Episodes

A young girl named Kanata Sorami joins the army with the hope of learning to become a good bugler. She is assigned to a place called Seize, which is currently holding a festival where people splash each other with water. She is found by her superior, Rio Kazumiya, who gives her a bath and tells her about the legend of the Fire Maiden. While looking at a bell owned by Rio’s father, an owl steals it, forcing Rio to stop Kanata falling off the balcony trying to get it. As Rio participates in the festival, Kanata decides to search for the bell. She finds it hanging off a ledge, but when she goes to get it she falls into the lake, where she sees the golden skeleton of a winged creature. Stranded at the bottom of a canyon, she plays her bugle where she is responded to by Rio on her trumpet. She takes her to the Time Telling Fortress and plays the trumpet as the sun rises, introducing herself as Kanata’s bugling teacher. || When she was a child, Kanata was rescued by a female soldier while lost in an abandoned building. The soldier was carrying a shiny gold trumpet. "If I become a soldier, I can play the trumpet!" With this slight misunderstanding in her mind, Kanata joins the army to become a trumpeter. The newly-minted Private Kanata is deployed to the small 1121st Platoon, in the town of Seize. Source: crunchyroll

During breakfast, Kanata is introduced to the other members of the 1121st Platoon; Felicia Heideman, Noel Kannagi and Kureha Suminoya. Kureha shows some hostility towards Kanata, but she is assigned to show her around the fort. When Kureha takes Kanata to see the tank of the squadron is kept, which is in the process of being repaired, Kureha expresses her depression because the military often ignores the squadron’s existence. Later that night, Noel and Kanata claim they saw a ghost in the barracks, so Kanata and Kureha are sent to investigate. They learn the place used to be a school. Kureha laments that their platoon is in the middle of nowhere and is generally ignored. The two are surprised by an owl, the same one that stole Rio’s bell, but with Kureha’s help they manage to capture it. They decide to keep it and name it Shuko. || Kanata`s new life begins in the 1121`s Platoon`s station, Clocktower Fortress. There she meets the kind captain Felicia, her trumpet teacher Rio, the quiet Noel, and the youngest member of the squad, Kureha. Kanata quickly fits in with the relaxed atmosphere of the group. She is then given her first mission - what will it be? Source: crunchyroll

As the others go to pick up some supplies, Kanata spends the afternoon training with Rio. Just then, Kanata comes down with a fever, reminding Rio of when her mother fell ill. Out of medicine, Rio gets help from a priestess named Yumina, who diagnoses her with malaria and treats her. When Kanata wakes up, she explains she was overworking herself since she felt useless. She also mentions to Rio that she always wanted to play "Amazing Grace," having heard from a bugler she met when she was little. Rio then plays Amazing Grace from one of the tanks, explaining that a squad, much like a song, is composed of many different parts. || A horrible wake-up call plays to a clear dawn sky. Kanata still isn`t very good at the trumpet, but she`s really fitting in at the squad, and enjoying each day with energy. Then one day she suddenly collapses with a fever... Source: crunchyroll

Kanata goes with Noel to get more parts for their tank, the Takemikazuchi. They visit a glassworks shop run by Naomi, the lady who helped Kanata when she first arrived, and she takes interest in a glass dolphin. Later on, they run into Yumina and a couple of kids. The boy, Seiya, gets angry at them, since he hates soldiers due to the death of his parents. Kanata and Noel then go to a glassworks factory, where they are having trouble replicating the optical lens needed for the tank. Having noticed Noel feel down following the argument with Seiya, Kanata tells her it’s not the machine that’s good or bad, but the person inside it. After speaking with the workers, Carl and Maria, they give Kanata advice that allows her to become better at playing the bugle. This in turns helps Noel determine the effective lens samples by having Kanata check their sound. The tank works and Noel smiles for the first time in a while. || Kanata`s mission today is to go to town to get supplies. She takes her shopping list and Noel drives her into town in a jeep. Everything`s new and fresh to her, but Noel gives her answers to all her questions. Even Noel has a problem she can`t solve, however... Source: crunchyroll

The squad take a "field trip" to the mountains where some observers need a maintenance check. Kanata, Kureha and Noël are forced to carry heavy backpacks on their hike up. Whilst they find the first observer quickly, the next one lies at the top of a mountain. They take a break at a running river but soon return to find their backsacks ravaged of their food and their compass. Despite the hunger, they eventually manage to find the remaining observers. At the last observer, Filicia shows the others signatures left by former members who had observed No Man’s Land from that point. They are then taken to a hot spring where Rio, who had fought against a boar to get some berries, awaits. || Claus delivers several letters to Clocktower Fortress in early summer. When they see who their letters are from, Noël is happy and Kanata is overjoyed. Rio curses, and Kureha looks at them all, a bit sad. The 1121`s Platoon`s members each respond in a different way. And a letter arrives for Filicia. A letter that will change all of their destinies forever, a letter that begins everything Source: crunchyroll

