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Kuromorimine's helicopter is not Maho's or Erika's to give.

  • When Maho offers to fly Saori and Mako back to Ooarai in their Focke-Angelis, Erika's protest is something like "we can't just give the helicopter to a bunch of kids" - because it isn't theirs, it belongs to the school and they're effectively leasing it. Maybe KMM have a "bring the helicopter back by 10pm" sort of policy. Erika's worried about getting in trouble for an unauthorized use of the school's helicopter. Maho's response: "this is also a part of tankery" is both a commentary on chivalry and also how she plans to get them off the hook: by burying it in paperwork.

Erika and Miho used to be friends or at least cordial.

  • Erika is so victory-obsessed that she disavowed her friendship with Miho after Miho's altruism cost them the finals. It certainly makes the scene in the Tank Cafe even more of a kick in the guts for Miho, and possibly explains Erika's seeming special loathing of Miho.
  • Alternatively, Erika and Miho were contenders for the position of Vice-captain, before Maho chose Miho. As their school kept winning, Erika gradually approached the point at which she could respect Miho and concede that perhaps Miho deserved the job more, but then the finals happened. Then after Miho defeated her old school in spite of the odds against her, Erika regained some level of respect for her.
    • Confirmed in all three of manga spinoff, manga retelling and LN retelling.
  • Erika blames Miho so harshly BECAUSE it was her tank that sank, and she's subconsciously avoiding the feeling that that makes the loss HER fault! She was almost certainly that tank's commander...
  • In the Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu manga spin-off, Erika gave off something of a Broken Pedestal vibe when talking to Miho. She accused her of abandoning those who had worked so hard beside her in Kuromorimine's Senshado Team. Erika also noted that Miho appearing as the captain of another team dealt a blow to Kuromorimine's morale; it was one thing for Miho to abandon Senshado due to her guilt; it was quite another for her to defect to another team.

Saori and Hana made friends with Miho according to The Plan by Anzu.

  • Their instant close friendship strains belief a little in Episode 1, and Anzu regularly suggests 'Everything is going according to plan'.
    • It could be supported by how things aren't nearly as smooth with Miho's friend group in "Little Army", and how Saori once comments that she's succeeded in "picking up" Miho. Then again, Saori and Hana argue against pressuring Miho into participating although it could also be a case of Saori and Hana Becoming the Mask, or not being told why they're doing it.

Maho Nishizumi is behind the mysterious threat to Oarai Academy if they fail at the Tournament

  • Its an attempt to get her sister back into sensha-do
    • Jossed. Its a government cost-cutting measure but Maho could've used her mother's possible influence in the government to direct them to cut costs at this particular place.
      • Completely and utterly Jossed, since Maho is completely unrelated to the reason why Ooari is being shut down.

Miho Nishizumi is an ancestor of Ursarkar E. Creed.

  • Look at her entry in the Characters page. Focus on "Genius Ditz." Tactical genius, anyone?
  • All the more credible considering the sudden appearance of the Maus, given that it was never seen prior.

All schools are on gigantic aircraft carriers

  • Because of huge overcrowding on the Japanese mainland. The series is either set in a near future where the trend toward aging and eventual decline of the Japanese population has been dramatically reversed or in an alternate timeline where there was no decline in birthrate. The school assembly hall is pretty full in Episode 1.
  • From the "Russian" four-pointed star on the Pravda uniforms it seems that the series takes place in the Strike Witches universe. Probably there's still enough of Neuroi threat remains to base schools on land. Either that or the Neuroi are gone, but left some poisonous shiat behind as a scorched earth tactic. We're in WMG so it's a nice crossover theory.
  • The first one is confirmed by the third OVA. While elementary schools are still on land, high schools are all on school ships. It's not because of overcrowding, but because they make for a better learning environment. And the concept has existed since the Roman empire!

Miho, even though she came from a sensha-do family, never really liked it until she came to Oarai

"For the first time, I'm enjoying Tankery"
— Miho, Episode 2.
  • The prequel manga "Little Army" featuring Miho in elementary shows otherwise. To elaborate, much of it involves her developing a group of friends with whom she could do it, something she lacked for much of her childhood. Later chapters, however, go into her questioning why she is doing Tankery, and she seems to come to an answer- it's something she can do together with others- although the incident at the championship likely shook her resolve in the same way as getting a glimpse of Maho's aloof side did.

Because of the near-drowning, Miho is claustrophobic.

  • She cannot stay in a buttoned up tank, so she almost constantly has her head out of the tank. Yes it does improve situational awareness, but that's not her real reason.
    • Jossed: It wasn't her tank in the water, but a teammate's.
    • Interestingly enough, in Little Army, it's indicated that whenever Miho is feeling troubled, she secludes herself inside a tank, resulting in Maho having to coax her out.

Miho's Dark and Troubled Past

  • Miho states in the first episode "I was always called unreliable at my last school." There must have been a rather serious case of constant harassment and bullying by Erica and others back at Black Forest Peak, possibly because a mere freshman was being made vice-commander. Maho might have been involved (possibly misinterpreting it as good natured teasing?), but she was more likely unaware. Miho's lack of self confidence and clumsiness shown in the first episode have to be from a long campaign of wearing her self confidence down. The harassment and bullying brought about the incident where Miho's tank fell in the ocean and she nearly drowned. Possibly other crew mates were not so lucky as Miho. Maho's cold shoulder is because she blames herself for what happened. She still cares, but doesn't know how to show it. (the helicopter offer is proof). The end result is Miho is suffering, rather badly, from PTSD, which her new friends are only partially compensating for.
    • Slightly Jossed — it wasn't Miho's tank that fell in the water.

Black forest school will pull out even bigger guns in finals

  • They use Panzer IV (late war) and Tiger I as their standard issue but in There Is No Kill Like Overkill moment before finals they will pull out full Tiger I lineup with Tiger II (Königstiger) or Maus as their flag tank.
  • Oarai doesn't have any tank that can take too much punishment so they chose a lighter and more agile tank which still has some armor (I-Go's armor is at risk even if you spit on it), on the other hand even Black forest's Tiger I can deflect most of the incoming fire without penetration and Tiger II (with production turret) is almost impossible to penetrate unless you get lucky from point blank range (at least with the weapons Ooarai has) and Maus goes even further.
  • Ironically, in their match with Pravda (who field an absolutely devastating 122-mm D-25T on their IS-2 and positively enormous bunker-busting 152-mm M-10 howitzer on KV-2), Oarai uses I-Go for a flag tank. If anything, they should've put it on a B1 bis, as it can take a serious punishment, but they still put their flag on that wet-cardboard-armored sloth.
    • Against 122 mm you really don't want to get hit no matter which tank you use so in that case you use an option which limits your offensive capabilities the least. I-Go has the least effective gun due to extremely low muzzle velocity an if they use Type 89A it is completely useless in these weather conditions due to the engine. For what (little) is worth, they use a late model Type89B Otsu (recognizable for the turret), whose diesel engine was maybe the only thing worth saving. It's still a worthless tank that doesn't hurt the team's capabilities by not being actively used.
      • This tactic is shown by the BC Freedom academy who use a WW1 vintage Renault tank as a flag tank, leaving their state-of-the-art tanks free to fight the battle.
  • Confirmed. 20 tanks starting with Panthers and ending with Jagdtiger and a Maus.

Oarai loses in the season finale but the school is still saved.

The fight is so impressive that whatever group is threatening to shut the school down agrees to let it keep going. Potential reconciliation with one of the mothers (either Miho's or Hana's, although it looks like they might be setting up for the latter one at the end of the Pravda match anyways) is optional.
  • It is a serious possibility - the choice of topic means that the usual cheap Deux Ex Machinas are unavailable, and it is hard to write a plausible scenario of them winning. However, Sensha-do is supposedly being strengthened in hopes of doing well in international level competition. A scout with brains is likely to understand that while piling on the equipment against poorly funded schools might work at Highschool level, every national team will be well-equipped and then what will win fights are not a bunch of jokers that keep missing (which BF will do in Ep 11) and need to be instructed on exactly what to do (in the PV for Ep 11, Maho resorted to personally directing Tank #11 to engage Oarai's Hetzer).
    • Jossed. Oarai wins!
    • Confirmed! Hana reconciles with her mother after the match with Pravda, by showing her that tankery has improved her flower arrangement.
    • Double Jossed in the movie: Oarai wins, but the school is still being shut down. The plot of the movie revolves around them fighting in tankery to save the school (again).

Ami Chuno is hands off because Miho is there.

She trained in the Nishizumi style herself, and thinks Miho is better at training than she is.

Moeyo Sensha Gakkou and Girls und Panzer take place in the same universe.

Both involve Schoolgirls in Tanks as a normal thing.
  • Sailor-fuku to Jūsensha might also belong.

Why Momo always misses.

She needs corrective glasses so she is either near sighted, or far sighted, but only wears one lens as a monocle because it looks cool, So she has no depth perception and as such she always misses.
  • Inverted: Momo has perfect eyesight in both eyes (Lasik, maybe?), but she chose to keep her old prescription glasses in the form of her improvised monocle. Must have been a very strong prescription if it screws with her vision that badly.
  • It's not her eyesight at all - she just has terrible technique, and bumps the cannon off-target as she fires. She always seems to miss *to the right*, which is a common error for novice marksmen who "pull" the trigger instead of "squeezing" it. Pay close attention to the Freeze-Frame Bonus moments in The Movie.

Girls und Panzer universe

Some time in the past, for some reason; Maybe global sea levels rose (which happened anyway, but may not have been the immediate cause), oil ran out or for some other reason, World War III broke out.

Now this was not a quick war by any stretch of the imagination; Whole generations went by in a rolling, ceaseless combat. In the end, the nations had to start drafting women and since women are, generally speaking, physically less strong than men, it was decided to make tank crews mostly female and men were given positions in the infantry. All the nations did this, which explains the universal fascination of tank combat among women.

But even that wasn't enough and the war still went on for generations; Whole generations where born with the war raging, and died of old age with the war still going on. Inevitably perhaps, the war went atomic.

