Girls und Panzer
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| Girls und Panzer | ||
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| Anime Series | ||
| First Publication | 2012 | |
Girls und Panzer is a 2012 anime released by ACTAS studios. Featuring the typical same-faced moe school girls and high-school setting, it might be mistakable for any other anime were it not for the addition of MOTHERFUCKING TANKS. Due to the inclusion of said tanks this show has reached a unprecedented cult-fan following. See /ak/ for more details.
It's not about anime-crazy tanks either: each of the featured vehicles is a CGI/cellshade rendering of a WWII-era war machine. Though it's debatable as to its level of accuracy to the real vehicles, the performance of each vehicle is generally close enough to real that the show is essentially normal-ville with steel treads and high-caliber guns.
The anime features 12 episodes and an OVA, with a further 6 OVA's of dubious value and a charming sub-series called Yukari's Tank Corner. In the summer of 2015 a sequel movie (with accompanying OVA) was released, and plans are in the works for a six-episode theatrical release of a second season. The series has additional manga accompaniment ranging from honest supplement materiel to barely concealed yuri-fests.
It also doesn't hurt the popularity of the series that in Asia, it has blended together with World of Tanks. There are official model products with GuP characters depicted on the box art, with decals from the show, as well as various ingame GuP-related DLC items.
The World of Girls und Panzer
GuP's alternate timeline is very similar to our own, with a few major exceptions; firstly, simulated tank combat is an extremely popular sport for girls of all ages, and second that most major high schools are built on to gigantic travelling city- ships. The justification for the first conceit is that, in the post-Versailles years of the 1920s, the German government reframed tank training as an educational activity for young women to throw international observers off the trail of their growing rearmaments program. The idea stuck, apparently persisted well though World War 2, which happened as it did in our world, and the sport of Sensha-dou (a somewhat untranslatable pun -- it literally means "the way of the tank", analogous to e.g. kendo/"the way of the sword" -- officially translated as "tankery", also called "Panzerkraft" in some fan translations) is common to this day. Sensha-dou is seen as a valuable sport teaching teamwork, honour, tactical and mechanical skills, and gentlewomanly professionalism. In practice, what this means is that grade schoolers get to drive tankettes around and by the time they've hit university they're piloting 1950s-era heavy tanks like sportscars. Nice. (Also, while everyone talks about sensha-dou teaching valuable character traits to young women, it's still a high-stakes high school sport, with all of the attendant pressures from overbearing parents, government interference, and high-school drama.)
The second conceit, that all schools are built on city-sized aircraft carriers (large enough to have their own geography) is a little bit less well-explained. Apparently these ships are crewed primarily by students, with different students assigned to roles like engine maintenance, navigation, hydroponics, etc. Each school is functionally self-sufficient, though most have a home city where they have frequently dock, and they make regular trips around their home regions.
The Rules of Sensha-dou
As a (technical) martial art, Sensha-dou has a slate of wonderfully nonsensical rules that would make any cold-hearted neckbeard weep tears of weebish joy. It boils down to something like this;
- All vehicles used shall be designs produced before the end of World War 2 (apparently more senior leagues like to push this)
- There are no restrictions on the weight class and armaments of tanks; in theory one team could field a team composed entirely of heavy tanks against a team composed entirely of scout vehicles.
- All vehicles used shall be closed-topped, and IFVs and support weapons are disallowed (no artillery platforms, though again, cheating is not unknown)
- All vehicles shall be equipped with reinforced carbon fibre armour, capable of protecting the crew from massive shocks and the impacts of enemy guns
- All guns shall be equipped with computerized shells that allow for hit detection and that somehow fail to injure crew- machine guns can be fitted with bullet versions of these
- All vehicles are equipped with a computerized scoring system which determines when the vehicle has recieved enough damage to be knocked out. "Enough Damage", of course, varies as plot and dramatic requirements demand.
- There are two match types: last tank standing, which is self-explanatory, and capture the flag, which involves destroying a selected 'flag' tank on each team.
- Teams are normally 10 tanks each, though matches later in tournaments allow for 15 to 20 tanks as well
- Teams aren't allowed to call on outside observers or intercept each others radio transmissions, though this rule is often circumvented. (though in episode 5 yukarin states intercepting radio transmissions is not explicitly against the rules, so there seems to be a grey area here.)
Girls und Panzer and /tg/
There are two official Japanese /tg/ games: one is a paper-model game called Battle in Oarai, which features the main characters vs. St. Gloriana. The other is Panzer Vor, a more detailed chit-based game much like Advanced Squad Leader except with action-cards and moe-schoolgirls.
There is a Lafayette Academy quest thread, starring Gertrude Pool.
Lastly, and most humbly, there is the Flames of War adaptation being worked on by a certain jackass that fell in love with the series. It features the ability to play more balanced games with alternate tank numbers as to what is seen in the show, and tries to be as true to the series as possible without just plain breaking the rules. It is badly in need of a second edition.
In other words...
Bitches with BANEBLADES. Even Creed would be amused.