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Now, let me just get this out of the way. I’m a WWII tank buff. I enjoy realism. As such, Girls & Panzer is just about the worst fit ever for me. Don’t get me wrong; a diverse cast of cute anime girls driving accurately depicted historical tanks sounds absolutely awesome on paper, and it shouldn’t be overly difficult to implement these elements in a wide range of unique ways. Unique, however, is a keyword this franchise runs with at the expense of all else.

Coming in as the (fourth?) installment of the franchise’s long running string of movies, Saishuushou Part 4 tackles the semifinal ... match between the Finnish inspired Jatkosota High School and our titular Ooarai Girls Academy, while offering a glimpse of the other semifinal match between St. Gloriana’s Girls Academy and Kuromorimine. This picks up immediately after the end of the Part 3 movie, so much so that the opening several minutes are rather baffling as there’s nothing to orient the viewer as to what is happening (especially considering there was a two and a half year lull between the two movie’s releases). I suppose they made the assumption that this was only a minor detail not worth mentioning, and frankly I can’t fault them for it. It’s not as if there is a story being told here in the first place. We have a match, they do their thing, and then they roll credits. All that matters is the quality of the visuals, and the quality of the action. This single-minded intensity I cannot fault them for, but it inadvertently puts 100% of the focus on what is in my opinion the weakest link of the franchise. How Sensha-do is actually depicted.

And yes yes, I know. This series is meant to be absurd mindless entertainment and it has no qualms in putting that out there blatantly. However, at least in the case of the 2015 Girls & Panzer Movie as well as the initial two installments of this movie series, tactics seemed to be given actual thought and proper implementation. There was strategy, something of substance to feel engaged with in the absence of an overarching story. Part 3 began straining this somewhat, and with this part, well, we’ve flown off the rails. Being a home match for Jatkosota this is set on a snowy battlefield in the Arctic Circle, and as such many parallels could have been made with tactics used in the Winter War of 1939. But no, this is not the case here. Why in the world are they depicted as the dominating school in this matchup? They were considered underdogs in their upset of the American school, Saunders, but just being in a snowy environment makes them immediately better here? And let’s not question how they managed to field an entire fleet of tanks despite being the smallest school; they explained the KV-1B, but not the remainder.

This supposed winter dominance is of course hardly made apparent, for as far as I could tell only Jouko exhibited any form of tactic that could be considered suitable for this setting. I can only assume she is an analog for Simo Häyhä, Finland’s most prolific sniper, but Jouko is the lone shred of sanity within this. Perhaps this match was all set up nicely at the end of Part 3 (that recap would be nice now, wouldn’t it?), but I hardly think it would have mattered. Like many of these matches, it all devolves into one team being chased by the other team, and then after a string of absurdities somebody fumbles their way to victory. Removing Miho right at the start is actually really interesting, as it allows for us to see how the other girls handle unconventional situations. But this here is our problem. Our ‘unconventional’ tactics are quite simply the most nonsensical clump of nonsense I’ve had the displeasure of viewing this year.

I won’t attempt to go play by play here as that would spoil the awe inspiring snowball effect of madness this contains, so I will simply mention two scenes. Our ‘hotpot’ tactic, and our ‘skiing’ extravaganza at the end. First, our hotpot. Isn’t it awfully convenient to have a buried tunnel right where the team ends up (after a chase, of course), or that this tunnel somehow is large enough for all of the tanks to fit through? But, I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s that excavation scene to get down into said tunnel that was the first inkling of where this movie was trying to go on the scale of insanity. They couldn’t just, you know, be normal and churn up the snow with their tracks? No no, let’s have the tanks *mount one-another*, sexual innuendos entirely intended, and do some really questionable physics defying movements to make the vehicles dig like backhoes while our Tiger (P) abuses its Porche name once again to start doing doughnuts to kick up snow and create a defensive firing position. Yeah…ok. Sure. And then of course we must chuck our tanks one by one down the near vertical chute, once again displaying the remarkable indestructible chassis these tanks possess, before playing chu chu train down the tunnel with more afterburner Tiger (P) nonsense. And with this, we’ve barely made it a third of the way through the movie.

You know what, I won’t pick apart the rest. Skiing tanks is exactly how it sounds. Through this entire thing I am constantly affronted by the fact that these girls *never* get injured. Like, this doesn’t have to depict horrifying gore caused from battle, even if it would have been accurate, but at least show that they’re banged up a bit? Frankly, nearly the entire cast should be dead by the end of the match considering the amount of rollovers, burials under avalanches and general high force impacts while barreling around at excessive speeds they go through. It’s not like they know the concept of seatbelts or restraints; many of them hang out of their cockpits and somehow don’t get launched out of the tank during sharp maneuvers. Like sure, it’s probably accurate to show old tanks having minimal safety features in them, but this is modern day and regarded as a high school sport teenagers participate in; it’s a little difficult to think that there are no measures here. These girls need to be protected from themselves, if anything. The tanks also don’t reflect damage well either; tracks can and should come off from these stunts, and I sure don’t remember these tanks having the amount of armor they’re shown to have here. But this series has never gone further than an accurate visual model of each tank when replicating them, so this aspect hardly anything new.