All sides won, all sides lost in a fury of mutual destruction and all that where left were scattered bands of survivors, who banded together into a semblance of government

Obviously "Girls und Panzer" takes place a LONG time after that war, so the planet has recovered (at least where the humans live) and human civilization is pretty much fine, as well.

This explains where the giant city carriers come from (left over from the war), why they're always at sea (keep this generation away from radiation hot spots or you won't have a next generation), how tank driving can be a hobby and sport among girls (an attitude left from the War), how tanks can be economical (who knows, how far in the future this takes place and what new production methods they have) and how it can be safe (it's the future).

  • The war was called "The 250 Years War".
  • The beginning of atomic warfare in that conflict was called "Ragnarök", "Götterdämmerung" or "The Days of the Burning Heavens".

World War 1 went much longer then expected !

This explains why girls ride tanks in this universe instead of men.The supplementary material states that Senshado as a sport was created in the 1920's, not tanks, indicating that tanks might have existed prior to that. Thus, they could have been designed for women to drive instead of men. This is because when tanks were finally invented the first world war had stretched out year longer then it did in our world. Women were drafted into the military but the attitude of protecting women still endured. The idea was suggested that perhaps they could combat in a situation where physical strength would be less needed, not as GI's in the dirty trenches but as delicate flowers behind several inches of steel. This put the men of the time at ease, believing that their women were safe but still in battle with them. After the war tank driving became a sport until World War 2 which went as scheduled.

  • Rommel existed in the GUP universe, because otherwise a history buff wouldn't choose him as her "soul name". That's at least one man who was heavily involved with tanks. It fits nicely with the idea that Senshado was created after tanks themselves.
  • Saori hopes that their instructor will be male, so it is possible that men drive tanks in the armed services. Either that or Saori is just ignorant.
  • From a purely logical point of view, Women are smaller on average than men. Given that making the crew space smaller means a smaller overall tank, well, do the math. GUP-verse quite likely was less sexist from the start, Men and Women both enlisted, and it's quite likely that both were, at least initially, before tankery culture really established itself, were given assigned to tanks, but as the war wore on, and tanks were built with crew size restrictions that women fit under more easily, Tanking was seen as more of a woman's skill than a man's. The Military itself is still more egalitarian, but tank crews are still dominantly women, while tankery has become almost entirely a woman's sport.

Every anime with a high school takes place on a air craft carrier.

we just never zoom out enough to see it

Koume Akabodhi was commanding the tank that fell into the water, and she was saved by Miho.

We find this out on episode 10 of the anime, when Koume walked up to Miho and thanked her for saving her.

Miho saved Maho's reputation by accident

The way the scene played out, one can infer Black Forest was losing last year's fight. Miho is cautious about Pravda's ambush tactics; we might infer she (as well as BF) has been bitten last year by it. More importantly it'll explain why Miho's flagtank was running (escaping?) with two tanks along a narrow mountain road. If Miho had stayed in her tank as per Nishizumi doctrine, primary blame for the defeat (as well as the deaths of a tank crew) would go to Maho as team captain. Fortunately(?), Miho jumped out of the tank, Shiho's warped attention focused there... and Maho forever feels guilty for it.
  • Emi, when calling out Maho on shooting her older sister's flag tank when it was doing the same thing Miho was doing (but for the enemy, rather than a teammate), says Maho's team would have won anyway. Perhaps Pravda would have won if not for Miho's decision, and she was merely being scapegoated (By Erika and Shiho more than Maho); it seems more likely that her departure as tank commander and vice-captain threw the tank into disarray, leaving them vulnerable, rather than leaving the tank unable to move or defend itself. Another theory is that Maho is inwardly ashamed that Miho would sacrifice victory to save another person while she took advantage of Emi's sister's team trying to save one of her teammates. Little Army seems to suggest that Maho has occasionally acted cold to Miho for years, and it is implied to be because she is trying to be the ideal Nishizumi heir so Miho does not have to be. The main variable seems to be who, if anyone, is watching.

The last tank crew are 'defectors' from Miho's old school

They haven't even been seen in the background, and the brief glimpse of them in the opening credits almost looks like they are being introduced to the class, like transfer students would. They could have easily decided to leave Black Forest due to badmouthing somebody they admired for risking her life for another tank crew, probably even were the crew of the tank that fell in the water. Given that they would probably experienced tankers and used to dealing with German designs, putting them in the Tiger would be a major uptick for the home team.
  • Jossed. They are WOT players.

The team name and members of the last two teams are already revealed

  • If you take a good look at the OP, you'll see that every team are introduced with their animal. (Ex: Angler fish phone chain for Team Miho, Turtle Laptop for Team Student Council) If you look at the blackboard behind three girls with the bunny ears, grey hair and eye-patch, you'll see that they are Team Anteater. While during the intro for the vehicle club you'll see the Lion sticker on the Mechanic's Creeper. Considering that we are introduced to the Vehicle Club already, it makes sense that the TIGER goes to the Lion Team.
    • Confirmed.... except the third name. the third team is Leopon not Lion.

All the Oarai Panzer Teams are named after animals closest to their personality

  • Even though the names of the Team seems to be chosen by how the corresponding tank is shaped, the animals match the personalities of the operators very closely. Team Anguar-fish regularly use themselves as bait but they are very effective hunters; Rabbit Team panics easily and runs all over the place; Hippo Team are big and slow but they are deadly in their natural environment which are ambushes; Turtle team has been shown to be very slow to get into the battles; Finally Goose team have the knack to get into the enemy's blind spot in every single confrontation.

The closing of Oarai Academy is not directly dependent on victory in the tournament.

  • It would make NO sense that anything official would require a school to win a tournament it has not participated in for 20 years or more to remain open. More likely the school is threatened with closure in general, and this is a Zany Scheme by the Student Council to keep the school open: the Money and Prestige of winning the tournament would allow the school to remain open.
    • Confirmed in episode 9. When meeting with the MEXT representative who tells the Student Council about the closure, he explains the school is closing due to low attendance rates and how there's nothing special about the school to justify its continued existence. He trails off into how it used to have a tankery program and Anzu latches onto it like a life preserver. "You wouldn't close down the national champion, would you?"
      • In the movie, turns out they would!

Girls und Panzer is a precursor to World of Tanks

The initial idea was that GuP was evolved from the sport depicted in WoT, but the fact that it started about three years after tanks themselves were invented precluded that.

Basically: At some point in time, more and more men start partaking in Tankery, perhaps starting with mixed- or all-boys schools taking part in it, albeit because men are the "tougher gender", some safeties are removed - namely, the automatic white flag that raises when a tank is knocked out, simply because men are expected to be tougher. Things like the carbon liner and carefully managed ammunition are kept, just that what point a tank becomes "knocked out" changes (essentially, when the vehicle just sputters out completely and dies), though a hard enough hit will still rock a tank and hurt a crew member.

The Men's Tankery, though, generally is restricted to certain areas - because if they were given free reign over an area, there is no assurance that they would be as careful as their female counterparts, and would drive through walls and buildings if it meant they could continue fighting - hence, why so many World of Tanks battlefields take the form of destroyed cities, they're areas cordoned off and the people who lived there displaced in a hurry.

The presence of open-top and exposed crew vehicles indicates that people that they don't mind having die are present - regardless of the carbon coating, if a shell starts bouncing inside the crew compartment, someone will be hurt. Hence, open-topped vehicles are frequently manned by crews on death row or who volunteer for a higher paycheck at a greater risk. Experimental vehicles that keep showing up are a result of the Men's Tankery having more lax rules, as well as explaining the presence of post-WWII designs, the rules for Men's tankery becoming "No composite armor, and no smooth-bore guns" (as the Developers have stated for WoT), though exceptions are made as long as they use normal RHA steel.

Because of the increased lethality and presence of criminal crews, women are banned from partaking in Men's Tankery matches, hence the all-male crews.

It would make sense that after carbon lining was invented it would make ALL tanks, artillery, and anti-tank guns useless as weapons of war because after disabling the vehicle, everyone inside is still alive thus you would have two armies firing pot shots at each other from islands of disabled armored vehicles. So except for a few experimental battles here and there with tanks, it devolve to proxy war and then abandoned as a form of war completely and is opened to women just like Equestrian today.

One thing that would bugger this is social stigma. Sensha-dō have been defined for at least 80 years as a women's sport and is made out to be a shining example how women should be in the Panzerverse. Men doing Sensha-dō would have the same stigma as handing a man a WMBA Basketball or a boy playing with a My Little Pony Doll. It happens but people would look at you weird if you have that kind of interest. There are a number of possible explanations for this.

  • 1. People who break the stigmas don't care how they're seen. In this case, boys doing tankery could be seen as something along the lines of Real Men Wear Pink. A significant number of them gather enough attention to justify broadcasting them, and it snowballs from there. In other words, a niche market.
  • 2. Men's tankery is different in nature. While Sensha-do is about refining oneself into a "strong wife, strong mother and strong career woman", Men's tankery is, for instance, more about engineering and showing it off in a mock-battle.
  • 3. They are in a parallel universe that at some point in the past there was a For Want Of A Nail situation that meant that one developed as a women's sport and in the other a men's sport. until there point of divergence the two were identical with the same histories and pasts, after that point of divergence though we see the split between the two.
  • 4. The WoT-verse IS spun from GuP-verse, it's just significantly further down the line than what we're seeing at present. If the series can be seen as taking place in the 2010s, perhaps World of Tanks can be seen as taking place further into the future (for instance, the 2080s), giving sufficient time for the sport to have it's gender barriers broken. It would likely start out small-time but work up from there.
  • 5. It may be that tankery is only seen as feminine in Japan. We have no idea about the rest of the world.

The final battle against black forest will be in a desert

Look at the tournament locations so far.

Sanders: Shermans open ground with forest: like Normandy.

Anzio: Italian themed team: rocky forested terrain: like Italy.

Pravda: Russian flavored: snow.

All that's left is black forest German team and the only major European theater of world war two left is the North African Campaign, Where the tiger (which we know black forest used) was deployed.

