Girls und Panzer/Characters

Oarai Girls High School


Oarai Girls High School used to have a tankery program, but hadn't for many years prior to the start of the story. For some reason, though, starting the club back up again has become priority one for the Student Council, and they are awfully insistent that they win the very next high school tournament...


 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Not only are their team members drawn from whatever clubs the Student Council could convince to join, but the tanks themselves come from many countries (being the leftovers from the previous iteration of the club, plus whatever the Student Council could scare up to buy on short notice and low cost).
 * Technician Versus Performer: Oarai is a school of quirky, plucky performers up against technically superior opponents.
 * Technician Versus Performer: Oarai is a school of quirky, plucky performers up against technically superior opponents.

Anglerfish Team


The main characters of Girls und Panzer. They operate a Panzer IV.


 * True Companions: From the first day of school, they stuck together when the Student Council threatened to expel them all to strong-arm Miho into joining the tankery club. In the opening of their final match, even Mako joins the Team Handstack.

Miho Nishizumi


The commander of Anglerfish Team and Oarai in general, and an heiress of the Nishizumi school of tankery.


 * A Mother to Her Girls: To the point of leaping into the water to rescue her teammates from a sinking tank. Her mother disapproves, but her teammates (at Oarai, at least) adore her for it and respond accordingly.
 * Black Sheep: If Miho hadn't left home herself, she probably would have been kicked out before too long.
 * Combat Clairvoyance/Danger Sense: In the match against Saunders, when the Firefly comes after the Panzer IV, Miho is looking forward, watching Alisa's Sherman. She abruptly twitches and turns to look behind her, then shouts to Mako, "Hard stop!" just in time so Naomi's shot misses.
 * Cute Clumsy Girl: After the In Medias Res opening, Miho is first seen falling out of bed as her alarm clock goes off. On the way to school, a distraction causes her to walk straight into a lamppost. During lunch with Hana and Saori, she pirouettes in delight at having made friends, but loses her balance and nearly falls because pirouetting while holding a full lunch tray isn't a good idea. That's all just in the first episode. She never seems to be clumsy in combat, though.
 * Hazel Eyes: Miho was a talented commander under the Nishizumi school, but only developed her full potential when she got out of her mother's and big sister's shadows and found her own tankery style at Oarai. It's also a contrast with the grey-eyed Maho and Shiho.
 * You Gotta Have Chestnut Hair: Her hair is a perfectly ordinary color for humans (as is everyone's in the series), but a striking contrast to her darker-haired family.
 * Heroic Self-Deprecation: Miho seems to have boundless confidence in everyone in the world (see Magnetic Hero below) except herself. (Luckily, she's got her friends who believe in her just as much.)
 * Hidden Buxom: Look at Miho in her everyday school uniform. Now look at her when doing the Anglerfish dance. Either that costume is padded, or she must usually wear a special bra to hide those.
 * Inadequate Inheritor: Shiho Nishizumi does not appreciate Miho's deviation from her standards, and attends the semi-final against Pravda for the sole purpose of watching Miho lose and disowning her. When Miho wins, she only treats it as a matter of luck and prepares to do the same for the final against Kuromorimine.
 * Love You and Everybody: She says she "love[s] each and every one" of her teammates (which Yukari and Saori misunderstand as a romantic confession -- Yukari with glee, Saori with some nervousness).
 * Magnetic Hero: Miho wins over just about everyone she crosses paths with. Darjeeling comments on it (after Miho gets pre-final greetings from Kay and Katyusha), and Miho says "That's because everyone is just so wonderful!"  (Which says as much about her as it does about the people she befriends.)
 * Mirthless Laughter: When she doesn't know how to deal with a situation, she'll often give a barely-audible nervous giggle.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: It wasn't actual war, but Miho still has nightmares and flashbacks about tankery at Kuromorimine. When she's first ordered to take up tankery again at Oarai, she suffers a massive BSOD.
 * Technician Versus Performer: Miho is technically talented, but she was driven away from tankery by Kuromorimine's and her mother's focus on victory at any cost. In fact, when she saw the Bling of War paint jobs that the other Oarai girls had given their tanks before the friendly match with St. Gloriana, she laughed and said it was the first time she realized that tankery could be fun.  Out of her mother's shadow, she finally got to shine as a tankery performer, devising unconventional strategies that flummoxed by-the-book opponents.
 * During Der Film, Miho initially tries to lead her army conventionally and is outdone. It's Maho (a complete technician herself) who points out that she isn't playing to her strengths -- that she needs to relax and fight the battle in her own style.
 * The Unfavorite: Shiho evidently didn't care when Miho left tankery and went to Oarai. When Miho gets back into tankery, but dares to use her own style, Shiho treats it as an insult worthy of expulsion from the family.

