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Full Metal Panic! #4

Wednesday, 10 March 2004

If you go strictly by the write-up on the back of the case, this is 3 episodes of raging Arm Slave action. I think ADV have a mech fixation. ^^; Thankfully, there's more to Full Metal Panic than ADV's copywriters would have you believe...

13 - A Cat and a Kitten's Rock & Roll
Mrrow. After a row gets a bit out of hand, Mao challenges Tessa to an Arm Slave fight - loser runs laps naked. While she may be a tactical & technical whiz, Tessa realises she's not the greatest AS pilot in the world & ropes Sousuke in to give her some special training - although it seems that the best trainer in the world isn't going to be good enough to give her a fighting chance... Despite sounding like another AS-combat episode, this is really just a chance for the de Danaan crew to get in on the comedy side of the show...

14 - Is Narashino Burning?
Summer! Beach! Or at least it's supposed to be beach, but for some reason Kana & co end up at a Self Defense Force festival instead of running around in swimsuits. We wuz robbed, I tell you... 'Highlight' of the day is an AS battle between teams from Nerima & Narashino. Shinji's dad is in control of the Narashino team, but despite having good equipment they don't seem capable of winning anything - mainly because of Nerima's dirty tricks. Sousuke's a firm believer in fair play, and takes matters into his own hands...

15 - The Wind Blows at Home (Part I)
Away from the comedy & back to Gauron's side of the story. When Mithril's Intelligence Department discovers that Gauron is still alive (what does it take to kill this guy?!), the 'Assassinate Gauron' plan is put into action, & Sousuke is called in to take part - partly because of his links to Gauron, but mostly because Gauron's now hiding out in Sousuke's home country. Problem is, Sousuke's been dropped into a team who don't know him or his abilities, and they've got no appeciation of the help he can give them. It's a lack of appreciation that will cost at least some of them their lives.

Starting at the end - when Souskue's teamed up with a group of new characters, it just screams 'cannon fodder' - and so it comes to pass. Part II has to wait for the next disc so I'll reserve judgement on that part of the story until then, but with Gauron involved the usual rules of 'plenty of AS-action' & 'more unlikely escapes from certain death' will no doubt be followed.

The other two episodes stick firmly to the comedy side of the show, with a little bit of fanservice thrown in (no, no scenes of Tessa or Melissa doing naked laps, sadly...). FMP's brand of slapstick humour doesn't need much explaining - if you've enjoyed previous comedy eps you'll enjoy this. My only real complaint is leaving the disc on a cliffhanger - when they're releasing the show in a mix of 3 & 4 episode discs, it would've made more sense to make this a 4 & get the 2-parter out of the way. Is suspect Marketing may have had a hand in that...

Overall - more of what you'd expect from FMP. If you've enjoyed previous releases, you'll enjoy this.

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