  • Jossed, the final battle takes place at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Specifically the East Fuji Maneuver Area, Japan's version of the Top Gun school for tanks

During the final battle Miho will sacrifice the victory and leave her tank to save somebody again

This time it will be....
  • The opposing team's player to be rescued (bonus points if it will be Maho or their mother if she is in the team). Then Miho will publicly say that Sensha-do is not a war and that the victory isn't worth anybody's life.
  • Maho sacrifice victory and leave her tank this time. That would be an interesting development, since Maho once shot a flag tank that was going to rescue a tank from her team, even when (according to Emi) she was going to win anyway.
    • Confirmed. Rabbit Team gets stuck with engine failure in the middle of a river, and is left unable to proceed (it's implied that they might eventually get tipped over and flooded). Miho, with Black Forest in pursuit, leaps across the tanks to tie a rope to Rabbit Team's tank, and they manage to pull it to safety.

Tie Breakers are based on number of tanks knocked out

Considering that Sensha-do is at least 80 years old, it stands to reason that there would be some rules to settle a battle where two teams knock each other's flag tank out at nearly the same moment, or neither flag tank is hit after time runs out. The tie breaker has to be fair to both parties and having a rematch is not an option considering most of the time depending on how badly damaged that tank is. So having it be based on number of tanks knocked out is fair because in a battle where it is 2 vs 6 the 6 tank team could only have a maximum of 2 kills while the 2 tank team only needs to knock out 3 tanks to break the tie. This would favor the smaller team who had to make good use of tactics to outmaneuver the larger team.
  • It's possible that there's a way of determining, down to a fraction of a second, which one shot first. In Little Army, Kikuyo observes the practice battle with binoculars and declares Maho's team the winner based on which shot hit first. In situations where no one can match this call, the win goes to the most knocked out tanks.

Oarai's mix of multiple nationalities tanks is unusual now, but wasn't 20 years ago.

Back when the club closed down, most sensha-do teams were a mix of various nationality's vehicles, unlike today where its specialized by nation. Oarai's success will lead to more mixed nationality teams in the future.
  • Jossed. The Main Oarai Panzers were all sold off when the Team Disbanded so the Panzers that were left are all "Training" Panzers that are used to train new members. Because the trainees had to use obsolete tanks, it teaches them the importance of Armor, Concealment, Weak points and Proper Driving. Had the Leftover Panzers been used for Matches, they would have been sold off when the Team Disbanded, instead they were all abandoned where they have crashed and never recovered because the effort to recover and fix were not worth the trouble. The Mixed Nationality was not because of a previous social standard but instead an attempt to teach the basics of Tankery.
  • POSSIBLY Confirmed by the movie, in which the High School All Stars team on 30 mixed, overall inferior tanks holds their own against better tanks with far superior skills, in single tank victory, because their mixed status lets them cover each others weaknesses

The online tank game team Anteater met on was World of Tanks.

  • There will be a shout-out. Since it is the online tank game, it's almost undoubtedly either World of Tanks or a counterpart thereof. Obviously it can not be neither Jossed nor confirmed, but it was given a nod when the victorious Anteater Team congratulated doing together what, reportedly, is the "WoT secret handshake". Given how Wargaming.net has partnered up with Actas to advertise World of Tanks in Japan it's probably safe to nail this as Confirmed.

The Reason for the long delay on Episodes 11/12 is because there will be a Season 2.

At least one station was ready to broadcast on January 9th, but because the show will be renewed, they had to completely redo Episodes 11 and 12 to allow a second season. Girls Und Panzer is popular enough to create a second season. As the main page states, the show was a runaway (and unexpected) hit. The first two BDs sold about 30,000 copies each. A typical show does more like 4,000. It'd be odd if the production team weren't at least contemplating a sequel/second season. Indeed, according to The Other Wiki, the Japanese newspaper Joyo Shimbun reported on December 24th, 2012, that a sequel is tentatively planned.
  • In his blog post apologizing for the delay, the director hinted that episode 12 will not be the end of the series.

WMG's for a possible second season plot

  • Crews from the best national teams are put together as a single team to compete in a global tournament, with Oarai taking the lead.
    • Cold war tanks will be involved.
    • Volley ball team will get an M60 Patton upgraded to a turkish M 60 T Sabra, History team will get a Raketenjagdpanzer 4 or Jaguar 2 (a tank destroyer with TOW missiles rather then a gun) the student council a Swedish S tank. The fresh men will be split into two T-64 tanks, the discipline team will get a PT-76 light tank, the gamers get a french AMX-30 tank no idea what Miho will get since i can't find a five man battle tank.
  • Some nutjob (and all the nutjobs under him) unleashes a superweapon that magically fries the electronics of all modern military vehicles, forcing the army to work with the old-school Tankery teams to stop the bad guys. May lead to Cerebus Syndrome, since both sides are going to fight, y'know, a real war with killing people (and may drive poor Miho to a larger case of PTSD than what she has now).
  • Oarai, being the National Champions are chosen to represent Japan in the Global Tournament but since Oarai is still struggling with money and low on time they are unable to find/train new members and buy new tanks in time. In a show of unity and friendship Darjeeling, Kay, and Katyusha volunteer themselves, their crew and their tanks in order to round out an All Star team of 20 tanks. With:
    • Darjeeling and Orange Pekoe bringing in their Churchill and Matilda
    • Kay, Alice, and Naomi with the Sherman M 4 A 4, M 4 A 6 and Firefly
    • Katyusha and Nonna in an IS-2 and T-34
    • Drama will ensue as the girls different styles and personalities conflict at first but The Power of Friendship will forge them into a world stomping super team facing Germany in the World Championships with Miho's old friend Emi leading the German team.
      • Something akin to this all-star team occurs in the movie.
  • Keep in mind that some of the cast- including Maho, the Oarai student council, Sodoko, Darjeeling, Assam and possibly others- are graduating at the end of the year. It's possible that said individuals won't participate in the tank tournament, although they may make appearances as spectators. Possible solutions to this include: the Tournament is under-21 or under-18, not necessarily schools, so those young enough could make it through. Or, of course, the ending of the National tournament is not at the end of the school year: so the Global Tournament could still happen before Maho etc graduate. Also, according to Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu, Maho, Darjeeling, and Anzu are all still at school for Christmas time, which apparently takes place shortly after the tournament. Assuming a similar academic year in the Panzerverse to the real world, there is still another semester to go before they graduate in April.
  • In the wake of the movie, season two will involve the Ooarai team and their friends from the other school carriers forming a pro team under Shiho Nishizumi's sponsorship to compete in the training matches for the World Championships (which would be a THIRD season)

The League is deliberately trying to get Oarai to lose the tournament.

Possibly due to pressure from the Nishizumi school, the League in charge of running and refereeing the matches is trying to ensure Oarai loses the tournament. Since the beginning of the tournament, the rules have been blatantly favoring schools able to take larger teams, starting with Saunders' 10 tanks, Pravda's 15 tanks, and finally Black Forests 20, while Oarai has less than 10 (not very good) tanks total. The chosen battlefields even seem to favor the other team, such as Oarai having to fight Pravda in a snowy battlefield.
  • Jossed. Oarai Girl's Academy is on the verge of being shut down, and thus it obviously cannot afford the funds to get new tanks. They are quite literally working with scraps and just simply cannot gather together enough tanks to fill the per-requisite number for the rounds. This is why everybody has more tanks than them. The only time both teams matches up in number of tanks is the match against St. Glorianna, which is supposed to be a friendly match and is outside the Tournament Arc, and thus outside of official tournament rules. For all the talk about "All's fair in love and war", those girls are surprisingly sporting.
  • Furthermore, it's said in the second recap episode that the rules are designed so that the number of tanks one can field is less important. All you need to do to win is blast the flag tank. Greater funding provides an advantage in both cases, but the flag tank rule evens the odds somewhat.

The Nishizumi school used to be more like Miho's style

The performance of Nishizumi was far less than one would expect from THE elite school that Nishizumi is played up to be. They seem to have only one tactic: confront the other team head on and smash them with superior tanks and this tactic seems to be enforced by Miho's mom to the point of dogmatism.
"If you shoot, you hit, if you defend, you defend strong, if you advance, you advance without falter. Iron rules and a heart of steel. That is what defines the Nishizumi school."
  • When Miho mixes things up with her Tank Impersonation in the finals, they fall to confusion and disarray because they are used to being a hammer. When you have the ability to bring in the kind of guns they did, (Tiger, Panthers,Jagdpanther, Jagdtiger and Elefant) then your only tactical concern is getting as much armor as you can in the enemy's face (proverbially speaking given the range of those guns) and hitting them with as soon as you can. Brute force smashing is a valid tactic if you have the guns and armor for it. As for tactics, they place this hammer into position to smash and little else. In the finals, this hammer emerged from the forest because Maho knows Miho's first move is the safety of the forest, and moved to deny that.They sought to thwack it at the correct nail right from the start, but what happens if the nail turns out to be a slippery one?
  • "Buy loads of superior tanks so you can smash anything in head-on fight" sounds like Unskilled, but Strong and not something that an elite school would teach. The selection of a side ambush meant most of the tanks had to shoot too far away for their gunnery skills, so they wind up clipping off only one tank. They would probably better off placing the tanks in the woods Ooarai would run into and go for a close range battle where they might just be able to hit things.
  • Miho on the other hand has a ragtag group of tanks that are not nearly as capable as there opponents in every match up. She has to be tactical and has to be cleaver in order to win. Black forest has Hammers to which all they see are nails, destroy all enemy tanks then go for the flag, in that order. Miho has a pocket knife she has to some how use like a Swiss army scalpe to pull of her wins, deftly going for the flag tank. Previous generations of Nishizumi school wer based on highly flexible tactical combat which is characteristic for Miho. This characteristic is called "heresy" by her mother.
  • To put it another way, Nishizumi-Style worships their rules like a certain chapter of Space Marines, and it's Miho's deviance from these rules that is grounds for heresy. Thus, Miho becomes the high-school girl equivalent of Captain Titus, who follows the rules by their spirit, as opposed to their word like the rest of the school.

