Girls & Panzer

"Senshadou" is a traditional sport using World War II era tanks in elimination-based matches. Widely practiced by women and girls alike, it's advertised as a form of art geared towards making ladies more prominent in culture and appealing to men. Becoming a worldwide phenomenon over time, the influence of senshadou leads to the creation of a world championship which will soon be held in Japan.

Miho Nishizumi, who comes from a lineage of well-respected senshadou specialists, is at odds with the sport after a traumatic event led to her retirement and eventually a rift to form between her and her family. To steer clear of the practice as much as possible, she transfers to Ooarai Girls Academy where the senshadou program has been abolished. However, with the news of the upcoming championships, the school revives their tankery program, and Miho is pushed into joining.

Now, with the aid of some new friends, she must overcome her past and once again take command of a squadron of tanks in an effort to save her school from closure, all while proving to her family that the Nishizumi-style of senshadou is not solely about victory.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Akiyama, Yukari Main

Nakagami, Ikumi Japanese

Reizei, Mako Main

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Nishizumi, Miho Main

Fuchigami, Mai Japanese

Isuzu, Hana Main

Ozaki, Mami Japanese

Takebe, Saori Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Anzai, Chiyomi Supporting

Yoshioka, Maya Japanese

Katyusha Supporting

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Darjeeling Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

Nishizumi, Maho Supporting

Tanaka, Rie Japanese

Itsumi, Erika Supporting

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Hayashi, Youhei Producer

Maruyama, Shunpei Producer

Ogisu, Hirotsugu Producer

Sekine, Youichi Producer

Reviews

Dec 1, 2024

JJMFREAP

Recommended

What an absolute joy this anime was! I love it when series present a simple premise and just execute it to the best of their abilities and this is a perfect example of that. It tells you exactly what it is from the title - cute girls and awesome tanks. You know exactly what you want it to be and that's exactly what it is.

This anime really has that 80s action movie charm of having a simple and straightforward story that is nonetheless engaging all throughout. Really, it's not anything you haven't seen before, but it doesn't need to be. The story is easy to ... follow and the characters are all super charismatic and loveable. With the bare minimum of backstory on them (you get more than that of course), you're already invested in them and rooting for their success by episode 2. There's conflict, tension and excitement and there are many satisfying character arcs that get resolved by the end. There's some surprisingly interesting worldbuilding too, like with all the tankery tournaments and the fact that the schools are all on massive floating cities built on top of aircraft carriers. How do you even come up with this shit? I love it! The pacing is also great and the anime doesn't overstay its welcome. I wouldn't have minded if it went on longer, but hey, that's what the sequels are for. This season I feel was the perfect length and it told its story perfectly within the standard 12 episodes. The fact that this is an original tale and not an adaptation definitely helped too.

The tanks first of all are of course represented flawlessly and are all legitimate historically accurate models. This cute and fun story is so well crafted, it can actually trick the average person into accidentally learning a thing or two about all these tanks and what it was really like to operate them. I am both proud and ashamed that thanks to the ungodly amount of hours I have in World of Tanks, I recognized most of them. Hell, I've even owned most of them at some point. The tanktakus out there will definitely be satisfied and will blissfully dream of real women that understand this stuff to the same levels as the girls in here.

The star of the show by far is the action though. Honestly, I didn't expect this anime to be as action packed as it is, but damn am I happy from what we got. While some watchers may flinch at the mention of CGI in anime, especially from the time when this came out, here the use is perfectly implemented. The battles are fast paced, tactical and thoroughly exciting. The use of realistic military strategy mixed with just the healthy dose of anime absurdity. It's an absolute spectacle of explosions and steel crashing against steel that is just the type of controlled chaos you expect on the battlefield. The way the girls operate their vehicles also gives it this mecha anime style feel of military strategy juxtaposed with shonen power of friendship malarkey. The way the CGI is handled also gives it an almost Initial D style edge of the fast vehicular mayhem. It's positively glorious. I never dreamed I would see tank battles this good in an anime but I am just overjoyed I did.

On a purely technical level, the anime is perfectly executed too. Great, vibrant visuals that contrast the colourful high school life with the gritty military vibe fantastically. The animation is smooth and expressive, the music is great with all the energetic war marches (although I would've have minded some eurobeat during some fight scenes) and the voice acting is superb. They really did their best. I can't think of a single thing that could be done different to make this better.

Overall, Girls & Panzer is exactly what it needed to be. It's action packed and those scenes are done to a superb level. The story is simple, but always engaging and all of this makes for a very easy and entertaining watch. You'll never be bored and the show will keep you hooked from beginning to end, without taxing your mind with unnecessary bullshit. This isn't some deep philosophical quandary about war or society and it doesn't need to be. It's cute girls in tanks fighting for honour, valour and pride. The creators knew what you wanted and they delivered on every front. Their main goal was to entertain and to that end they passed with flying colours. The only downside I can mention is that this might make me want to install World of Tanks again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by JJMFREAP (57)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Apr 29, 2021

DnTizzet

Mixed Feelings

ngl i only watched this because of noriyaro's itasha video and was wondering why it was popular in that video. after watching it i have no idea at all. by no means was it a bad watch, but it has nothing too special either.

the story itself is good, theres bound to be a girl u find cute, and the tanks are fun ill admit. however, what kinda killed it for me was that nothing felt special or unique and everything felt predictable. the amount of characters also was a bit overwhelming and they all felt shallow because of it.

that said you know what ... ur getting into with this show and it definitely delivers. wouldnt recommend the series or plan on watching the sequels, but i dont regret it or feel like i wasted my time watching it

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by DnTizzet (12)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Feb 20, 2022

RanPoran

Not Recommended

Having a lot titles in completed means you went from very varied expierences, you can see that some things could be made better.
Your horizont for reviewing is just widen.
With this attitude I've decided to review "Girls und Panzer", my first anime ever.
And I started rewatching at... ending of July 2021 until almost end of February 2022...

