Barreling onto blu-ray this September from Sentai Filmworks is Part 3 of the big Girls und Panzer Finale (of a planned six films), and if this is the planned conclusion of the series, then it looks like they’re planning to go out in style!
For those who haven’t been following the previous two entries of the Finale series, basically what has happened is that Momo Kawashima, dark-haired member of the student council is threatened with failing her academics due to her dedication to the tank battles, and the girls at the school come up with an idea to have Momo try to get into university on an athletic scholarship by putting her as the commaner of a tank team in the Winter Continuous Track Cup which features teams from around the world competing in grueling, thick jungle battles to make it to the top. Finale Part 3 begins in media res with Ooarai Academy having defeated the French team DC Freedom High School and now they are firmly entrenched in the midst of a 12-hour match with Chi-Ha-Ten Academy, with everyone exhausted and running out of options, who will come out on top and move on to the next round?
If you’ve read my review of the Girls und Panzer movie, then you may be familiar with how impressed I was with the storyboarding and directing in that film, resulting in some truly imaginative, action packed tank battles that defied the laws of physics. Here in the Finale, Actas studio seems to really want to go out on top with some equally fun and exciting battles of clever strategy and hairpin near misses. Like the movie, the focus here is on the battles, with character development taking something of a back seat (the animators assume if you’re checking this out, you are already invested in these girls’ success), but that’s fine. It allows the animators to really deliver on the promise of the series, using these dense jungle environments to their full advantage. One other thing I liked that this does is show some of the other matches going on with other teams, to give you more of a sense of who they are beyond just faceless enemies, and of course it doesn’t hurt that this brings even more tank action into the mix.
On the technical side, the 1080p looks very nice and clean as one would expect of a modern digital animation, and like the movie, the DTS-HD 5.1 tracks (both English dub and Japanese with subtitles) have a lot of oomph to them. You really feel those cannon blasts and the rumble of the tank treads. For extras, Sentai seemed to have gone a little beyond their usual skimpy offerings. Yes, we get the usual Clean Opening and Closing Animations and Sentai Filmworks trailers. But we also get a few other bits ‘n’ baubles including the original Japanese promos for Finale Part 3, an original Finale Part 4 teaser promo and most substantially the Daikon War OVA, a neat little ten-minute short that features a couple of the Ooarai Academy girls taking a western-themed detour. It’s fluffy but fun and I did really like the goofy Morricone riff with Ooarai lyrics at the end.
I understand why Sentai is releasing the Finale movies this way with each hour-long movie on a separate blu-ray (basically they are releasing the films as they come out with the final three parts of the Finale not released yet). I am glad that at least they added a few more extras to help make the blu-ray value a little more palatable. Overall, if you dig what Girls und Panzer offers (anime school girls in high-octane tank battles), then the Finale looks to be serving up exactly what fans are hoping for out of it. Lots of ‘splosions and lots of fun!