Due to the popularity of Girl's und Panzer, World of tanks will create a flag tank game mode.

It will either be chosen by prebattle vote, or set to the top or bottom tank in any match (highest tier and lowest respectively) one tank will be chosen to be the Flag tank. if the flag tank is killed, game over for that team. Also it will either be Tank Companies or Clan Wars only. Random public matches would likely be lost if an idiot became the flag.Ask SerB to implement it. The developers are not averse to hear from the fans.
  • Jossed: This was asked at a Reddit "Ask Me Anything". There was originally an 'Escort' mode where three random tanks were the only ones who could claim, and if all three were destroyed, your side lost. (Basically, THREE flag tanks). The inability even for their supertesters to protect the escort tanks put the kibosh on the idea, as public players would be far, far worse. It makes sense why this would happen. Discounting artillery, which would only need somebody on the team to have Line of Sight on the Flag Tanks, World of Tanks players would rather single-mindedly go for the objective tanks rather than trying to "soften up" the enemy as seen in Gu P. Another possible problem is most certainly a Sensha-do arena is at least four times the size of a World of Tanks map (Which is set at no larger than 1 kilometer by 1 kilometer), meaning the Escort game mode should be tried again after Wo T has larger maps.

Kuromorimine has brought vastly superior tanks to the finals because Maho is aware and probably worried that the team might lose.

  • Note that every time Kuromorimine has fought onscreen, they always used Panzer II Is and Tiger Is. Yet they suddenly shift to the big guns (King Tiger and Tank Destroyers) during the finals when they didn't bring them out during last year's finals (when Miho saved the drowning tank). I think that Maho is probably aware that simply following the Nishizumi School creed might not be enough to defeat Miho and decides to 'guarantee' the victory by bringing the biggest and baddest guns they have at their disposal in order to put a swift end to the battle and give no quarters, as evidenced by Erika's ambush, Blitzkrieg-style in the forest.

Kuromorimine has brought vastly superior tanks to the finals because Miho's mother really wants to rub the Kuromorimine school's "superiority" in Miho's face...

What better way to crush her daughter's "heresy" then a Curbstomp Battle on live television?

Black forest's line up comes to bite them

  • For the most part (not the entire team) they have tanks with casemate guns,(fixed to the hull, you aim by turning the whole tank) they are very powerful since there have a lower profile and trend to have a larger gun. The Problem is they have to aim by turning. Their direct choice to only go with the biggest guns they could while ignoring there less powerful more flexible options will come back to haunt them.
  • They've brought a bunch of extremely heavy tanks. They are the weight of a modern MBT or more, and Japan's modern tanks are deliberately made light due to the limitations of Japan's roads and bridges. They might start falling off someplace for this choice.
  • Darjeeling and Katyusha both make note that the tracks of Black Forest's heavy tanks are NOT suited for chasing a lighter force, and indeed Erika has run into the problem of her tank throwing a track just in time to keep her tank from firing a possibly game-ending shot. It's also mentioned that, because they're chasing a more mobile force, they also run the risk of running out of fuel.
    • Confirmed as this is what allows teams Turtle, Rabbit, Duck and Leopon (in order) to escape, troll, block and destroy (not in order) the heck out of BFP's lineup in episodes 11 and 12

Despite the safety protocols, somebody will die.

Explosives are dangerous, and no armor is going to be 100% effective. At some point, somebody is going to die either from something leaving them exposed to an explosion or by being thrown from a tank and crushed.
  • Jossed. Despite considerable internet trolling saying otherwise. Said trolling about deaths in the series has caused Actas to explicitly deny "unexpected deaths" in the forthcoming movie. Of course, trolls reacted with "No unexpected deaths. Bye bye, Grannie".

Rabbit Team wasn't just bonding watching Kelly's Heroes

  • They were studying how to knock out Tigers. The other films listed were Battle of the Bulge and Patton. Since it's Rabbit Team, something will go hilarious wrong. Cue paint rounds in 3, 2, 1...
    • Confirmed. It's openly stated that they spent all night devising, and even named their plan after the movie - but taken up to eleven, as they kill that way an Elefant note  and a Jagdtiger note .

Katyusha didn't know about the accident in last year's finals.

  • Considering the fact that she gave her pinned down opponents three hours to surrender (or, as the case turns out, plan their counterattack), it seems unlikely she expected her opponents to just leave their friends to die in the event of an accident. Thing is, she never saw the tank fall into the river, nor the crew need to be rescued, so she chalks up last year's finals to Miho's poor judgment. Why shouldn't she think so? As she probably sees it, it was between her and Miho as platoon leaders. Miho picks a dangerous, narrow path in the rain. Katyusha sees through it and brings her tanks for an encounter battle. She and the her fellow tank placed two high precision shots spaced 2-3 seconds apart exactly where they needed them, blowing Miho's lead Panzer off the path and leaving the Tiger exposed (which won't happen if they hit the lead Panzer and it stops w/o losing control). Despite the fact the trail Panzer worked around Miho's stopped Tiger without delay (something it'll have to try to do anyway), Katyusha still got off her second shot first and even if she missed, in 2-3 seconds the other T-34/85 will also get a 2nd shot and there will still be enough Tiger left exposed for a valid shot. Neither the lead, flag or trail Panzer got off even one shot - they seem totally unprepared. The Pravdans were simply better that day, with or without the rescue.
  • Based on the portrayed sequence, combined with Word of God, Katyusha was in those two tanks we saw closing. So she must know that it went off the road, though it is possible she didn't catch the part where it fell further into the river. Regardless, it's unlikely she'd hear nothing of it afterwards. It's possible that Katyusha didn't see Miho exiting the tank, since Miho was underwater when the kill shot was fired. Then again, it should also be pointed out that the Little Army manga reveals that this scenario played out once before, with Maho in Katyusha's position and Emi's older sister in Miho's position (saving a tank from the opposing team, no less), and Maho took the shot.
  • Jossed. The spin-off manga, Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu, heavily implies that Katyusha got her promotion to commander for engineering the situation that Kuromorimine found themselves in - advancing down a narrow mountain pass, something no respectable tank commander would do if they could avoid it.

The Planet population came from a Imperial Guard Division who managed to take the world.

The Armored Regiment was a mongrel Regiment of Vahallans, Candians, and Krieg. They lost contact with the Imperium of Man due to the weakening Astronomican. The reason they're using WWII tanks is that the imperium models were lost somehow (damage, rust, daemon trickery etc). The reason that only girls are trained for tank combat is that only moe and Kawaii can keep the Grimdark away, and boys are too focused on being GAR.

Saki Maruyama will be Suddenly Speaking at the end of the series.

Because if she remains mute, fans will demand Season 2. Any seiyuu up to the character?

  • Confirmed!

The current Pravda team consists mostly of freshmen

The girls who made it to the last year finals (and eventually became the champions) have graduated and left the school and the team, except for a few skilled tankers like Nonna (one can assume that she is the only decent gunner in the team, given that it was necessary to reassign her to the JS-2) or the flag tank driver, who did a good job evading shots (note that while the other crewgirls, including the tank commander, were relaxing on the armor, the driver was the only one to monitor the situation and warn them). The other girls don't seem to be older than Ooarai's Team Rabbit, nor more skilled. It would explain why the team who managed to win the tournament last year suffers from such a sudden dip in accuracy.

Miho is very, very unhinged.

Her room is full of teddy bears. That would be fine for a girl (even someone who is already in high school), except that every single one of those teddy bears are bandaged. Why would she need to bandage perfectly normal teddy bears? Because she wanted to tell herself that there are always people who need her, and that that is her raison d'etre. She doesn't want to consider her action of saving her teammates back then as 'wrong'. It's the family who is wrong, not her! In her inability to reconcile the heartless dogma of her family and her need to be someone who saves other, she repeatedly bandages her teddy bears. If she rips apart her teddy bears so that there will be a reason to bandage them, it would be another grade of Nightmare Fuel.

  • Jossed. the bandaged teddy bears are just a popular toy in this universe. Posters and such have been seen in the background. This is confirmed by the director when asked.
  • An amusing alternate interpretation comes in this comic, although one has to wonder about Miho associating grievous injuries with Maho.

The final episode will be a confrontation of some sort with Shiho.

In addition to planning to disown Miho, she may become very displeased with Maho if Oarai manages to win. Miho may end up having to defend her style of Tankery to her mother, possibly by bringing up how she was fighting for the sake of the school, and wasn't going to allow herself to lose for that reason.
  • Said "confrontation" will be a 1 v 1 Tank Battle between Miho's crew, and Shiho's old crew from her high-school Tankery days, which will somehow end with Miho finally gaining the respect of her mother again (hopefully by being re-accepted as part of the family!). Hopefully they'll at least stop treating her as the Black Sheep of the family, and accept her for who she is now and all that.
  • There's a scene late in Little Army where Miho asks whether Maho shooting Emi's tank when it did the same thing she did in the tournament was necessary, but Shiho shrugs it off, saying that victory is most important and that "There will come a time when you will understand this, Miho". Perhaps age and experience in tankery will make Miho better prepared to argue against Shiho's philosophy, and if she wins, she may have evidence to show that she can overcome the "orthodox" Nishizumi style her own way.
    • Jossed, for the first season.

