Summary:
Though late for work, Oland finds a baby in a basket outside of the military building’s gates and brings it inside. Alice is lecturing Oreld about coming in on time when Oland suddenly bursts into the room yelling about breasts. Alice slaps him for asking for her breasts, but then they all realize that Oland has a baby in his arms. The boy’s name is Dieter and he came with a note asking them to raise him to be a soldier. When the baby starts crying, Alice can’t seem to make him calm down, even with wacky faces. Since all of Stekkin’s best efforts also fail to stop the crying, Oreld suggests that it might be because the baby needs a diaper change. But when he attempts to do that, Dieter pees in his face. Surprisingly, the baby starts giggling only when Oland takes it into his arms.
In any case, Hunks recognizes that they can’t keep the baby, so Alice offers to go search for the mother. Along with Machs and Oreld, she follows a clue about a suspicious woman who went from in front of headquarters to the black market. However, Alice’s approach to addressing the commoners is too direct, so she ends up learning nothing and only drawing attention to herself while getting in peoples’ way. Oreld recognizes that these people don’t want to talk to the military because they don’t always conduct business within the limits of the law. He takes them to a store that sells army goods illegally and inquires with an acquaintance there. The man refuses to talk with the military and even insults Oreld when he learns that they are the 3rd Section led by a woman. Alice tries to stand up for what they do in terms of war relief, but the man points out that there are abandoned children everywhere and questions if they’re going to help all of them.
Oreld gets mad at these last statements, but the man just motions his thugs forward. Much to Machs’ and Alice’s surprise, Oreld manages to knock out all three of them. At a juice stand later, Alice is discouraged that they can’t do anything. However, a boy then comes and asks for Machs’ juice, which Machs gives up. Oreld takes that as a sign that the kids grow up ok even without parents, so the baby will too. Alice gets inspired to go searching again, but they still don’t learn anything. Upon their return to headquarters, Alice finds Oland with the sleeping baby in the courtyard. Alice understands that helping one child won’t make a difference with all of the other children out there who have lost their parents, but she also can’t just leave this one alone.
Oland suddenly notices a woman peering in from the gate, so Alice chases after her with the hunch that she’s Dieter’s mother. Indeed that’s who the woman is, and she reveals that her husband was a smuggler who got arrested. Unsure of what to do without him for support, the woman had left the baby for the army to raise. Alice questions if the baby could really be happy this way, which gets the woman crying, but Oland then points out that she came to see the baby. Alice knows that she can’t guarantee happiness, but she vows to create a world where it is not a luxury. Hunks later explains that the mother apologized not to them when she formally took back her child, but to the baby itself.

Preview

The first half of the episode had some amusing/funny moments like when Oland bursts into the room with the baby yelling for breasts/breast milk, and the animation was a lot better than last week’s episode. It’s not a terrible episode, but not terribly exciting either. For better or worse, this is the second straight episode where Oland doesn’t use his lantern. I guess I’m still waiting for something exciting to happen in the overarching story, something more than this episodic material. Next week looks like more fun with Alice and her fiancé.

15 Comments

  1. “The main character( the girl) really reminds me of a girl verzion of ed elric”
    you´ve read my mind!!!
    This show and D.gray-man gives me the same feeling from HAGANE(everything)!
    Different characters, stories,worlds, but with the same sensation.
    That´s why for me this is THE BEST SEASON FROM YEARS!!!
    TOO many good animes at the same time!! 😀

    tensai_otaku
  2. “tensai_otaku

    “The main character( the girl) really reminds me of a girl verzion of ed elric”
    you´ve read my mind!!!
    This show and D.gray-man gives me the same feeling from HAGANE(everything)!
    Different characters, stories,worlds, but with the same sensation.”

    I so agree. The first thing I told my sis while watching D gray & Pumpkin Scissors was: Hmm FMA feel. Must be the uniforms/time period these two shows are set in, or the adventurous feel to the characters.

    yakumo
  3. “yakumo” (LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL)
    I am sorry I am laughing here because you told your sister and I TOLD MY Little BROTHER the same thing!! 😀
    this is the pychic otaku power!!I am kidding here because What I trully think is that when you have seen too many types of animes and you are a smart person you can tell perfectly when the character design , the environment, the “feeling” of the same sensation and even production from the past animes you´ve alredy seen!!
    I´ve NEVER seen the name of the caracter design from HAGANE but
    ” I think is the same person from this anime ”
    And D.gray-man is just like something is the same!!
    So you watch together with your sis and i watch with my brother(always) I wait he came back from the university at night…. 😀 ( his best anime this season is D.gray-man)
    I love to watch almost everything… 😉

    tensai_otaku
  4. PS is one of my favorite anime shows this season; the time period and the focus on German-style panzer tanks and the whole military vibe have got me hooked. FMA definitely did cross my mind with Alice (standing in for Ed) and Oland (standing in for Al), not to mention the early 20th century setting and uniforms (plus both shows have dogs in them). Really looking forward to learning more about the war and what brought about turning Oland into an anti-tank killing machine. The animation quality is spotty here and there but seems to be norm when it comes to filler episodes; as long as the action sequences are quality along with the story and characters, I’m happy. Alice is quite cute and likable, though I have to admit I’m warming up to Lt. Webnar too (gotta love cute, tough chicks who are into heavy machinery).

    Ryuma

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