Noriko Isobe | Girls und Panzer

"GUTS!!!" ―Captain Isobe Noriko

Noriko Isobe (磯辺 典子, Isobe Noriko) is the tank commander and loader of the Duck Team and one of the supporting protagonists of Girls und Panzer.

Noriko is a short woman with a short dark brown hair and a pair of dark brown eyes. Her height is 143cm

In contrast to her teammates who wear the school's volleyball uniform she casually wears white, short sleeves t-shirt with red color around holes, and tight black shorts. During battle asides from the tight black shorts she is seen to wear to part school's tankery uniform, boots and socks.

During dinner wit her teammates and with Fukuda Haru she is also seen to wear Oarai volleyball club jacket.

Along with the rest of Ooarai's Senshado team, she was forced to wear the school uniform "properly" by the Public Morals Committee in the 6th chapter of Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu, however, she still wore her Volleyball uniform underneath it. Due to her hair already being short and having a "normal" color, she was not forced to dye it, braid it or have it modified in any other way.

Noriko is a second-year student from Ooarai Girls Academy. She is the team captain and setter of the school's defunct volleyball team. In addition, Noriko is also the commander of the Duck Team's Japanese Type 89B and helps serve as its loader. Noriko grew up in Ooarai, Ibaraki.

She was first seen in the opening episode, viewing the Sensha-dō promotional video with the rest of Duck Team. She then attended the first meeting of the Sensha-dō club and voiced her concern that there were fewer people than she thought would have attended. When the teams split up to search for other tanks, she went looking in the hills and found a Type 89B in a cave embedded within the Cliffside. After being assigned to that tank, Duck Team then cleaned and fixed up the vehicle.

During the free-for-all match against their own teammates, Duck Team had some minor problems getting to their starting location, mainly by running into trees. They fired the first shot of the match at Anglerfish Team, with the intention of disabling them first. They teamed up with the StuG III and pursued the Panzer IV to a bridge. Noriko waved at Caesar and Erwin as the two vehicles closed in on the bridge, and engaged Anglerfish Team with machine-gun and howitzer fire. However, the crew of the Panzer IV began returning fire, eliminating the Duck Team with what a visibly disoriented Noriko described as, "a head-on attack".

Following their first battle, Duck Team painted volleyballs and slogans of encouragement on their tank, with Noriko commenting that it would be easier to tell everyone's tank apart from each other, failing to grasp that the original color schemes helped make the tanks less conspicuous. After participating in Momo Kawashima's training course she was visibly fatigued from the experience, however, she still attended the briefing on the battle against St. Gloriana later on in the evening. She expressed agreement with the original plan presented by Kawashima, but when Anzu proposed that Miho Nishizumi be the new captain, she supported the idea. She was also the one to question what would happen to Miho if they lost, and was visibly horrified to hear that she would be doing the Anko dance.

Her finest moments would be when Noriko alongside Chi-Ha-Tan's team managed to eliminate several Pershing tanks during the Ooarai Compound Team vs. All-Stars University Match, despite being vastly outgunned and under armored.

Noriko Isobe's personality can best be described as being a very determined and fairly good-natured individual.

Noriko's prime credo is exerting courage and willpower (this may be tied to her own consideration of her body size, which is significantly smaller than her teammates). She is very purposeful and determined to the point of stubbornness, firmly believing that willpower will overcome all obstacles. She also inspires tremendous loyalty from her teammates, who stick with Noriko despite the risks and dangers.

In several derivative works, her and her team as a whole are usually joked as fulfilling the "dumb-jock" stereotype and being muscle brained as a whole. For example, when Duck Team joined up with Fukuda's tank to obstruct the barrel of a heavy tank, Noriko and her teammate Akebi Sasaki pushed against the wall of the tank, apparently believing that doing so would help bend the barrel more effectively, much to the chagrin of their driver, Shinobu Kawanishi. Other examples include diving into a swimming pool that had been drained of water, injuring herself and the rest of Duck Team. A fairly noticeable occurrence of this was when Noriko mistook a Tankathalon match for a beach volleyball tournament, with Shinobu gently reminding her that the season was already over.