Determining the Divergence Points of Girls und Panzer:

  • Tankery - Since it's adopted as a sport in the 1920's, and a bit of supplementary material also adds it was influenced by myths of Greco-Roman chariot duels between women, the impetus for the sport started as such: World War One is in full-swing, and it's every bit as ugly as our timeline. The divergence point is that the tank was specifically conceived by a women/some women inspired by these myths, and rode in as guardian angels to their men on the front-lines. The reason tanks carry a feminine association thereafter was because the women were considered protected under their layers of steel and cannons, while the guys still had to fight exposed with rifles and bayonets. It's unknown how much the stigma eroded in the rest of the real world (Rommel being mentioned as a tank commander proves that not all tanks were crewed by an Amazon Brigade by at least WWII), but it is obviously strong enough in Japan that some guys are put off from girls that go into Tankery. A possible theory for all the national schools is that Japan adopted all the Tankery traditions of Europe and the US (like they adopted modern weaponry in general for WWII), or Japan was considered a "neutral ground" for the post-WWI nations to have Tankery scrimmages.
  • The Super-Carrier High Schools - Given how it's obvious Japan is far more militarized than in the real life timeline, for simply having what amount to wargames as a high-school course, the super-carriers are possibly an attempt to give the high-schools the opportunity to maneuver if the mainland of Japan is attacked. Either a far more aggressive bombing campaign by the Allies in WWII or threat of nuclear attack in the Cold War/post-Cold War Era (Russia, China, or North Korea - your pick on which was most likely). It may also serve as a convenient landing-pad for the foreign exchange students of the foreign schools (this assumes the teams are sponsored by the nation they're stereotyping, and have the majority of their students from those countries, rather than Japanese fanatically role-playing them).
    • Jossed in the face of OVA 3, where the ones to start the schoolship concept was the Roman Empire. However the above reason can still be listed as a more practical reason to justify city-ships in the present day, which would be Awesome, but Impractical otherwise. After all, the first-known version was dated back to Emperor Caligula's '' reign, so this may just as well have been a case of ancient Conspicuous Consumption updated for a more modern problem.

The limit on the number of shells has caused a team's loss in the past, or will in a future episode

When the girls are discussing the rules on the limited number of tanks, it's also mentioned that there's a limit on ammunition. It's thus possible that at some point, this rule will become relevant in one of the following ways, or will have been in a past match.

  • The losing team ran out of shells for all of its surviving tanks and lost by default. It's possible that such a team would have had heavy losses early on, then was forced to make due with its few remaining tanks until they ran out of shells.
  • The losing team was forced to conserve ammunition as its supplies dwindled later in the battle, and thus got picked off by the less constrained opposition.
  • A group fielded less tanks than they had out of a fear that having too many would mean that each would have an inadequate supply of ammo.
    • Partially confirmed in episode 11. BFP can not simply barrage Õarai through the smokescreen due to the limited number of ammo available.

Maho was unaware that one of her tanks had fallen and/or that Emi's sister's team was trying to rescue it.

In Little Army, Maho looks surprised and somewhat hurt when Emi tells her about her sister trying to rescue the tank. One possibility is that, unable to hear radio chatter, she didn't realize why the enemy flag tank had exposed itself, and saw no reason not to take the shot (which could also possibly apply to Katyusha years later). Another is that something went wrong with the fallen tank's radio, and she was unaware anything had happened to it.

Erika is a spy for Shiho.

Notice that Maho acts aloof around Miho while in Erika's presence, the same as she does in Shiho's presence (in all of her scenes with Miho in the anime, she has been with either Erika or Shiho)- In Chapter 7 of Little Army, she doesn't say anything when Miho demands answers from Shiho, but later approaches her while she is alone and gives her a heart-to-heart talk and an apology. This could indicate she knows Erika is reporting back to Shiho. This could also explain why Erika replaces Miho as vice captain, filling the position of the one who had borne responsibility for the loss in the last tournament, and possibly putting her in a position to keep an eye on the team as a whole and make sure Maho runs it properly. As for how Erika got recruited, not only is it possible that Shiho has many contacts from the school, including possibly Erika's mother, but it's easy to see Erika volunteering to curry favor with Shiho.

Gravity is lower in the Girls und Panzer universe.

  • There are so many signs pointing to this; the existence of 7-km long academy ships with islandscapes on top, some tanks being able to move faster than they should (Type 89...), Miho's ridiculous jumps in Episode 11, the Porsche Tiger's bridge collapse stunt, the Maus not outright flattening the Hetzer with its 188 ton weight and the many, many tanks that flip over and/or are flung short distances by tank shells all indicate that their universe has lower gravity than ours. Maybe their Earth is smaller?

Õarai was once a mixed-gender school and there was considerable bad blood when it became girls-only.

Remember the Porsche Tiger? Notice how it's found in an lower deck storage room, not all that bigger than the tank itself, and that is not accessible except for small passageways. Also notice how it's found fully assembled, but then, there's talk of how "it's not gonna be available" for the Anzio and Pravda battles. Finally notice how in episode 10 they mention that the Automobile team just assembled all its scattered parts, even though it was found fully assembled. Corolary: The only way for the tank to exit (and enter) the room is disassembled. Plainly, the Tiger (P) was originally lost because of an Animal House - style prank - the classic "disassemble a car and assemble it again inside their room" one, but up to eleven. Now, what kind of people is likely to do that kind of stuff?. Having been stablished the past presence of fratboys in Õarai, there remains only the doubt if the Tiger() was hidden there as revenge for the academy sending the guys away, or if sending the guys away was a revenge for stuff like hidding their best tanks.

  • The part about it being needed to disassemble and re-assemble the Tiger (P) to get it out of the room is confirmed in the Anzio OVA.

Maho doesn't respect Shiho as much as it seems

Consider the evidence so far.

  • Maho's ultimate reason for taking on the position of Nishizumi heiress is so that Miho doesn't have to, rather than out of a desire to make Shiho happy or gain her approval.
  • There's the part in Chapter 7 of Little Army where Maho says that it's fine if Miho wants to quit tankery, but if she continues, she should find a way of tankery she can call her own, which could indicate that she doesn't think too highly of the Nishizumi style, or at least thinks it's one that Miho can't follow.
  • When Shiho tells Maho that her victory defended the honor of the Nishizumi School, Maho has a look that merely suggests a show of polite gratitude, rather than genuine joy. When Shiho belittles Miho's asking whether Maho doing so was necessary, Maho first reacts with a look indicating displeasure, then one that almost suggests Your Approval Fills Me with Shame at the moment Shiho says that "Maho fought an excellent battle, appropriate for an inheritor of the Nishizumi school".
  • When Kikuyo sees her off as she returns to school in Chapter 7 of Little Army, Maho leaves while requesting that Kikuyo take care of Miho, implying that she knows her mother is not a good parent.
  • Around the time Shiho mentions her intention to tell Miho about her being disowned, Maho becomes surprisingly vocal about Miho in front of her, being about to say something in Episode 8, asking her mother to watch the entire match with Pravda in Episode 9, and saying Miho deserved to win in Episode 10.
When push comes to shove, it's most likely that Maho will ultimately side with Miho over Shiho.
  • This has been confirmed. She drops all facades and opens up to Miho after her victorynote , instead of cold-shouldering her as her mother all but orders her to do from then onwards in episode 8 (that's part of what the disinheritance scene means).

Erika will have a Villainous Breakdown surpassing all previous ones when she loses

Consider what we've seen so far. Alice goes into insane ranting when Oarai turns her radio interceptions against her, and is clearly upset when Kay plans to give her a good talking-to. Anchovy screams Miho's name before being taken out, and after losing, goes up to her to rage at her over her method of tankery. Given that Erika's arrogance and confidence in her school's superiority surpasses the two of them, she'll likely have a proportionally greater final breakdown, especially considering what we've seen in Episode 11 from a more minor setback than those listed above.

  • Jossed.

Erika will cost her team the battle by accidentally shooting Maho's tank.

She has shown to be prone to amusing Villainous Breakdowns, and her (and her crew's) level of competence has been shown not to be as good as she brags it is. She is likely to go all Glory Hound when (not if) Miho's next plan seems to be about to give them victorynote  and try to take matters in her hand. It's doubtful that'll end well. This will be especially humiliating if it's because Maho had ordered her to hold her fire as she closed to point blank with Miho, but Erika can't control herself. Possibly having Maho seeing this as the final crack in her devotion to the family tradition.

  • Jossed. Erika makes it a moment too late.

Maho decided to bring out the you-know whatnote  as a last minute decision the very night before the battle

If her expression during her Byronic Hero scene (when she's seen from the back contemplating her team's tanks in episode 10) is any indication, as her expression when her face is finally shown seemed note  the face of somene wondering if the forces at her disposal will be enough...

Saori's parents are not the most normal of the group

Saori's parents are never shown in any way, shape or form during the first season, so are they normal in comparison to mothers who'd disown their children over tankery but later change their minds, or a Tsundere grandmother filling in for one's biological parents? Little Army provides some indications that Invisible Parents are not always normal parents when Chihiro alludes to her mother (who is never seen) being strict enough that she can't be opposed, and as such, she has some understanding of why Maho acts differently around Shiho. It's possible that Saori has family issues that she doesn't talk about (maybe not even to Mako), and they will come to the forefront during the second season.

Many of the Country-themed schools have a significant expat population.

Or rather, many of its students are of mixed heritage descended from said expats.

Just an obvious extrapolation, given the clearly-Caucasian slant of the most visible Saint Glorianna team (Darjeeling, Assam, and Orange Pekoe), as well as the higher-than usual ratio of blondes and redheads in Saunders (as shown by Yukari's infiltration). It's especially noticeable compared to Oarai, a school without a National theme, whose members barring two exceptions (Akebi and Nekonyaa) feature hair colors are normally what could be found among real-life Japanese (mainly black or shades of brown).

  • In particular, Saunders may be the Amerasian children of US forces in Japan who were all put in one school, since many of their names (Naomi, Kay) are quite Western. It would also explain how they're so wealthy, as well as their choice of national theme. Not to mention how they have so many Shermans (including rare variants). They're based out of the US Naval base at Sasebo.
  • Jossed; according to Word of God, the only mixed-race character in the franchise is Klara, who is half-Russian half-Japanese. Everyone else is full-blooded Japanese.

There will be new schools taking up tankery in Season 2

Inspired by Oarai's underdog victory, other schools might decide to try and enter the nationals (not necessarily to save their schools, but perhaps just for the money and prestige). They might have a mix of tanks from all nations like Oarai or go for a themed team.

Nonna was the Pravda commander the previous year.

We know Katyusha got command solely because she landed the winning shot in the previous year's final. Besides which, as Executive Officer, Nonna was in charge while Katyusha slept, which is often.

Little Army will get an anime.

It might be a longer OVA or a movie, since there seems to be enough for a few episodes, but not an entire series.

