Full Metal Panic!

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.

I began watching this anime after reading a lot of very positive reviews on the internet, with many people saying it's one of their favourite anime of all time. But none of these reviews was well-argued, now I understand why.

Story: 3/10
That is the only good-point of the anime: Full Metal Panic have a story that is not original, but it have the merits of permitting to have both action and humor, and why not an thrilling fight for the sake of the world. But up to episode 15, i saw none of these.
The very firt episodes were okay, but ... rapidly the jokes began to be less and less funny, and I started to notice that the author(s) did not knew what to do with this anime and more important were incapable of writing a story that is coherent. The story soon became ridiculous, with the mysterious power of Kaname which serves no purpose (at least in the 15 first episodes), the MITHRIL organisation that have no reason of existing, is not associated with any country and which financing seemed to be popping out of the void, and there is A LOT of things like theses...
Each episode is filled with blatant incoherences, but the worst is the characters and organisations that never act realistically. As an instance we have the militaries who in an episode are told to obey Sousuke because they face an ennemy (Gauron) that nobody but Sousuke can compare with in fighting skills and who is well-known by the latter. But these militaries, who are supposed to be well-trained professionals and even veteran warriors don't give a shit about their superiors orders and don't seem to have the minimum of intelligence required to know that on a battlefield you don't fucking do what you want, because it can make you and your comrades killed. They don't listen to Sousuke's advices and they go all-out on Gauron and his henchmans, i think Gauron then beat the crap out of them but I'm not very sure because I saw this anime quite some time ago.
This lead me to another very bad aspect of this show: the characters.

Characters: 3/10
Again, there is no character that his credible in this show. We are told a lot of things about these characters but we never see these affirmations being confirmed by the facts.
For instance Sousuke and Teletha are supposed to be respectively a skilled and experience warrior and a genious, but they are just two brainless idiots. I understand that it can be used fo comic situations, but for me it was just impossible to appreciate this show with so enormous incoherences. For instance, in the episode where Kanade and Teletha are taken hostages and snipers are aiming their rifles at them, the so-called professional soldier make the worst choice possible
Kanade is as bad-written as the others, it's like the author read the definition of "tsundere" on the japanese wikipedia and decided to do a character like that, her mood swings are never explained neither justificated.
All the characters are like living and breathing robots, with no personnality, the voice actors (in the japanese dub) don't help, with Satsuki Yukino more shouting than acting and Tomokazu Seki who put in his acting as much emotion as a brainless zombie.
Secondary characters are no better, like Melissa and Curz whom I thought at first could be quite funny and likable are finally totally useless and irritating.

Art: 2/10
As expected from Gonzo, it's absolutely horrible, it's really hard to watch, the backgrounds are empty, the animation is poor, the characters move jerkily, the 3D and the colourisation are of very bad taste. I thought I was looking at a early-90's (or late 80's) anime show. Too bad that Gonzo animation quality started improving in the late 2000's with Saki and Strike Witches, just a moment before the studio dissapeared.

Sound: 5/10
Absolutely not good, not truly bad, I just didn't notice the music most of the time and at times I found it even a little irritating. The opening was also quite bad, both the song and images seemed to be taken from some cheap bishoujo game.

Enjoyment: 3/10
Beside the first episode, it was really boring, and every episode I was wondering how is it even possible to make a show that is so crappy. I watched up to episode 15 out of curiosity for this anime which was so acclaimed by many people, and hoping that the quality will improve, that the show will suddenly become interesting and funny, bu it didn't happened. And I'm amazed I made it this far. I think in fact that after I had watched some episodes, I was just watching it for the lulz, like when you watch a very bad movie.

Overall: 3/10
I think at Full Metal Panic as one of the worst anime I have ever watched, there is no redeeming feature for this show. At the contrary of, for instance, Lost Universe, which is bad but where there is good voice actors ( Megumi Hayashibara!), some quite funny episodes, and charming characters.

Also, sorry for the poor english, I'm not a native speaker, I'm french and it's currently 3 am in France, so I'm tired and I have difficulties reading over my text.

