Girls Und Panzer - Anime Review

"Don't judge the book by its cover!"
is what people usually say when they want to tell someone that you have to look closely and get into it without being judgmental about it. Why did I say that in the first place? Because that's how I feel when I watch this series. At first glance it looks like a "OH MYYYY GODD THIS IS SOME MOE BULLSHIT RIGHT HERE!" kind of show. But apparently, it's not 100% moe bullshit that I watched here. So today I'm going to talk about this anime which is quite self-explanatory on the title, Girls Und Panzer! It's a 12 eps anime series with normal length episode. How was it? Let's just jump into the review!


Story
The story itself is actually pretty simple, there's a girl named Nishizumi Miho (she looks like Yukiho from Idolm@ster 's long lost twin sister) who is just transferred to Ooarai Girls High School, and she is confused to choose which club that she should join in that school. (So far, it's sounds like a generic slice of life with moe girls, right?). She has two friends, Takebe Saori and Isuzu Hana, who already decided to join the Sensha-dou (direct translation : Tank arts, it's like a martial arts, but with tanks) club. But Miho feels conflicted whether to join the club or not since she has some "past experience" with this kind of club in her previous school. Kadotani Anzu, the student president of Oorai, learns about Miho's past experience and her family name. Apparently, Nishizumi-style is a well known sensha-dou-style. Knowing this info, Anzu urges Miho to join the Sensha-dou club and they aim to compete for the international tournament against other school ships. Yes, you didn't read that wrong. The entire schools exists on a top of a MASSIVE retrofitted aircraft carrier. It's so massive, the entire town is on the top of its deck! And for people on this anime, it's just a normal thing, while personally I found it very interesting. What actually happened to that world so they have to move the entire population on a top of that ship? But unfortunately, that question is never answered in this anime. Because that's not the main focus on the story. The main story of this series is the tank tournaments! Finally Miho agrees to join the Sensha-dou club. Will they be able to win the tournament?

My thoughts on the series

1. Like I wrote at the beginning, this show is not 100% moe. It's still a moe slice of life anime but with a twist. To put it simply, it's cute girls on a tank doing some strategic military things to win the tank tournament! 
2. The animation is really awesome, especially with the tank battles. They really nailed the 3DCG tank battles without making it look so jarring and out of place. It's done by studio Actas which honestly, I never really heard of this studio before. But they really did a great job on this anime. 
3. What makes this show interesting is the tank battles, Ooarai team usually have some unfair situations on the match but they managed to overcome the trial by using interesting and unorthodox strategy and tactics. Miho is the leader and the brain of the team. And she really is a good leader for the team.
4. Speaking about character, the main group's characters are well developed until the end of the series. It's really great to see the characters grow in this anime
5. The soundtrack is lighthearted war march and honestly it suits the tone of the series as well. One of the problem that I read that the Russian war march song "Katyushka" was replaced with "Tetris" theme song in the DVD release (which is the version that I watch) for copyright reason. ^_^; 
6. While the opening and the ending is not really my cup of tea, I prefer to skip it right away to watch the next episode haha

The problem that I had with this series

This series is very entertaining, but it has some minor issues like : 

1. The rules of the tournament is not really explained to the audience: I've participated on some tournaments before, and the tournaments usually have some certain rules that is made in order to make the match is "fair/balanced". In this series, Ooarai's team always at disadvantage. But apparently it is okay for them to fight the other team with that handicap. Sometimes Yukari shows up with a rule book and she told us "oh based on the rule, it's okay for them to use that thing that will put us in a major disadvantage". I wish this show explain the rule to us even more.
2. Some unnecessary drama. Yup, The drama is not really relevant on this series. Since everything is resolved by winning the tournament. Most of the drama are sidelined throughout the series. And personally, the drama kinda ruined the happy and lighthearted feeling of the show.
3. There are a lot of characters that didn't get some spotlight. Well, in fact. There ARE a lot of characters in this series. I think that's almost every problem with anime that has a lot of characters in it hahaha

So here comes the final verdict. Should you watch Girls und Panzer? Yes! yes you should! It's an unique twist of moe slice of life with tank battles. And the tank battles are genuinely entertaining. The battle is tense and engaging and the battle is won through some interesting strategy and not relying too much on sheer dumb luck. Both of the team have their own unique strategies. Just like real life tournament, both of the team is waiting for the opposing team to screw up, so they can exploit that mistake in order to win the battle. 

That's it from me guys, I hope that you will find this review helpful for you. This is Reikichi, signing out! XD