Despite this, Noriko is also shown to be a good commander, possessing tactical awareness, good judgment, and excellent leadership skills. Prime examples of this can be seen when she calms her team down whenever they panic, as well as giving clear instructions when her team finds themselves in an awkward position, such as when they were surrounded by Anzio's tankettes or when they unexpectedly came face to face with Saunders' flag tank. This allows Duck Team to be one of the best teams Ooarai has to offer, having the highest evasion and hit rates of the Ooarai teams.

She is also shown to take care about collective team needs as Volleyball enthusiastists. She is devotet to Volleyball club restoration, and is shown to have several jobs so she can buy Volleyball facilites for team members.

Noriko is the shortest member of her team, despite being a year ahead of the other three members.

Her catchphrase is "Just use your head a little, and the rest is guts!" Being an athletic person, she is very conscious of hierarchies, and even speaking politely to the Anglerfish team members , who served as her instructor even if they are classmates. In OVA 6, she does a pretty good imitation of all five of the members of Anglerfish Team. In Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu! it is revealed that Noriko starts seeing balls whenever she stops playing volleyball for an extended period of time. Notably and most humorously, this involves her accidentally molesting her more well-endowed teammates via grabbing their busts. Noriko believes that doing well in Sensha-dō will help resurrect the volleyball team. How she made this connection is currently unknown. Highly agile, Noriko was able to hang onto the outside of the turret of the Type 89B when they were surprised by Alisa's Sherman and were performing evasive maneuvers. She also managed to continue to stand on the outside of the turret and "serve" flares at the pursuing Sherman. Noriko's tank, and herself as an extension, is referred to as "Duck-dono" by Fukuda and other members of the Chi-Ha-Tan tank club. One obvious reason is that the tank crew as a whole is referred to as the Duck Team. This can also be attributed to the events that transpired when the two forces fought together during the Chi-Ha-Tan/Ooarai Compound vs. Pravda/St.Gloriana Compound match, as well as the Ooarai Compound vs. All-Stars University match. During the latter, they donned inflatable rubber ducks on their turrets, as a form of camouflage. Fukuda also nicknamed her "Small Duck" due to her smaller figure compared to the rest of the Duck Team. Noriko has an older brother. Noriko is not good in studying.

Taeko is a first year student from Ooarai Girls Academy. She's also a member of the volleyball varsity team and her specialty is jump serving. She's also the radio operator of Duck Team's Japanese Type 89B.

Taeko is a tall woman with large breasts and purple-ish brown hair and a pair of brown eyes. She wears red undersocks, together with the school's Volleyball uniform with number 3 and also around her head wear red bandanna tide up into ribbon on back of head. She also have protectors on a knees and elbows.

Taeko is a friendly woman overall, despite looking shy and mild-mannered. She has a gentle, friendly demeanor, and never seems to lose her temper, even in very tense situations. Her height is 167 cm

Taeko is given the nickname "Large Duck" by Fukuda most likely due to her large hips. Taeko is able to do a fairly decent imitation of Darjeeling, per the Banquet War OVA. Taeko has a younger brother.

Shinobu Kawanishi (河西 忍, Kawanishi Shinobu) is the driver of the Duck Team and one of the supporting protagonists of Girls und Panzer.

Shinobu is a first year student from Ooarai Girls Academy. She's also a member of the volleyball varsity team and her specialty is attacking. She's also the driver of the Duck Team's Type 89B "I-Go" tank, and is often the unintentional tsukkomi within the volleyball team.

When driving the Type 89, Shinobu shows a significant amount of skill and talent when navigating, evading and assaulting with the medium tank. This can often be seen with the Type 89 constantly zig zagging through battles, most likely with care to the fact that any hits on their vehicle what-so-ever will knock them out of the match. (The Type 89 has 17mm of armor, tops.) She can also use the tank to juggle another tank backwards, even if it is against the opposing party's will, as it was with Fukuda's tank during the exhibition match. Even more spectacularly, she is able to manipulate the driving mechanism of the Type 89 to allow the tank to "rear up", usually in the instance of going up makeshift ramps (i.e. the back of the Hetzer) or in one magnificent account, literally throwing Anchovy's tankette forwards, so that it could fire down the barrel of a self-propelled artillery piece.

