It's the second round of the tournament. Our girls beat Saunders in the first round, but there's much to do. Going into the second round they still only have five tanks, although morale is high. The OVA fills in the Anzio battle, which fits in at the end of episode 7. Until now all we've known is that Ooarai won, but we didn't have any idea what the battle was like.

I downloaded a raw (because I didn't want to wait for a sub) but even without subtitles it wasn't too difficult to figure out what was going on. It was great! A hell of a lot of fun, partly because the Anzio team was a lot of fun.

UPDATE: In the manga, the Renault B1-bis was ready to go for this battle but didn't yet have a crew, so Miho put Yukari (commander), Caesar (gunner), and Aya (driver) in it for this battle. That didn't happen in the OVA; they only had the same five tanks they had against Saunders: Rabbit (M3-Lee), Hippo (STuG-III), Duck (Type 89), Turtle (38t), and Anko (Panzer IV). Turtle was the flag tank again.

The episode was an hour (i.e. 47 minutes) and the first half was preparation and training. The whole Anko team gets invited to the Student Council room for a conference. Yukari shows up late; Anzu sent her out on another scouting mission.

The Anzio school ship seems to have a lot of recreations of monuments from Rome.

Caesar and Erwin live together, in a separate house, and Miho visits hoping they might have some info. Turns out Caesar reads Italian and has some books about Italian tanks, and she translates critical info about tanks they might meet. Miho gives a good summary of the situation and the Hippo do their "Sore wa!" ("That's it!") thing.

Anko are in Mako's apartment (I think; it might have been Saori's) and decide to cook an Italian meal, night before. Saori is a super-saiyajin again (she's got her glasses on).

Yukari chops onions...

And done, and it looks like a feast.

So, day of the battle. Anchovy (the Anzio commander) makes an entrance, to greet her opposition.

It turns out that the Anzio second-in-command is an old friend of Caesar, whom she calls "Taka-chan". (Caesar's real name is Takako Suzuki.) After the reunion, the rest of Hippo tease Caesar a bit.

Some familiar faces have come to watch the battle. Saunders brought a DUKW.

And this is Anzio's lineup. The six in the front are L3/35 tankettes. They have a crew of two (driver, gunner) and are armed only with a pair of 8 mm machine guns.

The three similar tanks in the rear are Semovente 75/18's. It's a self-propelled gun approximately equal to Ooarai's STuG-III, being used pretty much as a tank destroyer.

The flag tank is a Carro Armato P40.

And they're off. What the heck are the tankette's carrying on their rear decks?

Rabbit is detached, scouting on one side, and they find a big enemy force! Oh Shit!

Miho tells them to take a shot, and it turns out they're decoys.

Duck is also detached, scouting on the other side, and runs into all the tankettes, and gets involved in a running battle against them. Duck isn't in any danger; the tankettes don't carry a weapon strong enough to harm it. But for a change Duck is up against something its gun can actually stop. But it takes a while for them to figure out how to do it.

For a while they knock tankettes over, but the crews just hop out and push the tankette back upright and get back into the battle. Finally Duck figures out where to shoot, and then we start seeing white flags.

Rabbit finally found two of the Anzio tank destroyers (real ones, this time), and was running away from them for a while. However, Anko found the Anzio flag tank, and Anchovy called all her forces in for reinforcement. Rabbit follows the tank destroyers, and manages to bag one with a long distance shot.

The other tank destroyer finds Hippo, and they spend the rest of the battle jousting, pretty much, in an open field, driving back and forth shooting at each other. Eventually they make a mutual kill. This tank destroyer was commanded by Caesar's friend.

Miho sets a trap, and Anchovy falls for it and gets knocked out. Game over! Ooarai wins!

Anchovy turns out to be a good sport, and so is her team. She warmly congratulates Miho for the victory, and then invites Ooarai for a meal. Anzio sets up a field kitchen and prepares a feast, which the teams enjoy together.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 11:12 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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