Yukari Akiyama


Anglerfish Team's loader, and Oarai's number-one tankery fan.


 * Crazy Prepared: With Hammerspace! Where'd that thermos full of hot cocoa come from? And the folding spade? The lantern? How did she anticipate one of her comrades would need an insulating wrap for inside her boots? Her pockets are flat and she has no backpack, but out come the handwarmer, scissors, sewing kit, bandages, batarang ... OK, no batarang so far....
 * Friendless Background: For years (before the reinstatement of the tankery club), nobody else at Oarai loved tanks the way she does. Anglerfish Team were her first real friends in a long time.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: In their first drive-and-shoot practice, Yukari was the gunner. Three shots fired equals three panzers disabled. She'd never before fired a real tank's gun, but apparently honed her skills playing Arcade Games. Considering that score, it's actually a bit astonishing they let Hana take over the position when they didn't yet know how good a shot she'd be ... but then they weren't taking tankery very seriously at that point.
 * Japanese Honorifics: Refers to all the other Anglerfish members with the highly formal "-dono." (In the English dub of the anime, this is represented by e.g. addressing Miho as "Miss Nishizumi".)
 * Military Salute: Sometimes very out-of-place. For example, she salutes in the group bath when Mako agrees to be their driver.
 * Single-Target Sexuality: When Miho says that she "loves" her teammates, Yukari cheers, "Miss Nishizumi confessed her love for me!"
 * The OVA Beach Episode "Water War!" reveals she's studied Miho closely enough to estimate her three sizes (for the record, 82-56-84) and (Crazy Prepared, again) buy her a bikini when Miho got sidetracked and didn't buy a swimsuit herself. It fits perfectly. Maybe she could do the same for the other girls, but there's no sign of it.

Hana Isuzu


Anglerfish Team's gunner, and heiress of the Isuzu school of flower arrangement. She and Saori sought out Miho together and became her first friends at Oarai.


 * Covert Pervert: While woozy during the first tankery practice, she blushes and mumbles that the cannon firing "feels good". She also smiles and blushes when Miho gets glomped by Kay after the match against Saunders (while Miho, Yukari, and Saori react with shock).
 * Floral Theme Naming: Hana means "flower".
 * Friendly Sniper: She's not the outgoing sort of friendly, but she is warm and kind to everyone. She's also a crack shot with a 75mm cannon.
 * Inadequate Inheritor: Hana's mother is not at all happy that her daughter is pursuing tankery, when Isuzu style flower arrangement should embody delicacy.
 * Silk Hiding Steel: As a Yamato Nadeshiko, Hana is exquisitely silky, but she's also much steelier than her mother Yuri would prefer (in fact, Yuri was quite distressed to smell "oil and iron" on Hana's hands). Several times, she's been the one to encourage Miho to move forward in spite of her doubts.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: She hits all the points from our world, plus tankery (tankery is viewed as a quintessentially feminine pursuit in their world, much as the naginata was in "our" Japan).
 * Interestingly, she averts Feminine Women Can Cook, slicing open her finger the moment she takes up a knife to peel potatoes. She says something about only being used to cutting flowers.

