Ed becomes a national alchemist at the age of 12 which makes him the youngest to date. Mustang passes him the silver pocket watch which bears testimony to his status while also means that he is a member of the millitary at the same time.Mustang's subordinate, Jean Havoc drives Ed back to the Tucker residence and Ed grumbles about Mustang as an unfeeling fellow who only knows how to aim for promotions. Havoc defends Mustang by saying that if he's really like that, his subordinates would not obey him at all. He also mentions that Mustang is busy with a case of serial murders where the victims were women. Ed doesn't understand why Mustang has to poke his nose into this matter and Havoc explains that since the murders happened on millitary territory, it doesn't reflect nicely on Mustang to have the cases unresolved.
Tucker holds a celebration party for Ed and he is reminded by Havoc about the upcoming annual test for alchemists. Tucker is very stressed over this as he has yet to create a succesful kimera (hybrid of human and animal) for the test. If he fails the test, his status as an alchemist would be taken away and he would have to go without the financial assistance from the government.
Ed is writing a letter to Winry about him being an alchemist when Nina comes into their room. Al teases Ed about Winry being his girlfriend which Ed is quick to deny. Upon seeing Ed writing a letter, Nina decides to draw a picture of her family to send to her mother who has returned to her hometown as she is angry with Tucker. Later, Tucker says that Nina's mother is unhappy with him being poor and brings Nina back to her room. However, Ed notices something fishy when he sees Nina's picture burned and comes to the conclusion that this is Tucker's doing.
Ed goes to the national library to find more information about Tucker and his experiments on Kimera but is told that he needs approval from the millitary top brass in order to access the information. On the way out, Ed sees a man, Scar who wants to enter the library but is stopped by the guard. Ed tries to stop Scar and accidentally tears off the sleeve of his shirt thus revealing some tattoos on his right arm. Scar gets frightened and runs away quickly.
Ed goes to look for Hughes and asks about Tucker's wife. According to Hughes, he heard that Tucker's wife died before he and Nina came to Centora so Ed is puzzled to hear conflicting stories about Tucker's background. In addition, the millitary comes to Tucker's house and makes Ed and Al move away as Tucker's experiments are supposed to be top secret.
Tucker is pressurised by the millitary that he has to come up with something for the upcomimg test and comes to a decision after hugging Nina...
Ed and Al return to Tucker's house quietly and finds that he has successfully created a new kimera which can talk and understand human speech. Ed realises that Tucker had sacrificed his own daughter, Nina and his dog, Alexander to come up with Kimera and questions his conscience. However, Tucker thinks that he did nothing wrong since he does not want to live in poverty again and be stripped of the title of national alchemist. Ed wants to restore the kimera back to its original form but Tucker claims that his alchemy is so successful that it would not be possible to do so. Ed gets so angry that he beats up Tucker. Just then, the millitary come to Tucker's place to bring him and the kimera back. Ed is furious about the millitary planning to destroy the evidence and keep the matter under wraps and creates an accident which results in the kimera running away.
At the same time, Scar is hiding at a street corner and lamenting why his elder brother tattooed the alchemy formations on his arm. Just then, the kimera appears in front of Scar which he realises immediately what this animal is made up of. In order to stop its suffering, Scar decides to restore the kimera back to its original form which ultimately means that it is destroyed.
Ed and Al finally find the kimera's remains at the street corner and are upset that they are unable to do anything to save Nina and Alexander...
Although the thought of hearing Okiayu-san's voice is great, I never guessed that this is such a sad episode which made me cry in the end. The excitement of hearing him was very much overshadowed by the sad ending.
I can never comprehend how Tucker can sacrifice his own wife and daughter for the sake of creating a kimera. And it was so painful to see Ed feeling helpless because he knows that with his current powers, he's still unable to restore the kimera back to its original form. In the end, he could have done the same thing as Scar i.e. relieving the kimera of its pain by destroying it.
Will future episodes be as sad and painful to watch as this? I never thought that I would shed tears when watching this anime although some of the previous episodes did make me feel upset. This anime is one of the few which has managed to tug at my heartstrings recently and I'm sure it will get even better.
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