A reoccurring theme is Shinobu using the tank itself to physically obstruct or break things during matches. This was predominantly seen when she drove onto the Maus and prevented the turret from turning, as well as breaking the barrel off of a Pershing tank during the Ooarai Compound vs. All-Stars University match.

Shinobu is a tall and slender girl with short brown hair that is tied in a small ponytail using a red hair tie and a pair of brown eyes.

She wears the school's volleyball uniform (#5).

During matches, she wears the Ooarai Sensha-Dō uniform alongside the rest of her teammates.

Along with the rest of Ooarai's Sensha-Dō team, she was forced to wear the school uniform "properly" by the Moral's Committee in the 6th chapter of Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu. Due to her hair already being short and having a "normal" color, she was not forced to dye it.

During the operation to rescue Momo Kawashima from Anzio, she wore the Anzio uniform and hat in order to disguise herself as a student there. She was later seen in tactical gear and wielding a P90 when they extracted Momo.

Compared to her teammates, Shinobu is a very serious girl who also has a strong determination to revive her former club (not as much as Noriko Isobe, though). She's probably the most intelligent and logical in her group. Contrary to her cold and aloof appearance, she is actually warm-hearted and caring.

Shinobu tends to be the tsukkomi of her volleyball team, usually the one to question the team's own actions, and sometimes expressing annoyance at some of her teammate's more ridiculous actions (i.e. Noriko and Akebi Sasaki pushing against the walls of their own tank in order to "help" bend the gun barrel of an enemy Pershing tank, when realistically, all the work was being done by Shinobu).

In Episode 15 of Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu, a deeper side of her was shown when she befriended Saki Maruyama during her morning run. Even though Saki was unaware of who she was, even going so far as to think that she was a boy, due to Shinobu's face being obscured by her hood as well as the hoodie and track-pants she was wearing masking her gender, their friendship developed as Shinobu started bringing coffee for her as well as sitting and watching the scenery with Saki every morning. Ultimately, her true identity was revealed to Saki, the rest of Rabbit Team as well as Anglerfish Team when they went to investigate who the "charming young man" that had supposedly captured Saki's heart was. In spite of this, the friendship between the two continued unchanged as Saki enjoyed Shinobu's company and Shinobu enjoyed watching the scenery with Saki.

Shinobu is able to do a fairly decent imitation of Orange Pekoe. Haru Fukuda gives Shinobu the nickname of "slender duck", much to her chagrin. Shinobu occasionally breast conscious from time to time in MLLSD. Shinobu has an older sister. Shinobu seems to be less air-headed than her teammates. Shinobu is the tallest Ooarai student. Her height is 170cm .In "Alice War," she seems to get excited at introducing the Volleyball Club as the "Anime-Volleyball Club." Maybe she has a hidden otaku side.

Akebi is a first year student from Ooarai Girls High School. She's also a member of the volleyball varsity team and her specialty is blocking. She's also the gunner of Duck Team's Japanese Type 89B.

Akebi is a tall and well endowed girl with brown eyes long blonde hair that is tied in a ponytail by white rubber band. and on left side she have long irregular ahoge. She wears the school's volleyball uniform (#6) as well as a white headband and whit protector on left knee.

Along with the rest of Ooarai's Sensha-dō team, she was forced to wear the school uniform "properly" by the Moral's Committee in the Chapter 6 of Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu. Since she had long blonde hair, she was forced to dye it black and tie it into braids. This made her literally unrecognizable to several people, most notably Karina Sakaguchi and her own teammate, Taeko Kondou. Inevitably, this made her one of the individuals most against the Morals Committee's rule, showing intent on shooting up the Char B1 during their next training exercise, alongside the crew of the StuG III.

Akebi also seems to have an interest in ballet, as shown during the Victory Banquet in Banquet OVA when captain Noriko Isobe tasked her with commentating the Student Council's performance of Swan Lake.

She seems to be a very sensitive girl, unnerved rather easily, as she tends to react quickly every time her team is under a direct attack. She also expresses tremendous dismay when people begin failing to recognize her, as when she dyed her hair black and tied it in braids, to the point of near tears.

