Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid: Wari to Hima na Sentaichou no Ichinichi

What we have here is your basic amnesia "what did I do last night" plot. It's a tired, played-out trope that sets up a simple mystery and can spend the whole episode unraveling it. I say it's played-out, but it's one of those if it ain't broke sort of situations. It works as a narrative device, I'm just a cynic so of course I'm going to point out how often it's used.

The catalyst for the amnesia this time is a little underage drinking. It leads to a whole bunch of misunderstandings and situations where Tessa gets flustered. She's looking for her lost teddy bear, which ... she never actually recovers by the way. I thought it was bizarre that the episode just ended on another joke and didn't show her actually getting her bear back.

The humor is alright, I chuckled a few times. The whole thing is probably very optional in any rewatch of the series, it doesn't really serve a narrative purpose I don't think. I could take it or leave it, so overall I'd say it gets an average score of 7/10

“You gave me alcohol! Alcohol destroys brain cells!”

- Tessa


After Mao plies her with the inhibition-releasing cocktail, Tessa wakes up on the bridge of the Tuatha de Danaan in her underwear. Before the dream-haze has a chance to wear off, she starts to wander around the submarine and engages a petrified Sousuke mano a mano, with a wise-acre AI running commentary in the background. At some point, she wakes up completely and retreats, but not before giving the sergeant an eyeful.

After taking a shower (why does this keep happening with this series?), Tessa goes out in search of her lost plush doll, this time fully ... clothed, complete with a TDD baseball cap and a blue bow in her hair. And that's pretty much everything.

Funny moments are provided by the mischievous Kurtz, at the expense of Clouseau. It seems that Kalinin's late wife had a passive aggressive streak; how else to explain cocoa powder and miso paste in a borscht?

But no day is complete without another misunderstanding between Tessa and her favorite sergeant. As she retraces her steps, it becomes evident that Tessa is beholden to Sousuke for smoothing over her indiscretion; she is impelled to run in her green sneakers to confess her love to him. Of course, Sousuke's pathological cluelessness is confession-proof.

My favorite moment came courtesy of Mao, of course. She's the girlfriend any woman would want, fun and brassy and not without wisdom. After listening to Tessa (and apologizing for her part as instigator), Mao asks the captain the one question that brings it all into perspective. Tessa’s a genius; she should know to let Sergeant Sagara be and hang with Mao.


Three obligatory remarks:

First, the animation quality was consistent with the series: good. As the OAV is set within the interior of the Tuatha de Danaan on Tessa’s day off, there’s no need for elaborate action sequences or backgrounds. Instead we get Kalinin in an apron and Tessa in the shower.

Second, the sinister instrumental during Kalinin’s preparation of the borscht and the military fanfare as Tessa gags through the consumption of it are funny. Tessa’s theme at the end was soft, playful and just right.

Third, the same voice actors mean the same strengths and irritations, sans Kaname. I watched the version with Japanese voice actors and English dubs.

Grade: B

There is not much to say about a story here, because there are only 30 minutes worth of it. Although nothing amazing at first, it provides a decent plot. It has a few really funny moments (without going overboard or risking making the characters OOC) and it gives a couple of good laughs. The characters are the same that we came to love (or hate) from the previous Full Metal Panic series and some of them receive some good placed character development. The VA did a great job, as usual, voicing them, so there is nothing that can be complained there.

Sound wise, the music is ... barely noticeable and doesn’t help enhance the atmosphere. It’s just there, well place, and subtle enough to be ignorable without distracting us from the story. What was more annoying was the ED, or rather lack of it. The instrumental score that was used while showing the credits was boring, and the whole arrangement of pictures next to the written credits was too slow to be interesting. After the first seconds I just fast forwarded to the end to see if there was anything after it and to my disappointment, there wasn’t anything.

There is nothing exceptional to say about the animation except that it’s good, but there is nothing bad to say about it either. It was nice, the same as the one from FMP: The Second Raid, although the previously mentioned series had, animation wise, some more memorable scenes.

Fans of the Full Metal Panic series, especially of Fumoffu, will probably really like this OVA. Other than that, there is no real reason to check it out as there is nothing special about it.