Girls und Panzer/YMMV

"Shiho: That's absolute heresy. If you're my daughter, you'll show her the one true way to fight."
 * Abusive Parents: Shiho is never shown to raise a hand against her daughters, but her parenting has left Miho socially isolated and with PTSD from a high-school sport -- over an incident where she should have been able to feel pride for rescuing her teammates from possibly dying. This could be chalked up to disastrously poor communication and misunderstanding, but then she travels to Oarai's semi-final match against Pravda with the sole purpose of watching Miho lose and then disinheriting her.  Oarai wins, setting up the final match against Kuromorimine, but Shiho claims this is due to luck and Pravda letting their guard down.  When Maho defends Miho's methods of adapting and bringing her team together, as opposed to the rigid and ruthless Nishizumi style, Shiho implies that Maho might be the one getting disinherited if Miho wins:


 * Before we even see Shiho, the first episode shows Miho preparing herself for something humiliating as she dresses (perhaps an inspection?), before reminding herself, with sudden delight, that she's not living with her family any longer. What that tells the viewer about Miho's home life....
 * Watching the tankery recruitment video, Miho twitches and then shakes her head violently just as the voice-over says tankery will help a girl grow up to be a better mother. Yet another sign that she could tell some stories about what kind of mother it produces.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Are Erika Itsumi and Shiho Nishizumi really just a pair of nasty pieces of work, or are they actually struggling with the same traumas that Miho does, but without any True Companions to back them up? The light novels and spinoffs indicate that they used to be much friendlier.
 * Awesome Music: Much of the soundtrack is composed of military and national songs, which are all awesome.
 * St. Gloriana: The British Grenadiers
 * Saunders: The US Field Artillery March, ''The Battle Hymn of the Republic
 * Anzio: Fiamme Nere, Funiculì, Funiculà
 * Pravda: Katyusha, Polyushko-polye
 * Kuromorimine: Panzerlied
 * Chihatan: Yuki no Shingun
 * Jatkosota: Säkkijärven Polkka
 * Selection University: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
 * Even earlier, Yukari hummed When Johnny Comes Marching Home while the girls started to make dinner at Miho's apartment.
 * In The Movie, when the other schools band together to help Oarai against the University Combined Team, a stirring medley of all of the school's themes plays.
 * Oarai's theme is not derived from any particular nation, but it's still good. Panzer Vor!
 * Accidental Pun: "Panzer Vor!" becomes Miho's battlecry; "Panzer IV" is the vehicle she commands. (This is only a pun in English; the German word for IV is "vier".)
 * Most Wonderful Sound: The "thwap!" of a surrender flag. (Unless it belongs to a friendly tank, of course.)
 * Subbing Versus Dubbing: The English dub is generally good, but the songs with lyrics did not make the transition well. Katyusha (Ep 8) got completely replaced by an instrumental arrangement of Korobeiniki, and the "Anglerfish Dance" and Yuki no Shingun (Ep 9) were translated and sung in English, which gets a little stilted.
 * On the other side, some of the subtitles get a little odd. In the second OVA ("Survival War!"), "Itadakimasu" is subtitled as "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub!" -- which is a classic "camp grace", but not exactly in-character for the girls.  Later, during the spam sketch, "Urusai!" is translated as "It's annoying!"  This might be the literal meaning, but the colloquial translation ("Shut up!") would fit the Monty Python theme better.
 * Terror Hero/The Dreaded: Miho, sort of, in Chapter 10 of Ribbon Warrior when that series' main characters, Tatenashi School's Centipede Team, are competing in Tankathlon against Oarai's Duck Team ... and then the Centipede girls see Miho, Yukari, and Saori, Sinister Silhouettes with Glowing Eyes of Doom, watching the battle from atop a building.
 * The Woobie: Miho Nishizumi. She appears to have gone through life with zero affection from her family (Maho cares for her, but hides it to keep up the appearance of being the ideal Nishizumi heir for their mother), and when the Student Council tries to bully her into joining Oarai's tankery club, she is surprised that Hana and Saori are willing to stand up for her.  In fact, most friendly and affectionate gestures are unfamiliar or even startling to her.  Her favorite childhood toy is a teddy bear patched up with bandages, which is Woobie-ish enough, but then, in Der Film, we learn that it's not bandaged because of wear and tear.  He came that way, because this bear, Boko, is a popular (in-universe) character whose defining quality is that he gets beaten up, he appeals to the audience for encouragement (which Miho happily provides), he gets up and prepares to fight back against his opponents...and then he gets beaten up again.  Forever.  In the Drama CD, Miho gets to play the Boko character in a stage play...but thankfully, she dodges her opponents' blows (and then helps them up when they've fallen), and afterwards concludes that she'd rather watch Boko than be him.
 * Hana Isuzu as well. When her mother tells her to leave home and not return until she quits tankery, Hana bows and apologizes for intruding.
 * Maho, too. It's revealed in the manga Little Army that she plays the ideal Nishizumi heir so that Miho will "be free" -- which suggests Maho doesn't much like the Nishizumi style either; she's just better able to stomach it. But she'll be a "true Nishizumi" to protect her little sister ... and then she learns Shiho intends to crush Miho's attempt at non-Nishizumi tankery, meaning Maho's sacrifice has been wasted. While Miho found friends and reignited her love of tankery at Oarai, Maho found herself alone in a crowd of subordinates (they couldn't be called teammates) who either idolized her or feared her. Thankfully, her commanders finally see past her tankery style to the lonely girl underneath at the Christmas party.
 * Yukari's got loving, caring parents, but still grew up friendless due to most girls being not as military-oriented as she is. She's so eager, now, to share her fascination with all things military, and so disappointed whenever it turns out that operating panzers doesn't make the others into army Fangirls (though at least she found kindred spirits in Hippo Team, especially Erwin). In the OVA "Survival War!", she even starts crying when the other girls don't want to try setting up military tents or eating MREs — after she'd told them how bad a reputation the MRE has. (Although her tears over the food may have actually been because she was assigned to cut up onions.)
 * Alice Shimada is, like Miho and Maho, the heiress of a very influential and very ambitious tankery school (and as much a fan of Boko as Miho is, though she seems to be on much better terms with her mother). She's younger than Miho (in OVA 8, the 1st-year girls of Rabbit Team talk about how they'll be sempai to Alice if she transfers into Oarai as she's thinking of doing), but is a college student due to her intelligence and tankery prowess, and so is quite isolated.  She didn't have any real friends until meeting Anglerfish Team after their match in Der Film.