Roving Thoughts archives

How Girls und Panzer is a genuine sports anime while Saki is not

I've always felt that there was something different between Girl und Panzer and Saki, which it's reasonably frequently compared to. Recently I realized how the two are different in a way that makes the former a genuine sports anime while the latter is not. I know, that sounds inflammatory; given that Saki involves people playing a sport, how is it not a sports anime and if it's not, what is it?

My answer is that Saki is actually a shonen fighting anime in the guise of a sports anime, where the 'fights' happen at the gaming table and (generally) do not involve the characters punching each other. What makes the difference between Saki and Girls und Panzer is the presence (in one) and the absence (in the other) of magic powers and crazy special moves.

In Girls und Panzer the wins and losses depend on the actual strategy, tactics, and skills involved in the sport in question (in the real world). This is not obvious in GaruPan because there is no actual sport of tankery, but it's there none the less; the battles in GaruPan turn on actual things that real tanks and real tank commanders can do. This is not what happens in Saki. Saki is not really about mahjong and actual mahjong strategy and tactics (and usually low level play) are almost always irrelevant, in much the same way that punches and kicks are irrelevant background noise in shonen fighting anime. What the games are about in Saki and what determines victory and loss is who has what magic mahjong hack (and can use it best), in the same way as Naruto's victories generally turn on a carefully timed Rasengan or the like.

This is a large part of why Girls und Panzer is much more interesting to me than things like Saki. The presence of magic mahjong powers robs Saki's narrative of a great deal of predictability and suspense because the story becomes a game of 'okay, so what magic power is going to appear this time?' Conversely, the absence of unpredictable special tricks gives the battles in Girls und Panzer genuine tension and interest, because we can actually understand, follow, and predict what's going on (and in the process understand the problems Miho faces and make our own guesses at solutions). The reality of the contests makes them meaningful to watch.

(This is not the only reason that the battles in Girls und Panzer are good, because even with this the director has to make sure that you can understand, follow, and anticipate the action instead of getting lost in a muddle. GaruPan is very good at this.)

Girls und Panzer is not the only genuine sports anime, of course; there are plenty of them (just as there are plenty of magic shonen fight sports anime to go with Saki). For example, Cross Game is a genuine sports anime since the baseball in it revolves around real tactics and plays (instead of, say, some magic super-pitch).

(It looks like I don't watch much sports anime so I can't name any other examples off the top of my head with confidence, although from what I've read about it Chihayafuru is probably another genuine sports anime.)

Update: it figures that immediately after publishing this I remembered the other 'genuine sports anime' example I had in mind: Initial D, at least through the first few seasons. The car racing is probably not strictly realistic but it's real enough to feel grounded and limited, so you can understand the challenges that the racers face.

An unconventional reading of a bit of Sakurasou episode 4

(There are some small spoilers here for bits of episode 4.)

For context, we'll start with my tweet to @vuc_: Speaking of Sakurasou, I think there's an interesting unconventional reading of Mashiro's tanabata wish that plays to her theme.

(By Mashiro's theme I meant her empowerment. See the sidebar for more background.)

In episode 4, the group has a little Tanabata festival of their own and everyone writes up their wishes. The next day, Sorata discovers that Mashiro has not wished for anything involving herself (such as for the success of the manga she's working on) but instead that he succeed at what he's doing. In a conventional show, such a non-self-focused wish would be a sign that Mashiro had fairly strong feelings for Sorata, enough so that she'd use her wish for his happiness instead of her own. The unconventional reading is that Mashiro doesn't wish for herself because it's unnecessary; she knows that she doesn't need the help of a wish to get what she wants or for her manga work to be a success. Instead she wishes for Sorata's success because she thinks he needs the help and she cares enough to give him some. She's not being selfless, she's merely being casually generous.

(All the other people's Tanabata wishes were self-focused ones.)

PS: Mashiro is right; Sorata needs all the help he can get. There are even some signs that the show agrees with this.

(The usual cautions about reading things into shows definitely apply to Sakurasou, especially since it's based on a light novel series. On the other hand the director could have decided to do something interesting with the raw materials to hand.)

Sidebar: two readings of Sakurasou

There's two ways to look at Sakurasou. You can read it as a conventional LN based anime with an otaku-bait premise, or you can read it as a disguised, sharp-edged story about things like the true nature of apparent 'genius talent' (ie that it actually involves a huge amount of work). In the second reading, Mashiro is not a cute helpless idiot savant space case but instead a very focused young woman who knows exactly what she wants and works extremely hard for it.

(Naturally the second reading is popular with much of the section of the anisphere that I follow because it makes the show much more interesting and worthwhile. If you follow the first reading, the show is pretty much exploitative cynicism.)