Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Nonureva Really Surprised!

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

xamtaro Remember back in chemistry you had to mix the various volatile chemicals in the right proportions or it will all go up in smoke? Full Metal Panic is a daring experiment that mixes serious military style action with high school humor and romance with mech battles. Dangerous combination there of serious and light hearted: too serious and the comedy loses its flavor, too comedic and no one would take the show seriously. So many anime have tried mixing genres with less than satisfactory results. Full Metal Panic on the other hand maintains its perfect balance of serious and silly, making for a very unique anime series.Full Metal Panic takes place i a world not to different from our own. However in that world, there exists "Black technology" and selected special individuals called "The whispered" who possess enhanced cognitive capabilities. This Black technology allowed the mass production of giant humanoid mecha units called "Arm Slaves" which soon fell into the hands of terrorists. A secret organization called "Mithril" was formed to combat this rising threat of and to protect the Whispered from being captured and exploited by the terrorists. Mithril Operative Souske Sagara, only 17 but already a battle hardened soldier, is assigned to protect a newly discovered "Whispered" named Kaname Chidori. Along with his teammate, the wisecracking Kurz Weber and team leader Melissa Mao, Souske enrolls undercover as a student in Kaname's high school. Kaname's seemingly normal life comes crashing down as Souske tries to protect her in the only way he knows how: violently, decisively, like a well trained soldier, even employing some common battlefield strategies usually used to take down armed assailants. Hilarity ensues as Souske, who has only known a life of warfare since birth, tries to integrate himself into "normal" society and to fulfil his mission, much to the chagrin of Kaname. But just as it seems like the story is becoming a typical romantic comedy, a mysterious terrorist organization has discovered Kaname's whereabouts and is out to capture her by any means necessary.Adapted from a series of novels as opposed to a manga aimed at kids or teenagers, the writing on Full Metal Panic stands out as decidedly more mature than its contemporaries. Every character is fully fleshed out and given a decent amount of development as the series moves along. Even side characters that would usually be just one-dimensional stock archetypes end up rather likable. Central to the story is the excellent chemistry the emotionally suppressed yet tenacious Souske and the hot headed Kaname. Though at first Souske only regards Kaname as a "mission objective" and likewise, Kaname regards Souske as "sergeant Psycho", the two grow closer as they get to know one another. There is definitely a theme of romance yet it is tastefully played out without any of the cheesy mushy stuff.The way the dialog is written and lends a stronger feel of realism to the entire story. This top notch script, full of wit and charm, is complemented by equally top notch acting. Of particular note is the English voice acting by ADV films. Other reviewers must have watched the South East Asian English dub shown on animax asia to be able to criticize the English dub so. Rest assured the superior English dub from ADV films matches the quality of the Japanese track tone for tone. Some of the roles may even come across as more natural in English such as Chris Patton's role of Souske Sagara in which he peppers his dialog with military jargon and maintains a stoic drill sergeant type of tone. There is also a Chinese dub track released in Asian countries but that one is plagued by serious miscasting of roles and a certain lack of actor enthusiasm. All in all, Both the Japanese language track and USA English track are equally enjoyable and sound equally natural.For a 2002 production, Full Metal Panic is among the better looking ones, yet it has not aged too well despite being so recent. Boasting a beautiful level of art detail and an adequate frame rate animation by GONZO studios, Full Metal Panic's quality gets inconsistent as the series progresses. Badly rendered CGI is thankfully kept to a minimum, used only on a Submarine and some aircraft, but the show has its fair share of obvious cost cutting techniques in the later half, almost as if the production went over budget halfway through. There is a stark contrast between the animation quality seen in the first episode and the last episode. Quite a disappointment coming from the same studio that produced some awesome animation in Samurai 7 and Afro Samurai.Animation flaws aside, Full Metal Panic is a rare series that manages to feel as good as some of the best Hollywood blockbusters of all time. This makes it easily accessible to viewers who have not watched anime and is a great series for "newbies" to jump into anime fandom. Two anime sequels, a couple of manga spin offs and a dedicated fan base despite its young age, Full Metal Panic might just end up a modern classic, talked about for years to come.

Master Cultist Sousoke Sagara is a hard as nails special forces military type, who works for a mysterious organisation called Mithril. His new assignment seems a little strange - to protect a seemingly ordinary schoolgirl called Kaname Chidori but of course, as is the way of things, she is anything but ordinary.Fusing militaristic action with a great line in frivolous humour, this is a beast with two heads. At times, the fluffy silliness goes a little too far but, for the most part, this is genuinely laugh out loud funny. The episodes tend to be delineated along these lines as well, with some episodes all out action, whilst others are lightweight, throwaway comedy moments. It seems a little incongruous at times, but overall it does work.Violent, witty, dark, silly. All these words have to be used to describe this show.Entertaining throughout, this is one for die hard anime fans only, I would suspect. Very enjoyable stuff.A word of caution - the dubbed English version is reputedly terrible so, do yourself a favour, get hold of the subtitled version if you can.

Gash Bell The show is great, but the English dubbed version definitely sucks! Watching it in English makes it look like a cheap, shallow, meaningless, kiddy & stupid production. Also, I believe that a lot of parts have been censored in the English-dubbed version. My advice: Watch it in the original Japanese language with English subtitles. It's uncensored and way better! It's superb! Definitely one of my all-time favorites! A must watch! Very touching, action-packed, tragic and funny! I was hooked from episode 1. In fact, I watched all 36 episodes straight in a day with my coke and pop-corn. Btw, I didn't like the title but I love the anime!

Paco Eltaco Full Metal Panic caught my eye when it first started being released, and i was hooked after watching just one episode. The story managed to combine a school comedy/drama, with a mecha anime. The intro scene immediately had my attention, as a traumatized young woman is extracted from enemy territory. It was so astoundingly cool that i had to see more. This anime is extremely colorful and well animated. The characters are fun to watch and the voice actors are all top notch. I find that some great animes will have very bad dubs, where the acting sounds forced or as if the actor was bored. This series never has that problem, everyone sounds genuinely interested in the events that are occurring. The overall series shifts back and forth between themes, drawing Souske Sagara into Japanese school life as often as it draws Kaname Chidori(the person Sagara guards) into military situations. My biggest complaint is that about ten episodes in, the series seems to go soft, like the writer ran out of material and started over from scratch. From that point on i felt that the series never reached the same heights. A good anime.