a biased critque on the anime known as "Girls Und Panzer"

“Girls and Tank”

A 2014 tank-action anime made by Actas, and then later by Bandai, Girls Und Panzer (Girls and Tanks) takes place in a school setting where tankery has become a sport. While an action anime, it is also a slice of life, taking advantage of the high-school setting. Aside from the main anime, Girls Und Panzer is multimedia; original animations, a film (Das Film), a film series (Das Finale), spin-off film series (More More Love), and spin-off manga (written works).

Setting

Tankery (Known as “Sensha-do”, the way of the... tank?) as a sport becomes a worldwide phenomena. It becomes a women's sport (I'm serious), and becomes a commonplace high-school elective, as well as a college sport. Despite all the "violence", no one is actually killed in the sport itself, due to some technical oversight and implementations. (As to the lore behind this, don't bother, its not a serious anime.) Aside from tankery, old World War II equipment becomes ordinary commonplace usage overall. For instance, entire Academies are operated and housed on enlarged aircraft carriers. All the academies are based off nations that have participated in World War II, save for our protagonist academy.

Speedy Plot Summary

An underdog story featuring Miho Nishizumi, the protagonist of the anime. Initially against Sensha-do and was coerced into it, she eventually grows up to build friendships, even with her rivals, and against the odds from other academies with superior numbers, experience, and equipment, she leads Oarai to victory in the 63rd Sensha-Do tournament to prevent her school from shutting down. She grows up to like Sensha-do and reconciles with her sister, her main rival.

Music

While Girls Und Panzer uses its own original soundtrack, utilizing much classical themes, whats notable are the remixes of various historical soundtracks, to represent differing nations. For instance, the British Grenadiers, Johnny comes marching home (Das Film), Katyusha, Panzerlied, and Erika. There are more remixes throughout the official sequels, respecting the original source material.

Tanks

The tank models were licensed from Wargaming, a gaming studio behind World of Tanks. Much of the effort went into animating and modeling the tanks for the animation sequences. Although many studios opt to make their vehicles as simple as possible, the tanks were animated to detail. CGI of the animated tanks, combined with layers of the drawn students blends well to be authentic.

Girls Und Panzer, despite being a niche anime on tanks, has a significant impact on the real world. Most especially would be the real fishing village of Oarai, on the eastern side of Japan. The local businesses embraced the anime as part of the town’s identity, and tourism drastically improved, with places depicted in the anime being hotspots, such as a “destroyed” hotel, the train station, and the aquarium. Aside from Oarai, the BT-42, an assault gun tank, is preserved and funded by the fans in real life, due to its depiction in the film, Das Finale.

But wait a minute, this is a critique!

Ok, time for my thoughts. Generally, I enjoyed the flow, the tank action, and the simple plot. Although old-school for its time, the jokes and references to history and general sub-culture is great. The music, combined with the sound effects and “accurate” depiction creates deep immersion into the anime and films. The anime is certainly not realistic, but I admit I like the embracing of unreal-ism to push creative boundaries. I am biased and I will accept this fact; the anime was made 14 years ago and continues further, but I do wish that the production and release of the films becomes more consistent.