Mako Reizei


Anglerfish Team's driver, and the number-one student at Oarai...if not for her demerits for tardiness. She's a childhood friend of Saori.

""Ghosts are worse than waking up early.""
 * Because You Were Nice to Me: Miho first met Mako staggering sleepily toward school, and rushed to help her. When Mako agrees to join what becomes Anglerfish team, she states that owing something to Miho is part of her reason.
 * Brilliant but Sleepy: As stated above, she's got the school's best grades and worst demerit list. She learns to operate any tank like a veteran by glancing through the manual for less than a minute.
 * Emotionless Girl: Though she's not suppressing or lacking emotions so much as she's too low-energy to express them noticeably.
 * Even Bad Girls Love Their Grandmas: Mako's hardly an awful person, but she doesn't care deeply about much (at least in the early parts of the series). Her grandmother is the major exception -- Mako joins tankery (and its 5 AM wakeup calls) to make her proud, and is prepared to strip out of her uniform and swim to the hospital when she learns that her grandmother has fallen and was injured.
 * Falling Into the Cockpit: Anglerfish Team came upon her, asleep, in the practice field on the first day of the tankery club. She needed to join a club to get her demerits reduced, and they needed another team member.  She turned out to be an ace driver.
 * Meaningful Name: "Reizei" sounds quite a bit like the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "Lazy."
 * Not a Morning Person: Sometimes it takes a 75mm blank round to get her out of bed. She barely rescues herself from a Face Fault when told she needs to wake up at five the next morning (after she'd expressed disbelief at the idea of waking at six).
 * Why Did It Have to Be Ghosts?: Episode 7, exploring the darker, spookier corners of the school ship in search of more tanks, reveals that she's particularly afraid of the possibility of ghosts, more so than any of the other girls.

Saori Takebe


Anglerfish Team's radio operator and social butterfly. She and Hana sought out Miho together and became her first friends at Oarai.


 * Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?: She talks a big game about having lots of boyfriends or romantic experience and wisdom, but has little success to show for it...
 * Meganekko: She wears contact lenses most of the time, but once it comes time to cook at Miho's place, she's seen putting them away and a moment later she has glasses on.
 * Team Chef: When they first go to Miho's apartment for dinner, Saori notes that "Everyone's surprisingly useless" at cooking. Then she takes charge, and the results are delicious.

St. Gloriana Girls Academy


A British-style school, and the first opponents that Oarai faces (in a friendly match, rather than a tournament).


 * National Stereotypes: They have the British ones, including:
 * Spot of Tea: St. Gloriana's students (that we meet) are all named after teas, and enjoy drinking them, even in battle. They also present various teas as gifts to Worthy Opponents.
 * In fact, Darjeeling arranged a meeting to talk with Katyusha prior to the semi-finals because she likes their tea. (She told them some information on Oarai and Miho, but the only reason that it was any news to Katyusha is that she hadn't been paying attention when Nonna told her about it earlier.)

Darjeeling


St. Gloriana's commander. She commands a Churchill tank.

"In a sandwich, the cucumber between the bread is why people eat them. Being "sandwiched" is what brings out the flavor, you see?"
 * Cordon Bleugh Chef/Lethal Chef: According to Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu!, at any rate.
 * English Rose/Phenotype Stereotype: Despite being Japanese. Blonde, blue-eyed, and quietly elegant.
 * Ice Cream Koan: OK, now just what do some of her "sayings" mean? Here's what she says when Oarai is chasing Saunders' flag tank while being chased by four more Saunders tanks, including the Firefly with its longer-range gun:


 * Stiff Upper Lip: She displays a calm confidence under all circumstances (except when Oarai successfully counter-attacks during their friendly match), even when things seem dire. She recovers quickly after that shocking counter-attack, too.
 * Worthy Opponent: She feels this way about Miho and Oarai, and sends a gift of some teas to Miho after their battle (even though Oarai lost). She also attends every one of Oarai's matches in the tournament to support them.

