Full Metal Panic!

Mithril, a covert military institution using state-of-the-art technology to combat terrorist operations, assigns a specialized team to a sensitive mission. Under the command of superior officer Melissa Mao, sergeants Sousuke Sagara and Kurz Weber must secretly protect Kaname Chidori—a teenage girl who unconsciously holds breakthrough scientific knowledge and is considered a "Whispered"—from intelligence agencies and other organizations pursuing her abilities.

While Kurz and Melissa are to assist him remotely, Sousuke enrolls at Kaname's high school as one of her classmates to closely monitor her. However, his militaristic upbringing and poor social skills lead to a difficult adjustment to civilian life. Not only does he attract unnecessary attention, but his actions frequently make Kaname suspicious of him.

Despite the earnest attempts to fulfill his duty, a terrorist ambush further complicates Sousuke's task. Recognizing the vicious mastermind behind the assault, Sousuke abandons his orders to ensure Kaname's safety.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sagara, Sousuke Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Chidori, Kaname Main

Yukino, Satsuki Japanese

Testarossa, Teletha Main

Yukana Japanese

Mao, Melissa Supporting

Neya, Michiko Japanese

Weber, Kurz Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Gauron Supporting

Tanaka, Masahiko Japanese

Kalinin, Andrei Sergeivich Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Tokiwa, Kyouko Supporting

Kimura, Ikue Japanese

AL Supporting

Murozono, Takehiro Japanese

Kazama, Shinji Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Takechi, Tsuneo Producer

Chigira, Kouichi Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Screenplay

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 10, 2008

TheLlama

Recommended

When I first started watching this series, I had very high hopes for this, due to many of my friends saying great things about this series. You can safely say that I was not disappointed.

This series follows a member of the Mithril organization, Sousuke Sagara. He has been assigned with the task of protecting a high school girl, Chidori Kaname, from terrorists and other bad people. To do this, he has to enroll in her high school. Of course, when Sousuke is a stiff with no experience or knowledge whatsoever when it comes to socializing with other people, trouble is predestined to arise.

The story ... of this anime series is pretty good. In one moment, you're watching an intense and serious battle situation, where giant robot fights it out with futuristic technology, and in the next, you're watching a really good high school comedy. This series changes between those two a lot, and it's done well, because you get a mix of genres, varying from mecha to high school comedy at its best. This makes the story really enjoyable. There's one flaw, however, and that's the all to open ending of the series. But then again, it has a sequel, so I'm okay with that.

I really loved the animation style in this series. It didn't have a lot of unique features, if any at all, so I can't and won't give it a top score. There was however no noticeable flaws, and some very cool CGI at times (usually I'm not a fan of CGI in anime, but it was done pretty well here).

The soundtrack of this anime was, well, pretty average. It can boast about good OP and ED themes, but aside that, it's not very much to listen to at all.

The series feature a lot of various characters, from the un-killable bad guy to the stiff, no-experience-in-socializing military kid and the ever so normal teenage girl. There's a lot of other various characters (like a pacifistic girl who's the leader of the good guys' organization (at least she's the captain of their main submarine)), and the woman-loving, easy-going guy. Yes, the characters can seem very unoriginal, but I still enjoyed watching them. There was not a lot of character development present; aside a teeny bit on Chidori and Sousuke's part.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable anime series, and I'm keeping my hopes up for the sequel, as well as the spin-off. If you enjoy some good action as well as high school humor, you should definitely watch this series.

To 'Not Helpful' voters (and you 'Helpful' voters too): Feedback greatly appreciated =)

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 30, 2010

Lindle

Mixed Feelings

Full Metal Panic is a series that tries to please two kinds of viewer, and as a result, succeeds at neither.

The problem with it, in general, is that Full Metal Panic is both a serious militaristic action series and a high school comedy at the same time. Now, I've seen quite a few things over my years that should not go together, but do anyway. This, however, is not one of them. The two of them are essentially a massive clash, rather than a well-mixed combination.

The premise of Full Metal Panic is this: Kaname Chidori is one of the "Whispered", a group of people who ... have the power to generate information... or something along those lines. The details are kept vague, for the most part. As a result, terrorist organisations are after her, leading the military superpower Mithril, belonging to no particular government, to send Sosuke Sagara, our main character, into her school disguised as a student to watch over her. Hijinks ensue.

The high school comedy side of the series is lacking, to say the least. It's mostly the standard material you would expect to see in that kind of series, mainly humour based around comedic misunderstandings, very little of which is really funny at all. Played for laughs most of the time is Sosuke's complete maladjustment to normal society, which is usually more cringeworthy than it is entertaining.

