(L) Girls und Panzer

[Sumeragi]

If my estimate is correct, Maho is around 85 cm, making her a C-cup.....

[LoweGear]

More character design arts:

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Automobile Club Girls Lineart

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Humikane Shimada Originals

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King Tiger

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[MeisterBabylon]

In the history of the far future of senshado, there were only STRIKE WITCHES.

(Adolfa Hitler, Teana Roosevelt, Barelle Obama, etc)

[Top Sergeant]

The various schools all have their theme music when their tanks appear on screen (I really like this), and I've recognized all the tunes they use for the other schools (British Grenadiers, Caisson Song, etc) but what is the march used when they show Ooarai? I preume it is a Japanese march.

[Panzerklein]

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

Miho looks cute in pink! Thanks for sharing.
Would have given you a cookie. But the rep system of Animesuki is already being removed.


On episode 10:

So the final match is being started. Looking at all the heavy tanks of Black Forest, it seems Oorai is even more at a disadvantage now than in their match with Pravda.

Oorai team does have one Tiger on their side. But it's a prototype with a lot of mechanical problems. Good thing it's the mechanic team that will drive it. They might be able to perform some minor fixes on it at the battlefield, assuming they can hide their tank while they fix it.

Surprised at how much the PZ IV has been upgraded, it looks like a very strong tank now.

Miho meets and is thanked by the person she saved from drowning. This makes me wonder.. since the people she saved seem to be participating.. could there be a slim chance that these people would help Oorai some way in the match? Miss on purpose, get in the way so the Oorai tanks don't take a hit? With the odds very much against them, Oorai team need all the held they can get.

And lastly, Katyusha isn't a bad person after all, offering a handshake to Miho like that. Still a little arrogant when she talks, but looks like she now has respect for Oorai after the match. "Operation Bagration" on a german themed team like Black Forest sounds fitting.

But King Tiger, Ferdinand also have a lot of engine break down too. Panzer IV is actually upgrade to Ausf G, addtional skirt armor but it make the tank slower.

[winhlp32]

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Miporin~

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[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Top Sergeant

The various schools all have their theme music when their tanks appear on screen (I really like this), and I've recognized all the tunes they use for the other schools (British Grenadiers, Caisson Song, etc) but what is the march used when they show Ooarai? I preume it is a Japanese march.

It's an original song, but some people believe The Great Escape theme is incorporated in it.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Top Sergeant

The various schools all have their theme music when their tanks appear on screen (I really like this), and I've recognized all the tunes they use for the other schools (British Grenadiers, Caisson Song, etc) but what is the march used when they show Ooarai? I preume it is a Japanese march.

Oarai doesn't have a distinct march as of yet, asides from the main GuP melody. The closest would be the song sung by Erwin and Yukari called "Yuki no Singun", which was a Japanese Army march, but that's more a song between the two of them describing a moment rather than a leitmotif.

And more character art:

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Anteater Team

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Take it easy

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[Zaku_II]

Originally Posted by Tulik

Join Saunders University High School and win against Black Forest next Year finals

I think Saunders has so much money, thad closing it down wont happen.

Kay is more intrestet in fair play and fun than victory at any cost and she offered Yukari to join her team, i am shure she will take all the other Oorai tank girls too.

You'll need Saunders, St. Gloriana and Pravda going in two fronts against BF to defeat them

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Looks like some people got their BD/DVD volume 1 early...

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Water War screencap stitches

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Yukari~

Not trying to break your dream or something, but Yukari's arm is broken .


On the note related to the problem of the "girls" part and the "tanks" part of this show, I must say it's actually a success because the focus is on the tanks, not the girls, otherwise it's just another Strike Witches or Sky Girls to me. Furthermore, a tank is operated by a group of people, not individual, so it's understandable that it's better to give each group a personality than each girl from the group, which will only make people confused as the story goes on while we are limited in airing time.

I think they have already done a good job in distinguishing each girl throughout the course just by showing us how they are interacting with each other in Senshado.

[Zaku_II]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

If my estimate is correct, Maho is around 85 cm, making her a C-cup.....

More like 88 cm making her a L/56 ?

