Girls und Panzer

This is such an amazing series, it's really unfortunate how underrated it is. I rarely see anyone talking about it and most people I know don't know it. People definitely need to watch this as it's much more better than I thought it would be.

I'm a fan of tanks and their history. When I found out that such an anime exists, it interested me.

After watching the first 3 episodes, I felt bad. Painted tanks, a kind of plot presentation. And the physics of movements and destruction of tanks... I will not comment on this in any way lol.

In general, everything was very mediocre and for that I would bet 3/10. But closer to the middle, the series became a little better, many terrible moments were fixed, and the end of the anime in principle wasn't bad.

This is the anime where the beginning is terrible, but not a bad end. By the end of the anime, I had already begun to get used to both the physics of movement and the behavior of the characters, and I even started to like it. After the series, it's worth watching films about this universe, they turned out much better and there is more action.

What makes a girl feminine? Driving heavy tanks apparently. A clash of wills, where kindness and prowess unites resulting in the genius that is our coy and self deprecating protagonist! Still, I will be first to say that the mixture of ludicrousness and bonhomie is a winning combination! A wonderful watch, though in this series the question as to why Japan needs teenage girls to fight simulated tank battles is still not answered. Also, what's up with the gargantuan ships with whole towns and landscape on them? Looking forward for the next romp; where I'm sure all would be elucidated! Panzer vor!

The other reviewers have already explained a lot in back story so I won't bother add more details to it, cuz as to whether you can be convinced by the whole story is pure personal preference. Like there's carbon coating applied on inner side of the tanks so the girls won't get injured by real tank ammunition. I'm totally fine with it given that other isekai shows have much more logics and backgrounds. It's only a matter of taking it or leaving it.

The title might give you an impression of a cliche drama from a bunch of moe high school girls but don't let it deceive you. From 1 to 10 you can rate "moe level" at around 3~4. The girls are cute indeed thanks to designing artists but the director doesn't offer much fan service in the script. On the contrary the most exciting parts in the show are tank battles. It has one of the maturest CGI performance I've ever seen. It's impressive to the point that you won't feel it appropriate at all when the 3D tanks move and shoot in 2D backgrounds.

From the historical perspective those tanks in this anime are made as authentic as possible to match real WW2 tanks. Though velocity are not quite historical accurate, they can do some cool manuevers. Combined with the presentation of tank battles those inaccurate parts can be easily forgiven.

Dialogues, dressing and even the names of the girls are deliberately designed. With a bit of Googling you can find that almost every girl in the protagonist's team refer to someone real back in history. I really appreciate the staff members to do that. Those research must have taken a long time.

GuP is so intriguing that I've watched it like more than 10 times and every time I can find some details that I previously overlooked, maybe a team leader making gestures to order other students to shoot in tank battles, or how those tanks run in different scenarios because of different size and weight. It's a shame that with so many 3D animation works in it the production cycle is longer than you'd expect from a conventional JP anime. Now the staff team release an OVA every 18 months or so. Other than that I'm totally satisfied with GuP.

How cool is this series? A Hetzer, a Maus and Czech 38t?!! If any of these words make sense to you, then you are truly a fanatic for these tank models as I am. Love the animation and story line. Good healthy fun!!