Tankery, the sport of girls everywhere. Guys love a tank girl!
What They Say:
Miho wanted to attend a school that didn’t offer Tankery and she thought she did. But when the student council gives her an offer she can’t refuse, her past comes to haunt her.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While a manga series was kicked off back in June to help gear up for the show, Girls und Panzer is an original work from Actas that’s already gotten licensed for home video through Sentai Filmworks. The series has a particular draw to it with its blend of girls and military hardware that’s made more so with word that the military advisor for Strike Witches and Upotte!!, Takaaki Suzuki, is involved with this one as well. Which basically leads you to wondering which of these series will it be more like since they’re both quite different with what they do even though they share a similar bond through the heavy military style and the attention to detail with weaponry and gear.
The series operates in a world that’s just like normal except for one distinct fact; the martial arts skill of the day for girls is that of tank battles. Which is what we see at the start as a match is underway in the wilds as we see two teams go at it, including one with a variety of different styles of tank manufacture as well as color since we even get bright (gaudy bright) pink and yellow ones. The match is simple but effective in showing off the way they move and how the teams operate, giving us clue to a decent bond that’s at play here among the girls that work and school together. Like a lot of shows, we get many of the usual trappings of an all girls school life, from uniforms to a high end school, just with the added fun of them driving around in tanks.
The first half mostly runs through showing us the start of the school year, the friendships that are there and the introduction of Tankery as a new elective to be had there. One that the student council president strongly suggests that new student Miho take up. The full auditorium presentation of Tankery is hilarious as it’s chock full of propaganda, including the fact that men will adore you should you excel in it. This gets several of the girls very excited about it even as it feels like it’s right out of the fifties. The second half works well off of this as we see the gorup of girls that sign up for it, though they’re mostly just ciphers at this point with little in the way of distinct personalities. They’re all nice and pleasant and we see a good sized group that will come together for it, with the incentive of a big national event coming for it. I like the respect and awe they have for the tank they check out at the very end, but the whole pull back sequence from there to reveal where they really are is just… weird.
In Summary:
While I enjoyed Strike Witches for what it was, Upotte!! left me very cold, so going into another quirky military themed show wasn’t exactly high on my to do list. In this opening episode, we only get a little tank action at the start and through the brief propaganda film, which leaves most of the show to the characters themselves. And they never really seem to stand out, which is worse since there’s so many of them being thrown at us overall if you go by the early montage sequence. The overall idea is one that certainly seems interesting and as someone who loves to see tactics and strategy unfold, it holds potential from there alone. But this opening episode naturally plays more to the whole cute girls, you must love them mentality more than anything else even while not making any of them really notable with who they are or personalities. It’s a show that I’ll try a little more of just to see what that last sequence with the ship is all about, but it’s not a show that seems destined for greatness.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