There is literally nothing about Full Metal Panic! that adds up to being anything more than derivative. It's filled with cliched characters and scenarios, the animation looks horrendous by today's (2011) standards, the voice acting is extremely hollow with only a couple exceptions, the writing is unintentionally laughable frequently, plot threads are started but never resolved, there's pointless filler episodes, etc, etc.
Never has the urge been so strong to stop watching an anime half way through, that exact point being a confoundedly stupid episode in which men in giant robots compete at table tennis and tug of war. Don't get me wrong, this show is ... actually best at its most lighthearted. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the goofiness and seriousness are so awkwardly juxtaposed, that it ends up feeling like idiocy that takes itself very seriously.
Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I can't find anything redeeming about this series. If it were older, I might be able to see as an influence to the giant robot genre, but 2002 really wasn't that long ago. It really kind of feels like a relic that would have been more at home in the early days of the genre, with the likes of Gundam, and Gunbuster.
I realize that maybe I'm being overly critical of something that is just meant to be casually enjoyed and not dissected and analyzed like the best anime can hold up to, but if every step of the way, you are wondering why you are bothering to watch, it's not worth it.

Unlike most users on here, I did not watch this when I was younger. There was no nostalgia at all while I watched this: it's an actual review based upon the anime itself.

FMP! is guilty of many offenses despite hailing form the towns of "Generic City" and "Who Gives a Fuck, It'll Make Money-topia." There is not one original idea in this entire anime. And sure, you could argue that most animes don't have an original idea, but at least most accomplish something. Enough ranting, I'll actually review the aspects of the show.

First ... off, the story was plagued with several issues. The most egregious being the balance of action and FMP!'s idea of comedy. I would not be surprised to find out that the writers simply designated each episode as "a funny one" or "a fighting one." There is absolutely no balance. Also, don't confuse my use of the word "comedy" as an implication of FMP! being funny in any way. The series' idea of comedy revolves around this:

- "I do not know much about social situations, so I will completely throw any form of common sense out of the window and do the first thing I think of."

- "OH MY GOD YOU PERVERT IDIOT! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" *hit him in the head*

Fucking awful slapstick humor.

I don't want to waste more time writing this so:

Art: Same shit as always, blah blah.

Sound: See above.

Character: Every character in FMP! is either shallow as fuck or just an idiot. Choose which you like better.

Enjoyment: Hahahahahahahahahah, right.

From episode 1 I could tell this was nothing special. The comedy was bland and unoriginal usually resulting in Chidori getting mad at Souske and then hitting him. Are your laughing yet? NO.... well get used to it because that's at least half of the series. The other half is a military mech fighting show that barely scratches the surface of what it could be because it decided it wanted to focus on highschool comedy too. The writers did a terrible job with these two concepts because they don't mesh together at all. It doesn't help that the music is limited at well it has ... like 4 soundtracks and they're generic.

I put this as background noise after episode 4 and I'm glad I did because my instincts were right. This anime is boring at straight up 5/10. Sousuke and Chidori are terrible main characters. Chidori is annoying and useless. Sousuke is as bland as flour. It took him 20 episodes to show genuine emotion where he wasn't taking like an unsalted cracker. The show also had a weird fascination with showing panty scenes in the first 7-8 episodes, ruining any serious moments.

The only reason people ever liked this show was because they're was literally limited options on what they could choose to enjoy. Times have changed we have like 50 new anime to choose from each coming season. Not to mention the internet gives people quick access to better older anime whether its from a legal or illegal site. There's a reason people don't talk about this show its just forgettable.

Bullshit x 1000.

Story: The whole show was unfunny, and so boring that I couldn't pay attention to what ever the hell, was going on.

Characters: Just completely annoying characters. The only one I can remember is Chidori, because her name reminds me of Naruto I guess.

I can't say much because it just bored me too the extreme. After 1 week or so after I completed watching this, I couldn't remember what the whole plot was or how it looked like, OR who the characters were. The only reason I watched was because of the high ratings. BullShit.
This show is a plain piece of crap wearing a ... hat. Dunno, just sucked.

I, um... I'm going to stop writing reviews for a while after this one because honestly, this series was hard for me. Nothing about it stood out and more often than not I expected the MC to yell "KAGOME!!" in place of the lead female's actual name. I can't suggest this series to anyone who wants to be entertained.

The story is about a 16-year-old girl in Japan who falls into a well and discovers she's been transported back in time to the feudal era where apparently demons existed but don't in the modern era. She discovers a demon named Inuyasha bound to a tree ... by an arrow and fre- Oh, what? That's a different series? Then what the Hell is this?