In the second series, Oarai will face some of its former opponents again, who have stepped up their game.

After seeing Oarai's strategy for disabling the Maus, Darjeeling remarks that they could try something like that with one of their tanks. It's thus possible that seeing Black Forest defeated by an underdog like Oarai without something like the incident with the fallen tank happening might inspire the teams Black Forest defeated before to redouble their efforts, wanting to win the championship now that Black Forest no longer seems undefeatable. It could also indicate that Oarai is not the only team able to take levels in badass, and some new first-years could provide fresh talent for the rival schools. This could naturally include Black Forest itself, as Erika remarks that they won't lose this time, and it might be interesting to see how she develops after experiencing a loss that can't be blamed on a fluke, or commands without Maho around.

  • Somewhat confirmed by Das Finale part 2: Chi-Ha-Tan has vastly improved their game to face Oarai.

We will see more world of tank stuff show up in the sequel.

Namely: a capture the flag mode with bases, SPG's , more conceptual tanks (like the AT 2 and T25 AT as compared to the mostly actually made tanks the anime uses) and a shout out to real world of tank maps, (what is this Campinovka?)

A Sequel will do away with tanks.

We get Girls und warplanes or Girls und battleships!
  • Jossed. The official announcement all-but-stated that it'll continue with the tanks.
  • Amusingly, also confirmed. The manga spinoff is centered on the girls, the tanks playing just a minor cameo role.

what If a sequel has new tank and teams?, list names below.

  • Team Pistol shrimp using an SPG
    • must be casemate, maybe Semovente da 75/18 bought from Anzio
  • Team Badger with a tank destroyer.
    • M10 Tank Destroyer found stashed by old operator somewhere?
  • Team Kitty with a hellcat
  • Hippo team got conversion for their Stu GIII to Stu H 42?
  • somehow they got their hands on Panther?
    • branch up - who wil drive it? Anglerfish move in? or some new team?

  • The information in the booklet from Blu-Ray 4 specifically mention the reasons why open-topped vehicles are not allowed (as an open crew compartment can't obviously be covered by the special carbon lining). And the Senshado federation doesn't consider artillery as tanks. While this doesn't preclude new tanks being added, open-topped AFVs are right out.
  • Sometimes open-topped tank destroyers were fitted with a roof cover for their turret in the field. This became more common in Korea.
    • The Hellcat was not one of them. However, the M36 Jackson/Slugger is debatable legal. The rules are vague as to vehicles with actual armored top conversions are allowed.

Possible plots for the upcoming movie

  • The obvious plot thread to follow will be the Under-20 Sensha-do World Cup that Anzu mentioned in the first episode. This also conveniently makes it possible to tie in another hanging plot thread from the prequel: Emi. What better stage for the two friends to prove to each other their ways of Sensha-do than the world championship?
    • In Episode 9, after Anzu tells the team that they're competing to stave off their school being shut down, someone asks the student council, "So you mean you lied about the world tournament?" and Momo says "That was true". Then again, it could end up being an Accidental Truth.

  • Aside from the World Cup, the movie might also expand on the other types of Sensha-do being practiced around the world, like the Unlimited Class practiced in the US. Seeing Miho and her friends react to radically different traditions would be interesting to say the least.

  • Since the movie involves Chi-Ha Tan Academy, it's possible that the movie will revolve around a training exhibition between Chi-Ha (WMG: Possibly Japan's oldest tankery school) and the Naive Newcomers of Oarai's team.

Duck Team is based, however distantly, on Finland

  • Like Finland in World War 2, their equipment is considered laughably bad but they manage to be very effective with the Type 89 anyway. Also, their team motto is Guts!, which is the basic meaning of the Finnish word sisu so often associated with Finland's world war 2 achievements.

The manga will deviate from the anime's plotline.

In Chapter 10, Miho meets with Kikuyo, a character who had previously only appeared in Little Army, who tells her that she'll be disinherited if she loses against Pravda. Given that Miho shows no evidence of knowing about this in the anime (where Shiho told Maho that she was going to personally tell Miho about her disinheritance at the semifinals), it's possible that this may herald a different treatment of Miho's relationship with the rest of the family, and possibly a different outcome.

the anime second season will make a running gag of skipping the second battle in a laughable lopsided win.

Yukari has aspergers

She goes nuts about her 'thing', that is, tanks. Additionally aside from her narrow interest, poor social skills (she was friendless) and odd speech patterns (she's listed as with due respect on her trope page) are additionally symptoms of aspergers. Yukari misinterpreting Miho's statement that she loves Team Anglerfish as friends as "Nishizumi-dono just confessed to me!" would also count, due to how aspergers syndrome can lead to misreading social and emotional cues.

Oarai, not Kuromorimine, is Shiho Nishizumi's Alma Mater

For the Old Shame. We know the Nishizumi Household is based on land. Oarai had a good tankery program twenty years ago, which would be just about the time Shiho was a student herself. Ami Chono (the instructor) owes Shiho a major favor - could this be that she wanted to go to Kuromorimine and take the Nishizumi style with her. If Kuromorimine is the longtime home of the Nishizumi style, why not mention that in the same breath as their ten-year run of victories. In fact that string of victories is more impressive if Kuromorimine was a no-name school before the arrival of the Nishizumi style. We can even stretch to a reason - maybe Shiho was somehow disgraced at Oarai, or disgraced the school and its tankery program, which then went into terminal decline. Maybe she let boys play. Maybe Maho was conceived in Yukari's beloved D-chan (Yukari: Eww... that's not what tanks are for)

The real reason other teams are not mixed nation

  • It's a nightmare getting parts for tanks built by seven different countries. The M3 lee was built using U.S. customary unit and the others with metric. While if you had a team of only Shermans, you only need to get one type of drive shaft.

The Sodoko Collective are really. . .

  • Clones. Every one is so used to the idea that no one thinks it's worth remarking on.
  • Aliens: They're foreign exchange students from planet X who decided to try out tankery.
  • Mutants: with cloning super powers. Only they are stuck at 3, so they make horrible X men.
  • Three mimic octopus: We would never know.
  • Time lords: They regenerated into the same person.
  • Young Borg who don't quite get the whole 'assimilation' thing and stick to enforcing school rules, for the collective.
  • Robots: But only two of them are robots. They were made by the third because she wanted to be a triplet.
  • Cousins with Strong Family Resemblance. Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu indicates that there are over 100 girls on the disciplinary committee, who look like Sodoko with slight variations.

The occurrence of schools using tanks from the same country is due to corporate sponsorship.

Much like Formula One racing, companies that produce the tanks use the Sensha-do tournaments to promote their products. While professional teams are their main customers, they may sponsor the tanks for schools to showcase their engineering. Thus schools with a good track record (like Saunders, St Gloriana, Pravda and Kuromorimine) have excellent material while poorer schools have to make do with what they can afford like Oarai. There are reasons they are not covered in sticks like NASCARs:

Miho's victory will ironically lead to a renaissance for the Nishizumi School.

Analysts and commentators may see Miho's victory as a means by which the Nishizumi School can prove that tactical acumen can defeat an enemy with far greater resources and training. In a way they might belive that its a Xanatos Gambit by Shiho to demonstrate evolution in the Nishizumi School after last year's loss to Pravda. In effect if Miho won, Shiho shows that a single Nishizumi commander is enough to make even the most unlikely of teams into a National Champion. In the event Miho loses the tournament, Maho probably would have won and kept the Nishizumi's reputation intact. Armchair sensha-do generals may be patting Shiho on the back for a brilliant gambit, thoroughly ignorant of the rift between Shiho and her daughters. The look on Shiho's face when she learns about this interpretation of events will be priceless especially when students show up looking to learn this "Neo-Nishizumi Style".
  • Alternatively, it will lead to a renaissance for KMM: Think about it. You're Maho. You've lost the national finals in your year. Disappointing, but hey, you've won it at least twice already. There's one semester left. It would seem well within Maho's personality to train the hell out of the team for the rest of the academic year, to give them the best chance of winning next time.

WMG on what Nishizumi School of tankery IS.

Nishizumi tankary is divided between two schools of thought, Orthodoxy and 'Neo'.

Orthodoxy or 'Anbiru' (anvil) style is the one used by Maho and the rest of the Nishizumi family. This school of thought is you take your tanks, and you HIT your enemy as hard as you can like a warhammer to plate mail, and like a hammer, you fall back and hit them again, and again and AGAIN, relentlessly pounding at them until you get the metal so thin, that your next hit smashes through. This is why Maho brought so many massive over gunned (for the task) tanks to the finals. Nishizumi school is that you hit hard and keep hitting until the enemy gives in.

'Neo' or 'misericorde'(a weapon used to kill a fallen knight often called the dagger of mercy) style is similar to Anbiru style, however rather then hammering the enemy, you put all your effort and force into sliding your blade into the cracks and chinks in their armor and then you sink your knife into their chest up to the hilt. BUT as Miho learned against Pravda, this style leaves you wide open to counter attacks if it goes wrong. It is a high risk reward plan that favors the under dog, as all they need to do is take out the one thing that matters to win, no matter how many Panzer's they lose, the only tank that matters, is the flag. Miho tactics the tourny over were designed to do this. Go for the enemy flag tank no matter what.

Nishizumi school started with 'neo' (hence the quote marks) however as the earlier practitioners won tournament after tournament and gained more fame and money, they found themselves with more and more resources and 'neo' evolved into the Orthodoxy style used today trading the risky single quick hit for repeated pounding of a longer drawn out game. In time the new evolution became the ONLY accepted school of tankary with in the Nishizumi school and by the time Miho was born the old style was no longer considered 'true' Nishizumi style. In effect, the underdogs became the upper crust.

However, Miho made the logical leap backward, evolving back from Orthodoxy style to the 'neo' style that was now shunned. This is why her mother got so mad and disgusted at her style of tankery, it was NOT (to her) how Nishizumi style should be done. But since Miho won the tournament she proved the 'new' or rather older style was not only effective, but still proper Nishizumi style.

World of Tanks will be mentioned by name in the english dub.

