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Full Metal Panic! #5

Sunday, 02 May 2004

Tying up the loose ends from the last volume before getting back down to some good comedy, it's the latest volume of Full Metal Panic!...

16 - The Wind Blows at Home, Part II
Sagara's mission in his homeland continues. With two of his team-mates out of the action, the remaining ones are beginning to pay a little more attention to his advice. While Gauron appears to have pulled back for a while, the enemy's regular troops aren't giving Sagara & co much chance to catch their thoughts. With one injured team member, though, the first priority is getting him to some medical help, & during the trip to 'safety' there's a chance to find out some more about Sagara's past...

17 - The Wind Blows at Home, Part III
Gauron's back, with a trap laid for Sagara and his team. One of Gauron's team is Zaied, childhood 'friend' of Sagara's who has switched sides. That gives the enemy something of an advantage over Sagara's team, and it's an advantage Gauron uses to full advantage. In the end it comes down to a one-on-one between Sagara & Gauron - and with Gauron seemingly having more lives than a cat, can Sagara salvage something from his mission?

18 - Deep Sea Party
Back to school. finally, and away from the battlefield stories. Yayy! It's the last week of the summer holidays, and Sagara's invited Kana on a holiday to the southern islands - "Just the two of us", he says. What he forgets to mention is that this particular southern island is one of Mithril's base. Not that Kana ever gets to see it - thanks to an emergency, she ends up being parachuted on board the deDanaan along with Sagara, just in time for a party... Meanwhile, Gauron (who somehow still manages to be alive) seems to have anothe plan up his sleeve...

The more I see of the serious side of Full Metal Panic!, the more I wish they'd just stick to the comedy - which is why I like 'sequel' series Fumoffu! so much. I found myself wishing Gauron and Sagar would just get on with it for most of the first 2 episodes, and my attention was wandering through most of it - even looking at these as purely action episodes, they're lacking in terms of both plot (too predictable) and setting (one desert canyon looking much like another - a bit like Star Trek, where away missions teneded to take place in anonymous caves when there wasn;t enough budget to do anything fancier.

The final episode was a welcome relief - while it was still essentially a serious episode, there was enough comedy in there to lighten the tone and remind me what parts of the show I liked - otherwise this disc would have been a total bust, for me anyway.

Mecha fans will probably get more out of this than I did, but for those who watch FMP! for the Sousuke / Kaname comedy scenes, this isn't the greatest of volumes...

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