Hatsushimo

"Fourth ship of the Hatsuharu class, Hatsushimo. Everyone, I'm very pleased to meet you!" Hatsushimo (初霜 ”First Frost”?) was the fourth of six Hatsuharu-class destroyers, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the Circle One Program (Maru Ichi Keikaku). Three were laid down in JFY 1931 and the next three in JFY 1933. The remaining six ships in the plan were built as the Shiratsuyu class.

Apearance
Both Wakaba and Hatsushimo both wear a black blazer school uniform over a pleated skirt. Hatsushimo wears the blazer closed and tidy, only her necktie is slightly loose. She also wears black socks.

She has long black hair tied low and red eyes.

For her second remodel, her blazer and skirt gain a small white inline along the brim and borders, her necktie is removed, a blue headband around her head, a single thighhigh (emulating Yamato?), rolled sleeves, new AA guns, a torpedo refill on her thigh (think of Akizuki) and the disposition of her guns are reversed (single gun held with her right hand instead of her left hand). She also has the particularity of having the second highest base luck and the highest max luck in the game.

PErsonality
Much of her personality may be based on her final and most significant captain, Sakawa Masazou (酒匂雅三), a devoted humanitarian. Many of Hatsushimo's traits seem to match up with his own, particularly her outspoken desire to protect the player and her fellow Kanmusu. Her dialogue is spoken in a polite, feminine but enthusiastic tone. She is protective, careful and kind to a fault. At the same time, though, Hatsushimo is brave and strong-willed, a reference to the ship's decorated service history and her crew's accomplishments during the late war.

Trivia

 * Voices the beginning of the game's tutorial.
 * Mined and run aground, 30 July 1945 at Miyazu Bay, Kyoto (35°33′N 135°12′E) with the loss of seventeen sailors. Towed to Maizuru and scrapped in 1948.
 * The last IJN destroyer to be lost in the Pacific War, outlasted in Kancolle only by the surviving Yukikaze, Hibiki, and Ushio. Generally she is not considered "sunk" as she does not meet the definition of the word; she was beached in critical condition rather than actually passing beneath the water's surface and scrapped around the same time as Ushio. For this reason she is sometimes included by fan-artists in group depictions of the surviving Kanmusu.
 * Hatsushimo took part in Operation Ten-Ichi-Gō, Yamato's final mission, and took even less damage during it than Yukikaze, emerging unscathed with two sailors injured. By contrast she rescued approximately 310 people from the crews of the sinking Yahagi and Hamakaze.
 * Her name means "first frost of the year", often associated with the month November.
 * An anchor was retrieved from her wreckage and is currently displayed outside of the Yamada Memorial Hospital (Google Maps Street View) in Sumida City, Tokyo. Dr. Masaaki Yamada, the founder of the hospital, was a ship's doctor of Hatsushimo. Interestingly, Yukikaze met a similar fate (she also ran aground and was memorialised via anchor, along with her rudder in Taiwan) after failed attempts to bring her full self back to Japan to be preserved as a museum ship.
 * The hachimaki is a likely reference to her communication officer's recollection of Hatsushimo's crew at the moment Yamato sank, as described in Abe Saburou's book 特攻大和艦隊 (Tokkou Yamato Kantai, lit. Yamato Suicide Fleet): "Even now, Officer Matsui remembers clearly the faces of the hachimaki-donning troops, watching [her go down] with bitter expressions."
 * The hachimaki's stripes are a reference to the famous Second Torpedo Squadron. Hatsushimo was not originally a member, but out of necessity and a general lack of ships, joined their ranks at the end of the war. The Second Torpedo Squadron was officially dissolved in a ceremony on her deck, on 20 April 1945.
 * Japanese fans have pointed out that Hatsushimo's hair tie is similar to the one worn by Yahagi. Given that other destroyers have often been given articles of clothing similar to that of the larger ships whose survivors they rescued, it's entirely possible that this was intended from the start.
 * The same has also been said of Hatsushimo Kai Ni's hachimaki, resembling Yahagi's tie in colouration. Whether her new (white) hair tie will have some future significance to Yahagi is undetermined, though she appeared in Kadokawa's magazine Comptiq with a red hair tie instead. It is unknown which version is considered the final one.