Akebi is able to do a fairly decent imitation of Momo Kawashima & Yuzu Koyama. Blonde is actually Akebi's natural hair color. During the Morals Committee's enforcement of school dress code, she was forced to dye her hair black. Akebi is given the nickname "American Duck" by Haru Fukuda, which is most likely due to her large bust and blonde hair. This also led Kay to believe that Akebi is actually one of Saunders girls. Akebi's height is 165cm

The Duck Team consists of members of the defunct volleyball club from Ooarai Girls Academy, which is their goal to resurrect. The team operates a Japanese Type 89B Otsu. They found the Type 89 on a cliff inside a cave. They first painted it with slogans and volleyball images.

During the final round match against Kuromorimine Girls Academy, the Ooarai tanks managed to survive the initial attack by Kuromorimine, gathering on the top of a hill and then successfully executing a breakthrough. After that, they were lured by a lone Panzer III Ausf.J of Kuromorimine into a trap set by a super heavy Maus tank into the city. Duck Team was pivotal to take out the Maus by climbing on its deck, blocking its turret and exposing its vulnerable vent intakes, which were hit by Anglerfish Team just in time. When the rest of Kuromorimine's tanks arrived at the city, Duck Team acted as a decoy to keep them off

the flag tank, successfully provoking Erika Itsumi in her Tiger II as well as two of the Panthers, causing the trio to chase the Type 89. Ultimately, the Duck Team were knocked out and literally sent flying by a round from either the Tiger II or one of the two Panthers. However, they were able to distract the three tanks long enough to delay Erika's arrival to the entryway of the courtyard where the duel between Miho Nishizumi's Panzer IV Special and Maho Nishizumi's Tiger I was taking place. As such, this directly prevented the intervention of any other Kuromorimine's tanks in the duel.

As a result of this match, the Maus Commander of Kuromorimine would develop an immense dislike of the "light tank" that prevented her turret from rotating. This would lead to several confrontations between the two parties in the future.

Duck Team became a guardian to Fukuda during the match, when she was the sole survivor of the Chi-Ha-Tan detachment. In the scramble to retreat from the collapsing OY-line, Duck Team was able to persuade Fukuda's tank crew to retreat with them, albeit with the aid of some physical pushing. The two tanks lured Rukuriri's Matilda IV into a non-fire zone, lost broke contact and them ambushed it at the same parking lot under the same circumstances as their first practice match against St. Gloriana, except this time fooling Rukuriri and tricking her into reversing he turret in expectation of Duck Team's attack, leaving the tank exposed to Fukuda's shot from the front.

Duck Team played a prominent role in the annihilation match against All-Stars University. Duck Team made its first major impact whilst part of Acorn Platoon, whence they found the Karl-Gerät 040. To take on the massive SPG and its escort of three Pershings, Duck Team came up with "Operation Kill Serve". Whilst Jaktosota lured the Pershing tanks into a chase across the dry riverbed, Duck Team mounted Anzio's CV-33 on their tank, then charged at the artillery. A direct fire shot from the artillery missed, and instead hit the bridge, the falling pieces of which immobilized at least one of the Pershing's pursuing Jaktosota. Meanwhile, Duck Team braked hard, tossing the CV-33 into the air to try a land a shot into the Karl-Gerät's gun barrel. Although the CV-33 fell short, Turtle used the overturned tankette as a jump ramp, and Anzu succeeded in landing the crucial shot.

Later in the battle, as the Ooarai compound team battled All-Stars University detachments throughout the theme park, Duck Team joined with the remaining Chi-Ha-Tan light tanks to provide leadership and tactical advice. "Operation F-Quick" allowed the numerous light tanks to swarm the enemy with surprise and obstruction tactics, taking out two tanks.

As the battle accelerated towards its climax, Duck Team led the four Chi-Ha-Tan light tanks in an ambush charge against Alice Shimada's Centurion A41 Mk.1. Despite having the first shot, and a five-to-one numerical advantage, Alice's superior Sensha-dō skills resulted in the defeat of all the Chi-Ha-Tan tanks within a matter of seconds. Duck Team charged in attempting to ram the Centurion, but was foiled.

