Girls & Panzer: Kore ga Hontou no Anzio-sen desu!

This will be a quick one. I'll assume you've already seen Girls und Panzer and are wondering whether the OVA is worth checking out. If you haven't watched the show yet, it's best to watch it first but you could probably still enjoy this title on its own if you really wanted to. Although you will find a lot more to like about it if you're familiar with the original tv series.

The story takes place during the battle against Anzio, a "Japanese-themed Italian school". Be prepared for a lot of deliciously animated pasta.

Just about all the elements you loved about the show are here. The ... characters are up to their usual antics - Mako sleeping on the job, Saori being an air-head, and of course Miho whipping up moments of tactical brilliance when it matters most. Technically the outcome of the battle is already known to begin with, but this doesn't really take away from the watching experience.

Anchovy brings a (highly tongue-in-cheek) Italian flair to the mix, and there is plenty of humor to be found throughout the 40 minutes of screen-time. One of her generals is even called Pepperoni... Feel like a pizza yet?

The lead-up to the battle is plenty of fun and Yukari's recon mission is a highlight. However, the OVA really shines when it's time for the main event.

The battle is shown from multiple perspectives, and there's a plethora of strategy and mind-games going on as usual. This is the real magic of the Girls Und Panzer franchise: It's written in a way that balances comedy and action like almost no other. The viewer gets treated to a comprehensive view of the battle, and the quality of animation is even better than it was during the original series. The time and effort taken into making this OVA look and feel beautiful very noticeable and rewarding, particularly during the more intense moments of the battle. It must be difficult to balance such a vibrant colour palette with gritty tank warfare but somehow it all works.

As usual, tank otakus will probably relish the more intricate details to be found over the course of the OVA. There's also a fairly good balance of screen time for the main girls, so your favourite character will almost certainly get the time and attention that only you know she needs.

In short: This OVA is a treat. Side-effects may include a heightened enthusiasm for Italian cuisine, but it all goes away after you eat a good pizza. Panzer Vor!

I rated the original GuP a 9, and that's actually because the original production hit a snag after episode 10, which the cast joke about during a live show:

"Well, you know, we were going for the split 1-cour release. It could be a thing."
"So what were you girls doing during those weeks where you weren't broadcasting?"
"Influenza."

I suspect that the production staff actually wanted to do the second round match, but because time/budget was tighter than expected, they basically cut the entire thing out except for the final white flag. It worked as a punch line, but if you enjoyed the series and wanted to see ... the completed second round match, here it is with the lead-up and aftermath.

The "old friends" subplot involving Caesar is cute, but a bit meh for my tastes. It's good to see the show putting a little spotlight on someone other than Team Anglerfish for once, but I guess Caesar was selected this time around because Rome/Italy.

As for the Italian-themed team, like the other teams, the jokes are stereotypical: the general ineptness in combat is a callback to the failed invasion of Greece (the Germans then had to clean up their mess), the "we had to save up to buy a P40" is a shout out to Italy's economy (such as it is), etc. The biggest thing that revealed the staff's ignorance of Italian culture is Pepperoni's pasta recipe (Italians, unlike the Japanese, don't mix eggs and tomatoes as a general rule), but that's nothing worth writing home about. Fortunately for those who get wound up over their home nations getting stereotyped like this, they do it to Japan in the movie. Heh heh.

As always, the scenario is ridiculous: why in the world would you put tankettes like the CV-33 into the match? The answer, of course, is so we can see them flip over and over when hit, and we want to see Team Duck and Team Rabbit score some kills for once-- the Type 89's gun is so bad that the CV-33 is probably the only thing it could reliably penetrate, and while the M3 Frankentank wasn't as good as the Sherman, it still held its own historically.

Without spoiling the story, I love how the show explains why Anzio wasn't spectating the final match. Delightfully in-character and unabashedly pulling on Italians' chains.

The main additions to the already excellent soundtrack are Le Fiamme Nere, Funiculi Funicula, and a new BGM for Yukari's covert ops scene featuring "drunken clarinets" as I like to call them.

In conclusion, hilarious episode, but this one's mainly for fans of the show.

When it comes to OVA Girls und Panzer is pretty unique because the OVA is not pointless - it actually has something to do with the plot of the main show.

The show follows the Senshado tournament which consists of four matches but it only shows the first round, the semi-final and the final - It notes that the quarter-final was against a school called Anzio but the actual match is missing. I don't know whether that was intentional or maybe they just couldn't squeeze everything into 12 episodes and had to leave something out. Anyway this OVA completes the missing piece and shows the entire ... thing, starting from the preparation and of course the actual match.

The episode is just as enjoyable as the rest. If you want to see everything in canon order you may want to watch this between episodes 7 and 8 of the main show.