FIF#148-Girls und Panzer

Tankery-the art of Tank Combat.  It’s also one of the most popular school sports for girls.  Miho Nishizumi is a veteran Tankery expert who seeks to leave that life behind by transferring to Ōarai Girls High School.  On her first day, the Student Council resurrects the dormant sport at Oarai and quickly pressures Miho into being one of their first recruits.  In spite of her past, Miho begins learning to love Tankery with a group of new friends.  But Tankery isn’t all glamour and big guns.  Soon Miho and her crew are competing with other school teams in intense showdowns.  The price of failure: closure of their entire school.

So this weeks First Impression Friday comes as a request from a good friend who’s kind of a military Otaku.  This is…and odd one.  I’ve seen High School slice of life Anime about Girls in a band; Girls in an idol group; Girls who are members of a paranormal investigation squad and the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Including that last title specifically, I can honestly say a High School slice of life Anime about High School Girls driving vintage Tanks is the last kind of concept I ever expected to see get a green light. 

I ended up watching the first two episodes of Girls und Panzer because without the actual tanks in the picture, the show is fairly formulaic slice of life.  From the character designs to the dialogue to the main character running from a past they wish to leave behind, things just felt generic.  It wasn’t terrible.  Miho and her friends are likeable and different enough from one another.  However, once Tankery was introduced, things got both weird and interesting.  Yes, normally High School Tank combat might seem like a game for the boys.  But giving it to the girls in this case makes for a surprisingly entertaining experience.  Slowly, you being to see that this little city…that happens to be housed on a massive Aircraft carrier (think Macross without a ceiling protecting it from space), is in love with this sport.  There’s even hobby shops reminiscent of a Gunpla Store from Gundam Build Fighters/Divers and one of Miho’s teammates is a straight up Tank Otaku, a living encyclopedia who doesn’t have Miho’s experience but has enough knowledge to keep up. 

This is a CG Heavy show and I’m always back and forth on how that affects how I view an Anime.  When the CG is on the tanks alone, they looked pretty decent.  No, it’s when the 2D drawn girls poke their heads or upper bodies out of a window that the visuals get super awkward.  It doesn’t look sharp or pretty, it kind of looks like an after thought, just shoving the bodies of these High School girls into a CG tank.  Maybe this can be ironed out further into the series but if its clocking in at only 12 episodes, I’m skeptical.  The tanks themselves all vary in terms of where they came from and what model they might be.  Let’s face it: Girls und Panzer might as well be a gatcha game where you can collect tanks from all over history and set them loose on various opponents.  They look good and vintage and properly beat up for the time they’ve been inactive.  I’m guessing my friend will have a field day running through the history and specs of each model being used in the show (they’d get along just fine with that aforementioned Tank Otaku character Yukari Akiyama. 

Like I said, this is an odd one.  If it weren’t for the Tanks, this could just be another slice of life, High School Anime romp.  But adding Tanks brings the weird, brings the uniqueness, brings the entertainment.  Girls und Panzer feels like a show that might be worth switching off your brain over and just watching cute High School Girls try to figure out piloting these massive behemoths and trying not to get messed up in battle.  Could this even merit a full series review in the future?  Hmmmm…I’ll get back to you on that.  I know my friend will get a kick out of this, maybe I’ll get their opinion first.