The group give Kanata her paycheck early and she goes into town to spend it. In actuality, it is to get her out of the way whilst the others illegally trade some calvados to make some money. When they get word from Naomi that some investigators are planning to snoop in on the deal, they stage a mock shoot out to scare them off. Meanwhile, one of Yumina’s orphans, Mishio, runs off when she objects to having her hair brushed. Kanata finds her at the market, where she reveals she is looking for a certain box. Yumina explains to Kanata the box was a memento of Mishio’s mother that was taken when she died. Mishio ends up on a roof, but the noise from the mock shoot out causes her to slip. Kanata manages to save her before she falls, though it causes some rocks to fall that smash into the investigators’ car. While apologizing to Naomi, they notice the box Mishio had been looking for. Mishio decides to give it to Yumina as a symbol of how much she cares for her. || On her first day off since arriving in Seize, Kanata goes into town with a smile on her face. By chance, it`s the day the town market is being held. Kanata goes from shop to shop with her first paycheck in hand, when she meets Yumina, the nun from the church. She becomes caught up in the search for Mishio, a little girl who ran away from the orphanage. But at the same time, something else is going on at Clocktower Fortress... Source: crunchyroll

Everyone prepares for Fiesta des Lumiéres, which starts to bring bad memories for Filicia, whose comrades were killed in a fierce battle. While wandering in the battlefield with a heavily wounded arm, she falls into a tunnel which was well buried under the ruin of the past civilization, where she finds a corpse of a soldier of the old era. In her illusion, the corpse approaches her, apologise for the war they could not win, which makes life vanish from the sea, while on the ground humanity is falling apart. Then Filicia was rescued by someone named Princess Iliya. The girls later send off paper lanterns in the river and Filicia tells Rio her reason for living. Meanwhile, a priest seems to recognize Rio from somewhere. || On On a summer day when the crickets chirped, the rest of the squad is worried over a depressed Filicia. Filicia was thinking back to a battle she was once in, where she wandered through a ruined city alone and met the ghost of an ancient soldier. "Is there any meaning to surviving in this world?" he asked her. At the same time, Sieze is approaching the Fiesta des Lumieres, when paper lamps are sent down the river to appease the spirits of the dead. Source: crunchyroll

The squad are asked to watch over the emergency phone and wait for a call to check it is still in order, so Kanata decides to take responsibility whilst the others go out for various tasks. Before Rio leaves, she gives Kanata a trumpet book, signed by an Iliya Arkadia. Later, Seiya, Mishio and the Priest arrive, and decide to help Kanata practise using a phone, but a mess is made when Mishio spooks Shuko. Yumina arrives at that point, scolds the others and gives Kanata a change of clothes. Afterwards, Kanata needs the toilet but can’t leave her post, so she holds out until Rio comes back. The phone then rings and Rio answers, hearing a voice she’s not too fond of asking her to save Helvetia. || We open to Kanata fidgeting atop a chair. A broken bottle, wet clothes... Seeing the disarray that the mess hall is in, Kanata cannot help but think thoughts of regret and retrospection. Even doing all that, when she has to put up with it... And yet before her tear-ladened eyes rests a black phone that has yet to ring. Private-second-class Kanata Sorami, currently on the mission to confirm maintenance to the HQ-command line for high-level emergency situations. Source: crunchyroll

Kanata and the others wonder if something is strange about Rio’s behaviour. As a typhoon settles in, Claus arrives with a package for Rio. After the others tell Kanata about Princess Iliya, they hear from Yumina that Seiya has gone missing and go into the city to search for him. Kureha and Claus find Mishio, who leads them to Seiya, who was trying to protect some eggplants. Whilst they manage to get Seiya to safety, Kureha and Claus are blocked off by a rockfall. It is revealed that Claus isn’t actually the infamous Desert Wolf that Kureha believed him to be. As the others send a wire over, the ground collapses beneath them, but Claus manages to rescue Kureha before she falls in. Despite knowing he is a fake, she still recognises Claus as the person she admires. || Kureha admires a man named Claus. He`s a legendary tanker who she says was once called the "Desert Wolf". Claus and the girls are stranded in the fortress due to a typhoon. Kureha is excited to hear his story, but they get word of a missing orphan, named Seiya, from the church. The platoon leaves, in the turbulent storm, to go search for the boy. Will they be able to safely find him...? Source: crunchyroll

Kanata asks Kureha to tell her more about Princess Iliya. Yumina asks Kanata and Rio to check up on an old woman named Jacott who lives in the mountains. The two later take a walk where Rio talks to Kanata about her half-sister. As the snow falls, Yacott, filled with memories about her love, runs off into the snow and never returns. Rio reveals she is the half-sister of Iliya, and decides to leave the fortress to help improve relations between the warring sides, leaving Kanata her trumpet. || Rio had been depressed somehow ever since she opened a certain page in the military almanac. What was it she should do, what was it she could do? Kanata worried about her, but she couldn`t put her thoughts into words. With each of them begin the winter this way, they meet an old woman. The way she lived her life would have a huge effect on Rio. Source: crunchyroll

Whilst on patrol in the snow, Kanata and Kureha stumble upon an unconscious Roman soldier. Noël seems to recognize her and asks to look over her. She wakes up the next day and introduces herself as Aisha Aldola, though she is unable to speak Helvetian. Kanata and Noël spend some time with her, and Kanata is surprised she knows how to play Amazing Grace. Later, Naomi and Yumina arrive, informing them that Helvetian armies are heading towards the fortress. Yumina acts as a translator for Aisha, who says that she wants to see the Angel Fossil (the one Kanata saw underwater in the first episode), the remains of the "Angel of the Apocalypse" that brought upon judgment to the world of the distant past. || The Fortress receives word that the enemy army is on the move at the eastern border. The group is uneasy, but spends their days happily. Then one day, Kanata and Kureha find a wounded girl on the snowy plains. But the wounded girl was an enemy, a Roman soldier! Source: crunchyroll