Girls und Panzer

""This is Tankery, not war. Your tank will cry if you're a bad person!""

Girls und Panzer is a 2012-13 manga (with several ongoing spin-offs, as well as a Twelve-Episode Anime adaptation plus a movie, light novels, and a video game) about girls who operate tanks as a martial art.

Miho Nishizumi is a high-school student who has just transferred to Oarai Academy. On her first day at school, the student council recreates the tankery club, which has been defunct for several years. While she has tankery experience, and her new friends are interested in joining, she doesn't want any part of it. However, pressure from the student council causes her to reconsider, and with her new friends, she joins the tankery club.

"Hana: I don't want to forget that fierce feeling of numbness..."
 * Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Powerful enough to order tanks and ammunition (and C-5M Super Galaxy cargo jets, in Saunders's case).
 * A Mother to Her Girls: Miho. See My Greatest Failure and My Greatest Second Chance below for shining examples. Her mother disapproves, but the club at Oarai adores her for it.
 * A-Team Firing: All of the Oarai tanks at first (given their relative lack of practice), but Momo never really gets better.
 * Big Damn Heroes: In the match against St. Gloriana, the student council get their tread repaired and manage to get back into the fight just in time to save Team Anglerfish.
 * In The Movie, when packing up their belongings to leave Oarai, the question of what to do with the tanks arises. Cue Saunders and their C-5M Super Galaxy (putting the Big in Big Damn Heroes) -- they pack out the tanks to hold them until the Oarai students get re-settled.
 * Later on in the movie, it's competition day, Miho has her school's 8 tanks and is going out of her mind trying to figure out a strategy to beat a 30-tank elite university team. Just before the match starts, reinforcements roll over the hill -- tanks from every other high school in the country, temporarily transferring to Oarai to make up the numbers.
 * Big Fancy House: The Nishizumi and Isuzu families have them (apparently, tankery and flower arrangement pay really well, at least at the highest levels), but neither Miho nor Hana are entirely welcomed in them.
 * Big "WHAAAAT?!": Commander Kay is (very vocally) shocked to learn from Arisa that her intel on Oarai's movements is bad, and
 * Bling of War: Oarai's tanks' first paint-jobs are rather spectacular. Hot pink, gold, flags...they quickly learn that it's not very practical in their match against St. Gloriana.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Saori is an extremely rapid texter, which she suggests will serve her well in the job of Team Anglerfish's radio operator. Hana doesn't think it'll be that applicable, but it does come in handy when
 * Comically Missing the Point: Commander Nishi of Chihatan sometimes lets her enthusiasm get away from her. When the high schools band together with Oarai, she misunderstands the plan (to bring 22 tanks between the seven schools, to give Oarai 30 tanks to match the University) and brings 22 tanks herself.
 * Companion Cube: "Your tank will cry if you're a bad person," indeed.
 * There's a 4koma in which one of the Wrench Wenches is casual about being comparatively undressed ; after all, she says, there's nobody (no boys, she must mean) around to see her. But she gets embarrassed and covers her low neckline when told "the Leopon [Tiger (P) tank] can see you."
 * Conveniently Empty Building / Hero Insurance: Whole towns are evacuated to allow battles to take place in them, and their residents are amply compensated for the resulting destruction. One man is seen celebrating when a tank completely crushes his storefront.
 * Cool Ship: Each Academy appears to be a converted aircraft carrier. Except that no country ever built an aircraft carrier (or any other ship) as freakin' BIG as these; one of the smaller vessels is over seven kilometers long.
 * Crazy Prepared: OVA 5 reveals this about Yukari ... and she apparently keeps it all in Hammerspace; she doesn't seem to be carrying anything, but then she pulls out an insulating wrap for use in Erwin's boots, as well as a handwarmer from a pocket that seemed totally flat, a (military-issue, of course) folding spade, a thermos full of hot cocoa.... Hana and Saori mention seeing her produce scissors, a sewing kit, and bandages, too.
 * Cute Little Fang: Katyusha. Two, actually, but they usually don't show at the same time, and even when they do, one side or the other will be more prominent.
 * Dark Reprise: "A Tense Situation" is a tense, minor rearrangement of one of Oarai's themes ("Panzer Vor"), and it usually plays when the tide is against Oarai.
 * "Stalemate on the Front" is a more melancholy variant. It plays when Mako learns of her grandmother's sudden illness, for example.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Mikko of Continuation School from Der Film, although she actually Drives Like Crazy Awesome, dodging shots with outrageous skill and.