Full Metal Panic follows Sousuke Sagara (Who I will now rename Soggy Sausage), a member of a "top-secret" military organization that everyone with a laptop and a wifi connection knows about. He is sent to protect the token tsundere from some mean enemy military people because she's the key to a weapon they already have in their possession and their leader has the same power as her and is military-trained making the whole thing rather pointless WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SO STUPID?

If you expected me to review this series' characters (the military personnel in particular) as good, you were hopeful. Unfortunately, I had to suffer through 24 episodes of someone who somehow functions well enough in a strict military structure to rise through the ranks, but can't figure out why stalking someone in broad daylight is a problem. Oh, and the tsudere starlet doesn't help since her reactions are what you would get from someone with Borderline Personality Disorder and not a rational, reasonable-minded person.

What side characters? Oh, you mean those walking tropes almost every other series has? Those forgettable members of the cast that if they died and were replaced with a plank of wood you wouldn't notice? Yeah, even the villain exists to just be there. The climatic final fight scene is... Boring. I've watched mecha anime like Bokurano, Code Geass, and even Gurren Lagann and the first one despite the slowness of how the damned thing moved was more entertaining that whatever FMP was trying to do.

The music isn't there. I don't remember it and looking on youtube just doesn't strike me as a fruitful endeavor. The opening just feels out of place or maybe because the entire thing is a mess it just doesn't work. Nothing about the characters, the story, or the art draws you in and it's unfortunate because the art is similar to that of Escaflowne (Probably a product of the industry at the time). Nothing about this series is meant to appeal to anyone but a crowd of hiveminded persons who consider Inuyasha a masterpiece.

If you're still curious, go watch Blood+. At least you'll find something to enjoy there.

REVIEW WITH NO SPOILERS

Full Metal Panic is a very bad mecha anime. That's it.

The story is really weak and sometimes you know what is exactly gonna happen. The characters are predictable.... the only thing good here is the relationship of Sousuke and the School (that is REALLY funny and non-sense).

But if you expect a great story or a beautiful romance you will not find this here.

I will recommend you this anime IF you really like bad developing romances or if you are looking for bad mechas.

Even though, MAYBE i see the second season cause I liked Sousuke character.

I don't even know where to start. For the first 2-3 episodes it was actually good with all the misunderstanding and accidents that Sagara caused but that's it. Is this a school comedy or a serious military action anime? This feels weird saying this since Fullmetal Panic came out first, but it's like one big discount version of Code Geass, which actually succeeded in mixing those two genres.

The plot is sketchy at best and makes no sense at worst. I think it's about people born with information inside them and they call give this information via telepathy but I don't know what is those "Whispered" ... people have to do with anything, feels like some fancy way to make a bond between Kaname and Sagara because nothing else fuels their romance. It feels like one of those series where a girl meet a badass guy and falls in love with him like Rurouni Kenshin except it totally fails here. There is also the black technology which I'm not even sure is seen in the anime, unless it's those AT field rip-offs used by the main antagonist. I'm not even sure if the antagonist has a plan since it's all sadism, killing, evil for the lulz, I got a secret cd, I kill my allies and I don't care if I die if something expensive explodes at the same time. I don't know what he tried to accomplish.

The characters are all uni-dimensional and the very little character development feels out of character more than anything. You got the socially retarded military guy that cannot understand why people are angry at him after he tackled them into the ground or groped their boobs by accidents. His unawareness is funny for a little while but then you realize that's his entire character. Chidori is your basic tsundere who can't understand her feelings and you're not even sure if she has any feelings. She's also stupid and pretty shallow. Wurt or whatever his name was is a womanizer. Mei is a alcoholic. The captain commander with white hair is a bizarre character with no explanation behind her existence in the anime, she's clumsy and poor at military stuff so why is she a commander? Did she inherit the rank from a relative who was foolish enough to use someone inexperienced as his replacement? Who knows, it's not explained. Why is her advisor not the commander?

Sometime the show likes to introduce some lowkey pedophilic humor about 30+ years old men fantasizing to get kissed by an underage girl or even receive her panties, sometime they introduce mediocre characters to create contrast and make the MC look good. I think if I went on to explain how stupid anything is in this show, I'd go into spoilers territory so I'll stop here.

