I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is that as a result of having less interest in Gu P, less time for liveblogging and other projects I want to do, I have decided to end this liveblog. The good news is that I've decided to go out with a final series of entries about Der Film.
The title is less than creative, and when I first heard about it, I thought it was a Fan Nickname of some sort, as a hybrid of German and English not unlike the series itself.
The film begins In Medias Res, with an exhibition match going on. Evidently, Oarai's forces are closing in on St. Gloriana's, although the latter is not too worried about their situation (comparing it to a scone they can't break) and Miho orders a cautious advance, with the catchphrase "Panzer Vor." Unfortunately, Nishi Kinuyo, head of Chihatan, doesn't know what it means, so Miho tells her. Momo's a bit annoyed, but Yuzu and Anzu chalk it up as par for the course for Chihatan. Kinuyo relays the orders, and Miho does so once again.
Oarai's tanks advance, and you see the title card, as well as all the other tanks. Meanwhile, the defensive team advances, but is under fire, so Miho orders her tanks to fire on the enemy. Chihatan is excited to knock out a St. Gloriana tank, and Kinuyo, on her teammates' insistence, begins to charge, in spite of one girl protesting that it will result in their formation falling apart. St. Gloriana smugly notes that Chihatan broke the formation apart for them, while they're about to sandwich Oarai. The St. Gloriana tanks fire, taking out the Chihatan forces easily. Worse, still, the rest of Chihatan plans on joining in, with one of their tanks barely even starting before getting cut down. Mallard Team blocks off another tank, saying that orders are the same as rules. It's interesting that Honor Before Reason not only leads its followers to defy common sense, but sometimes even their superior's explicit orders, in stark contrast to how one would assume people with that mindset would favor Blind Obedience.
Oarai withdraws, and we see the other team that's fighting against them- Pravda, set to an instrumental version of Katyusha. When Darjeeling chides Katyusha for being late, Katyusha complains that it was harder than she thought, and Nonna suggests that they could have gone around. Nonna and Klara have an exchange in Russian, annoying Katyusha. Darjeeling notes that St. Gloriana outnumbers and outguns its enemy, and tells Katyusha to come, which further annoys her, since she claims to be the one in charge.
As Oarai gets flanked, Kinuyo finally asks Miho for her opinion, and she orders a withdrawal, much to the Chihatan group's dismay, especially one tank that Mallard Team has to push out of the battle. Oarai's group heads downhill and into town to split up the enemy, with Darjeeling saying that Black Forest might have fallen for that, but she won't. Miho, by putting Mallard Team up front, manages to force the Pravda tanks to a halt long enough to get by them, while she slips past them. Katyusha orders her tanks to focus on the flag tank. Evidently, Miho had planned to divert the enemy, but failed, and rules out the idea of attacking the flag tank, so her idea is to pretend to fail to run away. Miho drives past Oarai Station, and lets Rabbit Team attack the enemy In the Back. They try a tactic similar to what they did to the Jagdtiger on Nonna's tank, only to end up at the edge of the barrel of Nonna's gun. Saki then seems to offer a critical piece of advice, but is distracted by a butterfly long enough for Nonna to blow them away.
Miho then passes by Point OY 2, launching an ambush. Anteater finally gets a knockout in an official match. Darjeeling asks Katyusha what her plan is, with Katyusha getting annoyed at the lack of honorifics after her name, and also getting annoyed when Nonna and Klara discuss what Miho's doing in Russian. Katyusha demands that Nonna speak in Japanese and take the lead- Nonna does the latter. Meanwhile, Darjeeling orders Rosehip to shield her from Miho's attacks, since Darjeeling's the flag tank this time.
Miho's pursuers catch up to her again. Anzu, once again slacking off and eating snacks, tells them not to push themselves, while Yuzu insists that she take this seriously. The enemy assault forces Hippo and Leopon to fall back. As one St. Gloriana tanker expresses her frustration over how reinforcements haven't shown up yet, Miho quickly does an about face and shoots her before she can do the same. The tank blocks some of the others, forcing Rosehip to quickly improvise. The surviving Oarai teams fall back, but Kinuyo's radio breaks, and she somehow doesn't understand Duck Team when they point out that they're retreating, believing they're advancing. The girl from earlier wants to repay the shame, but Duck Team reminds them that the real shame would be in getting defeated.
Nonna takes aim at Leopon and Rosehip chases them down, only to overshoot when Miho suddenly brakes, enabling Miho to take out one of their tanks. Unfortunately, the OY line breaks and Leopon is taken out. Miho turns into an alley, narrowly dodging a Pravda tank's shot. A desperate chase ensues until Rosehip crashes into a Pravda tank, causing a huge explosion that destroys the same house that got destroyed in the exhibition match with St. Gloriana. Speaking of call-backs, Hippo decides to use a tactic from the battle with Anzio. They do a U-turn and fire, but miss and gt attacked from the side, being taken out in the process. Miho has Mako feint right, and then turn, resulting in Oarai's tanks going through the crowd, and through passages that would seem neither strong enough to hold the tanks' weight nor wide enough to let them pass easily, ending with one Chihatan tank trying to go down an elevator. Mallard Team, with some creative positioning of their tank, fires down on a Pravda tank, disabling it. Miho drives down the stairs of the shrine, causing Katyusha to conclude that Miho's being reckless again. That said, Katyusha orders Nonna to pursue Miho the same way, and with a bow to the shrine, Nonna complies. Duck Team tries the same ambush tactic on the same St. Gloriana tank they tried it on before, but with a twist- a Chihatan tank comes down the elevator first, and shoots the tank, disabling it.
Miho plans on regrouping with her allies and tracking down the flag tank, while St. Gloriana plans an ambush with a "trusty ally." A KV-2 drives out of the water and fires on them, destroying two buildings. Unfortunately, while turning the turret, the tank tips over and disables itself. Oarai then comes under fire from the side and takes casualties, but continues pursuing and returns fire. They spring the trap, and Katyusha goes into Evil Gloating mode, but some of Oarai's tanks make it off the beach.
Momo finally gets a kill as she shoots a tank in mid-air. Granted, this is something of a Retcon for the Maginot battle, but I suspect that apart from the main series not acknowledging the manga spinoffs, the writers likely decided that it'd be worse to have people who didn't read the Maginot assuming that she wouldn't make note of actually hitting something than to have people who did read it assume she forgot about the last time she managed a hit.
As the battle goes into the Aqua World, Oarai and St. Gloriana fire simultaneously, but St. Gloriana gets the shot in, and wins.
As the battle concludes, with Ami acting as a ref (apparently, not even the federation considers her part of Oarai, or at least doesn't think there's any conflict of interest in her serving in this role). Elsewhere, Mika and a random subordinate from Continuance watch the battle. The latter asks why they didn't participate, and the former says it wasn't the right moment.
In the baths, Momo makes a Long List of everyone they need to thank, and Anzu cuts her off after she brings up her first kill. Meanwhile, Katyusha's about to get out, but Nonna makes her take a long bath, with Klara counting to 100 in Russian. Kinuyo apologizes, but Miho says she learned a lot, although she can't think of an answer except for their "spirit."
- Next Installment: Oarai eagerly awaits a new semester, not knowing that the previous one was meant to be their last.
