Miho

Full name: Miho Nishizumi Height: 158 cm (5'2") Hometown: Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture Birth Date: 2006 October 23rd Affiliation(s): Ooarai Girls Academy Kuromorimine Girls' Academy (formerly) Team: Anglerfish Team Role(s): Overall commander Vice-commander (temporarily) Tank commander

Previous Tank(s): Tiger I Panzer II Ausf.F (training) Panzer III Ausf.J (training) Panzer IV

Profile: One of the heirs to the Nishizumi school of armored warfare, Miho was once a student at Kuromorimine Girls' Academy, and served as their Sensha-do team's executive officer under her older sister Maho, and her mother Shiho. Following an accident during a match in which Miho acted to save her personnel, which cost her school the victory, Miho transferred to Ooarai Girls' Academy in her second year.

When Ooarai revived its Sensha-do team, Miho was chosen as the team's commanding officer, due to her tactical expertise and experience in armored warfare. As one of the original team members of Ooarai's Sensha-do team, she is a tank commander of a Panzer IV medium tank.

Appearance: Miho is a medium-sized girl with short, light brown hair and light brown eyes. She bears a striking physical resemblance to her older sister.

Miho typically wears Ooarai Girls Academy uniform. During battle, she wears the school's Sensha-dō uniform. When she been student of Kuromorimine girls Academy she wear Kuromorimine uniforms instead. In less formal situations and at home, she has worn assorted casual wear; notably, she wore a yellow dress with white sleeves when she visited her home.

As with most of the members of Ooarai's Sensha-dō team, she has performed the Anko Dance while wearing the costume to go with it.

Personality: Miho is known for her cheerful and polite demeanor, occasional shyness, and also as a highly talented Sensha-dō commander. During every Sensha-dō match she becomes serious, calm, and decisive. Her hobby is collecting bandaged teddy bears called Boko, of which she already has a lot in her apartment and her room back in the Nishizumi Family house.

At the start of the series, Miho was trying to distance herself from Sensha-dō due to her recent negative experience in it, but chose —after some coercion by the Student Council— to take it up with her friends. She gradually starts to enjoy it again, but holds tight to her belief that one's comrades are more important than victory, and is willing to accept defeat if it means protecting them from harm.

One of her most important traits is without doubt her loyalty to her friends, being ready to do everything for their sake (such as when she saved her teammate's life, or agreeing to join Ooarai's Sensha-dō team when her friends were being threatened for supporting her). This loyalty can also be directed to her new school, as when she learned that defeat in the tournament would mean that Ooarai would close, she became determined to do her best to achieve victory. Also, although they have taken different paths, she still loves her sister and holds her in high regard.

Miho is also shown to occasionally be clumsy and forgetful. She has forgotten to lock her apartment door on a few occasions, and even walked into a lamppost when she was absorbed in a conversation with her friends.

Background: Early years: During her childhood, Miho had difficulties finding friends due to her passion for Senshado, a sport that most girls find weird. This changed in elementary school when she met Hitomi Yuzumoto and Chihiro Yusa, who became interested in Senshado, making Miho happy to have finally made some friends. At the same time, Miho also met Emi Nakasuga, a half German-half Japanese girl who seems to bear some quarrel against Miho's sister, Maho. Miho, Hitomi and Chihiro started to get along while driving one of the Nishizumi family's personal tanks, a Panzer IV, but during their first day driving it, Hitomi fell from the tank while getting out and sprained her ankle. Luckily for them, at that moment, Emi was passing by with her bicycle. Miho asked her for help driving the tank back with all of them, having guessed she had some previous experience. Albeit with some reluctance, Emi joined the group.

Though Miho thought she had created a bond of friendship with the three girls, things did not immediately work out smoothly. At school, Emi and Hitomi had a falling out that made them quit their meetings. At first, Miho was demoralized by the situation but, after remembering advice that her sister Maho gave her when she was younger, she decided to persist and solve the quarrel between Emi and Hitomi. With that in mind, she went after Emi to talk with her and get to know her better. In their conversations, Miho learnt about Emi's older sister, who came to Japan from Germany to practice Shensha-do. Emi told Miho that she do not like Japan, as everyone played kids' games instead of Sensha-do. Miho told Emi she understood her feelings, as she had had the same experience, and she hoped to befriend Emi, Hitomi, and Chihiro because of their common interest in Sensha-do. In the end, Emi agreed to make peace with Hitomi, who in the meantime had been convinced to do the same by Chihiro. The two girls settled their dispute and the four girls reformed the Sensha-do group.

