Monday, February 6, 2017

Full Metal Panic Part 1-Episodes 1-6


Kaname Chidori is your typical high school girl: popular, beautiful…and bearer of the shortest fuse of temper ever.  What Kaname doesn’t realize is that she is one of a few specially gifted individuals who can decifer a secret technology, technology deadly in the wrong hands.  Enter Sousuke Sagara, a member of the elite mercenary group Mithril.  He’s been assigned to guard Kaname under the guise of being a transfer student.  Sousuke may be the ultimate soldier.  When it comes to being a normal high school student, he’s got a lot to learn.  The only question now is, will Sousuke survive his mission against some of the deadliest assassins of all time, or will the fury of the girl he’s supposed to protect kill him first?

Today we start what will be a continuous, year long journey.  I had thought about trying something like this before: one series with multiple seasons stretched over several months with breaks in between.  Slayers would be a great choice…but that’s three 26 episodes first seasons and 2 13 episode ones so that would be a bit tough to map out (could still work one day).  So instead I opted for another Anime classic, Full Metal Panic, the anime about mecha, espionage, Clancy level military twists…and romance and comedy.

Those last two may seem like taboo for throwing into a mix of rather serious storytelling elements.  Why would you want to add classroom hilarity to a story about military shadow tactics?  Well…somethings haven’t been tried that much and, in the case of Full Metal Panic, it’s kind of a mixed bag but the potential is there.  The first half of the opening set is where the chief problems are.  After a brief, action packed teaser, we get three straight episodes of comedy before getting to a more serious minded second half.  While I personally don’t mind a lot of what goes on in the first three episodes, it might turn off viewers coming in for another mecha action fest.  If they give it a chance though, and definitely wait until the fourth episode, patience goes well rewarded.

The real reason this premise works is because of the two series leads.  First there’s Sousuke Sagara, who is the official love child of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Heero Yuy from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.  He’s an expert at all forms of warfare and the ultimate, serious minded soldier.  He has been this his entire life and, ergo, he sucks at being a normal kid.  Hence the comedy portion.  Moments like when Sousuke draws a gun and has it taken away, the teachers believing it to be a toy, are priceless.  Every moment could be a dangerous one and Sousuke isn’t entirely wrong, it is high school after all.  Then there’s Kaname Chidori, the beautiful, blue haired class rep.  Behind a beautiful façade is a powder keg of physical, Hulk like violence.  But her go getter attitude compliments Sousuke’s over serious mood.  They make a great team and really come together well in the second half.  When Kaname defies Sousuke’s suicide plan to help her escape, it’s pretty awesome to see an injured Sousuke being talked down too by the same civilian he’s supposed to protect.  Hearing his “uhhhhhh” replies to her, like he has no idea how to handle this situation, are priceless.  This show will be worth it just for them.

There’s a fairly strong supporting cast as well.  Chidori’s classmates are entertaining, especially Shinji, who is a mecha fan boy who quickly bonds with Sousuke over the specs of Arm Slaves (the mechas of this universe).  Sousuke’s team look like a lot of fun too.  I’m wondering if Kutrz and Melissa are meant to be paired up romantically but I think Melissa is supposed to be several years older than Kurtz or Sousuke but I might be reading too much into it.  Melissa’s ability to play team lead is great and she’s a strong female presence.  The same cant really be said for Mithril’s commanding officer, the short skirt sporting Teletha “Tessa” Testarosa.  Unlike Melissa, or even Kaname, I cant understand how this girl is in command of a super secret Blue Submarine No.6 knock off vessel.  She’s clumsy, seems unsure and just too plain timid.  I could see the worth of Yurika Misamaru in Nadesico.  Beyond the zaniness, she was an excellent tactician and commanding officer.  Tessa isn’t even funny, she’s just…idk jail bait?  Don’t know why this irks me.  She’s a cute girl in a short skirt, maybe I just like tougher spirited girls like Kaname.

The action has a very Metal Gear Solid feel too it.  Sure there are bombastic explosions via mecha’s going mano a mano.  But seeing Sousuke sneak through the woods an across a military base is very reminiscent of Solid Snake playing through the Metal Gear Solid PS1 classic (no wonder I think Sousuke is a direct product of it).  It’s a more subdued kind of warfare than some of the more recent titles ive covered but the fights could grow larger in scale as the show goes on (Judging from the cliffhanger, with Sousuke getting a new AS (Arm Slave) to play with, we might get just that).  The animation is a mixed bag.  This is another title from the Digi Paint era, when hand drawn Anime was becoming less common for a while.  And it’s mixed with some uneven CG, especially watching Digi Paint characters walk through a submarine corridor.  This is a couple of years after Blue Submarine No. 6 in terms of production, so you think this would look a bit better.  What is definitely not great?  The same shots of the sub inquestion, the Tuatha de Danaan (does that name have any signifigance?).  It’s like there was enough budget for only one approach shot from the sea.  If anything needs improvement, it’s this.

If you can survive the comedy heavy first half, there might be something special you don’t want to miss out on with Full Metal Panic.  When the action gets going, the comedy blends better.  The Soldier of Fortune premise fits the mecha battles to a T and you’ve got a pair of very entertaining leads.  Now there are all of those pesky questions about how Gauron (the main villain it seems) can survive a headshot twice cause of a metal plate in his head, and just what the heck the Whispered are and how Kaname is connected and what technology they can somehow unlock…that’s a lot of questions I expected to have answered right away.  I know better.  This show is just getting started.  And I’m quite content to enjoy this little ride to kick off this year long experiment.

And hey, cause I pushed up the review of Nadesico-The Prince of Darkness, you get one more week of Full Metal Panic review before I take a week off for Katsucon…hooray (no sarcasm).  See ya next week to close out the first half of Season One of Full Metal Panic.

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