Anime / Girls und Panzer das Finale

This is the finale about girls and their panzers. What else did you expect?

Almost a year has passed since the 63rd National High School Sensha-dō Tournament, and everything has been well for Oarai ever since their victory over the University Team. Everything with school has been going fine with the girls... but there's only one problem: Momo hasn't been accepted into any universities for her graduation due to being too busy with finding new tanks for the Winter Cup with the intention of making Oarai famous, which likewise prevents any future attempts to close the school. Determined to help Momo graduate into the same university as Anzu and Yuzu, the Oarai team are determined to show that Momo is indeed skilled in Sensha-do, establishing this by making her their commander during the Winter Cup tournament.

Girls und Panzer das Finale is a theatrical anime series continuing Miho and Oarai's journey in Sensha-do, a Japanese martial art revolving around tanks. The series is projected to run for six films released at two-year intervals, each about forty-five to sixty minutes in length. Studio Actas, the creators of the franchise, are fairly notorious for their extreme invoked Schedule Slip. Naturally, this led to speculation they elected to spend ten years animating the equivalent of a single 12-Episode Anime (besides the dumptrucks full of cash that theatrical releases are expected to bring in.) just to avoid running out of production time.

The release dates for each entry as follows:

• Part #1 — December 9th, 2017
• Part #2 — June 15th, 2019
• Part #3 — March 26th, 2021
• Part #4 — October 6th, 2023
• Part #5 — 2025 (expected)
• Part #6 — 2027 (expected)

If you are looking for tropes from the original television show, click here. For the "Der Film" movie, click here.

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The anime film series contains examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The series relies heavily on 3D for the tank battle sequences, particularly when the camera follows the tanks over sweeping pastoral landscapes. There's also a lengthy chase sequence through the Oarai carrier, with the Oorai girls animated over a fully-3D environment.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Miho manages to beat Murakami by accidentally flipping her over with a bow.
• A Day in the Limelight: The six-part film is about Momo's quest for her university qualification via a sports scholarship.
• Amphibious Automobile: In Part 2, Chihatan is revealed to be in possession of at least two Type-2 Ka-Mi amphibious light tanks, which they use to great effect by staging a surprise two-pronged attack on Oorai when the latter team had their backs to a river.
• Animation Bump: While the film series as a whole is an Animation Bump over the original anime, special mention has to go to the minute-long P.O.V. Cam where Mako chases two delinquents through the bowels of the ship to get Sodoko back.
• Artistic License – Physics: While the series has always had some iffy stuff, special mention goes to Part 2 with the amphibious Type-2 Ka-Mi tanks. While they could cross water, they were not boats and could not fight effectively while in the water or maneuver nearly as fast or nimbly as they're shown doing. This is not to mention the half-slalom chase, half tank-fu artillery duel which takes place down very steep slopes in Part 4 during the Ooarai-Continuation battle, still an awesome set piece, though. One of the biggest licenses is that the turret of real tanks is mostly held down by gravity, and so a tank cannot flip upside down and then be righted by just bumping into it without loosing the turret.
• Ascended Extra: Fukuda was initially a minor character in the film. However, after the events of der Film where she is inspired by Duck Team, she effectively becomes the "face" of the new and improved Chihatan. It also helps that her voice actress blew up in popularity in between the release of the movie and this series.
• Blood from the Mouth: Played with. Hana shows this during her "Habanero Rum" duel with Ogin, except it's actually just the aforementioned spicy drink and not blood. The effect is the same though, underscoring how difficult the duel is and how both Hana and Ogin are at their limits.
• Bookends:
  • Jatkosota is defeated by the same strategy they put Oarai in a backfoot at the beginning of the match; by disguising their tank in a snowman.
  • Oarai's opponent in the final is St. Gloriana, their very first real opponent and the only school they haven't defeated yet.
• Caligula's Horse: Koala Forest has a literal, non-anthropomorphic koala as the team's captain. This is likely to show the series' trademark National Stereotypes that the Australians are Cloudcuckoolanders. Commander War OVA shows that Koala Forest students have a device that can read the koala's general mood, and the koala is actually pretty smart for an animal.