Saunders University High School


An American-style school, and Oarai's first-round opponent in the tournament.


 * National Stereotypes: They have the American ones, including:
 * Yanks With Tanks: They sure love them some Shermans, and lots of them.

Kay


The commander of Saunders's tankery team.


 * Friendly Enemy: She treats tankery as a sport, rather than Serious Business. She plays to win, but rebukes Alisa's unsportsmanlike behavior, even when it was to her team's advantage.
 * Graceful Loser: After losing the match, she happily Glomps Miho and shakes her hand for a game well-played.
 * Phenotype Stereotype: She's tall, busty, blue-eyed, and blonde-haired.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Kay/Kei
 * Worthy Opponent: She feels this way about Miho and Oarai, and holds no hard feelings over Yukari's pre-match spying (since it's all part of the game to her ). Also, she thought the "Sergeant Oddball" line was hilarious.
 * During Oarai's match against Kuromorimine, she explains to Alisa with obvious approval how Miho's quick-thinking improvisations so readily upset Kuromorimine's rigid tactics.
 * Your Size May Vary: Her height is officially given as 158 cm (5'2"), the same as Miho's (and the average height of a Japanese woman). Sometimes she looks it, such as when she glomps Miho, but other times looks much taller, such as when she greets Miho before the final match against Kuromorimine.

Alisa


A vice-commander of Saunders's tankery team. She is willing to use any tactic not specifically forbidden in the rules of tankery, if it will give her team an edge.


 * Bad Boss: At best, she gloats about victory as if her crew wasn't there, and when the tide of the match turns against her, she starts shouting at them to hurry, and doesn't take it well when they ask her to keep a lid on her Villainous Breakdown.
 * Evil Gloating/Evil Laugh: She indulges a little during the match against Oarai.
 * Sore Loser: Averted, surprisingly enough. She's genuinely ashamed for disappointing Kay with her tactics, and supportive of Oarai during Der Film.
 * Also, when Kay arrives to cheer for Oarai at the match with Kuromorimine, Alisa is riding in the jeep and shows a friendly smile.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Alisa/Arisa
 * Villainous Breakdown: She falls pretty hard after  She cries, whimpers about the reliability of the Sherman, and rants about . She even pokes her head out of her hatch and shouts at her pursuers, not that they can hear her. She throws in a few remarks, too, about how the boy she likes doesn't seem to notice her feelings.

Naomi


A vice-commander of Saunders's tankery team. She is the team's best gunner, and commands a Sherman Firefly.


 * Cold Sniper/Friendly Sniper: During the match, she takes out three tanks in three shots, and shows two facial expressions: "serious" and "smirk". However, according to Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu! she is quite friendly in normal life.
 * Darjeeling actually addresses her as "Ms. 17-pounder" (the gun used on the Firefly) during a joint operation.
 * Oral Fixation Fixation: Bubble gum.

Pravda High School


A Russian-themed school, and Oarai's semifinal opponent in the tournament.


 * National Stereotypes: They have the Russian ones, including:
 * That Russian Squat Dance: Some of the Pravda girls are seen doing it around a campfire.
 * Reds with Rockets: Lots of T-34s to be found in their ranks, and their commander shares her name with the iconic Soviet rocket artillery. (They also have a Katyusha vehicle, but it's not used in battle.)

Katyusha


Pravda's commander.


 * Cute Little Fang(s): She has two, but usually only one shows at a time (and if both are showing, one will be more prominent than the other).
 * Napoleon Complex: Katyusha likes to ride the shoulders of her very tall subordinate Nonna, so she can literally look down on people.
 * Nice Hat: Her Soviet tanker's helmet.
 * Older Than She Looks: She looks as if she's maybe 12 years old (acting that way a lot, too). There's no reference anywhere, though, to being unusually young for a high-school student, so she's at least 16 (she may even be 18) ... but very, very petite (127 cm). And as said above, she has a complex about it.
 * Third Person Person: Especially when she's being snotty; she even added "-sama" to her name at least once. Although she also used third person one time during her acceptance of defeat, telling Miho she'd come to watch Oarai's final match of the tournament: "Don't disappoint Katyusha."

