Girls Und Panzer Review: PART 0: Preamble This was watched in Dub I use Dub terminology apparently some subs use different words for stuff like Tankery. Quite Frankly a Skill Issue on their Part. Hey you there do you like TANKS? Do you like Cute girls IN TANKS? Do you like Schools that are inexplicably GIANT WARSHIPS? Do you like WAR GAMES? Do you like Government programs that are almost certainly fascist governmental propaganda thats being used to indoctrinate a young female base into being normalized to the prospects of brutal mobile warfare in giant hulking deathboxes? You do? Well Boy fuck do I. This show is like a gift sent from God probably not specifically to me but it certainly hit all the aspects of being exactly my kind of show. As a fan of stupid war shenanigans antifascism and cute anime girls I was right in the demographic to be swept away by this animes wiles. I love this show. I am EXTREMELY BIASED. Spoilers for Episode 1 unmarked mainly because they are either obvious or foundational. Episode 2 and onwards will be marked Spoiler also any references to other plots. In Some Parts I may blanket the entire thing as having spoilers due to the way that spoilers work causing issues. Hopefully you will be able to see what is and what isnt but please proceed with caution. Part 1: The Plot The plot of Girls und Panzer is actually pretty simple. A quick rundown that only has spoilers for the first episode goes like this: Miho has transferred to a new school to avoid her previous schools Tankery Program only to be roped into Oarai High Schools recently restarted Tankery program against her will. What is Tankery you ask? Id love to tell you young padawan. In the Girls und Panzer Universe at some point in the 1920s a sport developed around playing mock battles with the Giant death boxes that are commonly referred to as Tanks Assumedly involving the Type 87 ChiI and other future Japanese tank models. Why do they ride tanks why do the use live Ammunition thats not a fucking joke its mentioned on two ocassions why do the commercials for Tankery mention its a femaleassociated sport why does it feel like this is a government propaganda campaign to recruit female child soldiers? Fuck you go along with it. Overthinking this anime will drive you insane. So to elaborate a bit more Tankerys operation is pretty simple. You have two types of match Team Deathmatch and a PseudoCapturetheFlag. In Team Deathmatch the winner is the team with either the last tank standing or the team that eliminates all other tanks of the opposing team depending. In the CTF A single tank is designated which when destroyed loses the team that tanks the game. Most matches in the anime are the CTF kind which is actually something Im sad about. The Team Deathmatch format is a lot more interesting to me personally and incentivises actual battles instead of bullheaded going for a single Target Tiny Enders Game an Orson Scott Card Book Spoiler that reminds me of the CTF system Anyhow back to my quick plot description. Miho is now in the Tankery club and needs to reshape it to make it competitive for Tankery Nationals. A wide variety of girls join the club for so many different reasons and Oarai Academy battles it out to be Top Dog in the nation. One really funny scene in the first episode mentions all the benefits that the girls in the Tankery club get to incentivise joining. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/961694719329587281/1043927513002422272/image.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/961694719329587281/1043927540764524564/image.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/961694719329587281/1043927588432773224/image.png I cant help but find it genuinely hilarious that they get such a ridiculous amount of stuff for a course that I would 100 be down to do. Further Plot Developments Past Episode 1 Broadly Spoils Entire Series: Part 2: The Oarai Characters/Subsections In this section I will talk about Individual characters I have something to say about and Tankery Teams that make more sense to talk about as a whole this will make more sense as I continue talking 1 Main Team: https://www.nextflicks.tv/wpcontent/uploads/2020/01/girlsundpanzerscaled.jpg This group are the main characters and group with the most individual notable characters composing the entire team Miho Nishizumi: https://s4.anilist.co/file/anilistcdn/character/large/b62939WXOAXdfAhHrF.png Hana Isuzu: https://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/characters/12/476966.jpg Mako Reizei: https://s4.anilist.co/file/anilistcdn/character/large/b62947i0EbCOwtyyIG.png Saori Takebe: https://i.pin.com/736x/e3/1f/5e/e31f5e82941870a705c3b0a45f46dada.jpg Yukari Akiyama: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1043952978857570354/image.png?width=283height=609 2 Student Council https://static.zerochan.net/Turtle.Team.full.1963724.jpg The people who got the Tankery club together largely with a few notable characters. From here on all other Orarai groups are easily consolidated into one block of people. Also only two characters from here where notable enough. Anzu Kadotani: https://s4.anilist.co/file/anilistcdn/character/large/b65267VIXi60SIleM5.png Momo Kawashima: https://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/characters/2/184305.jpg 3 History Buffs https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1044232429214380112/unknown.png For an anime about tanks we of course need a group that are obsessed with tanks history fascism the various World War Two nations and so forth. None of the characters stand out and to be honest none from group 4 5 6 7 or 8 stand out either they are rather more applicable as a single block of characters maybe with a unique joke assigned to each of them. Of these six my personal favorite is the History Buffs. Not exactly because they are good people I think they have a slightly weird obsession with WW2 Germany in particular that leads to some fridge horror when you realize what they are attempting to say specifically a reference to Stalingrad but overall they make so many references that its really fun to see them around. 