Pumpkin Scissors – 14

Summary:
In the sewers of the city, a soldier is trying to help his injured friend when both are approached by a flamethrower wielding figure. Bullets are unable to hurt the imposing man who torches both of the soldiers, yet he keeps talking about how it’s cold. Sometime later, the Pumpkin Scissors group is checking out a large population of refugees who have taken up shelter in the sewers. There, they find a group of guards for the waterworks management company that is picking on a girl for payment. The men are willing to let her pay with her body, but Oreld steps in first and gropes her. Alice then announces who they are and that they’re going to lead the people out of the sewers. The residents are initially resistant because they don’t have anywhere else to go, so Alice tells them that the government has a state-run farm for them to make a living on. Most of the people are now willing to leave, but there’s still a few people stubbornly staying behind. Alice and the others find out why when Mercury-go jumps on the security guard and reveals that he’s carrying some drugs.
As a result of all this, the commander of the 1st Section goes to Hunks to complain because his group was already investigating the sewers. After Hunks shows him the drugs they found and promises to crush this obstacle to war relief, the commander asks what happened with the waterworks staff. Hunks admits that they are being investigated, so the other commander makes it clear to him that the privately owned Mione waterworks company is an important customer that makes large donations to the military. It is around this time that the president of the waterworks, Albert Mione, comes to retrieve the man that the 3rd Section is holding. Alice is infuriated later to find out later that Mione posted bail to get his guy released. Hunks tells her off the record that they don’t have the authority to investigate or make arrests for normal crimes, with the exception being the crimes where they can catch the offenders red-handed.
Armed with this knowledge, Alice takes the group back to the sewers and corners the guards again as they’re dealing the drugs. Since the guy they captured thinks that he’ll be released again just like last time, Alice promises to arrest him no matter how many times it takes. And so, a cycle of arrests and bail money being posted begins. Albert Mione eventually gets pissed off enough that he gives his men a shipment of special guns to fight the army with. However, he now considers those men useless and turns to his secret weapon: Hans, the man with the flamethrower who’s always cold. Alice and company are meanwhile driving through the sewers when they get ambushed by Mione’s men. Facing a hail of bullets, Oland uses his weight and strength to push on the back side of the car, forcing it to pop a wheelie. This allows the armor on the bottom of the car to shield them as they advance towards Mione’s men. Oland also turns on his lamp and prepares to fire on the men, but the car lands back on all four wheels before he can fire.
The group is able to drive out of the situation relatively unharmed, though Oland covers his face for a minute. As they continue through the sewers, Machs tells Alice that he noticed the guns being used didn’t look like old models. Alice proceeds to make the connection between those guns with the auto-loading tank they encountered previously, but she tells the others to concentrate on escaping for now. Despite this, she soon gets a feeling on the back of her neck and orders the car to stop. Appearing in front of them is Hans, who Machs sees is carrying a flamethrower. Machs explains that it’s something that should have been done away with because the Empire realized that it’s a weapon that can kill in a way that shouldn’t be allowed. Heading towards the car, Hans feels that it’s cold and says that he’s going to burn them as he fires his flamethrower.

Preview

When I wrote up my Big Winter Break II post, I noticed on the schedule that Chiba TV still had PS airing last week, unlike the other networks. At the time, I assumed that they just hadn’t updated their schedule and were going to take the week off like everyone else was. But, as it turns out, they really didn’t take a break. Thus, the first airing of PS each week is now on Chiba TV on Saturdays. I’m not sure what this means for when I blog the show: I may decide to move it up to Saturdays if I end up not picking up Getsumen Toheiki Mina or I may decide to just keep doing it on Mondays for lack of another Monday show. This decision probably won’t be made for another week or two, and in the time being, I’ll keep doing it on Mondays.
As for this episode, it was a lot better animation quality than some of what we’ve been seeing, but I’m still waiting for something bigger to happen. We can see that Hans is part of the 908-HTT unit, which would likely be a special one similar to Oland’s old 901-ATT unit. It’ll be interesting to see if the two troopers will go up against each other, and if Mione is just a pawn of a bigger conspiracy or ring of corruption. Muse Kauplan is also getting involved next episode, so that might be perhaps another connection to an overarching story.