[Midonin]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

And yet this show has received an amazingly strong response, one that it was not receiving while being compared to those other shows you are mentioning. As much as I wish for more character development, I have been forced to conclude that one of the things that has gained the show the following it has is the speed at which it has moved, speed it gained by focusing on the action and letting the characters been seen mostly through it rather than spending time and scenes outside of battle working on them.

But it's the action and the technical stuff that's alienating me from the show in the first place. I know that almost everyone is loving it, but no show is perfect, and a discussion on some of its flaws should be at least as welcome as a discussion on its strong points.

Originally Posted by Duo Maxwell

I must say it's actually a success because the focus is on the tanks, not the girls, otherwise it's just another Strike Witches or Sky Girls to me.

Those aren't bad things to be, and they're what I'd prefer it be. When the discussion becomes so specific and technical, I have to wonder if there are a group of fans who are feeling left out in the cold. I know I can't be the only one.

[PzIVf3]

[PzIVf3]

[00Coyote]

Originally Posted by Midonin

But it's the action and the technical stuff that's alienating me from the show in the first place. I know that almost everyone is loving it, but no show is perfect, and a discussion on some of its flaws should be at least as welcome as a discussion on its strong points.

The problem comes when what one person sees as a show's flaw, another person sees as the show's strength.

From my point of view, Girls und Panzer is not a very technical show. Very little time is spent splurging on technical details of the tanks. For the most part, they are presented 'as is' with just their name and appearance given. In terms of tactics, and strategy, there is not much dialogue on it. None of this is to say these details don't exist. GuP is doing a FANTASTIC job of showing, not saying what is going on.

Details of the tanks, different models, their history and characteristics, the creators are aware of them, and they use them to add details to the setting and story, but they are rarely the front and center focus. They are left to the audience to find and discuss.

Those aren't bad things to be, and they're what I'd prefer it be. When the discussion becomes so specific and technical, I have to wonder if there are a group of fans who are feeling left out in the cold. I know I can't be the only one.

I think it's the rarity of what we are given. There are many many character driven shows (cute girls doing cute things, Slice of Life, harem shows (of course whether those are character driven shows could be debated...) ) there are very few shows that feature tanks in as much detail as GuP. The viewers who like cute girls usually have something to talk about each season, the viewers who like cute tanks have had nothing to talk about for a long time.

The thing I enjoy most about Girls und Panzer is that it's a incredibly honest show. There are girls and there are tanks. Probably not an exact 50/50 mix but each one is presented 'as is' with enough detail that both are interesting to me. The premise is silly, and you loose if you take it too seriously, but out of all the shows this season Girls und Panzer is the most entertaining to me.

[Midonin]

Originally Posted by 00Coyote

The problem comes when what one person sees as a show's flaw, another person sees as the show's strength.

From my point of view, Girls und Panzer is not a very technical show. Very little time is spent splurging on technical details of the tanks. For the most part, they are presented 'as is' with just their name and appearance given. In terms of tactics, and strategy, there is not much dialogue on it. None of this is to say these details don't exist. GuP is doing a FANTASTIC job of showing, not saying what is going on.

Details of the tanks, different models, their history and characteristics, the creators are aware of them, and they use them to add details to the setting and story, but they are rarely the front and center focus. They are left to the audience to find and discuss.

But it's also about 90% of the discussion, and I can't participate in it because it's not something I'm interested in. I'm enjoying the show itself well enough (though I do wish certain aspects could be better), but the way the fanbase reacts to any show also forms part of my impressions with it, and it feels like this fanbase and myself are on two completely different planes. I know that my one voice probably won't shift anything, but I do feel I should, at least, speak up on it.

[Duo Maxwell]

Then it's not the show's fault either. I've visited place like 4chan, and their discussion's flow actually different to animesuki due to the people who are talking about it.

Originally Posted by Midonin

Those aren't bad things to be, and they're what I'd prefer it be.

Those aren't bad thing, but it's not like we need another one of them. My point is GuP doesn't try to follow that trend and it actually succeed, which should be encouraged.

[Gravitas Free Zone]

This is a guess, but there was a little art magazine for GuP (which I didn't order in time) that might be the source for that character art.

Comparing Strike Witches to Girls und Panzer:

SW did a reasonable job of making its characters unique, but the series itself didn't have that much of a storyline besides essentially monster/character-of-the-week and the end-of-season arcs. (And then they repeated this in the second season.) Yoshika has the POV character's character arc, Mio has one as a subplot, most of the others have a bit of growth in their own episodes but not much otherwise.

