Disclaimer: This review covers Season 1 of "Girls und Panzer."What's your favorite genre of anime? Action? Comedy? Sci-fi? With anime, if you can imagine the genre, no matter how niche, it probably exists. In fact, it may thrive! One such popular genre is "cute girls doing things." Yes, that's a genre, and many anime series exist within it.These slice-of-life comedy-dramas can be relaxing, but a bit boring, relying solely on how cute their characters are. To stand out in the crowd, a show might add a quirky hook in the story. In the case of "Girls und Panzer," the hook is "cute girls driving military-grade tanks." If that last sentence isn't enough to interest you, nothing is!In the world of "Girls und Panzer," there exists the sport called "Tankery," where teams drive full-size tanks to take out other tanks on the battlefield. The activity is well-promoted to junior high-school girls: the first episode shows Ooarai High School students watching an educational video on it, which explains to the girls that it will make them "more polite, graceful, modest and gallant, both on and off the battlefield." The English-translated speech sells it in the same way knitting or home-education was likely sold to past generations of female students, to great comedic effect. Anyway, new student Miho is a daughter of a famous tank-driving family, but doesn't want anything to do with the sport. Only with the encouragement (read: kind-hearted threat) of the student council, and the interest of her new friends, does she agree to lead a new Tankery club, which goes on to compete in a tournament against other schools from around the world. Does the show succeed in providing "cute girls doing things?" Yes. The girls are all adorable. And not in a sexualized way, like anime is ought to do. It's cute in a way where you want to give everyone a hug and pinch their cheeks. No, not those cheeks. The girls each have only one or two dimensions to them: the main "tank team" consists of the uncertain but capable leader, a girl interested in boys, a girl who likes to sleep, a girl who is tall and calmly composed, etc. Some of the girls have awkward relationships with their family, based around their choice to join the school's Tankery club, but nothing too serious. Everyone is inoffensively delightful. And if it wasn't for the occasional bathing scene, I'd happily recommend the series as family friendly, which is unusual for anime. They just HAD to add bathing scenes... it reminds you that the core fanbase of "Girls und Panzer" might not be young girls.Of course, the tanks themselves steal the show. I was impressed with how funny the show was, thanks to the existance of this "sport." It's ridiculous that young girls would be encouraged to drive vehicles normally used for war. It's ridiculous that their school would happen to have a bunch of old tanks scattered around their campus. Isn't it dangerous for the tanks to shoot at each other? No one ever gets hurt in the show, with each tank ejecting a cute white flag when they take too much damage. Won't the surrounding towns get damaged in the crossfire? One shop-owner is thrilled when his store is destroyed, since it means he'll be able to set up a new one. 
The show is hilarious because it plays the tank concept with such a straight face, making it a delight to watch with a group. By comparison, the jokes told between characters in conversation aren't as successful, really just devices to make the girls seem more cute and innocent rather than cause a laugh. And interestingly, the tank battles themselves are the most boring aspects of the show. They aren't boring at all, but there's only so much strategy and movement that can take place in a tank battle, with each batlte taking up one or two full episodes. I definitely got the impression this would make a better video game than a series (and yes, video games do exist for the franchise, even if not to the extent that it should).While colorful, the show doesn't look particularly unique, and the "cute" faces don't always stay consistent. The animation is a bit better, both because of the occasional lively character expression, and because of the well-animated tank battles. The tanks are well detailed, rendered and animated with 3D models, and occasionally with 3D girls driving them, but more often, with 2D girls merged with the 3D models and camera movement. It's impressive to watch, and if nothing else, it's cute to watch a tank clattering along with an anime girl popping out from the top. The music is appropriately inspired by army marches from all parts of the world, bookmarked with cute opening and ending themes. The sound design of the tanks, of their wheel treads and the canonfire, also deserves mention: even if a bit distracting and loud, it required a bit more effort than a typical anime production. The English dub, unfortunately, sounds like adult women pretending to be young girls, typically with a sleepy delivery. Most will want to stick with the Japanese actors, which is a shame, since the English script is generally strong, meeting the show's concept with full force."Girls und Panzer" won't win awards for best anime of the year, but it's fun and accessible to a wide audience. And apparently, it's quite successful, spawning OVA episodes, a feature film, and a theatrical OVA series. You wouldn't think there was much story you could tell around the premise of "cute girls driving tanks," but there you are; if you like this, there's plenty more to see. And if you want to stop with just Season 1, that's fine too.