Newsletter 190, December 10th

And after far too long of a holiday break, the last two newsletters of 09 and the first of 10 will be up before the next meeting. For now, here's the first of the last two of 09

Tsukikage Ran
Gunslinger Girl II
Pumpkin Scissors
Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple
Glass Fleet

Ran 8- Meow comes across a handsome man on the beach, who’s flying a kite. Through a non-successful attempt at flirting, she learns this man is trying to harness electricity via lightning (think the Ben Franklin experiment, Japanese style). Later on, she learns the man is Dr. Genki, and the villagers want to use his power powering ships, among other things. The only problem is, they don’t have money, which is needed for the experiments to continue. Unfortunately, the local gang leader of the town does have money, and is trying to buy the lightning experiment to sell it at high prices on the market. Not only that, but when the boss learns of the villager’s attempt to get money, he has it sabotaged… except for the fact that Ran and Meow are able to take down the hired pirates. Not only this, but they also stop his attempt to force Genki to work for him, and Ran finally takes him out completely. In the end, Genki is able to continue his experiments for the villagers.

Gunslinger Girl II 13- The Welfare Agency makes its final move against Christiano, managing to take him into custody… but Franco and Flanca are also making their move, as they barrel through the defenses set up, severely injuring Rico as they manage to reclaim him. Meanwhile, Triela is in a fierce rematch against Pinocchio, both showing that they are extremely skiiled. Meanwhile, the other two are going all out, continuing to drive like hell even as Angela shoots the car, managing to severely injure Flanca… but she keeps driving, ending up taking all three over a cliff and into a river. Meanwhile, as the fierce battle between Pinocchio and Triela continues, each taking plenty of damage… but in the end, Pinocchio is killed, even as Triela collapses. Later on, we see just how damaged Triela is, barely walking and with a ton of bandages, one even over her eye… and she lays Pinocchio’s necklace upon his corpse. The Agency took heavy damage with her and Rico, but things continue on, as the two get rebuilt.

Pumpkin Scissors 20- As Alice is away with other nobles at a ball, the rest of Section 3 must deal with those who intend to start a rebellion and bring the local nobility down for their injustices. Unfortunately, like many other people, they’ve also been screwed over by the army as well, and therefore don’t trust Section 3 either. However, after a tad bit of force and then the production of documents, Oreldo is able to at least temporarily get them to aid Section 3, and they head on their way to the ball. Unfortunately, the mob made it to the ball first, and now things are in tight tension between the mob, Section 3 and the nobles. The mob just wants to kill the nobles, even if they go down themselves. Section 3 has the paperwork which states the faults of the nobles, specifically the Marquis. Unfortunately, it is revealed that Section 3 doesn’t have the authority to take in the Marquis… so Alice steps in, and challenges the Marquis to a duel.

Kenichi 13- Since Kenichi has now made a name for himself after beating the Technique Trio, he is also starting to catch the attention of Ragnarok itself. As he is walking around, Kenichi sees one of the members of Ragnarok taking on some other kids, and has quite the upper hand. Kenichi, being the nice guy he is, tells the guy to stop. Said guy recognizes Kenichi as being wanted by Ragnarok, and asks Kenichi to come with him, something Kenichi refuses to do. This turns out to be a bad move, as the guy decides to take Kenichi by force. Kenichi stands his ground, but soon learns the hard way that his opponent is at an even higher level than his previous fights, and things get bad quickly. However, Kenichi still refuses to give out, and the attacks continue. Just as Kenichi is moments away from serious trouble, Takeda arrives and manages to distract Kenichi’s opponent long enough for him to grab Kenichi and get out of there. Of course, with Kenichi’s loss, the masters are far from happy…

Glass Fleet 13- A recap, not quite in order, of all the previous episodes, describing Racine’s quest as she becomes her brother Michel and leading the People’s Army, meeting up with Cleo and getting a full war started, to ending up facing the Emperor himself and being on the (current) losing side.

Rollcall:
Jeff
Dave
Ryan
Andy
Tom
Erin