Anime Hajime Review: Girls und Panzer

Series Synopsis

Miho Nishizumi (voiced by Mai Fuchigami) has transferred to Oarai Prefectural Girls High School, hoping to get away from her family's line of work. She quickly befriends Saori Takebe (voiced by Ai Kayano) and Hana Isuzu (voiced by Mami Ozaki) just as the school clubs start recruiting for new members. It's all very exciting until the student council pressures Miho into signing up for one the institutions oldest, and until recently defunct, clubs; sensha-do (Way of the Tank).

The world of Oarai Girls High is not like our own. Historic and famed World War II era battle tanks have been proudly maintained and are used for one of the most celebrated sporting events on Earth. Miho’s family is among one of the sport’s most prestigious competitors, but a traumatic experience in a past match caused her to give it up.

Oarai High’s new tank squad is as ragtag as they come. Almost nothing remains of the previous sensha-do program, aside from a few clunkers. How this green group of cadets hopes to make a name for themselves is anyone’s guess.

Yet the team rallies. Through her experience, Miho's tank team, made up of radio operator Saori, gunner Hana, loader and uber-tank enthusiast Yukari Akiyama (voiced by Ikumi Nakagami), and driver as well as hypersomniac Mako Reizei (voiced by Yuka Iguchi), quickly establish Oarai High as a formidable opponent.

Despite her desire to the contrary, Miho takes full command and sets her team on the road to a potential upset victory.

Series Positives

Don’t say you learned of this show from a pachinko machine. Don’t say you learned of this show from a pachinko machine. Don’t say you learned of this show from a pachinko machine.

…

I learned of this show through a pachinko machine, but does that really matter? Honestly you should see the amount of Evangelion slots they’ve got here in Tokyo. And besides, Girls und Panzer was actually a lot of fun.

Take any school club anime, K-On, Love Live, Free, Sound Euphonium, but now add a God damn tank. I’m sorry, I was intrigued. But intrigue doesn’t make good shows. Good shows make good shows and Girls und Panzer is a good show.

Tank Battles

The majority of this series takes place during a sensha-do battle and Girls und Panzer doesn’t waste any time. By episode two the girls are practising and by episode three they’re competing. From the very first match, these battles are detailed, intricate, long, and most importantly, awesome.

Having the focus be about the sport of tank warfare is one hell of a gimmick. But if you’re going to do it, might as well go all out. That’s exactly what happens.

The set up is silly, but it’s used in the best possible way; combining both strategic planning and adaptation.

On the surface, Miho is like any
other high school anime lead character. Had this series been just that, she would have filled her role adequately, however there would've been nothing to make her stand out. Put her in a tank and she becomes a completely different person.

Miho’s situational awareness and forethought makes her cunning, flexible, and completely unpredictable. Although some of the feats the girls manage to pull off can ultimately be contributed to pure luck, many victories were the direct result of Miho's leadership and creativity.

At one point the squad goes up against the heaviest armored vehicle ever built, the Panzer VII Maus. Despite a numerical advantage, the team’s equipment isn't what you would call top of the line. Thus their shells do little to this behemoth; even at point blank range. Miho’s solution to this, since a tank round won’t work why not just use the tank itself. She forces the Maus to a halt by not only jamming one her smaller tanks beneath it, but also literally driving another one on top of it; pinning the turret in place. This gave the team enough time to find a weak point in the Maus’ armor to disable it.

Unconventional yes, but it got the job done.

That sums up every skirmish in this show. Miho is against a wall and has to think of a way, any way to get out. It made each encounter all the more exciting since you really had no idea what this girl was going to think of. I mean would you ever have thought of f@#$ing drifting a tank into position. Well that’s a thing that happened.

Tank Teams

Miho does a lot of work that is needed to make a series like this successful. She’s a clam and collective leader, she doesn’t take unnecessary risks, and she’s puts her teammate's well-being before anything else. It's during these tank battles where this team dynamic play out.

First we have the squad as a whole. You have your standard military buffs and bright eyed first years who have been swayed by how cool such a club might be. Plus there's the members of the dwindling volleyball club and the outwardly stern, but inwardly silly student council. On paper, this mix shouldn't be able to come together. However, that's exactly what happens; thanks in large part to Miho’s leadership. By the end of the show, this once rookie team easily performs as a well-oiled machine.

Secondly, we have the individual groups. While the team manages to be one, each tank squad has their own personality and atmosphere. Throughout each battle, you don't see cliques but instead actual groups of friends. This was so strong that I'd be willing to see full series based on each tank.

Girls und Panzer defiantly has Miho’s team as the center, but it was the student council tank which made me appreciated all this. In the beginning, the student council, made up of president Anzu Kadotani (voiced by Misato Fukuen), PR manager Momo Kawashima (voiced by Kana Ueda), and vice-president Yuzu Koyama (voiced by Mikako Takahashi), appears devious and demanding. However, once they get behind the wheel of their tank, their true personalities shine through. They're much sillier, more immature, and more hot headed once they fully get into battle mode.

Like I said, the tank battles of Girls and Panzer take up much of our time. Luckily they're extremely well done and make watching this show tons of fun.

Series Negatives

Leave believability at the door, you won’t be needing it here.

This is a story where weapons of war are used in sport, all students on the planet attend schools that are on large aircraft carries at sea, and any random high schooler can hop into a tank and start operating it with no amount of training or experience. If you simply can’t get behind any of what I just said, I don’t see how you can even begin to hope to enjoy this show.

Now when I say the tank battles are the best thing about this series, there a little more to it than that. Had these matches been sub-par or, god forbid, boring, Girls und Panzer would have crumbled.

The Characters

Let me start this off by once again reiterating when the girls were in the middle of a match, working as a team, and getting into the fight, they played off each other incredibly. When that wasn’t happening, this is actually a pretty dull group.

Almost no time is spent getting to know these characters. The most insight we see is for Miho, with some glimpses into Saori, Mako, and the student council's past. But when something kind of potentially troubling occurs, it never comes into play during practice or battle.

This is a big group of characters, or perhaps more to the point, a group of ideas. We are given very little detail about any anyone outside Miho’s tank members. Instead of passingly referencing this, why not actually show it?

Pacing

The pacing, again outside the tank battles, is garbage.

With how little time is spent in between matches, why have this time at all. Nothing gets done, nothing is expanded upon, there’s only a little bit of preparation before the next fight.

Near the end of the show, the team has garnered a lot of praise and recognition. They're seeing new members flock to sign up. Over the span of one episode the squad nearly doubles in size. However, we're given only the briefest of introductions right before jumping into the final match of the series.

In the climax, we have three new tanks that we've never seen before. One of these teams is taken out damn near immediately, so that was time wasted right there, while the others perform, amazingly; like they had been participating the whole time.

I gave K-On s@#$ for the same kind of thing. Never once did we see the characters of Girls und Panzer get better. With the exception of Miho, everyone has never set foot into a tank; let alone driven one. Yet, they manage to take on and even beat the most well established teams in competition.

Just like K-On’s performances though, the battles of Girls und Panzer were spectacles onto themselves. They managed to justify, or at least allow us to ignore what would otherwise be a poorly paced story.

Final Thoughts

This one was a lot of fun and there's more to look at including several OVAs and a feature length movie. Comforting since I feel there's still a lot more to this series.

In the end, Girls und Panzer does one thing, but it does it really well. This is one of the most engaging and amusing military based anime I've come across. If you’re like me and enjoy strategy and tactics, this is a good watch. Sure there's a lot that you simply have to accept, but if you do, you'll get quite a bit out of this show.

Not a bad outcome from randomly passing a simple gambling machine.

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