“You inherit the Nishizumi name too. We teach that no matter what befalls us, we advance. It is our tradition to value strength and merit above all.”
Summary
After visiting Mako’s grandma on the mainland, the Anko team return to their academy warship and continue preparations for their next match, finding several other old tanks dotted around the campus as well as improving their Panzerfahren skills in general.
Impression
It’s good to know that the suspenseful drama from last week didn’t turn out to be as big a deal as many of us have speculated, and Mako’s grandma seems to be in good condition despite her collapse. But wow, she’s scary. It’d be hard to get out a compliment from her, but I did detect pride in her words when Mako told her about winning the first round of the nationals. It’s nice to see a family member actually treat the choice of Panzerfahren with respect, compared to Miho’s family (who enforce it) or Hana’s family (who discredit it). It’s even better that this isn’t causing any rifts between Mako and her grandma, like it did with Mako and her mother, who ended up tragically dying in an accident right after they had a fight. Mako made the right decision to see her grandma immediately, and I’m thankful to Maho who displayed a bit of warmth in her otherwise cold exterior.
We also learnt a lot more about the various pieces placed in front of us earlier in the series – mostly about Miho and her past with Panzerfahren. It’s clear from her mother that the Nishizumi family believes in victory, and it’s all about winning, with that concept placed in higher regard than everything else. It seems that that way of thinking is supposed to be put above saving a team of yours in danger – I agree with Yukari in thinking that Miho made the right decision by abandoning her tank to save teammates, even though she had the flag. It’s just one match, and as it was by a cliff side I’m pretty sure the fallen tank was in quite a lot of danger, though it might not have mattered in the eyes of Miho’s mother. Miho herself was probably aware of that as well, hence why she ran from Panzerfahren and tried to lead a peaceful, quiet life.
I’ve wondered why the heck they were on a ship for the entire show thus far, and it’s especially hilarious when the characters ask themselves why exactly they’re on an “academy warship”. Extra tank-scouring seemed to be imminent with all the trouble number-wise they had with Saunders, and while it might have been bad enough patching up that old Renault B1 Bis, I still don’t get how they managed to lug the second one they found deep down in the ship back up to the surface. With these numbers and extra experience, they should have done better against the Anzio team compared to last week’s Saunders – or that’s how it seemed to look like anyway, because they skipped out the entire match. I was actually looking forward to seeing them kick ass ;_; Ah well, they’d better make up for it next week with the battle against Pravda – the school that wrecks destruction on the teams they end up competing against.
