Life at Jindai High certainly isn’t lacking in boredom
for Sousuke and Kaname. Sousuke has a
new rival and a new special mecha suit for emergency use. Kaname is the one trying to keep Sousuke from
leveling everything around for fear of an enemy attack. Between rugby teams in need of toughening up,
a haunted hospital, pony masked
predators and crazy cops, these two are busier than ever. And as if Kaname’s headaches couldn’t get
anymore unbearable, guess who decides to take a vacation at her
school…Sousuke’s captain and her rival for Sousuke’s affections, Tessa
Testarosa. Can even Sousuke survive this
onslaught?
This is going to sound strange, but two weeks in and I
think Full Metal Panic Fumoffu is doing things better with Full Metal Panic
than Season One as a whole…and it’s just a comedy. Maybe it’s because there’s no political
backdrop or a villain who refuses to die or technobabble that doesn’t make
sense. Or it could just be I love the
image of a cute plushie wielding a shotgun.
Whatever the case, I’m loving Fumoffu.
Even if some episodes are stronger than others, I mostly just have
nitpicks about my lesser favorites.
The big winners this week were the return of Bonta Kun
and Sousuke becoming the unlikely coach of a kind hearted rugby team. It seems Sousuke has kept the Bonta Kun
costume he acquired at the theme park and given it a tricked out, Arm Slave
style cockpit for combat use. Throw in a
cap, bulletproof vest and a shotgun and man have you got comedy gold. It helped a lot that he had to not only
square off with a crazed cop, but also the most unexpected of perverts: a man
wearing a pony mask (and only saying “pony” kind of like Bonta Kun can only say
“Fumoffu” seeking to give girls Ponytails…yeah…I just wrote that. It sounds ridiculous but I can vouch for the
laughs it brings. Then there was the
rugby episode. Naturally, Sousuke
wouldn’t know a thing about the sport.
But in order to toughen up the sweet and well meaning guys, he tapped
into his inner instructor (with help from a guide book from Mao) and turned
them into merciless killing machines.
Sousuke’s montage of rabid, bleeped out insults had me in stitches. They were lewd, crude and man I wish I could
listen to the uncensored outtakes.
Hearing Sousuke utter, “One whimper and I will unscrew your head and
**** down your neck,” was freaking priceless.
And the game that resulted from the training…oh man, just perfect.
I did like how Fumoffu revealed it’s willing to
acknowledge some continuity between episodes, despite being a series of stand
alone minisodes. The crazy cop from the
Pony episode was the traffic cop who chased Sousuke and Kaname down on their
bike. We also got the return of the kid
who helped Sousuke rescue Kaname from his gang leader sister. It might not mean much in the long run, but I
like touches like that. This leads to
the biggest continuity spot of all: the arrival of Teletha “Tessa”
Testarossa. It was so weird when I
admitted to myself that Tessa was actually bearable here. It’s probably because she works better as
comic relief and not as an actual military figure head. Her attempting to find a place in Kaname’s
world was great stuff. We got to see
Tessa reignite her romantic rivalry for Sousuke with Kaname and see Sousuke
pushed to his limits just trying to keep his Captain safe on school grounds
(best moment was Tessa reading in class while Sousuke was frantically looking
for threats with his gun out). We got a
quick glimpse of Melissa Mao, with the promise that my favorite sexy military
commando will be popping up next week.
We also got a very bizzare image of Tessa’s right hand man thinking
Sousuke will do something vulgar to the Captain involving Bonta Kun and a
banana…draw your own conclusions from there.
As I said, some adventures were better than others but
even the lesser ones were still fun. We
were introduced to Sousuke’s new school rival, Issei Tsubaki of the Karate
Club. I wish Sousuke had met this guy in
Season One, to give his civilian guise a bit more credibility. Issei was hit and miss though. His best moment came when he and Sousuke had
to defend themselves against a crazed teacher with a chainsaw they couldn’t
defeat. There was also the haunted
hospital episode, which was ok for the most part. I loved how Sousuke could rationalize horror
but when Kaname looked like she was seriously hurt, that’s when he got really
scared. Again, Sousuke and Kaname
continue to shine as the couple who aren’t a couple but are definitely
evolving, even in a season that might not matter to the series as a whole in
the long run.
It’s hard to believe but next week marks the end of this
fun little series. As stated, Mao and
Tessa will be back, and hopefully Kurtz too.
With four more episodes left to go, can Fumoffu wrap up on a stronger
note than Season One? I really hope so,
this series has been great and I’d hate to see it wrap up disappointingly like
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 did.
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