Girls and Panzer is an anime that follows the life of Miho Nishizumi, a second-year student at the Oarai Girls’ Academy. She is the leader of her Sensha-Do team and is willing to take it to victory. Sensha-Do translates to ‘tankery’ and in the anime, it is shown as a sport in which teams compete against one another in tank battles. Miho tries to run away from this sport but is somehow fated to battle in her traditional art. This marks the beginning of an iconic storyline and production.
Girls and Panzer: A subversion of the CGDCT+military genre stereotypes gives it an iconic narrative
Girls and Panzer have a huge cast of cute girls. These cute characters put it in the ‘Cute Girls Doing Cute Things’ genre, where the girls as characters are usually interested in talking about love, fashion, and other things without a single guy in the cast.
This genre is usually merged with other genres to give a proper structure and motif to the plot, but something that doesn’t go well with the CGDCT genre is the military genre.
Whereas it can be seen in Girls and Panzer that the genre of CGDCT and the genre of the military are merged into a singular narrative and it works out pretty well, ultimately subverting the stereotypes related to the convergence.
Girls and Panzer create a storyline that portrays cute girls in cute outfits engaging in competitive tank warfare, which is not only a subversion of the idea of patriarchal masculinity associated with the military themes but also domesticates the idea of war as something very regular and normal.
Girls and Panzer’s visual appeal and intricate character-building make it an iconic show
Girls and Panzer have a strong visual appeal, which makes it an iconic anime. The way the girls behave, the way they dress, the way they talk and the way they look all add up to the girliness of the show.
- This makes it a visually appealing CGDCT to watch. But somehow, the militarized cute girls fit into the objective of the show.
- These appealing characters are shown to be militarily professional and heavily motivated. It gives the show an ironic twist and a shift from the traditionalist idea of the genre.
Moreover, this is reflected in the characterization of the girls as well. Miho is in a conflict with her family and her family legacy particularly stands out in the CGDCT genre, but this also creates the necessary friction which is necessary for the military genre and makes Miho an underdog due to her act of kindness and heroism.
Moreover, Oarai is always the chosen underdog who defeats everyone else and so is the characterization of Miho’s companions, whose natural traits contribute to their overall role in the working of the team inside the tank.
The worldbuilding of Girls and Panzer gives the anime a special place in the Anime community
- Girls and Panzer’s worldbuilding is more than just the setting or the imaginative space it creates. At the same time, it also creates a sense of semblance with the world that it creates for the audience.
- It introduces the anime in a way that seems like a traditional CGDCT anime, but slowly and gradually it shifts to a crossed narrative which introduces the theme of the military and it expertly navigates through both genres.
- This thereby creates a sense of familiarity and a sense of normalcy. All in all, the worldbuilding of Girls and Panzer is much like the character building, the unfamiliar is made familiar in very subtle ways, and before we realize we are already accustomed to it.
Conclusion
Girls and Panzer is an iconic show in itself. It has been widely regarded in the anime community due to the masterclass narrative that it creates and portrays so smoothly. After all, one can never imagine that an anime with cute girls in short skirts fighting tank battles would become the epitome of military-themed anime.