Summary
In preparation for their instructor’s arrival the next day, the girls taking Panzerfahren are asked to find the other four missing Panzer owned by the school in addition to the one already present, and patch all five of them up. After the instructor’s “graceful” appearance and the formation of various teams, their first task is revealed to be a free-for-all mock battle between the teams.
Impression
The first thing I wanted to comment on was the fact that the girls actually know they’re on a giant ship! I mean, I suppose they’d realize that they were being transported somewhere and that the ship wasn’t the entire world (sorry, I’ve been reading too much sci-fi lately), but it just struck me as odd that they’d be moving around whole cities on a flat surface from port to port. Perhaps that’s how civilizations are in that world – people live on boats and restock at ports, moving around various seas.
Anyway, today was all about finding the missing Panzer and cleaning them all up! It was definitely a dodgy activity, even more when you look at where some of the Panzer were found. In a forest, okay, but at the bottom of a river (rivers are on ships now, apparently) or down the cliff face of a mountain? Yeah…it’s quite sceptical what the old Panzerfahren club did. Joining them in the search was Akiyama Yukari, who started off as a bit shy by stalking Miho as an admirer and quickly expressed her thoughts on tanks in a very fangirl-y way. Fangirling is all good in moderation, but I think Yukari couldn’t take it seeing the Panzer IV xD I feel that given the right opportunities, I could actually learn a lot about tanks from her.
We also got a glimpse of Miho’s onee-chan, Nishizumi Maho. Unlike Miho and her aversion to tanks, Maho has maintained the family tradition of Panzerfahren and is famous in her own right, having opened her own school and become an instructor. She looks like the “cold beauty” type, who seems really able and efficient at the things she does but isn’t the friendliest person to be around. More interestingly was her direct hint to Miho that she should ” never run, no matter what happens”. It’s now even more certain that there’s been an incident involving both Miho and Panzer in the past, and Maho clearly believes that Miho should get over it and learn to stand up for herself. From my point of view, the shows draws yet another parallel with Strike Witches here (as well as that light fanservice with the Seitokai girl): the idea of the main character not being amazing at a certain thing while having a famous relative who specializes in that thing. SW had Yoshika and her dad, who invented the Striker Unit in the first place, while with Girls und Panzer, Miho is treated as a Panzerfahren specialist (by Yukari at least) because of the reputation of Maho and the rest of her family.
Perhaps it’s a requirement for a good chunk of the cast to be crazy whether they show it or not, and the instructor seems to be one of those people. LMAO just look at what was left of the principal’s car. Setting up a mock battle when the vast majority of the class have never even sat in a Panzer before might not have been the best idea, but you know what they say in shounen manga – the best way to get stronger is always through experience. It’s sometimes suicidal, but also the fastest way to do things. I have no idea how much of the terminology and setup of a tank is actually true in real life, but the things Miho are telling the rest of Team A seem to be pretty legit. Of course, with Miho from a famous family and all, everyone’s out to get her. And with that in mind, I leave you with this question – won’t getting hit by one of those cannonballs actually kill you?
