Her friends, now understanding why she reacted that way, tell her that she doesn't have to do it. Miho eventually admits that she comes from a family with a long tradition of Sensha-dō (a traditional martial art exclusively for girls), but she hasn't got nice memories of it, and therefore came to Ooarai precisely to avoid such an activity. Miho is shocked by the encounter, so much that she is sent to the infirmary by the teacher Hana and Saori, worried, feign being sick as well to reach her.Īs soon as they're left alone, Hana and Saori ask Miho about what transpired. When Miho's protests, explaining that she believed the school didn't have Sensha-dō on their curriculum, they nonchalantly tell her that it has been reactivated and leave. Drawing her aside, they assertively tell her that, when she chooses her mandatory elective activity, she should pick Sensha-dō. Just as Miho thanks them for being friends with her, the three girls from before (revealed to be the Student Council's members) enter the classroom and approach her. In class, the three newfound friends deepen their friendship, with Saori revealing her fixation with boys (to the point of thinking of normal greetings as signs of interest), and Miho saying that she envies Hana's calm and mature behavior (to which she gives the reason that she has been doing flower arrangement all her life, although she worries she might be too stiff). In a dimly-lit room, three girls are heard discussing something and they agree that they will start their plans right away. The Student Council trying to force Miho to join Sensha-dō While they're eating, Miho declares that she's happy that she made some friends, but when asked by the others about why she transferred to Ooarai Girls Academy alone, she appears uncomfortable and they drop the issue. She nervously and shyly accepts as they're getting their food, their names are revealed (respectively, Miho Nishizumi, Hana Isuzu and Saori Takebe). At the lunch break, after her school instruments fall from her desk and she stays behind to pick them up, she is approached by two girls (Saori and Hana), who ask her if she wants to eat lunch together with them.
She then is seen happily walking to school, the only strange note being that she is all alone, although other girls are seen walking in the same direction.
The alarm goes off, the girl, flustered, hurriedly silences it, rushes to make her bed, and quickly begins to change out of her nightclothes suddenly she stops and happily reminds herself that she is not at home anymore. The scene then changes to a girl's bedroom, where a girl is sleeping. One of the enemy's gunners take a shot and the camera closes in towards the tank commander's face as if it were from the shot's POV. The tank fires on the opponent to get their attention, and the enemy tanks turn and give chase the commander warns the crew that they can't afford to get hit. Following a plan, the other tanks steer away to prepare an ambush, while the first tank keeps on going to be the bait its crew exchange some words of encouragement about this being their first battle. As it climbs up a gorge, four more tanks of various kinds and nationalities (all strangely painted) are seen, all apparently crewed by girls. Two girls are heard discussing the distant tanks, then the girls are seen returning to the tank keeping the same POV, the tank gets on the move. From a tank's point-of-view (POV), a valley can be seen, with five tanks advancing in the distance. The episode begins using a cold open, with a flash-forward to the events of Episode 4 (i.e.