 * Dull Surprise: Duck Team, with its commander, Noriko, crouched completely outside the turret for some reason, finds Saunders' flag tank, with Arisa standing in the hatch. And they just stare at each other, blank-faced, for more than twenty seconds, before either does anything.
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Shiho Nishizumi isn't really "evil", but she's convinced that Oarai's victories are down to a combination of luck and their opponents' laxity . Maho understands that it's due to Miho's skill, flexibility, and her ability to bring her team together, but Shiho isn't having any of it -- "That's absolute heresy", she says.
 * Evil Laugh: Arisa gives one of these when she thinks she's overheard Oarai's battle plan in detail. It obviously creeps out the other two girls in the tank with her.
 * Flyaway Shot: At the end of Episode 1, revealing the academy ship for the first time.
 * Foo Fu: Rather, "Foo-do". The Japanese (i.e. original) term for tankery, "senshado", means "the way of the tank", analogous to kendo (the way of the sword) or bushido (the way of the warrior).
 * Friendly Enemy/Friendly Rival: Even though schools have their rivalries, most of the teams and commanders are on good terms with each other (and the ones that aren't come around from the power of Defeat Means Friendship). When Oarai is threatened with shutdown in The Movie , everyone else pulls together to help them -- Shiho Nishizumi uses her influence to get Oarai a last-chance match against a university team, and the commanders of all the other high schools join Oarai for the resulting battle and bring enough tanks to make the strengths equal.
 * Genius Bonus: In OVA 5, expanding on a few scenes in Episode 9, Yukari and Erwin march through the snow, singing a cheery song ... about being lost and out of food in a snowy wasteland. While holed up against a brief blizzard, Yukari addresses Erwin as "Captain Kanda," leading to an exchange of comments that seem to have nothing to do with scouting Pravda's positions, and then both start laughing. The song, "Yuki no Shingun" (Snowy March), is about a military training disaster in 1902 in the Hakkoda Mountains . A movie about the same incident included a Captain Kanda, so presumably their odd dialogue was quoted from that movie. This is never spelled out for the viewer. What brought the Hakkoda Death March to the girls' minds (aside from the fact that they're marching in snow)? The Hakkoda Mountains are in Aomori Prefecture -- which is where Pravda High School has its home port, and presumably where the current match takes place.
 * Not precisely Genre Savvy, but when the Automotive Club first has the Porsche Tiger running, Yukari comments admiringly on it. Then she mentions that it has a tendency to get stuck in the mud -- just as it gets stuck in the mud. The engine overheats easily, she says, and the moment after she speaks the words, smoke comes out of the engine vents. And, she adds, it may catch on fire. Guess what happens next?
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Not sure whether it counts more as this or Refuge in Audacity, but the mascot painted on Hippo Team's StuG-III grins over its shoulder as it presents its backside -- with a star-shape for an anus, just to rub it in -- to the viewer. Hippo is mooning anyone who looks at it.
 * Gratuitous English: When a gunner on one of Saunders' tanks realizes (too late), she exclaims, "Jesus!"
 * Also, when the army officer praises Oarai's first practice match, she uses the English phrases "good job!" and "Very nice!"
 * Gratuitous German: The production company itself is called "Girls und Panzer Projekt", and the commands "Panzer Vor!" and "Panzer Halt!"
 * The Movie is entitled Girls und Panzer: Der Film.
 * Ludicrously, the first time "Panzer Vor!" is spoken, Saori mistakes it for a remark about "Pantsu".
 * Gratuitous Japanese: Of course most of the dialogue is Japanese, which is not gratuitous, but the girls of Chihatan (themed after the Imperial Japanese Army) use Japanese commands to advance and halt, rather than German phrases as the others do. In fact, the commander doesn't recognize their meaning during a friendly match with Oarai against St. Gloriana and Pravda, and has to have them explained to her.
 * Gratuitous Latin: Takako Suzuki, one of the history-buff girls of Team Hippo, uses Latin phrases. She has the fitting nickname of "Caesar".
 * Gratuitous Russian: Clara (of Pravda) converses almost exclusively in Russian, much to Katyusha's irritation. The subtitles get pretty intense: her lines (and Nonna's, when she replies in Russian) are given in Cyrillic, romanized Cyrillic, and English.
 * Katyusha knows some Russian, and occasionally even uses it in circumstances where one would think she'd instead default to her native tongue; at one point she hastily says "Nyet!" when a subordinate suggests taking an inappropriate risk.
 * Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?: Saori claims at one point to have a boyfriend in every port their ship regularly visits. Hana snarks that if by "boyfriend" she means "a place where you've eaten curry".... Later, too, Saori tells the first-year girls of Rabbit Team that they can consult with her about matters of "love" -- but when they ask how many boyfriends she's had, she goes into the Corner of Woe.
 * Heir to the Dojo: Miho and Hana are heirs to family schools of tankery and flower arrangement, respectively. Neither of their mothers are entirely satisfied with them; see Inadequate Inheritor.
 * Hidden Heart of Gold: Maho has a severe, stoic demeanor, but she cares about Miho and her team in her own way. When she heard that Mako's grandmother was hospitalized on the mainland, she immediately offered the use of her school's helicopter.
 * Shiho Nishizumi shows a bit of one during The Movie. When the minister dismisses Oarai's victory in the tournament as luck, she slams her cup on the table and retorts that "There is no luck in tankery!"  She also presumably gave permission to Maho and some of her squads to join Oarai for the subsequent battle.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: Subverted by Anteater Team, online gamers who find out their real tank's gears are harder to shift correctly than they expected from game experience. Played straight by Yukari in the first practice battle in Episode 3. She fires just three times, each shot knocking out a vehicle. How did she get to be so good a gunner? Episode 2 showed her taking the other girls to a "tank accessory" store, where she spent some time playing a tank battle Arcade Game. She's likely done that a lot, and aiming has less to do with physical strength....
 * Inadequate Inheritor: Hana's mother is distraught that her daughter is involved with tankery (which she views as the antithesis of the delicacy and femininity that Isuzu flower arrangement should embody), to the point of telling her to not come home until she quits.
 * Miho herself is viewed as the inadequate inheritor to her family's tankery legacy. Her mother is threatening to completely disown her because she's not ruthless enough. Mom describes Miho's way of adapting tactics to circumstances and fostering Team Spirit as "heresy" that must be broken.
 * In Medias Res: The first episode begins with the opening stages of the match against St. Gloriana. Then, after a scene that looks as if Miho is about to get hit by a shell, the story cuts back to her first day of school at Oarai. The St. Gloriana match isn't seen in full until episode 4.
 * Instant Win Condition: In the tournament, the goal is to immobilize the enemy's flag tank. This allows Oarai to defeat their numerically-superior opponents.
 * Lampshade Hanging: After the tankery club is announced, one of the girls in the background says "I wonder if any boys drive tanks? It's just so weird to think about, when only girls do it!"
 * Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: During the final minutes of the match against Saunders, Kay discards her army's numerical advantage by sending five of her tanks away from the final showdown. This is to make up for Arisa, which is a legitimate strategy in war, but as she says after the match, "This is tankery, not war!"
 * Locked Out of the Fight: In the final battle, the
 * Luminescent Blush: Hana gets one whenever she thinks about a tank firing. As she says when she asks to be the gunner:


 * Meaningful Name: Hana means "flower"; probably deliberately chosen by her mother, as the Isuzu family is known for their school of flower arrangements.
 * Erika, the second-in-command of Kuromorimine, shares her name with the titular flower of Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein, as well as the woman who is described in the song (the singer's fiancee, whom he is reminded of when he sees said flower).
 * Commander Katyusha of Pravda shares her name with a Russian wartime song, as well as the iconic WWII Soviet rocket artillery (named after the song). Episode 8 has Pravda sing this song as their tanks head for battle.
 * In a backwards way: the Hall Monitors or Public Morals Committee (depending on translator) have nicknames that invoke two cities that became notorious for immoral behavior. The two who speak most often are Sodoko and Gomoyo; the third, Pazomi, is named for a filmmaker whose very Squicky final movie's title referred to the cities. This is portrayed as being a coincidence, because their nicknames are formed by dropping some of the syllables out of their actual names. (Sodoko especially doesn't like being called by the nickname.)
 * Miko: In the manga, the "recruiting film" shows tank operators dressed as miko, rather than like soldiers as the anime does.
 * Military Salute: Of course, military buff Yukari will do this. But she does it, too, in situations where real soldiers wouldn't consider it required or appropriate.
 * Mundane Utility: Team Anglerfish uses their tank as an alarm clock (sometimes it takes a 75mm blank round to get Mako out of bed) and also to go shopping for supplies on occasion.
