New girls, new tanks, same old tankery!
What They Say:
The tank-crazy girls of Oorai Academy are shell-shocked when Momo’s preoccupation with locating new tanks for the upcoming Caterpillar Tread Cup causes her to fail her college entrance exams! However, the diabolical minds of Miho and the Oorai teams concoct an uber-crafty battle plan to give Momo a second chance at her exams. The catch? They’ll have to promote Momo to the position of overall commander while Miho steps down to vice commander! With Oorai’s greatest challenge coming up, it’s a terrible time to break in a new general, and that’s only the first bombshell in a new series of barrages. Can duplicitous rivals, ridiculous contests and a maid-mad gang of juvenile delinquents stop Oorai’s mechanized path to victory? Gears grind, bombs burst, and all obstacles are plowed under as the mayhem ensues!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is quite good as we get the original Japanese language track and the new English language dub in stereo, both of which are encoded using the DTS-HD MA lossless codec. The property is one that has a lot going on with a wide range of characters, many on-screen at the same time, talking to and at each other, and in a number of different situations that adds to the overall presentation. The dialogue is well placed throughout and some depth definitely works really well with it. When it comes to the tanks and the action, it definitely hits some very good moments throughout as it has some good impact and a heightened audio level that brings a lot of it home in a great way. Some of the scenes where the tanks fire are just strong and definitely stand out, sometimes in comparison to other tank sequences, where it can startle and remind you of what you’re dealing with. The dialogue itself is clean and clear throughout and we didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 2017, the transfer for this single film is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The OVA runs for just under fifty minutes total, credits included, and there’s obviously plenty of room to work with. Animated by Actas, the series has a bright, vibrant, and appealing look to it both in the regular animation and the 3DCG modeling of the tanks that are used here There’s a lot of detail to both sides of it and a good bit of variety across the screen with the characters involved and the combination of the two comes across very well here. The colors are bright and full with good saturation while being free of blocking or other significant noise issues. The action sequences are well-paced, especially in the last couple of episodes as the battles get more complicated, and it all has a smooth and solid look to it that definitely serves the material well. There’s a lot to like with the transfer here as it gives us a great-looking show with a lot of pop.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release is kept simple and similar to the TV series as we get a standard-sized Blu-ray case. The front cover for this uses the main key visual for the piece with a good mix of characters to showcase something different while giving us some heavy metal tank material behind them, all of which is set to this mint green that just makes everything stand out. The character designs look good and it’s just weird enough to catch your attention. The back cover uses mostly greens in various shades to break things up well. There’s a good set of three shots added to the right side in favor of character artwork while below the premise we get a full strip of shots. The premise is fairly easy to read with black on green and white camo and it covers things well. The extras are clearly listed and we get a clear breakdown of what’s included. Production credits are clearly broken out and easy to read while the technical grid covers the setup of the discs in a solid way that’s accurate. No show-related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
The menu design for this release at least avoids just replicating the cover art, though it works with some of the themes in a natural and good way. The left third is given over to the actual navigation strip, which doubles as the pop-up menu as well, where we get the episode and language access where it uses the green, pink, and white from the logo in an effective way. The rest of the screen is given over to the character artwork from the back cover with five of the girls against the tank in the background. With a red, white, and green background that has some of the map material across it, it’s very clean and a bit bright but captures the look well and allows the characters to stand out. Submenus load quickly and easily and the layout is definitely serviceable and sets the mood decently.
Extras:
The extras for this are kept minimal but still welcome as we get some of the promos used to promote the series in Japan along with the clean version of the opening and closing sequences.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a number of OVAs over the years after the TV series, which continued on after some film release material as well, Girls un Panzer announced “das Finale” with plans for a six-film run. Each episode was basically the length of two TV episodes so it was a kind of backdoor second season that would take years to produce and potentially be kind of semi-independent from each other, rather than full serialized. There’s always story continuity to be had but the hope that you could drop in any of the film episodes in any order and just enjoy it without being heavily tied to what just came before is a big draw. The property has a lot to offer in terms of fun but if it gets too bogged down in a big storyline, it becomes a lot less fun, at least for me.
With this film, we get a pretty good run at the tankery in the back half with our familiar gang that’s a good bit of fun. But it’s fun that comes because it’s earned in the first half where the focus is on finding that missing ninth tank. There’s an idea where it may be but it requires going down into the bowels of the ship and dealing with a group of students that exist on their own terms down there. It’s like stepping into a submariner’s world where we’re used to our lead being all prim and polished and drinking the good things like tea and milk only to have to deal with the rough and tumble drinkers, smokers, and gamblers that exist here. It’s not an unfamiliar situation but watching initially as one of the girls is taken by the locals is comical but it becomes a first-person experience right out of a video game that made me laugh far more than it should.
The group that exists down here is one that the team does eventually win over and find that they have a common bond with, especially when it’s revealed that everything is being done for Momo. What really made me laugh was that the old tank was unknowingly being used as a meat smoker for the locals, which when they get it brought up eventually to work on really makes everyone struggle to get through it because of the delicious smell. But fix it they do and it draws in three of those from down below to join as the Shark Team in order to participate in the new competition as the Winter Cup gets underway. We get a good sequence with the opponents, BC Freedom Academy, who put on an incredible show in order to work our Ooarai team in a way that they didn’t expect. We’ve seen them do the hard work on research before but to watch it unfold like this really puts them through their paces. I’m always kind of iffy when it comes to the tankery stuff but this one with the bridge and how they’re trapped worked really well for me and delivered a strong action experience.
In Summary:
I’m not the biggest Girls und Panzer fan out there as the whole thing is this kind of weird mix over the past decade between the show, OVAs, and the previous film. This six-part film series means we’ve got a lot of material to go in Japan as there are half of them released there so far in four years. I’m looking forward to seeing more but I have this really small self-contained view of it in each set that we get because of the long release sprawl that we have overall. That said, this is a lot of fun and it delivers a good experience with some really good comedy in the first half before it gets into the big action material. Both aspects work just as they need to and it’s a lot of fun throughout. It’s definitely a good way to start a film series and Sentai put it all together right here.
Features:
Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 Language, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Japanese Promo, Clean Opening Animation, and Clean Closing Animation
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B+
Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: September 14th, 2021
MSRP: $19.98
Running Time: 38 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
