Girls und Panzer: Saga of Pravda

There is a trend with Girls und Panzer's mangas that a lot of them will expand on the universe and write entire character arcs that more-often-than-not are completely disregarded by the anime, at which point you - the dear reader - should realise that the mangas are essentially written like sponsored fanfic, and that is not at all a bad thing! Pravda Senki acts as a prequel to GuP by focusing on Katyusha's rise to power and her saga to turn Pravda into a champion while destroying the defeatist mentality that permeates the Senshado team. Although it is focused on Pravda and Katyusha, the mangaalso shows other characters' arc who become relevant by the time of the anime* such as the Nishizumi Miho and Maho, Erika and St. Gloriana characters (Earl Grey, interestingly). It does a lot to show just how character-focused the GuP franchise can be at times though it doesn't test the limit the same way Ribbon Warrior (another great GuP manga) does. *with a caveat that some of the character development doesn't exist in the anime and some is discrepant to other mangas, particularly Little Army and Phase Erika This might come accross as personal bias but I personally found the art-style and writing to be strongly reminiscent of Youjo Senki's manga, the fact both have military themes, "saga" in the title, similar-looking main characters with similar instrospections and ways of doing things, but also how it portrays characters are viewed from the perspective of other characters, I can't write it off as just a coincidence. So if you enjoyed Youjo Senki I highly recommend this manga, though if you are reading this I can safely assume you are already a GuP fan and likely a Youjo Senki fan. If you have only watched the anime and not read any of the other GuP manga it might be a shock how mature it appears to be at times, sure no one dies or get (seriously) harmed but just allusions to bullying, physical violance and profanity are things the original anime wouldn't dare to even bring up. This unique style however works in the favour of the comic and at times it truly originality and respect to a establishedfranchise. To quote Yoshida's afterword: "[...]The Girls und Panzer in Director Mizushima's head is "genuine", so the speak. Anything that didn't pass through his brain is nothing more than derivative work. Another person can imagine what Director Mizushima would have done, but that won't make it genuine. As Such I figured it would be more respectful to the original series to focus more on making the manga feel original[...]"