. :)

I honestly don't know, I'd always assumed it was a sign of affection, sort of like a pet nickname.

>I think that's kind of a natural side effect of there having been so
>many ship-to-ship collisions during the war. You get big enough
>fleets tooling around long enough and that kind of thing is going to
>happen just because of statistical factors. Heck, two out of
>Mogami's three infamous collisions were the other ship's fault!

True enough.

>Yeah, Mutsu's awesome, that's why she's on the list even though she's
>kind of the salt to Nagato's pepper shaker. I'll probably save her
>for a different situation where I'm not limited to a single
>KanColle character, though, as a direct result.

That's the thing about the Kancolle approach to sister ships, namely putting them into their own little cliques and thus making a lot of the magic dependent on having them together. Having Mutsu without Nagato there would be cute, but the chemistry between the two makes them all the more appealing.

>Again, I like Kongō a lot, but upon reflection, I'd feel bad
>about breaking up the set. (I like 'em all a lot, but of the four, I
>think I like Haruna the most. She just seems to need a hug that bit
>more than the other three. Maybe it's that historical parallel thing
>again; they do get a lot of mileage out of her saying "Haruna is OK"
>when she really isn't. I'd want to call her Haruharu even though
>that's the other one. :)

Like I said about the Nagato sisters, the Kongou sisters just work too well together to be separated. That still has to be one of the funniest moments in the anime, when they make their introductions.

>She and Mogami are pretty much the frontrunners for the single
>storyline slot I have open right now, though the plot structure they'd
>need to fit into is still taking shape and may wind up suiting one
>more than the other. Not entirely sure how I feel about her K2
>personality change (the new look's a keeper, but I kinda liked that
>nice-but-dim thing she had going on before), though she does seem to
>be able to turn the increased aggression off a little when she's not
>actively shooting at things.

The new aggressiveness is indeed something really only seen in combat. She even gets a badass boast ("I'll show you the Nightmare of Solomon.") The rest of the time she still acts childishly, including demands for praise whenever she makes MVP, it's just that she's a little more focused now on getting better and stronger than just acting like a ditz all the time.

>(In the course of stumbling around fearfully clicking too-small comic
>thumbnails in hopes that I wouldn't see things I couldn't un-see, I
>stumbled across a page from one I didn't want to read the rest of, but
>the image on that one page was pretty worth it, since it was Kirishima
>having a "Limit Break" moment and blasting the holy living shit out of
>something, accompanied by a user comment to the effect of, "MIC CHECK
>MOTHERFUCKER." I didn't dig the reason for it, but it's hard to argue
>with that visual. :)

Yeah, that's a popular fan meme, to show Kirishima getting angry enough to smash or blow the bejesus out of the target of her anger while keeping a smile on her face.