In any case, let's come up for air and talk visuals and audio design. This was clearly where Actas spent the majority of their production effort, and if we ignore the physics problems it legitimately looks very polished. What little hand drawn animation present is well-animated and blended seamlessly with the CGI, which is in itself modeled quite well. At the absolute minimum it makes for several nice cinematic sequences, logic aside. As for sound it is decently represented with directional audio and detail on ricochets, engines and guns. I cannot say whether the gun sounds are correct for their respective armaments, but I have the feeling I shouldn’t fact check it too deeply. They work well enough where they’re implemented.

As a whole, I have a difficult time recommending this to anyone but the most dedicated Girls & Panzer fans, or perhaps someone with an hour to burn looking for some dumb fun. If you’re like me and are looking for some gripping tactical matches with historical tanks, you’re better off sticking with a few of the earlier entries in the franchise or looking elsewhere all together. Maybe one of these days we’ll get an unexpected Ribbon no Musha adaptation, but until then we must slog through these. Who knows what lies in store for us in Part 5.

This is a well put-together series of 3min shorts, each showcasing a different song from the television anime’s soundtrack. The visuals paired with each track consist of a range of themes, perhaps a third being out of context clips from the anime (dialogue removed but SFX retained), and the remainder fully original animated music videos. Among these are several using unique animation styles or artwork that border on the abstract, which at least in my opinion gives this viewing value outside of being purely peripheral content for the franchise.

For fans of the franchise this can be nice additional content (as well as fanservice for the ... female cast), while for someone who hasn’t watched the TV anime this can be a good cross section of what you could expect from the series in terms of music, artstyle, and cast personality.

Very satisfactory extra episode to fill out the series, and takes a refreshing route of providing more warm interactions with the cast rather than just being another fanservice special. This should be perfectly fine to watch after either of the TV seasons.

Plot-wise it is fairly straightforward, going through a few different scenes with the girls and Futarou. Nino gets a whole segment to herself, but the rest get their fair share of quality screen time (Miku fans may have a happy heart attack too). Overall it’s very enjoyable to see all of them again, and I would say the highlight of this is interactions ... over visual fanservice. But there’s still a beach segment. Enjoy the speedo bro.

Visually speaking it’s at least on par with the TV seasons, although of course Shaft injected a little of their trademark unique style into how scenes were portrayed (plus an unnecessarily well-animated OP, at least check that out on YouTube). Their style is however kept restrained to a tasteful amount to only enhance the comedy or character interactions, making sure not to take over too much of the focus. Other than that, it's well animated and faithfully replicates the artstyle.

While this doesn’t have any vital content that can’t be skipped, this is still a great addition to what was presented in the TV seasons. Well worth the watch.

Road to the Top focuses primarily on both Narita Top Road’s and Admire Vega’s ambitions to win the three Classic competitions (similar to the American triple crown). This being a side story the other parts of the franchise are not necessary prerequisites to watch this, but would help in the sense of knowing the cast members and concept of Uma Musume a little deeper.

With only four episodes of runtime the story is largely concise and stays focused on developing the main pair. Many aspects familiar from the television series are there (comedy, character cameos, etc), but toned down in order to not stray too ... far from the core plot line of training and competing. Narita Top Road takes the role of primary main character, and her portrayal is fairly straightforward in comparison to her primary rival, Admire Vega, who has a somewhat emotional backstory giving her drive. Frankly I found that T.M. Opera seemed more like a supporting character, as she lacked much development and often fell to the background in favor of the racing rivalry between the two previously mentioned girls. I would say this is the primary negative along with Admire’s story becoming a little too single-mindedly fixated on her sister, but frankly the fact that the story’s focus wasn’t spread too thinly worked out due to the limited amount of episodes to work with. With more runtime this could rival the impactful story of the second season, but what emotional scenes are present are used appropriately and don’t feel too overly dramatic. Having not played the original game or know the source content with much depth I can’t say how accurately this is adapted, but from what I can tell the historical aspects connecting each girl with their real world namesake’s achievements is done well, and the flow of the story rarely feels too choppy or rushed.

In terms of audio & visuals - excellent. There are a wide range of instances where they go the extra step in portrayals of scenes. Small hand/facial movements at times show emotions without needing the scene to be voiced, while during races sound effects of everything from jangling of metallic adornments on clothing to the running of the girls themselves enhance what’s being shown. Off of this the shift in how the races are directed compared to the TV seasons is the most notable. The racing feels more powerful and almost intimate with the main cast due to the camera angles being used as well as the largely hand drawn focus allowing more creative freedom in how their speed is expressed. Instead of the viewer largely watching the race like a spectator, this actively imbeds you inside the race itself. There are numerous instances where it wouldn’t have been out of place to rely on CGI, but they chose not to. The music and OST I would say is safely on par with the television seasons in quality, and appropriately capture the tone of each scene.

This overall matched if not exceeded my expectations on how well this would turn out, and while they are done by different studios this has only bolstered how much I’m looking forward to the third season. It would be really nice if Cygames continued to produce quality side stories like this in-between full length seasonal anime in the future.
I would definitely recommend this as either a small sample of the franchise for someone new to Uma Musume, or to a returning seasonal viewer who wants some more quality horse racing action.