 * My Greatest Failure: Miho has an odd one. During her last mission at Kuromorimine (before joining Oarai), one of the tanks under her command slipped into a river and sank.  Miho jumped out of her tank to save the crew.  She succeeded, but without her leadership during that critical moment, her team lost the mission and broke their winning streak.  Most people (including Miho's friends at Oarai, when they hear the story) would call that a fair trade, but to the ruthless Nishizumi philosophy, it's a failure, and the pressure caused her to leave tankery for a while.
 * My Greatest Second Chance: During the tournament final (against Kuromorimine, commanded by Miho's big sister Maho), it happens again. Oarai is crossing a river with Kuromorimine in hot pursuit, and Rabbit Team's tank stalls.  Does Miho rescue them and allow her force to be caught, or abandon Rabbit to let the rest of Oarai get away?
 * My Little Panzer: Forget lawn darts and BB guns, these girls fight tank battles as a sport. Live ammo, no seatbelts or helmets, and inexplicably, no serious injuries.  (Though at least one Kuromorimine tank crew would have drowned if not for Miho's intervention -- and they kicked her out for it!)
 * National Stereotypes: All the characters are actually Japanese, but most of the schools have "national" themes and their students tend to play into stereotypes of those nations.
 * Eagle Land / Yanks With Tanks: Saunders has more tanks than most schools, and Commander Kay fits the Phenotype Stereotype: blonde, blue-eyed, tall and well-endowed. She's also the friendliest and most boisterous of the commanders.
 * St. Gloriana's leader, Commander Darjeeling, enjoys a Spot of Tea and bears a Stiff Upper Lip as every good English Rose should.
 * Germanic Depressives: Kuromorimine (which translates as "Black Forest Peak") uses the Iron Cross as school insignia. It's the school that Miho left because she couldn't stand their "Win at all costs" philosophy -- when she saved the lives of one of their tank crews, they turned on her because she lost the match in doing so. Erika is particularly dismissive of Oarai's efforts and ability. When she sees the action in Miho's Greatest Second Chance above, she comments with disgust that Miho is "as soft as ever."
 * That Russian Squat Dance: Some of the girls from Pravda do it. Pravda also goes into battle singing in Russian.
 * No Endor Holocaust: When one of Oarai's tanks ends up getting thoroughly trashed, there's always a shot of the girls inside or a radio conversation to confirm that everyone's okay.
 * Although Duck Team was once shown fighting a fiercely burning fire in their ammunition storage as they said they were fine.
 * Not a Morning Person: Mako. Five alarm clocks, a friend trying to pull the blanket away, and a bugle call from just outside her window couldn't get her eyes open. Even after the 75mm cannon fired a blank round, also just outside, she remained pretty sluggish. She says it's due to low blood pressure.
 * Opaque Nerd Glasses: Nekota (In Universe Nickname Nekonyaa). Without them, as the opening credits and a very few other shots show, she looks like a Leiji Matsumoto leading lady. She also wears a Cat Eared Headband, presumably to play up her name.
 * Parting Words Regret: Mako and her mother had a big fight as their final conversation before Mako's parents died in an accident. After she learns this, Miho starts to think about the last conversation she had with her family...
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Oarai's tanks have some of this vibe about them. The best were all sold off when the school gave up tankery, so what's available are the odds and ends too "worthless" to sell, and there's no national theme as with the other schools shown. Wait, a StuG III and Panzer IV were "worthless"?
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: The student council threatened Miho with having to publicly do the embarrassing "Anglerfish dance" if she, the council president said it was a collective responsibility -- so the student council danced, too.
 * Regional Riff: In the anime, most of the schools get musical themes associated with their tanks' countries of origin. St. Gloriana gets The British Grenadiers, Saunders gets The Battle Hymn of The Republic and The U.S. Artillery March, and Pravda gets Polyushko-polye and Katyusha, complete with vocals (replaced by Korobeiniki, better known in the West as the Tetris theme, in the English dub). Bits of Tchaikovsky also play during some of Pravda's non-battle scenes -- when Katyusha first comes to meet Oarai, there's a snippet of "The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy." Kuromorimine gets Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein and Panzerlied.  The Movie adds the Finnish-themed Continuation High School with Säkkijärven polkka, Italian-themed Anzio High School with Funiculì, Funiculà and Fiamme Nere, and Japanese-themed Chihatan Academy with Yuki no Shingun.
 * Serious Business: Tankery. Serious enough that   In The Movie, it is revealed that promoting tankery is a matter of Japanese national policy.
