Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

[Chris Beveridge]

Cute girls doing tank things. What They Say: You may have heard of kung fu, but the girls at Oarai Academy practice gun-fu – really, really BIG gun-fu, in fact. It’s called Tankery, and it’s the martial art of operating armored tanks! And even though the Tankery program at Oarai has been defunct for years, [...]

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[Mitch H.]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

Fun show, but I had difficulty not cringing every time the tank commanders hung out of their cupolas or hatches with machine-gun fire or cannon fire going off in the vicinity. I've heard too many stories of training deaths in the services when they weren't even firing off blanks, to not picture the accidents possible and even probable in this show's world. Even the guys in England who play paintball with light tanks and APCs have a strict buttoned-up policy.

[Ingraman]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

The release of this television series contains two language options for the presentation of the material- English and Japanese- though both tracks are present in only a 2.0 stereo mix. [...] The audio largely works well for conveying what it needs to, be it whistled songs, whispered dialogue or the thunder of tank cannons while providing directionality where appropriate but I can’t help feel that something was missed by not having the material made in 5.1 which could have really taken the tank power the audio conveys to another level.

IIRC, the audio on the Japanese Blu-rays was (or had as an option?) a 2.1 mix, to allow for more tank rumble. I wonder how it is on ADV's Blu-ray release; I don't see a back cover in the cover art forum.

This opportunity however greatly troubles Miho as she had transferred to Oarai specifically because they did not have a Sensha-do program

ADV stuck with the Japanese term "Sensha-do"? I thought that I'd read somewhere that they were using Crunchyroll's "tankery" for the translation...

As the girls looking to participate in the Sensha-do program are sent out to try down enough tanks that may still be hiding in the area

??? Was "to try to track down" the intent here? Wouldn't "abandoned in the area" be better than "hiding in the area"? These are just the leftovers of what the school hadn't sold off long ago, after all.

as almost every major bit of vehicular technology either comes from or is inspired by 1945 and the couple decades prior that to an odd appearing world where air travel seems to be rather limited

All of the Sensha-do team/organizer vehicles seem to be 1940's vehicles (or earlier), or based upon them, but civilian vehicles are mostly modern ones, aren't they? I'm not remembering too many specifics at this point, but the Ooarai school's principal was driving a Ferrari F40. I saw no evidence of limited air travel. Hardly anyone needed to fly anywhere. We saw one modern military transport aircraft carrying the instructor's (very current model) tank, and we saw the Kuromorimine Sensha-do team's helicopter.

Of course given that the staff couldn’t even keep up with getting twelve episodes out on time

I would have preferred a 2-cours series to allow for more development of the secondary and tertiary characters, too, but I thought that the series made the best use possible of the small number of episodes that they had. Production difficulties might have been magnified by this being (IIRC) the first anime that this company produced. I think that they'd assisted in the production of other anime titles before, but they hadn't been the lead studio prior to this. I was disappointed by the delays, but I'll cut 'em some slack because they eventually got the job done.

I'm very happy with what they created, and I look forward to the upcoming Anzio OVA and future movie.

[Hayate Kurogane]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

The release of this television series contains two language options for the presentation of the material- English and Japanese- though both tracks are present in only a 2.0 stereo mix. [...] The audio largely works well for conveying what it needs to, be it whistled songs, whispered dialogue or the thunder of tank cannons while providing directionality where appropriate but I can’t help feel that something was missed by not having the material made in 5.1 which could have really taken the tank power the audio conveys to another level.

IIRC, the audio on the Japanese Blu-rays was (or had as an option?) a 2.1 mix, to allow for more tank rumble. I wonder how it is on ADV's Blu-ray release; I don't see a back cover in the cover art forum.

The Japanese Blu-ray discs offer both a DTS-HD 2.1 track and a Linear PCM stereo track (in addition to two commentary tracks) for each episode. I opted for the DTS-HD track when watching those discs, and everything sounded great. I don't know that having it be 5.1 rather than 2.1 would have made an overly significant difference, but either way the aural experience is certainly under-served being taken via DVD audio rather than Blu-ray audio, or at the very least for that format a DD 2.0 track rather than Linear PCM (uncommon as that is for domestic anime DVDs).