One day, after school, Miho was met at the exit by her sister Maho, who she hadn't seen for a while. Miho was happy to present Maho to her new friends. Hitomi and Chihiro were friendly, but Emi reacted coldly and walked away, telling Miho that she didn't want to be anywhere near Maho, as Emi's older sister's team had been defeated by Maho's team. The next day at school, Emi made very clear to Miho that she hates Maho. Angry, Miho defended her older sister, impulsively telling Emi she hated her. After school, when Miho returned home feeling sad about the quarrel she had with Emi, she shared her feelings with Kikuyo Idegami, a servant and close friend to the Nishizumi family. On considering Kikuyo's advice, Miho came up with the idea of a tank match, with Miho and her friends against her sister Maho, so that Emi could learn more about Maho even though Emi didn't want to see her. After getting Maho's agreement to help, Miho went to Emi's house to convince her to accept. There she learned that Emi planned to go back to Germany after she graduated. Even so, Miho managed to convince Emi to fight against Maho on the condition that Miho would give her best as a commander to win the match.

The day of the match, Miho and her friends met with Maho on the Nishizumi's Sensha-do practice field. Accompanying Maho were three of her companions from Kuromorimine, as well as Kikuyo, who would act as the referee. Miho's team would drive the Panzer IV, while Maho faced them with a StuG III. Before the start of the match, Maho told Miho she will not go softly just because it was a friendly match, making Miho even more nervous. During the match, Miho became uncertain, both fearing to make a mistake and intimidated by facing a tank ace such as her sister. This attitude infuriated Emi, to the point that she suggested Miho should leave the commander's seat if she continued like that. With encouragement from her friends, Miho collected herself and gave her best to win the match —but even that wasn't enough, and in the end Maho managed to defeat them all the same. Still, the match was a close one and —by Maho's own admission— it would have ended in a draw if a tree hadn't stood between her Stug III and Miho's tank's shell. Miho apologized to Emi for losing the match, but Emi told her it wasn't a big deal, as Miho had kept her promise to do her best in trying to win.

After the match, the two teams thanked each other. However, Emi still had a cold and distant attitude towards Maho until the latter gave Emi first aid for an injury she took during the match, for which Emi thanked her. Miho thought that things were improving between Emi and Maho, but Miho discovered a hard truth about her sister when Emi asked about the match Maho had against Emi's sister. Specifically, she asked why Maho took advantage of a moment when her sister was helping one of Maho's own teammates, in order to win the tournament. Miho was shocked to hear this, and asked her sister if what Emi said was true. Before Maho could answer, the conversation was interrupted by their mother, Shiho, who asked what was happening and congratulated her daughter Maho for her performance during the tournament; shortly after, both Shiho and Maho left the field to return home.

After saluting her friends, Miho went home as well. Back at home, after waiting outside her mother's studio while Shiho and Maho talked about the tournament, Miho asked her mother to speak privately with Maho. After her mother departed, Miho asked her sister again if what Emi said earlier was true. Maho coldly confirmed Emi's words, smashing Miho's high opinion of Maho and Sensha-do, leaving her crying after Maho departed.

The next day at school, Miho told her friends she was thinking about quitting Sensha-do. This made Emi furious, and she took Miho by the arm and dragged her outside. There Emi first apologized for having misjudged Maho, and then insisted that Miho should tell her what was in her mind, as friends should always do so. Hitomi and Chihiro, overhearing the conversation, joined them and agreed with Emi. Miho, moved by her friends' kindness, told them what had happened the previous day. Hitomi then pointed out that Maho had started to act differently only after Shiho showed up. Hitomi suggested that Miho should talk directly to her mother; however, the girls acknowledged that Miho's mother was a scary woman. Chihiro then proposed they should all go together to support Miho. Although reluctant, they all agreed.

Miho and her friends waited for Miho's mother at the guest room of the Nishizumi mansion and, after a long wait, eventually got the chance to speak with her. Miho asked her mother if what Maho had done in the finals of the tournament —shooting the enemy's flag tank while it was helping one of Maho's own team members— was really necessary. Shiho replied that it was a foolish question, that a member of the Nishizumi should feel embarrassed to ask something like that, and that the Nishizumi Sensha-do style only aimed for strength and victory. She then directed Kikuyo to accompany Miho's friends back to their homes. At the exit, Emi commented on Shiho's attitude and noted that Maho, who was also present at the meeting, had not said a word the whole time. Kikuyo then stepped in and politely asked the girls to understand Maho's position, being the heir-apparent of the Nishizumi Style and thus carrying a great responsibility. Later that evening, Maho spoke with Miho and told her that she was surprised to see her questioning their mother, and suggested that she must find her own Sensha-do to be happy.

