Happy Weekend, everyone! Another guest post today from MiniPrimes! 🙂 Pictures and their captions are from yours truly. — NegativePrimes
Girls und Panzer is a surprisingly good anime for having so many tropes. There’s probably more but these are the ones that come to mind.
- Normal ordinary high school girls doing unordinary things.
- Overpowered student council.
- Rich famous family with problems.
The basic theme is high school girls doing tankery as a sport. Tankery is also supposed to make women more beautiful stronger talented gifted smarter etc. In case you’re wondering boys don’t do tanker—in fact one of the characters comments, “Imagine boys doing tankery!” as if the thing was a fairy tale. Much rivalry goes on between the teams and they even use real cannon shells! (With an emphasis on safety of course.) Normal ordinary high school girls doing unordinary things—check.
In the first episode, the main character is asked to do tankery as her side thing and when she refuses the student council says, “If you don’t do tankery you might not be able to come to this school anymore.” This technically was true since if they didn’t win the Nationals the school would be shut down. But who cares they’re still an overpowered student council. Overpowered student council—check.
The third is the family problem trope. If you think about it it pops up a lot in anime, for example RWBY, unOrdinary, Black Clover, Naruto, and probably Hinamatsuri though we don’t know for sure. (unOrdinary is not an anime though it has the trope.) This trope pops up twice, once with the main character whose family seems to consist entirely of girls who fight by the Neshizumi tankery style. (Or as I like to call it the madly rushing into your opponent without plans style.) It consists of winning at all odds even at the cost of life. Which personally I think goes against the “emphasis on safety.” And when the main character defies the Neshizumi style by saving a girl’s life at the cost of the game, it so infuriates the clan her mother even begins to plan publicly expel her from the family! The other is a girl whose family has a long tradition of flower arrangement. However she becomes dissatisfied with it and starts doing tankery without telling her mother. When her mother finds out she faints and then disowns her daughter for refusing to give up tankery. This the young girl meekly accepts saying that some day she will make a bouquet with brighter stronger and clearer flowers that will enable her mother to understand. Another typically Japanese statement which works very well in the story but probably not in real life.
The second example of the rich famous family with problems trope isn’t quite as rich and famous as the first, but I put it in anyway because if disowning your daughter because of a sport isn’t family problems I don’t know what is. At the same time I can sympathize with the mother for not wanting her daughter to do tankery despite as one of the girls says when her teammates beg her to come off the top of the thank “People rarely get hit.” (I still think if I were in her place that small chance would keep me off.) Although I get the impression her mother was more concerned about it being rough and uncouth than safety problems. But then again impressions can be wrong. Rich famous family with problems—check.
It’s a fun lighthearted anime with odd but very tactical tank formations. And save for a few bath scenes modest and appropriate. And if you want to watch an anime that won’t absorb all your attention but not simply boring it’s also a good choice.
