Girls und Panzer [Anime Review]

I had to get this an watch it. The premise is so weird that it just screamed 'Watch Me!'
Who am I to ignore such a weird anime?

The tanks are absolutely gorgeous.

I'll tell you who I am. I am a person who does not ignore the weird anime... well at least not most of them. So of course I picked up Girls und Panzer.

Main Cast on a Panzer IV Ausf D.

I'm being serious.
There are some really weird things about this anime. I'm talking weird beyond the idea of driving tanks (Sensha-dou, 戦車道) being a feminine art.

4 out of 5 stars

List of weird things:
- The almost naive youth of the these girls driving multi-ton machines of iron death. That is just a weird dichotomy. 

Those are school ships... yeah...

- High schools on giant aircraft carriers that easily dwarf the Nimitz Class Supercarriers. WHY?

- Those girls up there on the Panzer IV are in high school. They look overly young. Usually anime characters look older than they are... but this series is over the top Moe. 

Okay... onto the plot.

Yes, that is a pink colored tank.

Girls und Panzer takes place in an alternate history earth, I am guessing. It is an earth where high school girls practice an art called Sensha-dou (戦車道), or Way of the Tank. It is a feminine art utilizing WWII era tanks to engage in group battle. The battles use live rounds, of reduced power, against tanks that have some sort of 'carbon lining' to reingorce them.

As an aside, if you think that the carbon lining sounds like complete and utter nonsense, you are not alone.
So not alone.

Anyways. Our main heroine, Miho Nishizumi (西住 みほ), has just transferred schools. She wants a normal high school life, and a life at Oorai Girl's High School is just what she wants. Oorai has no Sensha-dou program. A normal life may well be in the making.

The end credits are like a moe explosion.

However Miho is the daughter of the head of the Nishizumi School of Sensha-dou. Her name is known and quickly spreads to the ears of the Student Council. The head of the student council, Anzu Kadotani (角谷 杏), wants to start the Sensha-dou program up - for reasons that are real big spoilers. So deal.     

A Stug III - that is a fun tank.

Miho does not want to do Sensha-dou. She has a trauma in her past related to Sensha-dou, and it makes her want to avoid it. However her new friends, Saori Takebe (武部 沙織) and Hana Isuzu (五十鈴 華) want to do Sensha-dou. They are willing to go along with Miho and not take Sensha-dou, but the council pressures them all into it. Again, the council has its spoilerific reasons. 

So suddenly Miho and the new Sensha-dou club have to scramble to find any old tanks that are just lying around the school. The scrounge up a Panzer IV Ausf D, a Czech Panzer 38(t) which will be driven by the student council, a Japanese Type 89B piloted by the ex-volleyball club, a Strumgeschütz III crewed by a crazy group of history buffs, and an M3 Lee crewed by six first years.   

That motley collection of tanks is what the Oorai Girls High School Sensha-dou club begins with. Certainly an eclectic bunch.

And enough plot.

You may have a slight burning problem.

Overall I enjoyed the series quite a bit. I've yet to watch any of the OVAs, but I plan on it.

White Flag means the tank is out of commission.

Of course I went into this series having played quite a bit of World of Tanks. It probably biased me a bit towards the series. How could it not. Riding around in huge tanks like the KV-1 and KV-2 and blasting apart opposing tanks? Thank you, yes it is fun. I'll have more. So watching this was sort of like watching unbalanced matches in WoT...

This is exactly what I would expect of Japan.

It was fun. And as I've said before, that to me is the most important thing. The animation is very well done on both the characters and the tanks save one time in the very very first epsiode where they force some perspectives and a few things seem off. They never do that again, and everything looks nice from then on out.  

 If you like tanks, this is an anime to indulge in. It's funny, it's filled to the brim with tanks (even a MAUS), and there is actually a pretty solid plot behind the whole ordeal. There is actual character motivations, and the bonds of friendship are a heavily explored theme.

Why is this game not being localized for the states?

Yes there were a few things that were just off, or not the best. It could have been longer, it could have dealt more with the characters... because there were (yet again) a whole huge cast of characters. I'm fairly certain that by the end, we do not even hear half their names... I could be wrong... but I can say with confidence that I did not remember most of their names beyond the main five and the student council.  So it has some of the same failings as other series. It is a thing that is common in manga adaptations seems.

Still, I encourgage giving it a go. It's worth seeing.

Panzer Vor!