Of course given that the staff couldn’t even keep up with getting twelve episodes out on time

I would have preferred a 2-cours series to allow for more development of the secondary and tertiary characters, too, but I thought that the series made the best use possible of the small number of episodes that they had. Production difficulties might have been magnified by this being (IIRC) the first anime that this company produced. I think that they'd assisted in the production of other anime titles before, but they hadn't been the lead studio prior to this. I was disappointed by the delays, but I'll cut 'em some slack because they eventually got the job done.

While Actas certainly isn't known for being a primary production studio they have taken the lead on a few short projects (e.g., the Tales of Phantasia OVA, the eX-Driver movie), but also more significantly on two of the 52-episode Japanese Transformers series (Armada/Micron and Energon/Superlink). Granted, the budget (per episode) and expectations of quality on Girls und Panzer was likely higher than for either Transformers project, but 52 episodes with no season breaks, twice, is a hell of a thing to do. Of course, that was ten years ago, and who knows how their own studio may have changed, what the production schedule was like, how the outsourcing was handled, etc.

[Betenoire]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

ADV stuck with the Japanese term "Sensha-do"? I thought that I'd read somewhere that they were using Crunchyroll's "tankery" for the translation...


>- ??? Was "to try to track down" the intent here? Wouldn't "abandoned in the area" be better than "hiding in the area"? These are just the leftovers of what the school hadn't sold off long ago, after all.


>>-All of the Sensha-do team/organizer vehicles seem to be 1940's vehicles (or earlier), or based upon them, but civilian vehicles are mostly modern ones, aren't they? I'm not remembering too many specifics at this point, but the Ooarai school's principal was driving a Ferrari F40. I saw no evidence of limited air travel. Hardly anyone needed to fly anywhere. We saw one modern military transport aircraft carrying the instructor's (very current model) tank, and we saw the Kuromorimine Sensha-do team's helicopter.

In order cause I am out of practice multi quoting-

Yes, tankery I think appears at times but Sentai did use Sensha-do initially and fairly consistently from what I remember, they had a pop up TL explaining the term early.

>@#$%, yes it was supposed to be "to try to track down". My proofreader failed me. Again. Get what you pay for I guess. And abandoned probably is a better word than hidden in this case.

>>@#$% *sigh* I had remembered the tanks, ship and one aircraft in particular but forgotten we saw more modern ones as well as the more modern cars as they are mostly just backdrop pieces. Focusing on one detail can sure throw off one's memory, at least for me.

Thanks, will be doing an update to fix later today or tomorrow.

[Ingraman]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

Thanks, will be doing an update to fix later today or tomorrow.

I'm still waiting... ;_; ;p

I presume that Turkey Day is getting in the way of your or the website's updates. ^^

[Betenoire]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

Thanks, will be doing an update to fix later today or tomorrow.

I'm still waiting... ;_; ;p

I presume that Turkey Day is getting in the way of your or the website's updates. ^^

It's me.

Things happened, sorry.

[Ingraman]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

It's me.

Things happened, sorry.

Not a problem at all. Take your time.

[Buckeye]

Re: Girls Und Panzer Complete TV Collection Anime DVD Review

Of course given that the staff couldn’t even keep up with getting twelve episodes out on time

I would have preferred a 2-cours series to allow for more development of the secondary and tertiary characters, too, but I thought that the series made the best use possible of the small number of episodes that they had. Production difficulties might have been magnified by this being (IIRC) the first anime that this company produced. I think that they'd assisted in the production of other anime titles before, but they hadn't been the lead studio prior to this. I was disappointed by the delays, but I'll cut 'em some slack because they eventually got the job done.

I'm very happy with what they created, and I look forward to the upcoming Anzio OVA and future movie.

Yeah, I thought that this show would have been better as a two-cour series, or one with two seasons. Things are happening in a hurry in this show as one of the tankery matches that Oorai was in got cut out. I would have liked to see more development with the opponents that Oorai faced as only the final opponent had any depth to it, while the others just scratched the surface. In any case, I am certainly satisfied with the way things turned out.