 * In the Isuzu family, flower arrangement -- to the point that Hana's mother all but disowns her over joining tankery, because she thinks it conflicts with the delicacy that the Isuzu style should embody.
 * Shout Out:
 * When Yukari asks a question at Saunders's pre-match meeting (having snuck in to gather some intelligence), she gives her name as "Sergeant Oddball" when challenged. It doesn't fool anyone, but Kay takes it in good humor.
 * In one of the OVAs, the girls are having a picnic of rations. A comparison to "luncheon meat" is made, and a recreation of Monty Python's "Spam" sketch ensues.
 * Surrounded, in wintry weather, and offered a chance to surrender, Momo exclaims "Nuts!" -- in English, like General McAuliffe at Bastogne.
 * It's brief and unobtrusive, but a poster on a street corner at Oarai reads "Market Garden." This could be an ad for an actual market garden ... if it weren't that the poster's picture is of a man brandishing a rifle, with the bridge at Arnhem in the background.
 * Tank Goodness: But of course.
 * Technician Versus Performer: Miho used to be a tankery technician (like her family) and came to hate it. The breaking point was when she abandoned her command tank to rescue the crew of a tank sinking in water; she rescued the crew, but was blamed for the loss of the match and breaking her team's winning streak.  Joining the new club at Oarai showed her the performance side of the sport, which let her get back into it.
 * Oarai as a whole is an academy of quirky, plucky performers up against technically superior opponents.
 * Tempting Fate: Darjeeling boasts that whatever happens in St Gloriana's match with Oarai, she won't spill any of her tea. Miho's tactical improvisation makes a liar of her -- in her Oh Crap moment, she actually drops and breaks her teacup.
 * Theme and Variations Soundtrack: Oarai's main theme ("Panzer Vor!") has a melancholy variant ("Stalemate on the Front"), a tense/minor variant ("A Tense Situation"), a peppy/quirky mix ("Cute Decoration of the Tanks"), a march ("Advance Oarai Academy"), calm/emotional variants ("I've made my decision" and "You're all my friends")...
 * Theme Naming: Commander Darjeeling, Assam, and Orange Pekoe of St. Gloriana are all named after teas. Their school's insignia, after all, is a teapot and cup.
 * The Italian-themed Anzio High School has Commander Chiyomi "Anchovy" Anzai, Carpaccio (named for a pasta dish), and Pepperoni. (The school insignia is a pizza.)
 * The girls of the Automotive Club / Leopon Team are named after Japanese race-car drivers.
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: During a conversation with the minister of education in The Movie, Shiho Nishizumi says that Kuromorimine is intending to fight Oarai again (and defeat them) -- and she's not about to let some bureaucrat take that chance away.
 * This Trope Is Bleep: During the "Spam" song in the OVAs, the word "Spam" itself is partly censored (i.e. "*pam"), presumably to avoid any trademark trouble.
 * True Companions: Team Anglerfish. Miho is quickly befriended by Saori and Hana on her first day, and when the student council threatens to expel her for not joining the tankery club, they're willing to get expelled with her -- even though they'd been enthusiastic about taking tankery.  This is part of what causes her to change her mind.
 * When Miho is threatened with having to do the "sea devil dance" ("Anglerfish dance" in the anime) if, her friends quickly reassure her that they'll dance with her in that case. In fact, when the time comes, the entire club dances!
 * Universal Driver's License: Averted -- Mako has a tank operator's license, but not a driver's license.
 * "Well Done, Little Sister / Daughter" Girl: Two of the five main characters.
 * Miho feels tremendous pressure from her mother and older sister to live up to the Nishizumi school of tankery. In fact, she initially transferred to Oarai Academy because they didn't have a tankery club, even though this required her to live alone. Impressing her family becomes part of her motivation in the tournament.  In the end, they acknowledge her strength.
 * Hana took up tankery because she wished to become a stronger woman. Unfortunately, it didn't work; her mother thought delicacy was a more valuable trait.  Her tank-inspired flower arrangement turned things around.
 * Wrench Wench: The Automotive Club/Leopon Team, of course. But shots of the tank crews doing repair work on their vehicles suggest they're all developing at least a bit of this capability.
 * You Fool!: Kay is quite vocal about her displeasure with Arisa when she hears that.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Leopon. Tunnel (see Locked Out of the Fight above). When Erika angrily orders her people to drag the disabled Leopon out of the way, its crew laugh and say, "Take your time!"