Summary:

When Radio GBS war correspondent Irene Ellet shows up to do a story on Welkin and Squad 7, Alicia tries to get in her way at every turn. Alicia sees Welkin as eccentric and worries what will happen to them and to the reputation of the militia if people find out. She thus sticks close to him to make sure he doesn’t say anything unnecessary and to thwart Irene. Alicia isn’t able to keep Irene away from the rest of the squad, but fortunately for Alicia, Irene isn’t able to learn anything useful about Welkin from the others. Largo, for one, wants to talk about vegetables whereas Rosie wants to show off her singing ability. Irene doesn’t let this discourage her though and decides to pursue Welkin again, but she’s foiled every time by Alicia. Irene finally gets her break when she ambushes Welkin in the restroom after Alicia doesn’t follow him in.

Irene offers to do whatever he wants in exchange for getting the information she wants, so Welkin decides to get her to provide meat for a barbecue for everyone. They even invite Faldio and his men to the party, though a fight ends up occurring between the members of the two squads. Alicia tries to stop it, but Faldio and Welkin don’t mind since it helps the two groups loosen up and bond. Welkin and Irene then go off together, and Irene observes that Welkin isn’t like other soldiers in how he doesn’t act as formal and important. Welkin feels that it’d be boring if everyone was the same, and Irene starts to understand what kind of person he is. She finishes her interview with him, and when the time comes for her radio broadcast, all of Squad 7 tunes in. Irene ends up praising Welkin, but much to Alicia’s dismay, she also mentions that she still doesn’t understand Welkin very well, so she’ll be back.

Preview

Well, I thought this episode was a bit of a waste. Certainly it was fun seeing all of Alicia’s shocked and irritated reactions (and plus Hans and Marina were very cute together – I took an immediate liking to Marina’s character), but this was an opportunity to explore the back-stories of several of the characters, like Largo and Rosie. Instead it turned into an Irene vs. Alicia competition and then rehashed what we already knew about Welkin, and it seemed like they only barely scratched the surface of all the other characters. To be clear though, I don’t mean to say that this is a bad episode, it’s just not that great either. I guess they’re trying to extend the story as much as possible for 26 total episodes, and there’ll probably more Irene and character-specific episodes down the line.

As for next week, the preview seems to indicate that they’re setting up some sort of relationship between Lamar and Isara, which I hope doesn’t happen because I find Lamar to be rather annoying. It also looks like Faldio is hugging Alicia, however it’s hard to tell for sure if that’s Faldio or Welkin in that particular shot. Although I’m sure it’ll eventually be WelkinXAlicia, Faldio would make more sense at this point given how much they’ve been playing that up in recent episodes.

39 Comments

  1. I’ve never played the game, but this show seems more and more like Minami-ke: Valkyria Chronicles than an actual war anime.

    It’s just one more Marina Inoue character with reaction expressions. Minami-ke, Sekirei, Skip Beat!, and now this.

    Melchior
  2. *oohers*
    I like my vegetables.
    Mmm…I suppose Faldio would make more sense…but how many anime’s out there show that the protagonist DOESN’T get the girls/boys?

    Arth Chu
  3. Who needs to “to explore the back-stories of several of the characters” when this show is clearly just a mechanism to share with the masses all of Alicia’s shocked and irritated reactions. >_>

    Meery
  4. This episode made me laugh so freakin’ hard. If you somehow didn’t laugh at some point while watching this for the first time, you have no soul.

    My favorite bits: Isara clubbing some Squad One soldier with her wrench, Marina and Hans interactions, and Homer making Edy, Susie and Aisha cry.

    Definitely an episode for the lulz.

    Runty
  5. Sailor Enlil: The one in the middle is Edy, she’s one of the recrutable characters for your squad in the game.

    And as for that preview with Jaeger.. something came to mind, but I’m not sure I want to mention or think much of it o_o

    lhy
  6. me gusta las expresiones faciales de Alicia, aunque en el juego no se vió tanto pero que bien que en el anime si sale y sobre todo es mas divertido.

    espero el siguiente cap fansubeado.

    saludos

    Jezreel
  7. What are they doing to my favorite PS3 game…. =( They’re getting further from the game’s plot every week! (Random useless fan service. The female soldier’s in the game wear pants, like Marina is, except for Rosie/Alicia/Isara who are wearing skirts.) Have the mechanics shown up yet? They’re kinda important in the game plot…

    Bonita
  8. Seeker4life
  9. Cutemi2, there are different kinds? From the department of redundancy department.

    Sailor Enlil, those three are, from left to right, Aisha Neumann, Edy Nelson, and Susie Evans. All three are recruitable in the game, and Edy has her own DLC mission.

    tenton
  10. Interesting episode, especially all those Alicia reactions, which were made of gold. I have a feeling that the guy in that last image of the preview for next week’s episode is Faldio (his hair is longer in the back). It’s interesting how they went about incorporating what appears to be a love triangle in the series.

  11. sounds like they’re inputting a typical anime thing There’s something between guy a and tsundere but she’s tsun about it, and there’s guy b who she’s dere at the start for….

    they must be fancatering to pull a stunt like this (I’m half tempted to make a joke about KyoAni)

    Duran
  12. Seems that Kana Minami replaced Alicia Melchiott for this episode only…

    Having in mind that in the game there was spcial missions for character development (Largo, Rosie, the Edy Detachment and even one for Cmdt Varrot) starting right now is not so healthy for a 26 eps series. More so, with the games’ 7th Squad divided into Welkin’s and Faldio’s squads in the series, we got a glimpse for the rest (eg: Musaad, Coby, Salinas)

    SeedStriker
  13. At least some of the recruitable characters finally got to talk, I was worried they’d be relegated to background characters.

    And yes, we all love Marina and her relationship with that under-cooked set of pork-chops. Just please give her a small scene showing off her sniping skills.

    Overall, I still prefer the game though the series is in someway different enough to warrant a watch as you really don’t know what may happen next.

    FX102

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