Story- Full metal panic is a multitude of things all rolled into one show. it is a school, romance, comedy, military, Sci-Fi, mech, action, drama-ish show. the only way all these genres can possible fit into one show is by it's premise. where Sagara a young soldier working for a private military is sent to protect Chidori a "Whispered" who are people who somehow have vast hidden knowledge inside them, and their knowledge is also the reason to have mechs and other Sci-Fi objects in their world. because of this, they are valuable targets even though it's never explained how they became whishered or how ... they are able to be located. the first few episodes are pretty much sagara protecting Chidori, and getting into situations because he doesn't know how to integrate/blend into civilian life. over that time they grow fond of each other. after that comes the more action-y part of the show named Gauron, as a group of people including the main antagonist of the entire series hi-jack a plane chidori and her class on in order to kidnap her and unleash her inner whispered. the situation ends with a mech battle between the Sagara and Gauron, as Sagara beats him with Lamba drive a machine powered by emotions and Chidori being able to tell the weakness of the enemy. thus the arc ends and Chidori learns that sagara is a soldier

all following arc/storylines in the series pretty much follow the same pattern. where a situation arises usually with Gauron pulling the strings or is the antagonist of the arc and usually ends with Sagara winning via the Lamba drive or through Chidori's help. in between the arcs are pretty much the slice-of-life part of the story but never serve much of a purpose other than filler with the of the first episodes. when it comes down to how the story is structured and flows it feels rather flimsy as things are contrived for the sake convenience of the story to move somewhere rather than to stagnate in the school setting. the tone shift between the action and the comedy school life feels weak, most of the comedy isn't really funny with more misses than hits, and there wasn't much of an impact that any of the story lines left on the season as a whole.
3/10
characters
the main characters of the show are Sagara a young soldier tasked with guarding Chidori, and getting into mishaps as he fails to integrate into civilian life. and Chidori the class rep in her school as well as a whispered containing special technological knowledge, as well as her having a blunt and tsundere attitude. other characters are the people from mithril namely Mao a soldier that likes drinking, kurtz a try-hard womanizer, testarossa the captain of the submarine that they are stationed on, and many other people on the sub. the main antgonist of the show is Gauron a person who just won't stay dead throughout the entire season and some lesser antagonist who are connected to him but are mostly bland and not worth noting. they don't really develope much as characters other than Chidori growing fond of each other and meeting the people from mithril. oh, and chidori also has a friend with glasses if that's worth noting.
4/10
art/animation- the art and animation for the show are ok-ish. i'm not really fond of the character designs in the show. it's decent for it's time, but feels bland now a days. there is a lot of use of CGI when it comes to machinery mostly for the subs and the helicopters that when shown look very off putting. the mech fights are decent enough, but nothing amazing; same can be said for the regular people fights. a lot of the violence is omitted for a show that has military and mechs where it doesn't feel like there is a lot of impact in the fights.
6/10
sound- the voice acting is par for the course good. Chidori's voice does sound a better annoying at first but after a little while sounds pretty good. the soundtrack is ok with a lot of military like themes for the acion parts and generic music for the school life part, with the military soundtrack being the most memorable of the two.
6.5/10
enjoyment- mostly bored abd hoping the next two season are going to be better than this.
4/10
overall- the story is a bit bad , the characters are mediocre and underdeveloped, the animation and sound are ok.
4/10

I started watching this because I was looking for a good Mecha after the amazing Gundam Wing and gosh this show is so stupid. The men are playing the roles of bitches and bitches are playing the roles of men to a certain extent. The chicks still are still ditzy/pin-cushions (ie: the captain is blatantly obviously not captain material) and I chalked up the protagonists embarrassing lines and getting hit by chicks all the time to be him being the only stupid character, however other men also started saying womanly lines like "I'm ready for punishment" to chicks.... Majorly turn off. When i watch anime ... I place myself in the story. I couldn't do that here, the men here were so gosh darn bitches. Taking orders from chicks, getting hit by chicks left and right, and the men apologizing.

Un-freaking-believable. I stopped watching this show at episode 12, I can't believe I made it that far.

Going to go check out Mobile Suit Gundam 00 now, I hear amazing things about that.