Takao (Kantai Collection)

"Good morning. I'm Takao. It's great that you look like a capital Admiral."

- Takao Takao was the first of four Takao-class heavy cruisers, designed to be an improvement over the previous Myōkō-class design. The Myōkō had proved to be unstable and required modifications, which were incorporated into the Takao design.

The Takao-class ships were approved under the 1927 fiscal year budget as part of the Imperial Japanese Navy's strategy of the Decisive Battle, and forming the backbone of a multipurpose long-range strike force. Takao was built by the Yokosuka Naval shipyards, and like her sister ships, was named after a mountain. Mount Takao is located outside of Kyoto and is not to be confused with the similar Mount Takao located outside of Tokyo, or the city of Takao, which uses the same characters, on what was then Japanese territory of Taiwan.

Trivia

 * Sunk as target ship on October 19, 1946