A week later, Miho was still conflicted between Maho's encouragement to find her own path and her own dedication to what was expected from her as a Nishizumi. She shared her feelings with Emi, again suggesting that she might quit Sensha-do; again this made Emi angry, enough that she decided to go back to Germany with her parents. The day before Emi's departure, Miho asked Kikuyo her thoughts about what her mother said during the meeting with her friends; Kikuyo hesitated, saying that it would be disrespectful towards lady Shiho.

The next morning, not wanting to show her sorrow to the others, Miho didn't go to school, despite it being the last time she would see Emi before she left for Germany. Instead, Miho isolated herself in the Panzer IV for most of the day. Later on, Chihiro and Hitomi showed up, along with Kikuyo, wanting Miho to come with them to say farewell to Emi. The three eventually managed to convince Miho to join them by pointing out to her that Sensha-do isn't just about refining one's technique with tanks, but also about polishing their own persona, becoming who they feel they should be. They also told her that Emi is going back to Germany to find her own Sensha-do, thanks to Miho's encouragements. Moved by these revelations, Miho —in the Panzer IV and accompanied by Chihiro and Hitomi— sped off to reach Emi.

The three girls managed to reach Emi, who was traveling on board a train. Emi, shocked to see her friends driving alongside the train, opened the window. Miho told Emi that she will continue to practice Sensha-do and find her own path and, once both she and Emi have found their own Sensha-do, she promises they will meet again. Miho's words moved Emi deeply and the four girls saluted each other's happily.

Miho, Chihiro, and Hitomi continued to spend time together, even though they didn't ride tanks again. After their graduation the girls took different paths, with Hitomi going into a school with Sensha-do, Chihiro into a sports school, and Miho entering Kuromorimine High School to practice Sensha-do alongside her sister Maho.

New life in Ooarai: The events of the 62nd National Tournament and its aftermath had a major impact on Miho and her view of Sensha-dō. She came to see Sensha-dō only as an oppressing and harsh environment, so much so that she made the decision to leave both Kuromorimine and her family and transfer into the little-known Ooarai Girls Academy. There she hoped to make a new, happy life with new friends and have nothing to do with Sensha-do, having chosen Ooarai specifically because it didn’t have a Sensha-do team.

In the first day of her life in the new school, Miho was excited and happy, looking forward to meeting new schoolmates. However, by the time of lunch break, none of the students had approached her, making Miho sad. Things change for the better when two classmates, Saori Takebe and Hana Isuzu, together approach Miho and invite her to have lunch with them; of course Miho accepts. The three girls hit it off well, and were talking to each other cheerfully until the Student Council (Anzu Kadotani, Yuzu Koyama and Momo Kawashima) approach Miho to convince her, quite forcefully, to choose the Sensha-do elective, which is to be reintroduced that year.

Miho is shocked that she has not escaped Sensha-do, and is left too dazed and distracted even to participate in class. Concerned, Miho's teacher sends her to the infirmary; worried about their new friend, Saori and Hana quickly conspire to be sent to the infirmary as well.

There, coaxed by her new friends, Miho tells Saori and Hana about her family Senshado tradition and how she dislikes it, and is relieved by their full support. Just as the three are preparing to end the day, the Student Council calls for the entire school to assemble in the gym. To encourage enrollment in the new Senshado elective, the Student Council shows an orientation film about Senshado, upsetting Miho even further. To Miho's dismay, after school Saori and Hana express their intention to join the Senshado club, cheerfully encouraging her to join it as well. That night, Miho sits awake on her bed, haunted by the memories of what made her quit Senshado and leave Kuromorimine.

Trivia: Miho's favorite tank is the German Panzer II light tank - specifically, the Ausf. E and F versions. Miho's birthday is October 23rd, the anniversary of the beginning of the Second Battle of El Alamein. Miho is the first character in the series known to have practiced Sensha-do at two different schools. She is also the first character to do so long-term. Miho's three sizes are 82-56-84 (cm), or 32-22-33 (in) - a near-perfect hourglass figure. Miho keeps a Panzerfaust in her bedroom at the Nishizumi manor in Kumamoto.