The military half of the series is considerably more interesting, and are very true to a military style of series, and certainly fit the scene, whatever it may be. They use the perfect blend of dialogue, action, drama and realism to keep those episodes afloat. One of the things I like more about the series is the antagonist Gauron. The pure nihilism of his actions is always entertaining, if questionable. While the questionableness of his actions is, in one way, a good thing, what I refer more to is that you really have to wonder why in the hell he's doing them. One does not simply kidnap, murder, maime, hijack and possibly rape just for the fuck of it, and his reason for doing so isn't given passing mention in the series. The sequel, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid clears a bit more on the subject, though it is still annoying to watch the first season without his motives brought into question.

A big problem with the series is the pacing. As one might expect, the constant switching every other episode from wacky comedy to serious action doesn't really work very well. Interesting parts of the story are kept few and far between, and a large number of the episodes in the show are thoroughly pointless.

Finally, my biggest complaint is the characters. Sosuke Sagara, as of the first season, is a character some enjoyed and others hated, and I have to say that I'm in the second boat with this. His actions, as said before, are generally quite cringeworthy for the comedy side of things, and in the more serious parts of the series he is as much as you would expect of the perfect soldier: a complete tool devoid of personality. Thankfully, the series that follow the first fix these problems and then some, but in the first season he can be really painful to watch. The supporting cast is also horribly one-dimensional. Kaname Chidori is the tsundere, Kurz Weber is the handsome lecher, Melissa Mao is the action chick, and Teletha "Tessa" Testerosa is the moe-girl. While Gauron is an excellent antagonist, he really doesn't outweigh the bad cast on show here.

In technical terms, Full Metal Panic isn't terrible, but not particularly great. The animation is OK, but there's a lot of CG scattered around the place. The music is unremarkable, and the voice acting isn't particularly great in either language. I wouldn't particularly recommend either track over the other. I'd say this kind of show works better in dub (the military side of it, anyway), so that would probably be a good choice, but if you generally prefer subs then you really aren't missing anything.

Overall, despite being pretty clearly flawed, it's hard to call Full Metal Panic outright bad. It's watchable on its own, in particular with the help of Gauron, and the series that followed (Fummofu and The Second Raid) are more than excellent enough to make this season worth watching just for the sake of watching those.

Final Words:
By no means a bad series, but very hit-and-miss. Worth watching if only to see the sequels.

Animation/Graphics: 5/10
Story/Plot: 5/10
Music/Background: 5/10
English Dub: 5/10

Overall: 5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 31, 2008

YoungVagabond

Not Recommended

What, that's it?

Despite not being much of a mecha fan, I decided to check this series out after a lot of strong recommendations from friends and online sites alike. I was expecting a compelling story, jaw-dropping action scenes, and decent humor. Those predictions went zero for three.

Instead, I got a series which seems to have no clue what kind of story it wants to tell. Is it a romance story framed around action and comedy? Or is it an action series with comedy and romance thrown in? This synthesis can work, as long as the director is talented enough, and as long as putting these ... different elements together actually makes sense. Here, it doesn't.

It's ridiculously contrived; there's no logical reason for a secret military organization to protect a Japanese schoolgirl, there's no explanation for why they would do so by any means other than kidnapping her, and there's no attempt at justifying a valuable military agent being used for that purpose. The whole pay-off here is supposed to be the humor in a naive member of the Special Forces going undercover in a Japanese high school.

Now, if this set-up was treated as something absurd in its own right, with the fourth wall being broken, it could work. But therein lies the problem. It's treated seriously, just like a 14 year old, pink-haired, cute girl with giant eyes and a soft voice being the supreme commander of our secret military organization is treated with stone-faced sincerity, also.

Then, the viewer is suddenly expected to care when the show takes a serious turn, and our Japanese schoolgirl heroine Chidori is kidnapped by an evil terrorist. It just doesn't work together; either stick with a humorous, light-hearted comedy approach, or go with a suspenseful action series instead.

Worse still, neither the comedy, action, nor the romance in this series is particularly good.

The humor was bland. A lot of canned, frequently repeated jokes from live action films, and too much of it based on a clueless military protagonist who doesn't understand civilians, a running gag which wears thin quickly. Most disappointingly, the show at no point mocks its own absurd premise.

The cast is filled with shallow, cliche characters, stereotypical and retarded anime conventions (high school girls beat up a highly trained military operative), and perplexing and unreasonable events. One can't make a solid romance in such circumstances, either.

The action was marginal at best, and an awful, mailed in job at the worst. The hand-to-hand fighting was stiff, awkward, and is worse than at least half the action anime from the nineties, let alone this decade. The mecha action was worse than any Gundam series from the mid 90's onward.

The positives of the series is that it has good pacing and at least tries to inject some comedy into the work. The animation is also nice. That's about it. Don't believe the rest of the hype.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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