• Christmas Episode: Miho and Alice’s visit happens around Christmas, going by the Christmas trees and snow in the background. Given regional seasonal tropes, it also counts as shiptease.
  • Das Finale Part III also counts, as between matches the audience is given a brief visit to the Continuation High School carrier, which is decked out in winter livery, including a truly massive Christmas tree, a winter market with traditional Finnish foods, and a scene of the main Continuation trio building a snowman.
• The City Narrows: The lower decks of the Oorai school carrier is delinquent territory due to its distance from the regulated upper decks.
• Cliffhanger: All parts thus far end on one, following precedent set by the TV series by starting a match mid-episode and ending it in the next one.
  • The first part ends with Oorai escaping the bridge ambush and BC Freedom regrouping for another assault.
  • Part 2 ends with Chihatan narrowly escaping the killzone and for the first time, retreating into the night.
  • Part 3 ends with Miho's Panzer IV sniped by Youko.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Caesar and Erwin invokes this in Part 2 upon hearing the Shark Team, who just became the first tank to be taken out by Chi-ha-Tan after they were provoked into being singled out by them damaging their exposed pirate flag, deciding to not bring their pirate flag from the next match onward; in reference to their first match with St. Gloriana.
    Ogin: If there is a next battle... then we only need to raise that flag in our hearts.
    Caesar: Indeed. It is the same path we took.
    Erwin: History repeats itself.
  • In der Film, there are numerous snippets that Jatkosota plundered Pravda's KV-1 and Pravda attempted to sue Jatkosota for it to no avail. In Das Finale 4, we finally see the KV-1, and it still has Pravda paintjob on it. The reason why Katyusha can't take it back legally through the Federation's rule is because the tank was won fair and square in a bet over a friendly match.
  • When the Turtle Team gets knocked out after the Anglerfish, Oarai teams discuss on who should be the commander now, Sodoko flatters herself as a candidates before her crew says she's more fitting as a Secret Police. This might be an allusion to a chapter in Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu, where the hall monitor gets the same power as the Absurdly Powerful Student Council and Sodoko quickly gets Drunk with Power.
  • Das Finale 4 has Operation Macaroni Drei, following Operation Macaroni from Real Anzio Battle OVA and Operation Macaroni Zwei in der Film.
• Cowboy Episode: One of the bonus shorts shows a section of Oorai set up to resemble the Old West, including horses, cowgirls, and a shootout against a desperado (who had been stealing radishes to make pickles because pickled daikon wasn't on the school-approved menu).
• Cuteness Proximity: In Commander War OVA, the commander of Koala Forest Academy ends up being pretty popular in the commander summit on merit of being an adorable koala. Katyusha is so smitten, she asks if he can transfer to Pravda.
• Darkest Hour: The ending of Episode 3. With Miho knocked out, Ooarai will have to step up without its leader and chief strategist. It will have to rely on Momo, who has not shown much competence to this point. Momo ends up not stepping up - Anzu does before she too gets eliminated, and Azusa have to deal with the large shoe that Miho and Anzu trusted her with.
• Defensive Feint Trap:
  • The first stage of BC Freedom's war plan. The bulk of their units pretend to be at each others' throats while the girls from the flag tank play lawn games and sun themselves. Once Oorai move in to ambush them, the other units drop their feigned feud and bombard them from long range.
  • Operation Anglerfish Lure against Chihatan: the Anglerfish Team turn on their tank's searchlight, which automatically attracts Chihatan's zealous pursuit to defeat Oarai's ace, which in turn distracted them away from the flag tank Turtle Team, who sneak behind Chihatan's flag tank and disable it.
  • Oarai's plan to defeat Jatkosota's sniper: split into two teams, cover their number with smokescreen so Jatkosota don't know they're splitting, have one team chase down the sniper while the other team goes into a very visible spot, so the sniper locks in the position and vulnerable for a counterattack. Mika ends up reading their move, but Jatkosota's counter-counterattack is not as effective as they hoped.
