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.
Dec 24, 2010
Full Metal Panic!
(Anime)
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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 ... |