Girls und Panzer is a 12 episode anime that's part of a media franchise comprising of an anime, numerous OVAs, manga, light novels and a film series. The premise is literally the title - being girls and tanks. The anime is set in a world where tanks are used in sports-like activities with official matches between high schools that students participate in. The students take it as a club or elective, forming into groups, maintaining their tanks and then duking it out against others in mock warfare.
As expected, this type of tank warfare is pretty dangerous. This is something that the anime doesn't address properly, we know that while the ammos aren't blanks, they aren't as dangerous as the real thing either. The tanks automatically raise a white flag once they are too damaged. Despite that, flipping over in uneven terrain or dropping into the river and being trapped is something that is shown to have been possible and actually quite common. It just feels too risky for high school students to participate in...
The anime follows Nishizumi Miho, who recently transferred to a new school with the sole aim of not wanting to participate in the tank warfare anymore. Unfortunately for her, the school revives the activity and Miho is effectively forced into it. We learn that she's hiding something in her past, and this is probably because she is a prodigy, or her siblings are. The plot dedicates a significant portion to Miho and her new friends. Some of the characters have uninspiring personalities but can eventually grow on you.
There is a cliched reason for why the school suddenly revived the tank warfare activity. It was hinted throughout the first half of the anime it was done in such an obvious way that the reveal does not have any impact. Despite all the characters being novices at first, the anime doesn't dwell too long on this and just throws them into the deep end. This benefits the anime because with a limited amount of episodes, the last thing we needed was a long set up as they learn. The characters are thrust into the situation and forced to adapt, including how to operate the tanks, effective formation and working together as a team.
The color schemes start off being ridiculous but as the characters learn from their mistakes, it becomes a lot more practical. Also, any time the tanks are shown onscreen, it uses pretty obvious CGI and it clashes strongly with the animation of pretty much everything else. The world of Girls und Panzer is somewhat weird when it is revealed where the characters are living at the end of the first episode. It's quite impractical but then again, in this world, driving around in tanks and destroying actual buildings is a sport. Perhaps the most surprising is that despite the cute depiction of the characters, the actual tank warfare is quite interesting. It layers on some strategy and presents varied situations which Miho must overcome as the commander of her team. It helps that they're always against an opponent that has the upper advantage and it is up to her to help find a way to overcome that.
There are a few moments where the protagonists are blatantly being favored. They would have super accurate shots disabling the enemy tanks while the shots being fired at them will all miss or graze. For every two to three that they disable, they will then get hit once. It's a bit hard to believe at time but when the battle heats up, it makes up for it with its exciting and suspenseful moments. There seems to be a trend that their strategies succeed because their opponents give them some reprieve, whether it is through naivety or some sort of honor system and not go all out with their numbers.
It can be hard to take seriously during the more melodramatic moments, to the point where you might end up chuckling even though that may not have been the animators' intentions. With only 12 episodes to play around with and a whole tournament to get through, needless to say that their progression is quick, which helps with the upped pacing. Although the midpoint is where it starts to skip some of the rounds in order to focus more on the characters and day to day stuff, which is hit and miss.
Despite some cheesy scenes that focused on friendship themes and the niceness of all the characters, it manages to keep its action moments exciting. The final battle with all the stakes really highlights some of the unorthodox strategies that Miho employs, and it just feels fun with how reckless some of those strategies were. There are a bunch of short OVAs that came with the blu-ray releases. Each one expands upon the world or a particular scene, and are quite fun to watch in their own right. However, the longer OVA focused on a battle that the main episodes skipped. Although you know the conclusion and who will will, it was still a great episode with interesting tactics and likable characters.
Overall, Girls und Panzer is surprisingly good, which is not what you would expect based on the visuals alone. While the characters are drawn to be overly cute, with a lack of screentime involving male characters, and a heavy theme on friendship, the tank battles are fun to watch. There are numerous tense moments which helps make this a very enjoyable anime.
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