The Duck Team is consists of four members of the defunct volleyball club from Ooarai Girls Academy. They are well-known for their love for volleyball, as well as their enthusiastic and "muscle-brained" personalities. They commonly, use volleyball terminology and references during battles, such as "Serve!" or "Spike!" when shooting the cannon, and using examples from their volleyball training to adapt to operating the tank. In battle, they usually serve as Ooarai's reconnaissance and bait team: scouting enemy positions, provoking the enemy, and dodging enemy fire.

Surprisingly, Duck Team is notable for being the tank with one of the best crews in the entire team, seconded only by Anglerfish Team. Despite being in the weakest tank in almost every single battle they were in, they have usually survived until the mid-late game, and usually in the face of overwhelming firepower. As noted by Alisa of Saunders, they are able to push the Type 89, far beyond its catalogue specs. Some have speculated that their ability to perform such astounding tasks in their obsolete tank is due to being the most physically fit crew in the entire Ooarai Sensha-dõ team, being (formerly) full-time sportswomen. Indeed, in the 63rd National High School Sensha-dō Tournament, they have played a pivotal role in virtually every battle: finding and baiting the Saunders Flag tank, eliminating half of Anzio's tanks, acting as the flag tank for the match against Pravda, and somehow surviving a hit from an IS-2. In the penultimate battle, they were responsible for taking out the Maus in the battle against Kuromorimine.

Due to their very straightforward personalities, they are sometimes prone to accidents and misunderstandings. One such display occurred when all four members dove into a pool that had been drained of water for cleaning, without bothering to check the conditions first, leading to a very painful conclusion for them. A notable side effect of their behavior however, is that they get along exceedingly well with the members of the Chi-Ha-Tan Sensha-dō club, who exhibit similar tendencies.

A shared goal of the Duck Team is the restoration of the Ooarai Girls Academy Volleyball Club. They fully believe that participating in their school's Sensha-dō club will help to reinstate their club in the school, allowing them to advertise the club's membership, and putting them in good standing with the Student Council. However, when it is realized that the school ship will be shut down if Ooarai doesn't win the competition, their goals shift to keeping the school open, for without the school they will never be able to realize their original goal.

In the spin-off manga, Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu!, they seize every opportunity to reinstate their club. One example was when the Duck Team snuck into the Student Council's office and planted their club restoration form amidst the work orders Momo Kawashima was filling out. Non-amused, Momo promptly tossed the form, much to the dismay of Noriko and her teammates.

Duck Team's actions during their matches have caused some trauma, fits of rage, and bad memories with their opponents. This was especially the case with Kuromorimine's Sensha-dõ team with the Maus Commander, furious at how the Type 89 climbed onto their vehicle to block their turret. During the match against Saunders, Alisa had a tantrum when her crew failed to eliminate the smaller and, "inferior" tank, directly leading to a morale breakdown within her crew

Nicknamed "Musclebrains" by some people. Duck Team's Type 89B is the lightest of all the Ooarai tanks. Although the Type 89B is a medium tank, the commander of Kuromorimine's PzKpW. VIII Maus called it a light tank, and proceeded to always remember them as such. In Chapter 9 of the spin-off manga Girls und Panzer: Ribbon Warrior, Miho Nishizumi declared that the Duck Team is Ooarai's highest-skilled team due to landing the most hits during the 63rd Sensha-dõ Tournament. In the spin-off manga Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu! they take part in a small rescue raid team operation to rescue the POW Momo Kawashima, their uniform is like SWAT raid squadrons and they operate the personal defense weapon FN P90TR. Even though they have the weakest and least armored tank on the team, they are highly attached to it, and become dismayed and irritable if anyone tries modifying it. (As seen in the 6th OVA). Ironically, in the final battle against Kuromorimine, they're sighing about wanting to have more firepower when their tank was immobilised by Kuromorimine's Panther. The duck team's hidden skill is impersonating their comrades and rivals. In Girls und Panzer der Film the Duck Team led the remaining of Chi-Ha-Tan team that wear rubber duck head accessories, even goes by saying that "Real Duck is joining the battle".

All Noriko,Akebi,Shinobu and Taeko are members of Volleyball club and Duck Team. They are 19 years old and Taeko has number 3 on her Volleyball's uniform;Akebi has 6 and Shinobu has 5