Jouko (ヨウコ, Youko) is one of the supporting characters of Girls und Panzer das Finale. She is a gunner for one of Jatkosota's tanks, the Sturmi.
Profile[]
Nicknamed the "White Witch" (白い魔女, Shiroi majo). She is one of the gunners of Jatkosota High School's Sensha-dō team.
Appearance[]
In addition to her school uniform, she wears a baseball cap with capital letter „K“ and light blue pants, but during combat she also dons a hood similar to the ones worn by Finnish snipers during the Winter War. Her current tank is a Sturmi, a modified version of the German StuG III.
Personality[]
She normally has a quiet, focused, and serious personality befitting that of a sniper, but she can also be fun and friendly, being seen having some fun playing with some toddlers as she and her teammates visited a daycare during Christmastime.
Background[]
41st Winter Continuous Track Cup[]
Jouko makes her debut in Das Finale Part 3, where she joins Continuation in participating in the 41st Winter Continuous Track Cup, serving as the gunner of one of the school's tanks. Geography permitting, her teammates would lure enemy tanks toward her position, typically in dense forest or anywhere she couldn't be easily spotted, where she would fire at them from long distances and immobilize them with a single, precise shot. Although this strategy allowed for reliably and safely shooting enemy tanks, it has been shown to need a specific position in terrain, which is a disadvantage of the strategy.
Battle against Saunders[]
During the quarterfinals match against Saunders University High School, with nearly all of the Continuation tanks disabled, Mika used her flag tank to lure the remainder of Saunders' tanks towards Jouko's killzone. Upon command, she fired a single shot at the Saunders flag tank from a relatively long distance, knocking it, and Saunder, out of the tournament.
Battle against Ooarai[]
With Continuation gaining a sudden, upset victory over Saunders in the quarterfinals, they moved to the semifinals facing Ooarai Girls' Academy. As the match got underway, Jouko waited in a forest far in the mountains while her team ambushed Ooarai, and several minutes later, she spotted two enemy tanks a kilometer away, one being the flag tank. Taking careful aim, Jouko fired, but missed the flag tank, instead taking out the Panzer IV escorting it.
This knockout determined Ooarai to avenge their fallen commander, and after knocking out another of Ooarai's tanks, the Hetzer, Jouko fell for Asuza's successive baiting tactics, and was ultimately knocked out by, ironically enough, Ooarai's own StuG III. Continuation would go on to barely lose the match, with the flag tank being knocked out while Ooarai was left with only its Type 3 Chi-Nu flag tank remaining, the same tank Jouko failed to knock out early on in the match.
Trivia[]
- Jouko's nickname, "The White Witch", strategic role in team, and extremely accurate aim are references to legendary Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, popularly known as "The White Death", who gained fame for being the deadliest sniper in history, garnering around 500 kills while using iron sights instead of the traditional scope during the Winter War.
- The "White Witch" nickname may also be a possible reference to Nagakawa Naruki's manga of the same name (Shiroi Majo) where Simo Häyhä is a female character.
- Jouko's birthday, September 3rd, is the same day that France, Britain, and the Commonwealth declared war on Germany in response to the Invasion of Poland, instituting a naval blockade that lasted until the end of the war and came to be known as the "Battle of the Atlantic".
- More fittingly for Continuation's background as a Finnish-based school, this date is also the birthday of Urho Kekkonen, the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982, and also served as Prime Minister. He was born in 1900 and died in 1986. Whether this was intentional or not is unknown.
- The cap that Jouko wears may mean that Jatkosota has a Pesäpallo team, a Finnish sport known as "Finnish baseball", which is the country's national sport. The letter K on the cap may mean Keizoku, the Japanese name for the school.
- In addition, Japan also practices Pesäpallo, having even participated in the Pesäpallo World Cup, however, they have never managed to score a single point.