4 Sudokus Clique Yeah my stuff to say really dries up past here Im not really gonna add pictures cause thatd take alot longer and to be honest 48 are all relatively minor. 5 Engineers This group fixes the tanks and later also joins the Tankery Club. 6 Rabbit Team The least interesting group other than group 7 they have no real defining traits other than some of them being a little Nerdy. 7 Gamers 8 Volleyball Club https://i.yt.com/vi/t5ao4dDiEc0/maxresdefault.jpg Not too notable they have a running joke where they are sad about their Volleyball club getting closed down but overall they dont make a massive impact. They can be funny sometimes. Welp Thats all the different groups. Initially I had a section here going over every opposition school but I cut it to be a more reasonable length. Part 4: Criticisms Girls und Panzer is not an Infallible anime. It has a lot of smaller and bigger issues most of which I personally look past but I cant write a review in good faith without mentioning them. First things first technical issues. While I personally have not watched this anime subbed I can say without a doubt that the dub for this anime is extremely flawed. I personally like it its got a charm to it that undoubtedly just works for me but from a purely technical standpoint it can sound downright bad at times. Theres a few animation errors and depending on your tolerance for CGI you may consider that bad. One very funny animation error happens in Episode 8 about a minute and a half in where a character licks a spoon of jam which suddenly appears to be spread all over her face. Im sure if you really scrutinized the anime you could find a number of others. The other flaws largely stem around plot issues and shall thus be spoilered: Part 5: Bach Gushing over a Stupid Tank Anime I love this anime it has so many stupid aspects cute characters and funny moments that I really had a blast while watching it. There are so many different things I love from this show so Ill just give a blanket minor spoiler warning for this section as spoilering images doesnt really work super great. Each of the Schools the girls face against are full of Larpers. From Anzios Italian Larpers to St. Glorianas teaboos with characters literally named after Teas like Darjeeling and Assam. Alot of the best references come through on from this. Talking of references in this anime it gets to the degree where the fact that Im a history nerd massively improved my liking of the anime like a scene where Katyusha from the Soviet Larper school Pravda drives to the battle site in a Katyusha Rocket Launcher and then later she and her team sing the Soviet song called Katyusha which just so happens to be one of my favourite pieces of Soviet music. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1043826099668402186/image.png?width=1304height=610 Pravda in general is pretty Great they have alot of good jokes and the battle site they fight in is easily the most unique of the lot. Katyusha and her friend Katyusha is the smaller one while Nonna is the taller one have a great dynamic and in general makes for a neat Tankery battle. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1043824429437825054/image.png Theres also a lot of running jokes like the tankshaped food thats shown in the show https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1043884420244983879/image.png?width=1080height=610 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/878333835505442846/1039955776472621078/image.png?width=1108height=610 And theres also a few historical references like in a scene where some characters are asked to surrender the characters respond with Nuts which was a famous line from Anthony McAuliffe when he refused to surrender. Theres alot of other stuff Id like to put here but I actually want you to watch the anime and I also personally just wont be able to make it much longer without driving myself entirely insane. I love this show this is my recommendation to watch it now. Part 6: Conclusions: The show has a great atmosphere I really like it. Its characters are fun it goes on about subjects that interest me I love it. Watch it or dont. I know its not for everyone. Its kinda cringy sometimes and definitely not the best anime that exists but it suits my interests perfectly. Thanks for reading my several page long unhinged rant about why the funny Child soldiers tank anime is good. If you notice any errors wanna compliment or criticize me or just want to rant you can me any time friendo Signed Kronos Bach
86 /100
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