• Divide and Conquer: When Ooarai realize that BC Freedom's social segregation is not merely a diversion and the tankery team's alliance is likely frail^note The Taiyaki War OVA clarifies that the school was as divided as ever until Marie got them to see past their differences. This happened very shortly before Yukari arrived to scout them; the protesting and fighting Yukari filmed was indeed staged, but the school is only in the very earliest stages of healing - incidents as recent as Rena and Ruka's argument at the tournament bracket drawing were very real., Ooarai send the Mallard team inside the enemy's line to take a potshot at the Escalator team. Because of the tall bocage maze walls, the only thing visible of the Mallard's Char B1 is its turret, which is similar to the Examination group's Somua. The Escalator think that the Examination is trying to sabotage their own team and knock out a Somua for real, and BC Freedom team proceeds to implode from the in-fighting.
• Drinking Contest: Hana and Ogin participate in one with non-alcoholic rum, though the rum is heavily spiced. Specifically, with Habanero peppers.
• Dub Name Change: Sentai changed the name BC Freedom Academy to BC Liberty Academy, possibly to reference the French motto Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
• Duet Bonding: Mika and her vice-commander Yuri plays Maantie on kova kävellä on their instruments to react a consensus for their strategy.; they play the song on different notes to gauge each other's feeling before harmonizing. They then play Säkkijärven polkka together for their charge, and their teamwork is so fearsome that Oarai have multiple Oh, Crap!.
• End of an Age: After Oarai's victory in the National Championship and against the University Team, the old order of senshado dominated by prominent schools like Kuromorimine and each school's status quos are challenged. Add to that, many students are soon graduating high school, leaving large gapping holes in the teams. The schools are cleaning up their more noticeable screwups and welcoming new blood into their families, with the Winter Cup ends up being a trial by fire to test their readiness for the new era.
• Exact Words: Due to Chihatan's ingrained ethos of recklessly charging at everything, Fukuda comes up with the names of several different types of "charges" in order to get around the rest of the team's habit: the "Stepping Charge" (charging on the same spot; essentially a halt), "Leisurely Charge" (slow advance), "Goodbye Charge" (retreating), etc.
• Excuse Plot: Zigzagged; while the whole "win the Winter Cup so Momo can get college scholarship" is even a flimsier excuse compared to the original anime's "win the National to save our schoolship", the real point of the plot is the preservation and improvement of the sensha-do spirit in the school teams' New Meat.
• Feed the Mole: BC Freedom deliberately exaggerates their class segregation issues while Yukari is snooping around so she'll give an inaccurate report when she reports back to Oorai.
• Finger Gun: All of Team Anglerfish do this during the showdown between Jane and Belle. It's to fool Belle into thinking that they also have guns and they have her surrounded.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When we see Chihatan take on Koala Forest, the scene stops just as their tanks disappear under a hill while the latter waits for their charge. However, the camera lingers longer without showing them emerge, hinting that they aren't just blindly charging in anymore, something that catches Ooarai off guard in their fight later in the episode.
  • Later on, in Part 3, Alisa's flag tank is sniped by Youko. When Ooarai faces Jatkosota later on, Youko's first shot takes down Miho's Panzer IV.
  • Also in Part 3, we learn that Chihatan's main strategy is to take out Anglerfish Team. While they aren't the flag tank, Anglerfish and Miho have always been an active participant for the entirety of their battles and are credited as the backbone of the team's ability to beat the odds, so they are banking on Ooarai falling apart in the unprecedented event that their command structure is disrupted. They succeed... but only after every tank other than the flag tank (Turtle Team) has already been taken out, and they're so happy over having defeated Anglerfish that they completely forget what the actual objective of the match is, allowing Turtle Team to cinch the win mere seconds later. Jatkosota apparently liked this strategy and succeed where Chihatan failed, rendering Anglerfish as the first Ooarai casualty in the opening minutes of the match.
  • When Darjeeling orders the rest of St. Glo tanks to follow their new commander, there's a shot of someone giving order through hand signs.
• Geographic Flexibility: In the "Daikon War" OVA, the Oorai carrier suddenly has an enormous, sprawling Wild West desert and an entire mountain range which has never once been seen in multiple aerial shots and is far too large to fit on its deck.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language:
  • Gratuitous French: The girls of BC Freedom Academy pepper their speech with bits of French every other time we see them.
