Full Metal Panic, Disk 3

By Shamus Posted Monday Jul 31, 2006

Filed under: Anime 9 comments

Having given us the basic premise on the first two discs, the next disc is another variation on the same established theme.

Sousuke is still rigid, stoic, and fun to watch. He’s spent most of his teenage years as a soldier, so he doesn’t really know how to be a teenager. This makes him a bit inept socially. His attempts at being a gentleman usually go awry or are misunderstood.

Kaname is still tiresome and uninteresting as a female lead. She knows Sousuke is part of an anti-terrorism group and that he may be called away to risk his life in defense of innocent civilians, yet when he misses an appointment with her she goes sideways and becomes enraged. She shouts, she hits, she broods, and generally has a tantrum totally disproportionate to the percieved slight. Then he presents her with a gift in an attempt to make up, despite the fact that she’s the one who should be apologizing. But when she finds out the gift (a pair of earrings) also serve as self-defensive flash-bang grenades, she goes back to being enraged. So he’s bad at gifts. So what? He gave you a gift you ignorant cow. Most people say thank-you even if the gift sucks. Barring that, the least you could do is not throw another stupid tantrum.

It’s clear that she’s at least as socially inept as Sousuke, but he spent his formative years in the military. What’s her excuse?

Sixteen year old Tessa is still preposterous as the sub Captain, although she is otherwise a fun and interesting character. She’s quite witty, and manages to have some fun at Sousuke’s expense, which is always good for a laugh.

And the plot is still focused on gut-wrenching conflict and high-tech terrorism, with life-and-death battles serving as a means to place the characters into situations where Kaname and Sousuke can have romantic tension.

At least, it would be tension if I cared about Kaname. Go Sousuke!

So, disc 3 is more of what we’ve already seen on the first two discs, but it’s fun and interesting. And the robots are cool.

I wish I could have one of these robots.

 


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9 thoughts on “Full Metal Panic, Disk 3

  1. Kaname would have been more annoying were it not for the fact that she’s really brave and resourceful. “Full Metal Panic” is a fish-out-of-water story, but they alternate between Sagara having problems in Kaname’s world, and Kaname finding herself in Sagara’s world. What’s interesting is that she adapts to his world a lot better than he does to hers. (Good thing, too, or she wouldn’t have lived through the second DVD.)

    Generally I found the “everyday life in the high school” episodes of FMP to be the least interesting. The series was only really any good when the laughs stopped and the shooting started. (Which is why I’m not in the slightest interested in the sequel “Fummoffu!”; it’s entirely funny high school stories.)

  2. HC says:

    In defense of Fumoffu, they do the comedy better in that series than they do in FMP. The humor is further over the top, and consistently better executed. Sousuke’s idea of how to play rugby, for example, is definately worth a look.

  3. ubu roi says:

    I’ll probably pick up Fumoffu and Second Raid when it comes out but I have seen the first episode of the latter and it really doesn’t work for me. Souske shows up late from a difficult mission, having forgotten Kanme’s notes on the de Dannan. Does she cut Souske some slack? Hell no.

    After what they went through together in the first series, she doesn’t come across as a sympathetic character at all. Her growth is arrested, and she just comes across as a self-absorbed bitch.

  4. She’s a tsunderekko. (They even list her specifically in the examples.)

  5. It’s based on a series of books; it’s not based on a manga. I saw a web site somewhere which listed all the books which were out and correlated them to the original FMP and to Fumoffu. After FMP was released, it looks like they went through the rest of the books and combed out all the rest of the funny stories to make Fumoffu, which suggests that the second full series will be nearly all action. Even so, I’m not going to pick it up when the time comes. That page also described how the books went, and through the fifth book they still hadn’t really revealed any of the back story.

  6. ubu roi says:

    Re: tsunderekko. The closest western equivilent I can think of off the top of my head would be captured by the title “The Taming of the Shrew.”

    Either way, she is, but she doesn’t change and that’s the problem. I mean, Haruhi Suzumiya starts out ten times the self-centered witch (just a lot less violent), but by the later stories (chronologically) she’s changed–despite going through experiences far less intense than Kaname. Yeah, I know I picked her for the dream harem, but it’s based on the Kaname of the first half of FMP, not Fumoffu and TSR.

  7. Jeffrey says:

    With all this talk about Kaname, I must say that I have been, and always will be, all about Tessa.

  8. Mhateo says:

    Well i think this is the best series in anime.I really enjoy it,exept the fact that Kaname acts that way towards him.Even when we all know she loves him,I mean come on just tell him that you love him.I think that that is what most people wanted to see.What they would say after that,if they would get nervous or not,ect.You know it goes on forever but i say this is one of the greatest love stories i have ever watch on my television.Well thank you to the creators and keep up the good work.I also look forward to the next one being about how they share there emotions with each other and stop being afraid.You know they say if you keep something as complicated as love locked inside you,it can make you sick.

  9. Chris says:

    Alright, Kaname’s character development in Fumoffu is pretty nonexistent because it’s a gag series that takes all the gags that were cut from the source material that the first series is based from. And with more gags added in for good measure.

    But in The Second Raid, the series actually progresses the storyline of the novels and you see how Kaname and Sousuke mature as characters, in both little and major ways.

    To note, TSR establishes that throughout the span of FMP!, Fumoffu, up to its events, Kaname and Sousuke had only been together for a few months. I’ve seen real life “dysfunctionally romantic” relationships move slower than that.

    And TSR generally ups the tension and action a fair notch, too.

    Just giving my Too Sense.

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