Tone

Overview

Tone is a featured shipgirl in Kantai Collection who embodies the historical lead ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Tone-class heavy cruisers. Functioning as a primary scout for the fleet, she begins her service as a heavy cruiser before upgrading into a powerful aviation cruiser through her second remodel. Characterized by her grandiose, old-fashioned speech patterns coupled with a highly energetic and naive demeanor, Tone serves as a major tactical asset alongside her younger sister ship Chikuma, helping secure victory through superior fleet reconnaissance.

Appearance

Tone has long brown hair worn in twintails tied with white ribbons, and brown eyes. Her outfit consists of a green sleeveless dress over a black undershirt, secured with a black belt. She features an asymmetrical design with a single brown elbow-length glove fitted with an aircraft catapult on her left arm, and a single black thighhigh paired with black knee boots on her left leg. Her rigging mounts four 20.3 cm twin gun turrets concentrated on her right side across her shoulder and thigh, along with anti-aircraft guns on her boots and a seaplane launch cradle on her legwear. Her Kai Ni form redesigns her skirt hem into a flight deck motif.

Personality

Tone speaks in an archaic, theatrical style, addressing herself with the grand pronoun "Wagahai" and ending sentences with classic old-fashioned copulas. Despite her imposing manner of speech, she possesses a highly innocent and childlike disposition. She takes pride in being the older sister, yet frequently finds herself in comical predicaments—such as succumbing to summer heat, getting fish bones stuck in her throat, or accidentally eating sweets intended for others—prompting her to cry out to Chikuma for help. Cheerful and open-hearted, she responds to the Admiral's teasing with good-natured tolerance.

Abilities

Tone possesses top-tier reconnaissance capabilities among heavy cruisers alongside strong anti-air performance, enabling artillery spotting via seaplanes. Upon reaching level 70 and using a Remodel Blueprint, she converts into an aviation cruiser (Kai Ni), receiving substantial stat increases in firepower, torpedo talent, durability, and reconnaissance. In this form, she can equip seaplane bombers like the Zuiun (634 Air Group) and comes equipped with 20.3cm (No.3) twin gun mounts and a No. 21 Air Radar. Her high durability and armor also make her exceptionally well-suited for drum canister transport missions.

Background

Based on the Japanese heavy cruiser launched in 1937, Tone served in WWII as a vital scout during key operations including the strike on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In Kantai Collection, she begins as a standard heavy cruiser before upgrading to Tone Kai at level 25, and ultimately to an aviation cruiser in her Kai Ni form at level 70. Her famous battle voice line complaining of a catapult failure directly references the historical delay of her reconnaissance plane's takeoff during the Battle of Midway.

Relationships

Tone shares an inseparable bond with her younger sister, Chikuma, the second ship of the Tone class. Although Tone attempts to act as the responsible elder sister, their dynamic is often reversed; Tone routinely calls out for Chikuma whenever she runs into trouble. Chikuma, in turn, harbors immense affection for her sister and takes great pleasure in looking after her. Tone treats the Admiral with playful familiarity, offering advice on fleet logistics while revealing her childlike excitement whenever holiday treats are passed around.

Trivia

Tone takes her name from the Tone River in Japan's Kanto region. Her illustrator, bob, famously suffered a heartbreaking moment during an early event by accidentally sinking Tone after forgetting to equip a repair team, though he successfully re-acquired her later. Her name is also borne by the JMSDF Abukuma-class escort vessel Tone (DE-234), and she shares a name with the first stage boss ship in Capcom's arcade game 1943.