  • Gratuitous Italian: When Anchovy traps Bonple Academy's flag tank and has it in her sights, she gives her command to fire in Italian.
  • Gratuitous Russian: As always, averted with Nonna and Clara, who converse with each other in fluent Russian.
• Hand Signals: Katsyusha does this in their first-round match. Interestingly enough, she uses shadow hand puppets to give signals.
• Idiot Ball: During the riot, BC Freedom Academy don't seem to notice Yukari crawling through the middle of the Big Ball of Violence, narrating her analysis right into her camera. Later it turns out the riot was a ploy to trick Oarai, which leaves Yukari holding the idiot ball for not even bothering to hide the fact that she's a spy and not noticing they don't seem too concerned about her presence. The BC Freedom Academy girls even lampshade this, wondering if Yukari thought she was invisible or something.
• In Medias Res: Every entry in das Finale picks up right where the cliffhanger ending of the last entry left off, except the first one. Instead, they take a chunk of the climax and move it to the beginning. It depicts the Oarai team cornered in battle against BC Freedom, before shifting the perspective back days before the match, exactly like how the anime started with Oarai's first practice match against St. Gloriana before switching back to Miho's first day as a transfer student.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Momo is not repeating a year, let's make that clear. She just wasn't accepted by any universities.
  • Every single move Chihatan make is a charge, no matter what it is. One example such as Goodbye Charge (retreating) is accepted by the more conservative students because it has "charge" in its name.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Right before crossing the bridge with the rest of Oorai, Mallard team halt in their tracks. Sodoko claims her "morals committee sense is tingling". They look around, scout the area... and discover BC Freedom is about to bombard the bridge.
• Japanese Delinquent: Shark Team is made up of delinquents from the Donzoku Bar. The entire lower deck of Ooarai schoolship is filled to the brim with lawless delinquent Naval Study student, of which the Shark Team is a part of, that Sodoko describes as the "Johannesburg of Ooarai".
• Joke of the Butt: When sliding down a pole in the first film, Miho slides too fast and accidentally butts Mako with her, well, butt. She then immediately gets it in turn from Saori.
• Land Down Under: Like many other schools in the series, the Koala Forest is so painfully Australian that they have non-anthropomorphic koala as commander, complete with an eucalyptus tree inside the tank.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Part 2 reveals that Momo has four younger brothers and sisters, all apparently in elementary school or younger.
• Multi-Part Episode: Das Finale is split up into a six-part anime theatrical film.
• Mundane Utility:
  • The Mark IV landship at the Donzoku Bar has been used as a smoking machine for their meat. When refitting it, the automotive club mentions that it smells like sausage as a result.
  • Jatkosota use most of their vehicles as mobile sauna. Their train car in particular is reserved for the VIP. They also use their schoolship's mast as a giant Christmas tree should the occasion arise.
• Music for Courage: As the match stretches on to night, Fukuda admits to her team that she's afraid of the dark. The rest of the Chihatan proceeds to sing Drifter's Lover (modified into a Chihatan's war song) to cheer her up.
• Noodle Incident: Momo Kawashima, an upstanding member of the student council, did something to cover for the members of shark team so they wouldn't get expelled for something. We're not told the circumstances behind this (since it's a thin pretext to add another distinctive tank crew to the roster), just that Shark Team owes her for... something.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Chihatan gets trapped in a bog, Nishi drops all pretense of calling all their moves “charges” and admit that they have to flat out retreat.
  • When Pravda takes out Kuromorimine's biggest tanks (the Maus and Elefant), Erika abandons their traditional style and instead leads an Oorai style charge with medium tanks that eventually gets her the win.
  • When Mika starts to read on Oarai's feint, her usual placid smile falls and she calls her second-in-command with authority in her voice.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic:
  • Trapped in a crossfire with both ends of the bridge destroyed, Miho quickly whips up a plan of escape: Use the newly acquired Mk IV as a ramp to get Oarai's tanks out of danger.