GuP has a season-building storyline. It can be seen as just going from competition to competition, but has also contributed to what character growth there is. The main and immediate secondary casts have been had their unique characteristics showcased, while the larger/newer teams are more known by the overall characteristics of the group itself (freshmen team, hall monitor team, gaming team, mechanics team). Miho has had the majority of the character-building, but there has been enough time to give some of the other main cast reasonable little arcs.

The whole tank-otaku-hogging-thread-thing:

A brief aside regarding SW: The genderflipping of historical figures was cute, but which airplane was which character's striker unit never really became a big thing, probably because these were magical girls using plane parts on their legs to fly, which takes a lot of the real-world discussion out of it. (Though the show did throw us a ton of other bits of historical and tech trivia.)

With GuP, the tanks are about as real as they can be made without fatalities and minor plot conveniences like the Type 89 not exploding whenever anything looks at it cross-eyed. I would imagine that a lot of the gearhead talk results from this being a particular historical review that has not been done before, and one that has a big latent fanbase. That said, the tank tech isn't taken to narrator-sidebar levels the way it was in Upotte!, and much better-integrated directly into the action.

While GuP's storyline resembles Saki in many ways, I would think (I should check, but it's a good assumption) that discussions of Saki episodes didn't end up having wide-ranging debates about mahjong. There probably would have been a lot more discussion of the technical aspects of Strike Witches if they'd been flying their aircraft instead of wearing them.

And... after all that, I don't think I've really tried to rebut any points from anyone. This level of tech geekery is not going to appeal to everyone. My friend who doesn't watch much anime and has a bit of a "It's a gun, it's a tank, it's a plane" standpoint regarding various otaku matters rolls her eyes a bit when I talk about this. Still, I don't think the show would be nearly as fun as it is if it hadn't put the effort that it did into the characters and putting them into a story. I liked Strike Witches, even without the pantsu gimmick, but I really love Girls und Panzer.

[Midonin]

Originally Posted by Endless Knackwurst

SW did a reasonable job of making its characters unique, but the series itself didn't have that much of a storyline besides essentially monster/character-of-the-week and the end-of-season arcs. (And then they repeated this in the second season.) Yoshika has the POV character's character arc, Mio has one as a subplot, most of the others have a bit of growth in their own episodes but not much otherwise.

I've always been the type of person to value character over plot, so that's why the lack of linear narrative never really bothered me here, and why I could also discuss it. The reason why I continue to bring up Upotte!! is that basically the same thing happened as what's happening here - the show itself and the thread became so consumed with discussion on the technical aspects (in that case... guns), that I basically retreated for thinking I wouldn't have anything to contribute, and that the aspect I was trying to watch for might get me the weird looks. I did sort of rejoin later when it focused on aspects that actually related to the more humanoid aspects of the characters (like yuri), but in this show, the characters are defined by their relationships to their vehicles more than each other, which brings me back to where I began.

It just leaves me second guessing myself.

[Gravitas Free Zone]

Originally Posted by Midonin

The reason why I continue to bring up Upotte!! is that basically the same thing happened as what's happening here - the show itself and the thread became so consumed with discussion on the technical aspects (in that case... guns), that I basically retreated for thinking I wouldn't have anything to contribute, and that the aspect I was trying to watch for might get me the weird looks. [...]

It just leaves me second guessing myself.

I do agree with you that the way the discussion about the show has evolved here often goes into pages of technical minutiae that isn't going to appeal to everyone. Over on Reddit the episode threads are much shorter and don't have a lot of content (I think Upotte! actually generated more content on Reddit than GuP, though I think much of that had to do with Sako's tendencies, followed by the ridiculousness of it all). Don't know how GuP is doing on /a/.

Girls und Panzer does have more emphasis on keeping the story moving, and has worked in its character development along the way, so yes, there's less time for characters than if it had been a 24-episode series.

To ask your opinion, then, is there simply not enough character content in GuP to really discuss? I think it would be safe enough to try to talk about that in this thread. Though I have a feeling that there's a lot of unfinished Nishizumi business to get out of the way in the last two episodes, which puts a hitch in things.

(Though the third rail in this thread has been martial arts as sports or life, and I'm not going anywhere near that one.)