Nonna


Pravda's second-in-command. She usually commands a T-34, the most common of Pravda's tanks, but she also serves as a gunner for the IS-2 heavy tank.


 * Friendly Sniper: For a quiet, reserved value of friendliness.
 * Huge Schoolgirl: It's not noticeable when she's in a tank, but she stands a good five inches taller than the average Japanese woman (e.g. Miho, at 158 cm / 5'2").
 * Servile Snarker: Lets Katyusha ride her shoulders, serves tea and cakes, sings her commander to sleep, and ZINGS Katyusha verbally from time to time.
 * The Stoic: If her face isn't expressionless, the expression is a small, quiet smile. Never anger or worry.
 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: The tallest girl seen in the series, at 172 cm (5'7"). Very dark brown hair with blue eyes, beautiful and shapely, elegant and never seen losing her calm.

Kuromorimine Girls High School


A German-themed school, which is strongly influenced by the Nishizumi style of tankery. Miho used to be the Vice-Commander of Kuromorimine's team, under her big sister Maho, but during the final match of the 63rd Tournament (against Pravda), in which Miho was commanding the flag tank, another Kuromorimine tank (commanded by Erika Itsumi) slipped into a river. The crew would likely have drowned, but Miho jumped out of her tank and into the river and rescued them. However, Pravda took advantage of her absence, took out the flag tank, and won the match. Her family and school turned against her, and she left Kuromorimine for Oarai and left tankery entirely.


 * National Stereotypes: They have the German ones, including:
 * Germanic Depressives: They would have preferred Miho let her teammates -- their classmates -- drown rather than lose a match.
 * In spinoff manga Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu!, Maho declares a Christmas party for several of the tank commanders. Mistaking this for a meeting to chew them out, they arrive with dread; one girl even breaks down crying for her mother. Part of the problem is that Maho isn't all that great at communicating her intentions. Also, the presents she gives several of them are hilariously not what they would've liked, and it seems this, too, is unintentional.
 * Germanic Efficiency: At least some students and staff (such as Erika and Shiho) feel that friendships and the like are wasteful in tankery. (Maho disagrees.)
 * Opposing Sports Team: Of course, Oarai has to go against four teams to win the tournament, but Kuromorimine is the big one -- not only are they the final opponent, and not only have they had a nearly-unbroken string of victories, but they are also commanded by Miho's big sister Maho.

Maho Nishizumi


Kuromorimine's commander, Miho's big sister, and an heiress to the Nishizumi style of tankery. The only heiress, as far as Shiho is concerned. She operates a Tiger I.


