Pumpkin Scissors – 20

Summary:

Upon learning about the documents that incriminate Marquis Paul, Connelly mobilizes the 1st Section to go to all the media organizations and get back those documents. However, because Connelly is more interested in where these documents came from, he is willing to let the Marquis die so that the suspects will be charged and he can get the information he wants from them. Over at the party, Leonir gets Alice to dance with him, but she accidentally steps on his foot. Leonir doesn’t mind that, though he does notice that she’s troubled by something and wonders if it’s a tall man because of the way she keeps looking above him. This causes Alice to start talking about Oland, but she feels that he’s not truly that strong or big because he’s not someone who wants to fight with others. At that time, Oland is in the forest and has come face to face with the men who attacked him. He tries to run away, but he gets hit in the back with a large hammer and falls to the ground. As he reaches for his gun, Oland wonders why he has to point it at the people he was trying to feed earlier. Fortunately for him, Oreld arrives just in time to beat up the thugs, but Oland falls unconscious while this is going on.

In his dreams, Oland is standing naked in a sea of blood with many hands reaching up to drag him down. At first, he feels it’ll be ok because Alice will come and he’ll wake up, but he soon starts to panic when Alice doesn’t appear and the urge to kill does. Oland eventually does wake up and finds himself back at the food stand that they had set up. From the documents taken off the two men, Machs can see that Marquis Paul has indeed been embezzling, but Oreld still thinks that the civilian men’s plan will fail because 1st Section will confiscate the documents and pressure the media so that no one ever finds out. Of course, the men have the assault on the party planned too, which Oreld soon learns about it from Oland. The men are ready to die for their cause, but Oreld makes them realize that the 1st Section will probably torture them and everyone they know in order to find out who leaked the information. With time running out until the party gets attacked, Oreld and Machs prepare to head out in the car. Oreld doesn’t want Oland to come because he’s injured and because if Oland dies, the two men they’re holding would become murderers. Hearing this, Oland punches himself in the head so that he can truthfully claim the wound it self-inflicted.

Back at the party, Leonir is asking if he can escort Alice to her bedroom tonight so that the young lion can become king by driving away the other males. Instead of addressing the actual request, Alice comments on how there’s no calculations or sarcasm behind Leonir’s words and how he won’t be satisfied until he wins over the person he’s talking to. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Marquis Hoost that everyone likes and many have recommended for an important political post. Alice suddenly gets that feeling on her neck and urges everyone to get away from the windows right before the civilian men attack. Hearing their leader call this an act of justice, Alice steps in to protect Marquis Paul and questions the use of the word justice. At that time, Oland is rushing to the party with Oreld and Machs, and he wonders what he should have done instead of pointing his gun at those civilians. Oreld makes him realize that they’ve all been through it, especially Alice when she first started war relief. By now, Alice has been shown the leaked documents incriminating Paul, and the leader of the men expresses his disgust with the nobles. When he reveals that his own son is already dead from a cold, Alice is at a loss for what to say other than an apology.

Alice’s sisters then try to get her to escape with Leonir, but she refuses to go. She soon hears the shouts of some familiar voices, and her 3rd Section arrives by driving the car into the mansion. Oland ends up taking a bullet that was aimed for Paul in the shoulder, but he’s more enraptured by the sight of Alice in a dress. When she realizes what he’s looking at, she gets embarrassed and slaps him. Marquis Paul is glad that the military is here, but Oreld explains that they’re not here to save him. Rather, they have the documents and want to take Paul back to headquarters. However, Paul’s bodyguards point out that the 3rd Section doesn’t have the authority to arrest anyone. With the commoners getting riled up again and ready to be violent, Alice gets everyone to shut up and pay attention by throwing her glove at Paul’s face. Since the 3rd Section can’t arrest him, she challenges him to a duel as a noble.

Preview

Alright, I couldn’t type “…so that the young lion can become king by driving away the other males” without cracking a smile at the super-corny sounding line that had all the wrong implications (or the right implications depending on how you look at it). Leonir certainly has a penchant for using interesting analogies in his speech, but this is the first time I’ve been amused by it. Still, my favorite scene this episode was Oland’s dream because it was animated so stylistically well that it came off as being a very creepy scene. It was also fun seeing Alice get all embarrassed when Oland sees her and can’t stop saying sugoi (amazing/incredible). I still don’t think that they’ll end up as a couple or anything, but there have definitely been some romantic insinuations.
The preview seems to show some great animation quality for the next episode, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.