  • It's somewhat unlikely that it will be mentioned by name, but it's possible that the script writers will put in a reference that WOT players will get, or make it a Bland-Name Product with a suspiciously similar name (Panzer Planet, maybe?). After all, why would Wargaming turn down the publicity?
  • Jossed, in Episode 10. We actually see the game, and it's more like a 3D version of Steel Panthers.
    Dub!Nekota: (regarding Momogawa and Piyotan) "They’re friends from an online tank game I play in my spare time."

Maho deliberately and knowingly walked into the trap for a one-on-one duel with Miho.

Given that she seemed to predict some of Miho's moves earlier, such as her planning on drawing her into the town, it's possible that she expected that Miho would isolate the flag tank (Oarai's main method of offsetting its numerical disadvantage), and chose to go along with it anyway, to ensure that her sister would have a fair fight against her, and have a chance to prove her own merit.

Corollary to the above: Maho took a fall.

Maho is older, more experienced, and has personal knowledge of Miho's style before the main series begins. She could have easily taken her sister down with her skill and command ability. Plus, she had all the incentive to let her sister take the win. With her mother and the entire nation watching, it needed to be convincing. The Tiger P blocking the way gave her all the opportunity she'd need. The gun battle, the chase, it was all to make it look convincing at the end and fully free her beloved little sister from her mother's obsessive style.

Second Corollary to the above: Maho believes that Black Forest has become complacent

They have won nine national tournaments in a row and the reason that number is not ten is because of Miho's actions in the last one. Thus, they have come to think they are invincible and can only lose due to internal sabotage. This leads to arrogance and overconfidence. Maho aims to correct this. Thus it's less "selling her tankists up the river" and more "teaching her tankists humility" as a side bonus to her "free Miho" goal.

Girls und Panzer takes place in the same universe as Ooku.

This explains why tankery is thought of as a predominantly female sport, at least in Japan. The effects of the epidemic that wiped out the majority of Japanese men centuries ago are still being felt in Japan. This is why people such as Erwin Rommel existed and operating tanks is normally done by men in other countries, but Japanese women have driven tanks traditionally in Japan and people think it's weird to see men in tankery. It's quite possible that boys participate in tankery in other countries, but the Japanese regard tankery as feminine. This also is why we so rarely see men around Oarai and elsewhere in Japan; girls and women continue to outnumber boys and men in Japan. It also explains the motivations of some of the characters; Saori is really interested in falling in love and getting married because men are in such short supply in Japan, and takes up tankery to impress guys. The Nishizumi school of tankery, and the Isuzu school of flower arrangement are all headed by women, as Japan remains a matriarchal society and it's normal for women to be leaders, since they remain more common than men in Japan. Mako wants to graduate as soon as possible so she can spend time with her grandmother, who is her only living relative, and she is basically the head of the Reizei family.

On Men's Tankery

  • Conservation of Detail means we don't see males participating, since an all-girls school would be competing in the Women's Circut. If it wasn't an AGS, we'd see Men's and Co-Ed Tankery. It's like Saki. There's a brief comment about Kyoutaro participating in (and quickly lossing) the boy's tournament in the regional qualifier, but other than that, one would think that only girls play Mahjong. Regardless of the alternate history, it's highly unlikely that males don't practice the sport.
  • One of the background characters says "boys and tanks feel mismatched" but this could be a regional thing or just one person's opinion.

Miho's dream

Miho's dream at the start of the first episode was precognition. In the dream, she was killed (sticking her head out while the enemy tank fired at her's), in episode #4, her tank evaded the shot.

Katyusha's drugs

On Danbooru, there are a few 4-koma comic strips, where Nonna puts drugs into Katyusha's drink, so she won't grow and forever satisfy Nonna's lolicon preferences. These drugs are in fact medicine: Katyusha's ancestors in "The World War III" (see the WMG above about how the world of Girls und Panzer is the product of an generations-long war) were genetically altered, so they may serve as super-soldiers, but sometimes it caused genetic instability in their descendants (stunted growth and stuff), which the drugs Nonna gives her are supposed to curb (they couldn't prevent her being abnormally small for her age (she's in fact few months older than Nonna), but they prevented the other health problems the genetic instability caused).

Why Hana's mother hates tankery

She was either injured during her own tankery in school or she lost someone close in war or tankery.

If Ooarai is not closed, who is?

  • Based on OVA 7 it could be Anzio. It was described as a poor school - they could only afford Tankettes and a few tank Destroyers until they got their P40 just before the Ooarai match. If it's a poor school that not well financed, it might be next of the chopping block. Downside: It's breaking up a different school. Upside: Possible new recruits and tanks for Oarai?
    • Jossed. Õarai (and some others) is a prefectural public school, meaning that it gets all its funding from MEXT. However, OVA 7 states Anzio is a privately founded private school.

Erika is restraining herself as far as Miho is in concerned while in Maho's presence.

Maho, while in the presence of her teammates, has to act entirely professional, even if she seems cold to Miho. But while Erika isn't very nice to Miho, in the anime, it's largely limited to a few snide comments, and suggesting that Oarai can't hope to defeat their school (not entirely unreasonable, even if she's ultimately proven wrong). In Chapter 15 of the manga, Erika appears before Miho and accuses her of not just causing them to lose the finals, but also abandoning her old school in its time of need. The deciding factor here seems to be how, unlike in Erika's other scenes with Miho, Maho isn't around. Perhaps Erika knows that Maho doesn't like her talking about her sister in such a way, and as such, even if she doesn't hide her contempt, she doesn't go this far when Maho can hear her.

All of WW2 tanks are made with some kind of Advanced Automated Aviation Plant

  • Highly likely given the evidence shown in the series. Oarai is able to buy a Hetzer upgrade kit that never existed in real life for the finals, telling us that such things are produced commercially. They also have a Porsche Tiger, of which there are currently ZERO in existence, and a Type 3 Medium, only one of which exists in a museum. Likewise for Kuromuromine's Maus. It is safe to assume that these are replicas painstakingly crafted to be identical to the real thing, with carbon lining added into the armor for safety. In a world that has 7 kilometer-long school ships industry is definitely advanced enough to mass-produce copies of WWII tanks. 3D printing of parts, perhaps? Armor could be a problem with this method but CNC machining, could work.

All the tanks used in sensha-do have their armor replaced with stronger modern steel or composite, to ensure that rounds traveling at WW2-era velocities can't penetrate.

  • It would explain why the Hetzer can survive being run over by the Maus.

WMGs for Season 2's character development

  • Miho: Learning to balance having friends with the sudden interest her mother will take in her tankery.
  • Yukari: Learning that there's more to life than tanks and hero worship.
  • Saori: Finally having a relationship, and realizing it's nothing like she expected.
  • Hana: Being forced to juggle her interests in the face of last year's win
  • Mako: Slowly moving out of her shell and dealing with another loss.

What tanks do the unseen schools use?

Tanks Encyclopedia gives us a pretty good idea.

  • Koala Forest: They probably use the AC 1 Sentinel, which like the Chi-Nu - never saw combat, but was similar in design to British "cruiser" tanks.
    • Confirmed.
  • Viking Fisheries High School: Their tankery program probably utilizes Norwegian tanks.
    • I have no idea what this troper is getting at, since Norway had only one tank ever actually used (the Swedish-made Landsverk L-120). It is later revealed that VFHS uses tanks that were used in Norway (Neubaufahrzeug) or tanks inherited by the post-war Norwegian government (Panzer II Is, M24 Chaffees)
  • Continuation High School: The school is probably stuck using the most pathetic tank yet seen in Gu P, the BT-42 modification of the BT-7.
    • Confirmed in The Movie. And they performed very well with it.
    • Further tanks they use include the T-26, T-34/76, KV-1, and Stu G III Ausf.G / Sturmi
  • Waffle Academy: While they could probably use the T15 light tank, the T13 B2/B3 tank hunters would be questionable, since they relied on folding panels for crew protection rather than full armor.
    • Confirmed for the T-15. In the manga they use tanks such as the AMC 35 and the M4(105) Sherman.

Mika is actually Alice's older sister.

First, the most obvious parallel is that put side by side with Alice and her mother, Mika bears a great physical resemblance to them, with brown hair and eyes and similar eye shape. In addition, Mika has appeared in official art where the only other characters featured are Alice, Miho, and Maho, further implying a sisterly connection. Finally, Mika's fighting style greatly resembles how the Shimada-style of Senshado works, by relying on surprise, lightning attacks, and unconventional tactics to catch the enemy off guard, which she demonstrates during Operation Kill Serve.If true, it would put Alice and Mika as direct parallels to Miho and Maho. Like Miho and Maho, Alice and Mika would be heirs to a long and respected Senshado tradition. However, the difference lies in Maho stepping up to take the mantle as heir to the Nishizumi-style to protect Miho, while Mika ran away and left Alice to inherit the Shimada style instead. Separation from the strict Shimada lifestyle could by why Mika is so laid back and carefree, and why she's enrolled in the extremely poor Continuation High School similar to how Miho is enrolled in the financially troubled Ooarai. This would also explain why a relative outsider school like Continuation would get involved with Ooarai's match against the University Team.

  • There are several things that can support this other than those points;
    • Mika is the only commander of a school that doesn't announce her school's team arrival; Aki does that, and Jatkosota later leaves early. By these circumstances, it's possible that Alice doesn't know that Mika is there among the United High School Team. And why would she do that (other than escaping with the University's rations)?
    • One of the songs in the film's OST, "This is the Shimada-style!", is played by an 11-string kantele. The song itself is a Cut Song in the movie.
    • In the Ribbon Warrior spin-off Manga, according to the old ladies' gossips, while the Nishizumi House had a 'schism' due to Miho's departure from Kuromorimine, the Shimada House was said to "have taken care of that".
    • In Dream Tank Match, Darjeeling only talks about noblesse oblige with two people; Alice and Mika.
    • In Jatkosota's Domination Battle, Alice innocently looks up to Mika's absurd claims like a starry eyed kid. In the University's Domination Battle, she asks for Mika's advice on how to be stoic, despite already a bonafide stoic already.
    • In the mobage Great Tankery Operation, Mika's description is, "The nameless commander of Jatkosota High School. Everyone just calls me 'Mika'."
    • If 'Mika' is a fake name, then it's possible that her real name is Fumika (the "Fu" is written with the kanji for "wind", Mika's catchphrase) because if it's true that she's Alice's sister, then Alice would call her Shimada Fumika-nee, as in the name of the character designer of Girls und Panzer.