  • Anzio seems to take a note from Ooarai disabling Kuromorimine's Maus by piling Bonple's flag tank with their Carro Veloce. They later use their CV-33's against St. Gloriana's Crusader tanks by forcing them to topple into a river, resulting in environmental takedowns.
  • Jatkosota shows their mobility on snowy mountain by hurling Oarai down a mountain and rigging their BT-42's wheels with ski. As the result, even the Mighty Glacier KV-1 become as much a Lightning Bruiser as her teammates while also effectively shielding the flag tank. At one point, Mika gets ganged up 1 vs. 3 and she almost win twice because she's just too fast to pin down. When she realizes that her luck might run out at any moment, Mika triggers an avalanche to disable her opponents.
• Passing the Torch:
  • The former student council members hang around the student council office to assist Hana, the new president, her vice-president Yukari, and her PR officer Saori.
  • Maho has now passed command of Kuromorimine's sensha-do team to Erika.
  • In Das Finale 4, it becomes increasingly obvious that Azusa is on her way to be Miho's heir. Later on, Darjeeling just skips the 'rearing the new blood' part and have Alice as the new commander.
• Plot Tailored to the Party:
  • What would become Shark Team, challenges Anglerfish Team to a series of challenges for Sodoko's freedom and information about a tank in the area. Each of the challenges is easily beaten by the individual talents of Anglerfish Team:
    • Flint's Anchor Bend knot is easily identified and untied by military enthusiast Yukari.
    • Rum's semaphore message is translated thanks to Saori's radio operator knowledge.
    • Cutlass is beaten in a thumb-wrestling contest by Mako since her finger movements were trained shifting tank gears.
    • Murakami challenges Miho to a straight-up brawl only for Miho to effortlessly dodge every blow and win without even trying since she's too used to dodging tank shells.
    • Ogin and Hana have a drinking contest with Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce. Hana's gunner-honed Nerves of Steel allow her to hold out longer than Ogin.
  • Shark Team's tank acting as improvised ramp opens up a lot of new paths for Oarai's Confusion Fu.
  • Mallard Team's tank, the Char B1 bis, just happens to be a French tank that has striking resemblance with BC Freedom's Somua when seen from over the bocage fences.
  • Sodoko's perfect 20/20 eyes are immune from Chihatan and Jatkosota's battlefield appropriate camo. While this doesn't completely stop Oarai from getting caught off guard from ambushes, Sodoko ends up saving Oarai from the worst of them.
• Politeness Judo: Played literally for laughs. Miho defeats someone in a fistfight by bowing apologetically and catching them in the stomach, resulting in them being launched over her head when she straightened up.
• P.O.V. Cam: There's a significant shift in storyboarding that put many emphasize on this; in part 4, there's even a first person view for tea and beer-drinking! This is likely because the film series are intended primarily for 4DX theaters.
• Practically Different Generations: Momo is just about to graduate high school, while her younger siblings are elementary school age.
• Rōnin: Momo is in danger of becoming one. However, the media exaggerates it to a rumor that she's being held back.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • In the second match, Miho activates "Operation Anglerfish Lure" after getting separated from the rest of Oarai in the dark. This involves turning the Panzer IV's lights on and firing tracer rounds from the machine guns. This causes all of Chihatan's tanks to converge on it and results in it getting knocked out but leaves Chihatan's flag tank open for a surprise attack from Turtle team.
  • At the conclusion of the battle against Jatkosota, Mika, in a bout of arrogance, ends up getting distracted by an obvious decoy snowman and gets shot at point blank by the Anteater Team, who's hiding in an ordinary pile of snow.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Boko/Punchy museum has a "Big Thunder Bocontain".
  • After Anglerfish Team was taken out at the end of Part 3, Mika refers to Jouko as Jatkosota's "White witch" or Shiroi Majo in Japanese, a possible reference to the manga of same name about a gender-bent Simo Häyhä.
• Shown Their Work: Chihatan's new tactic of doing hit and run attacks in the forest, and later under cover of darkness were actually used by the Imperial Japanese Army against the Americans in World War II.