Firstly I have to make some introduction - "Girls und Panzer" ("GuP") is so called "Original Anime TV series" what means that it was not based on any manga, it's cornerstone was created by anime studio. These days we don't see often such animes. (Well, in most cases it's ... easier to put money in animating top selling manga.) Also we have to add that "GuP" was created by studio that is known only for our object of interest.

When we put all these together we obtain one conclusion - how this almost anonimous studio, could produce such popular show, while it's necessary to have financial support from investors to create one.
I can't answer but I can say something about "Girls und Panzer"

Firstly let's talk about plot - Girls und Panzer - Girls and Tanks, so it is about girls riding tanks, right? Yes, but actually not.
While everything is about group(s) of girls riding tanks, beside this militaristic site series has also another side - Old, good, wholesome cute girls doing cute things.
So will we be blessed by two glorious types of anime in one?
No.

PLOT - world bulding doesn't exist. You can see this world different from ours, and all you can do about this different world is simply notice - "ahh that's how it is here."
We don't even know how tanks battles ended as a Sport excusively for Girls. (well, actually we got some "Virtues of Women"...)
Like I mentioned before anime has two sides, neither is ok.
Tank battles are simply one scheme repeated dozens of times; it is focusing how our team's tactic can defeat enemies' formulaic stategies.
From beginning it might seem to be interesting, but in longer perspective it is not.
Second side - cute girls doing cute things, this one just seem to be here to cover what's left from 20mins of Episode.


ART - GuP's tanks are animated in 3D, and models themself are prety OK. I can't say anything bad about them. But if we look in battlefields then it doesn't look Ok. If we get scenery of city then it's fine, but if we talk about everything else then we have "copy, paste", blank scenery.

MUSIC - one of the most iconic elements from die Panzermädchen.
I myself found this series from video of singing Soviet Lolis.
Music is indeed glorious. Offcourse by glorious I mean just few tracks. This series poses well performed arrangements of military music and songs. But within it lies wasted potential - series notoriously played this gems of OST only once, while enemy team was introduced, and then was playing in loop main theme.
Opening and Ending seemed to be just generic ones.

CHARACTERS - armored girls has a lot of characters, and most of them are there just to cover spots. Besides Main Characters there was only 5 characters I could recall, but they weren't even close to best written ones.

ENJOYMENT - series is notoriously repeating one scheme over and over.
Like I mentioned before, there is no world building, characters seem blank and also we have some ecchi. (Even soviets could not endure winter without long trousers)

OVERALL - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. This series might seem nice as one of first anime series, when exposed to many aspects people can just say "it's anime thing" and think that explains some points.
Probably the only one group of people who can rejoice themselves are enthusiasts of Arts with military Anime Girls, because armored Girls is one big source of inspiration for artist.
If you want to watch any kind of militaristic anime then "Black Lagoon" seem to be the best. If you were interested by wholesome side of series then I would recomended "Non Non Biyori" Both are better and longer.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by RanPoran (2)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Anime for your daughter

by Chika_tetsu

35 Entries · 53 Restacks

Ships (Air, Water, Space)

by CloacaMaxima

50 Entries · 99 Restacks

Wooser

by Bunille

31 Entries · 13 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for September. Week 1: September 5 - 11 Anime Releases Shinobi no Ittoki Complete Season Blu-ray T...read more

Sep 5, 2023 9:22 AM by Aiimee | Discuss (0 comments)

NHK Announces Best 100 Anime

To commemorate one hundred years of Japanese anime history, NHK has announced a list of 100 Best Anime on Wednesday at NHK BS Premium. The list is based on the audi...read more

May 3, 2017 7:07 AM by tsubasalover | Discuss (548 comments)

	Poll: Girls und Panzer Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Yumekichi11 - Oct 22, 2012	124 replies	by Tukhachevsky »» Dec 8, 9:17 AM
	Poll: Girls und Panzer Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) okanagan - Mar 25, 2013	276 replies	by Punkero »» Sep 27, 3:52 PM
	Poll: Girls und Panzer Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Yumekichi11 - Oct 8, 2012	252 replies	by C1922 »» Jun 18, 8:28 PM
	Poll: Girls und Panzer Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) symbv - Mar 18, 2013	168 replies	by patkarunungan »» Jun 6, 5:38 AM
	Poll: Girls und Panzer Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Dec 17, 2012	194 replies	by patkarunungan »» Jun 5, 9:11 PM

In Numbers: The Best Anime of the Decade

What's the #1 anime of the 2010s? Which year was the best? What studio had the most hits? We have the answers to all these questions and more!

by Shymander

648,367 views

Prominent Singers and Voice Actors Gather at Animelo Summer Live 2019

We've got all the details and lots of photos to share from the world's largest anisong event!

by MAL_editing_team

28,478 views