Shiho will continue on the path of grudging respect and acceptance of Miho in season 2 and Maho will help her along

Not only has she displayed a rare moment of appreciation for her younger daughter when she was alone (which means she didn't have to put up an act for anyone, so it was genuine), she has also stepped in to give her school another chance to be saved. While Maho will remain the "true" heir of the Nishizumi doctrine, Miho will be seen, instead of a defector, as a founder of her own school of Sensha-do thought and a worthy rival rather than a pest to be destroyed.

There will also be a Nishizumi family dinner where they, after much arguing, decide on an exhibition free-for-all match between all three of them, or alternatively, Shiho vs. her daughters.

Rather than disarming and de-militarizing Japan, the United States focused on Japanese Nationalism and Xenophobia.

It's almost certain that Japan is much more militaristic than in our world. At the same time, just look at how ridiculously multicultural the academies are.

St. Gloriana will get an A39 Tortoise in The Final Chapter

It fits their doctrine (Slow tanks with heavy armor) and Darjeeling mentions that they could have taken on the T28 in the film if they had one.

Anchovy's different characterisation in the manga and anime come from who the viewpoint character is.

Anzio is much the same position as Oorai having few good tanks, uses similar tactics, and is desperate for a win, but also likes the fun aspect of the club. Anchovy is very desperate for a real win, but also believes in fun. So during the match she was in command mode. Afterwards the party.

Yukari would obviously compare Anchovy negatively to her hero Miho, whilst Miho would see Anchovy more positively than Miho would see herself. As a result Yukari exaggerated Anchovy's worst characteristics, and Miho Anchovy's best.

Miho was greatly beloved in Kuromorimine

The Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu spin-off implies that Miho was the personable one between the Nishizumi sisters. After the loss to Pravda, we hear that the crew of the tank that fell into the river were ostracised but we do not hear of much blame being put at Miho's feet. After all, not many people would criticise a commander who risked her life to rescue a crew from drowning in a river swollen with rain. Instead they noticed the effect the loss had on Miho and blamed that tank's crew for making her miserable. When she left Kuromorimine to flee from her guilt, their morale plummeted. When Miho shows up as a captain of another team, seemingly enjoying panzerkraft for the first time, it hit rock bottom. They were the problem, despite how much affection the Kuromorimine girls held for her, they were the cause of her sorrow.

Shiho's grudging respect for Miho

Comes in part because she realizes that Miho is still adhering to the tenets of the Nishizumi style. The Nishizumi style emphasizes winning at all costs something that Miho has demonstrated. The only difference is that Miho usually prefers if the one to pay the cost is herself and her tank, as seen in the finale of the movie. Additionally, her willingness to do means that the rest of the Ooarai team is more than willing to sacrifice themselves for Miho.

Alice will come be the final boss of Das Finale, leading another school against Ooarai.

As shown in the Alice War OVA, Alice transfered to a high school to experience life as a high school student. Given her desire to practice senshado, she'd likely transfer to a school with a senshado team. And if it's a school that's taking part in the Winter Continuous cup, who's to say she won't bring that team to the finals? While there are many she could join, there are two major candidates;

  • Kuromorimine - Maho is gone, leaving Erika to command KMM by herself. In a sort of double whammy, Miho would have to not only face Alice, but also face KMM and their heavy armor again. Given Alice's focus on strategy, she could likely use KMM's big tanks far more effectively.
    • This possibility is also reinforced given the OP shows Ooarai running from the Maus, possibly hinting at a rematch in the near future.
  • St. Gloriana - Alice could likely take Darjeeling's place while she is in Britain, continuing Ooarai's struggle to defeat them, such as using Rosehip's crusaders as scouts for the slower armor. Speaking of which...
    • Das Finale Part 4 shows that the St. Gloriana's team has a Centurion. Alice's Centurion, probably?
    • Confirmed. The Centurion is indeed, Alice's.

Ooarai will finally face St. Gloriana in an actual match, and finally defeat them.

Up to Das Finale Episode 2, we have never seen Ooarai defeat St. Gloriana, with the first match being lost due to Ooarai being new to senshado, and the second being lost due to Pravda's participation (Namely Katyusha taking a shot for Darjeeling in Der Film). By Das Finale, Ooarai is no longer the pushover they were at the series' start, teams cannot partner up (Jossing the possibility of Pravda assisting again, unless strings are pulled), and Ooarai have more tanks to help compensate for the possibility of being baited. With these circumstances, chances are high that if Ooarai and St. Gloriana square off again, the victory will be for Ooarai.

Momo's position as commander in Das Finale will cost Ooarai the Winter Continuous cup.

By Das Finale, Turtle team has only taken on the role of a flag tank; not an actual team commander. Considering that Momo was baited into a trap by BC Freedom and her overall lack of commander experience compared to Miho, there is a chance that she may slip up and get a flag tank disabled and cost Ooarai the competition. (Given the overall beats of the story however, I doubt this will happen)

Oarai will face Jatkosota, and then St. Gloriana in the second half of the Winter Cup.

St. Gloriana and Jatkosota are yet to be defeated by Oarai in a tournament. Should Oarai pick a win over Chi-Ha-Tan, second half of the Winter Cup should play out like this:
  • Oarai will face Jatkosota in the semi-finals. Back in Little Army II, Jatkosota defeated Oarai, so it would make sense for them to have a rematch.
  • Should Oarai pick a win over Jatkosota, St. Gloriana will be the Final Boss of the Winter Cup and the two schools will finally have a proper match.
    • Confirmed for Jatkosota
    • Confirmed for both.

Oarai's school funds are being embezzled on a massive scale and laundered through MEXT's new league program.

Whatever weird logistics are allowing school ships to run at all, they're still working fine. While Oarai is on the low side for attendance, and this is why it's the example of a failing school to be shut down, its financial problems are mostly due to the embezzlement. Closing the school allows for scattering everybody who has intimate knowledge of its operations, while making it possible to finish cleaning up its paper records and liquidate its remaining assets, eliminating any remaining hard evidence as to what was happening and who profited. This also means that by the endpoint of this the people involved really need Oarai shut down, ASAP, because they're at increasing risk as long as it stays open. (Especially if they're getting greedier towards the end, anticipating the final payoff.) The opening of a new and presumably highly profitable sensha-do league is a good place to funnel large amounts of money to later be more openly reclaimed, and so the MEXT official isn't being a jerk over the whole matter in The Film simply to be an officious jerk, but because he's involved and he'd rather look like a jerk than risk looking like a criminal helping to ruin a school.

  • Anzu knows the minutae of the budget well enough (learned while finding room for the student council's own little luxuries) that she has a pretty good idea what's going on, who's responsible, and Yuzu's blackmail files do include information about this (note that Anzu made sure they took some documents about the budget with them before clearing out of the ship): the problem is that she can't use this evidence in any way which actually helps keep the school open. She could get some revenge after Oarai closed, but up to that point it's better for her goals if she doesn't even reveal she's aware of this. (In fact, the original promise about the tournament may have been intended as a way to keep her uselessly occupied.)
  • The most obvious sign of budget corruption in Oarai is the fact that the principal's car (the one that Chouno runs over) is a Ferrari F40. How could the principal of a school that almost shut down has a Ferrari that was only made 1,315 units?
  • This is a plot point in several fanfics, Always Advancing in particular.

The delinquents in the bottom decks are why the Oarai schoolship was still intact at the end of Der Film

The Delinquents simply never left the ship as their protest against the closing. Since it would take a while to clear them out, dismantling could not start right away, thus giving the sensha-do team their chance. They may have also figured the school was saved by their protest of never leaving the ship, and not the tank team.

Saunders and Pravda are proxies for the US and Russian governments.

  • Or at very least heavily backed and sponsored by them. How else could you explain the two schools' possession of state of the art military vehicles that are still in active use by US and Russian militaries (C-5M Super Galaxy for Saunders and Zubr-class heavy LCAC for Pravda).
  • Not to mention that while other school carriers were mostly modelled after World War II aircraft carriers and other warships, Saunders and Pravda carriers were instead modelled after post-war carriers (Nimitz-class for Saunders and Kiev-class for Pravda).

Ooarai's final opponent will not be Kuromorimine but will instead be St. Gloriana's.

  • It would be a fitting Bookend to the series as a whole, as St. Gloriana's was the first team that Ooarai was seen fighting and the only major team they've yet to score a win against. In addition, it could also allow us an opportunity to see various other British tanks that have yet to appear, like the A39 Tortoise, Cromwell and the Comet.
    • Confirmed!

St. Gloriana's as the final opponent will various new tanks against the Ooarai team.

  • There are a large number of British tanks which have yet to appear in the series, so it is possible that they could show more tanks used by the British during the finale.
  • Possible candidates for new tanks:
    • A39 Tortoise - every final team Ooarai has faced includes some variant of superheavy tank (Kuromorimine had the Maus, UAS had the T28 Doom Turtle). The only superheavy tank that would fit the bill here would be the A39 Tortoise - a British superheavy tank.
    • TOG - alternatively, as prototype vehicles have also made their way into the series, the St. Glorianas mechanics could have restored an old TOG and send it into battle against the Ooarai team.
    • Challenger: These would be fast heavy tanks that essentially would be the Tigers of the Gloriana team. There might be only one or two though. They IRL could keep up with the Cromwell, so I could see them being used to assist Rosehip and her need-for-speed antics.
    • Cromwell and Comet: These tanks are esentially superior versions of the Crusader that could be used as Gloriana's ace up their sleive against Ooarai. Because Gloriana doesn't seem to make heavy use of heavy tanks and instead relies on smaller older Matilda and Crusader tanks, it is possible that they could employ the two mentioned tanks in place of the Crusaders as their trump card.

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