American Boy In Oarai

Chapter 3: Hana and her mother arguement and Saunders.

After the match.

With the dance complete, Team A has a little time to spend before they must rejoin their ship. Mako must visit her grandmother, but Saori leads on a shopping expedition. While looking around in the shopping center, Saori's attention is caught by a handsome young man pulling a rickshaw. To Saori's shock, he turns and approaches them only to ignore Saori completely, and to be introduced by Hana as Shinzaburou, an apprentice serving the Isuzu family.

In his rickshaw is Hana's mother, who requests an introduction to Hana's friends. When Yukari inadvertently reveals that Hana is on the sensha-dō team, Hana's mother is so upset she faints.

They get her mother safely back to the Isuzu household, where, once her mother awakens, Shinzaburou urges Hana to tell her mother about how she truly feels, rather than avoiding her. Hana grew up practicing Ikebana, the art of flower arrangement, and her mother is utterly horrified at the idea of her daughter participating in sensha-dō, and now states her low opinion of tanks and sensha-dō. However, Hana, after expressing her frustration with ikebana and her family's approach to it, refuses to give up sensha-dō. Her mother tells her never to enter the house again.

Yuri "The smell of oil and iron. Please tell me that you didn't take Tankery."

Hana "Well..."

Yuri "Those delicate hands of yours, you laid them on a tank!"

she faints.

Sometime later.

Yuri "What's wrong. Do you no longer like flower arrangement?"

Hana "No, it's not that."

Yuri "Then are you upset about something?"

Hana "That's not it either."

Yuri "Then why Tankery?"

Hana "I just, I keep arranging, and arranging some more but it just feels like it's not enough."

Yuri "No, elegant and clean, that's the way I describe your flower arrangements. They fully embody the Isuzu style."

Hana "But, I want to arrange flowers with more vigor. Mother?"

Yuri "What happened to you? Where did the honest and kind part of my daughter go? Is this because of Tankery too? Tanks are barbaric, inelegant and loud. Don't you understand? All tanks should just be torn apart and turned into so much scrap metal."

Hana "I'm very sorry mother, but I just will not give up Tankery."

With that they left.

3 days Later.

Miho Nishizumi and her friends gather in the Leclerc Tank Café to discuss the upcoming first match of the tournament against Saunders University High School, predicted to be difficult due to Saunders' significant materiel advantage that allows them to field ten tanks to Ooarai's five. Whilst there, the girls are chanced upon by the Kuromorimine Vice-Commander, the rude and condescending Erika Itsumi, and the Commander, the aloof Maho Nishizumi, who turns out to be the big sister of Miho. The meeting badly undermines Miho's confidence, and her morale is further damaged when the Student Council exerts additional pressure in expectation of an entire tournament win. That the Student Council seems to be hiding something only adds to her worries. Yukari does her best to encourage Miho, standing up to Maho and Erika at the Tank Café and reassuring Miho after their encounter with the Student Council, listening as Miho tries to think through the challenge of planning for the impending match.

In the restaurant.

"Subcommander. Or would that be former subcommander?" Erika Itsumi with condescending tone.