I finally had a couple of hours to devote to Girls und Panzer der Movie. Quick reaction: If you liked the original series, you’ll like this. If you found the original too implausible to enjoy, this is no different. For those who haven’t seen the original: if the idea of watching high school girls engage in the recreational equivalent of war with real WWII tanks sounds like fun, check out the series here. If you like it, then track down the movie. You can watch the movie first, I suppose, but it will make less sense and you’ll miss the significance of the various characters’ actions. I don’t have time to write a proper review, but there are reviews here and here (beware: the latter has many spoilers that aren’t hidden).
As Steven guessed, one of the highlights for me was a lively Finnish polka with kantele and accordion in the soundtrack. The movie’s makers didn’t pick the tune at random; “Säkkijärven polkka” has a little history behind it. To make Steven happy, I’m placing the tune below the fold.1
Rather than do a hit and run “thanks for linking”, I want to add something. I believe if someone were to obtain some of the fan-subbed releases, there apparently was a three-minute recap video featuring chibified versions of Anglerfish team to explain what had happened in the series.
All I can think of when I saw that was reading up on how Gunbuster did the same on in-series lore. Also, the OVA bundled with the home media release shows Alice trying to fit into a typical high school life, having skipped past that stage and gone straight to university, so she’s supposedly even smarter than the truant Mako Reizei.
And yes, I do apologize for unhidden spoilers.
And I just realized I spoiled stuff. I’m sorry!!!!
I love lots of the Scandinavian folk music (including Finnish polka) and the backstory on that one is especially cool. (I wonder how many little simple acts of “sabotage against an invader” there were out there; I have similarly read some French women knitted “code” into their work giving information about what numbers and types of train cars were on German trains coming into their area, and passed those knitted items on to the Resistance)