 * Aloof Big Sister: As demanded by the ruthless Nishizumi style.
 * The Dutiful Daughter: Maho upholds the Nishizumi style to the letter (in spite of her misgivings about e.g. her mother's decision to cast Miho out of the family), in part to liberate Miho from having to force herself into a tankery style that didn't fit her.
 * Emotionless Girl: As expected by her mother, Maho keeps a severe, emotionless demeanor under all circumstances. She loves her sister and cares for her teammates, but it seems she's been bottling up her feelings for so long that she's all but forgotten how to express them.
 * Grey Eyes / Curtains Match the Window: A lighter shade than her mother's, but her hair and eyes are the color of steel.
 * Hidden Heart of Gold: Although she projects the image of being a cold, ruthless commander, she actually cares very deeply for Miho and her friends -- she immediately offers the use of her school's helicopter to take Mako to the hospital when her grandmother is injured.
 * It's All My Fault: Contrary to her tank commanders' expectations, she blames herself for losing the final match.
 * No Social Skills: The stern aloofness of the Nishizumi style seems to have stunted her social ability. She speaks in a monotone (consider the TV interview that's the first time she's shown) and never smiles . The Christmas party mentioned in the Kuromorimine School entry above shows this, too. Maho sent out an invitation so curtly worded that it was easily misinterpreted as an order to report for a harsh after-action review. (It was a text message [!] which read, "Those without anything for Christmas, come.") It's also implied that she truly believed her subordinates would be pleased or at least amused by gifts which they took as galling reminders of their greatest failures.
 * Stealth Insult: She swore "on the name of the Nishizumi school" that she'd defeat Miho, directly after telling her mother that she respects Miho's methods.
 * Technician Versus Performer: Maho is a supreme technician, as a tanker herself and as a commander. She delivers results, but she's aware of her style's limitations -- on the field, she compliments Miho on her ability to improvise and adapt, and off the field, she often asks herself how Miho would handle social interactions with her sub-commanders.
 * Used to Be a Sweet Kid: She and Miho used to be much closer when they were younger, before Shiho's tankery style took its toll on them.

Erika Itsumi


Kuromorimine's vice-commander. She was a "regular" tank commander under Miho, but was promoted to vice-commander of the team after Miho left.


 * Inadequate Inheritor: Erika feels this way about herself, having been thrust into the vice-commander position after Miho's departure (after an incident that was partly precipitated by an error on Erika's part).
 * Jerkass: It takes a special brand of Jerkassitude to object to giving someone a flight to a hospital to visit an ailing grandmother.
 * Moral Myopia: She feels "betrayed" by Miho's transfer to Oarai, but evidently doesn't think about how Miho was treated for losing the match in exchange for saving her classmates.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: The light novels reveal that Erika was one of the girls that Miho rescued from drowning -- in fact, she was the commander of the tank that foundered in the water. When she gripes in the final battle about how Miho is "as soft as ever", that's her rescuer she's talking about.

Shiho Nishizumi


Matriarch of the Nishizumi style of tankery, and mother of Miho and Maho.


 * Combat Pragmatist: In the prequel manga Little Army, she tells Miho that shooting an opposing player who's rescuing some of your comrades is excellent tactics, worthy of the Nishizumi School. She even says Miho has shamed the family by being so "foolish" that she needs to ask about that.
 * Embarrassing Nickname:
 * Evil Matriarch: She apparently didn't care that Miho left home to leave tankery behind, and when Miho got back into tankery at Oarai, she simply watched Miho's matches to disown her when she lost -- and when Oarai qualified for the final, she implied to Maho that if Miho beat her, she might be the one leaving the family.
 * Grey Eyes / Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eyes are officially given as "dark brown", but appear to be a dark, steely gray, fitting her cold, unyielding nature.
 * The Stoic: To her, emotions have no place on the battlefield.

Yuri Isuzu


Hana Isuzu's mother, and matriarch of the Isuzu school of flower arrangement.


 * Fainting: She faints after hearing that Hana has been participating in tankery.
 * Floral Theme Naming: Yuri means "lily".
 * Too Important to Walk: She gets carted around town in a rickshaw.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: She hits all the points from our world, though some in the Girls und Panzer universe might ding her for shunning tanks (tankery is viewed as a quintessentially feminine pursuit in their world, much as the naginata was in "our" Japan).

Hisako Reizei


Mako Reizei's grandmother, and her guardian since Mako's parents died.


 * Hidden Heart of Gold: She and Mako often bicker, but they care very deeply for each other.
 * Never Mess with Granny: As soon as she was released from the hospital, she traveled to watch the final match against Kuromorimine, and stayed after to watch the victory parade. When Mako saw her and reacted with shock (breaking her usual Dull Surprise face), she responded by dancing a jig on the spot.
 * Parental Substitute: After Mako lost her parents.