• Straight for the Commander: Chihatan's strategy in Part 3 was this, going after Miho's Panzer IV in the hopes that taking her out would make Ooarai fall apart. Jatkosota picks up on this afterwards, with the team's sniper taking out Miho's Panzer IV first just as Part 3 ends.
• Super-Reflexes: Miho exhibits this when against Murakami, where she effortlessly dodges her punch and kicks. The others chalk it up to her being so experienced at dodging cannon shells.
• Supporting Protagonist: While Miho is still the main character, she acts as Momo's Hypercompetent Sidekick in the Winter Cup as part of Oarai's attempt to help Momo graduate.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: As the matches go on, we actually see more of Oarai's opponents than Oarai themselves. At the last stretch of the first match, BC Freedom end up valiantly resisting Oarai's encirclement as they attempt to hunt down Oarai's flag tank to salvage the match, complete with Heroic Sacrifice, Taking the Bullet, David vs. Goliath imagery and Defiant to the End. In the match against Chihatan, we see Chihatan tankers' camaraderie when they sing for Fukuda when she's afraid of the dark and their excellent teamwork after they go beyond their banzai charge mentality. This happens while Oarai's radio communication is deliberately muted to the audience.
  • The battle against Jatkosota downplays this because in term of skill, Jatkosota is Oarai's equal. While Jatkosota's characterization still gets expanded significantly, half of the episode is showing off the skill of the less prominent teams like the Anteater and the Shark Team, with the Rabbit Team ends up being the unambiguous main character of the film.
• Tank Goodness: This is Girls Und Panzer, what did you expect?
• Theme Music Power-Up:
  • BC Freedom has Le Chant de l'Oignon, a Napoleonic era marching song about... onions^note remember that onions were a staple of the Napoleonic army soldiers' diet, and a song about how much you love eating them with your comrades suddenly becomes a True Companions song; which they sing as they drive towards their next battlefield. They sing this again in Part 2 when it becomes clear the bocage battle was to be their Last Stand.
  • Beside Säkkijärven polkka, Jatkosota get Maantie on kova kävellä as Mika reads on Oarai's plan. Given the lyrics^note It's a song about how a young boy conscripted to the army is equal to 10 ordinary men, the song was Jatkosota's senior students way to hype up their White Witch.
• Victory by Endurance: In the second tournament match, Chihatan drags their battle with hit-and-run skirmishes from day to night. This frustrates Oarai and causes them to change their strategy... right where Chihatan want them. Giving up to gain a high ground, Oarai nest themselves on a lake only to meet Chihatan amphibious tanks that Oarai see too late because of the darkness and Chihatan's forest camo (the one who spot them are Azusa, who realizes that the crocodile is weirdly huge, and Sodoko, who has perfect sight).
• We ARE Struggling Together: BC Freedom's students do not get along and are split into two sets of attitudes and doctrines. On approaching to the match field, they are actively trying to fire at each other. However, once the match starts, it is revealed it was all a facade and the BC Freedom students are indeed capable of coordinating with each other. However, the harmony is short-lived because years of social divide is still ingrained in their academy, and just because their very charismatic captain reins them in, it doesn't mean the fragile cooperation won't collapse at slightest provocations.
• Wham Shot:
  • At the end of Das Finale 3, Anglerfish Team's Panzer IV explodes from Jatkosota's sniper shot.
  • During Kuromorimine vs. St. Gloriana, someone is giving order with hand signs. In case you still don't catch it, later Rukuriri's Mathilda pans to the tank that she's been escorting; Alice on her Centurion.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The delinquents who abscond with Sodoko are last seen disappearing into the darkness, and when Miho & co. find her again, for some reason she's working for Ogin & crew. The delinquents are never seen again, and the reason they handed Sodoko off to some other group of delinquents is completely glossed over. While they're seen in the crowd shot of the audience, their role is essentially over.
• You Are in Command Now:
  • The premise of the entire series is doing this for Momo to help her earn an athletic scholarship to college.
  • In Episode 4, this falls to Sawa Azusa (M3 Lee Commander) when both Miho and Momo are knocked out. She successfully steps up.