I’ve been a huge fan of ‘GIRLS und PANZER’ for several years now, but it might surprise some to know, that originally I didn’t care for the anime at all. Now my reason for not caring for it is pretty silly. I only watched one episode before I quit and I’ll explain the reason for that after my synopsis for the series.
With that said, I want everyone to know that I’m a huge fan of this series now. I even own two different versions of the video game on both the ‘PS4’ and ‘NINTENDO SWITCH’. So with that said, let’s talk about the first season of ‘GIRLS und PANZER’!
‘GIRLS und PANZER’ tells the story of a girl named Miho Nishizumi who transfers to a school called ‘Oarai Academy’. On her first day of school, Miho manages to make friends with two other girls named Takebe Saori and Isuzu Hana. Things seem to be going very well for Miho, until the student council approaches her and asks for Miho to join the ‘Tankery’ club. Maho is put off by this and even though Saori and Hana try to make the student council to leave Miho alone, Miho eventually agrees to join ‘Tankery’ despite her past trauma.
So the synopsis for this show is the first clue as to why I originally didn’t care for ‘GIRLS und PANZER’. I felt like watching something light hearted and fun. Maybe something where characters worked together in order to overcome some great challenge. When I watched the first episode of ‘GIRLS und PANZER’. I thought I would get something else.
The way the student council started badgering Miho to join, how they threatened Miho and her friends, saying they would eject them from the school. I thought this show would just involve bullying.
Since I gave the show the chance it deserved, I could see just how wrong I was. Not only that, but the student council president ‘Anzu Kadotani’s’ threat of ejecting the girls for not joining actually made sense.
Of course I won’t spoil what that means.
So one thing I should probably do is explain what ‘Tankery’ actually is. Well it’s a game where multiple schools battle each other using tanks. Each team has a certain amount of tanks and they attempt to destroy the ‘flag tank’. If the flag tank is destroyed then that team loses the match.
Each tank is also operated by multiple people. Some people are drivers, loaders, snipers, communication officer and tactical deputy.
By the way. I should also mention that this is the kind of anime people like to overanalyze. Some might ask ‘how do these girls survive tank fights’. The answer is that the tanks use a special ‘polymer’ to keep participants safe. Is that realistic? Nope! Does it hurt the series? In my opinion no, but if you need realism in your anime you’re not going to find it here.
A long time ago ‘Oarai Academy’ actually had a large tankery team, but that changed over time. It’s never mentioned why ‘Orarai’ got out of tankery, but it used to have a bunch of tanks. Now they only have five, but those five tanks had to be found by the students.
It’s actually funny how the student council glorified tankery as much as they did, only to mention to the people who joined that the tanks need to be found and fixed up before they can even drive them.
As the anime continues more teammates join ‘Orari’s’ tankery. For instance a girl named ‘Yukari’ and ‘Mako‘.
One thing that I really love about this anime, is the fact that the entire thing isn’t just about tankery. It’s also about the lives these girls live. Maho for instance does have some trauma when it comes to tankery. I won’t spoil what that is, but it was bad enough that she quit tankery.
Yukari loves tankery, but it’s the reason why she doesn’t have any friends. Also Mako has some trauma she’s going through as well, but I won’t spoil what that is. It’s pretty dark though.
The highlight of the series are the matches. I’ve actually watched this show a dozen times and even though I know how these matches are going to end, I always find myself on the edge of my seat.
‘Orari’ is the underdog of the series. All their tanks are found and rebuilt. The teams are made up of other school clubs that failed. So with that said, you can imagine how ‘Orari’ does battle compared to the other schools. It’s actually because of these conditions that ‘Orari’ is facing that they have to take every advantage that they can.
For instance, during one match ‘Orari’ realized that a certain team was intercepting their communications, so in order to retaliate and get an advantage, they started sending false information over the radio and sending real commands through texts on their cell phones. I won’t spoil everything else these girls do which would be considered unorthodox.
To be honest. This anime actually reminds me of a live-action movie called ‘Down Periscope’.
So with all that said. I will be spoiling a few things. If you want to know what’s spoiled below, just highlight the area between ‘Spoilers’ and ‘Spoilers End’.
SPOILERS: So the reason why the student council tried to force Maho to join Tankery, is because the school was going to be shutting down. In order to keep the school open, they decided to start tankery back up in hopes of winning the national championship. :SPOILER ENDS!
The funny thing about those spoilers is the fact that it’s kind of obvious why all of this is happening, but I wanted to mark these as spoilers anyways.
So with all that said, I do recommend checking out this anime! There’s actually quite a few aspects of the show that I chose not to talk about right now. I do have a lot more ‘GIRLS und PANZER’ things that I want to talk about and I might revisit this series later in the future.
Thanks for reading everyone!
Take care!
With that said, I want everyone to know that I’m a huge fan of this series now. I even own two different versions of the video game on both the ‘PS4’ and ‘NINTENDO SWITCH’. So with that said, let’s talk about the first season of ‘GIRLS und PANZER’!
‘GIRLS und PANZER’ tells the story of a girl named Miho Nishizumi who transfers to a school called ‘Oarai Academy’. On her first day of school, Miho manages to make friends with two other girls named Takebe Saori and Isuzu Hana. Things seem to be going very well for Miho, until the student council approaches her and asks for Miho to join the ‘Tankery’ club. Maho is put off by this and even though Saori and Hana try to make the student council to leave Miho alone, Miho eventually agrees to join ‘Tankery’ despite her past trauma.
So the synopsis for this show is the first clue as to why I originally didn’t care for ‘GIRLS und PANZER’. I felt like watching something light hearted and fun. Maybe something where characters worked together in order to overcome some great challenge. When I watched the first episode of ‘GIRLS und PANZER’. I thought I would get something else.
The way the student council started badgering Miho to join, how they threatened Miho and her friends, saying they would eject them from the school. I thought this show would just involve bullying.
Since I gave the show the chance it deserved, I could see just how wrong I was. Not only that, but the student council president ‘Anzu Kadotani’s’ threat of ejecting the girls for not joining actually made sense.
Of course I won’t spoil what that means.
So one thing I should probably do is explain what ‘Tankery’ actually is. Well it’s a game where multiple schools battle each other using tanks. Each team has a certain amount of tanks and they attempt to destroy the ‘flag tank’. If the flag tank is destroyed then that team loses the match.
Each tank is also operated by multiple people. Some people are drivers, loaders, snipers, communication officer and tactical deputy.
By the way. I should also mention that this is the kind of anime people like to overanalyze. Some might ask ‘how do these girls survive tank fights’. The answer is that the tanks use a special ‘polymer’ to keep participants safe. Is that realistic? Nope! Does it hurt the series? In my opinion no, but if you need realism in your anime you’re not going to find it here.
A long time ago ‘Oarai Academy’ actually had a large tankery team, but that changed over time. It’s never mentioned why ‘Orarai’ got out of tankery, but it used to have a bunch of tanks. Now they only have five, but those five tanks had to be found by the students.
It’s actually funny how the student council glorified tankery as much as they did, only to mention to the people who joined that the tanks need to be found and fixed up before they can even drive them.
As the anime continues more teammates join ‘Orari’s’ tankery. For instance a girl named ‘Yukari’ and ‘Mako‘.
One thing that I really love about this anime, is the fact that the entire thing isn’t just about tankery. It’s also about the lives these girls live. Maho for instance does have some trauma when it comes to tankery. I won’t spoil what that is, but it was bad enough that she quit tankery.
Yukari loves tankery, but it’s the reason why she doesn’t have any friends. Also Mako has some trauma she’s going through as well, but I won’t spoil what that is. It’s pretty dark though.
The highlight of the series are the matches. I’ve actually watched this show a dozen times and even though I know how these matches are going to end, I always find myself on the edge of my seat.
‘Orari’ is the underdog of the series. All their tanks are found and rebuilt. The teams are made up of other school clubs that failed. So with that said, you can imagine how ‘Orari’ does battle compared to the other schools. It’s actually because of these conditions that ‘Orari’ is facing that they have to take every advantage that they can.
For instance, during one match ‘Orari’ realized that a certain team was intercepting their communications, so in order to retaliate and get an advantage, they started sending false information over the radio and sending real commands through texts on their cell phones. I won’t spoil everything else these girls do which would be considered unorthodox.
To be honest. This anime actually reminds me of a live-action movie called ‘Down Periscope’.
So with all that said. I will be spoiling a few things. If you want to know what’s spoiled below, just highlight the area between ‘Spoilers’ and ‘Spoilers End’.
SPOILERS: So the reason why the student council tried to force Maho to join Tankery, is because the school was going to be shutting down. In order to keep the school open, they decided to start tankery back up in hopes of winning the national championship. :SPOILER ENDS!
The funny thing about those spoilers is the fact that it’s kind of obvious why all of this is happening, but I wanted to mark these as spoilers anyways.
So with all that said, I do recommend checking out this anime! There’s actually quite a few aspects of the show that I chose not to talk about right now. I do have a lot more ‘GIRLS und PANZER’ things that I want to talk about and I might revisit this series later in the future.
Thanks for reading everyone!
Take care!
