SUMMARY
(Note
that this review uses Japanese name convention of surname followed by
given name.)
There
is a war being fought that you never hear about, the fight between good
and evil never ends. But at
Jindai High School in Tokyo, everything appears to be normal.
For Chidori Kaname, grade 2 class 4 representative, her biggest
problems seem to revolve around bad blind dates and planning class
activities. That is until a
strange transfer student arrives.
Why
is Sagara Sousuke always watching her, always following her, and
always carrying a gun? Sousuke
can’t tell Kaname that a mercenary organization may be trying to kidnap
her. Least of all, Sousuke
can’t tell Kaname-chan he is also a mercenary, fighting for the secret
organization known as Mithril. With
the support of his friend Sergeant Kurz Weber, and their Sergeant Major,
Melissa Mao, Sousuke must blend in as a student and protect Kaname.
However, life as a high school student can be just as difficult as
jungle warfare in Cambodia to the uninitiated; and Sousuke finds out the
hard way. There is no place
to park your Arm Slave at high school.
Set
your GPS and pack plenty of ammo for the hottest release this spring, Full
Metal Panic will take you on a mecha ride you won’t soon forget.
And don’t forget to take out the garbage.
DVD
VISION TEST
VIDEO:
The video is simply stunning. One
aspect of Full Metal Panic that is superior to most cell/CG anime, is the
graceful blending of the CG work and the cell animation. One bit of
advice, the colors and animation in this series are of such caliber that
it is recommended it be watched on the television only.
There was a lot of aliasing throughout each episode viewed on my
persacon (dual PIII 1000, 1GB RAM, and ATI 9700Pro), but none was apparent
on a standard television. This
is a visual feast of cell and CG animation; there is no other way to
describe it.
EDITS:
The original Japanese credits have been replaced by English graphics.
There are also inserted frames of the translation of the title
sequence. Aside from these
changes there appear to be no other edits.
AUDIO:
Full Metal Panic comes with three sound tracks that should please
just about everyone. Surprisingly,
the English Dolby 5.1 track sounded muted (I’m guessing it was the 5.1
track) and had the lowest volume of the three.
The English Dolby 2.0 track and the Japanese 2.0 track sounded
exactly the same (hence the guess the odd sounding track is the 5.1), and
are outstanding audio mixes.
Both
2.0 tracks had excellent clarity, depth of sound and good overall balance.
Nothing I could change on my setup had any effect on the 5.1
track’s muted feel, I would hope a 5.1 Home Theater System would do the
track justice. I will point out that there was a slight difference between
the English and Japanese vocal tracks.
The English track had slightly louder vocals, and the voices were
mixed in such a manner that aside lines sounded as loud as regular speech.
The Japanese vocal track had better mixing and the introspective
lines and yelled lines had better dynamic range.
One
thing I must point out! In
the English dub, they must have used PainasonicÔ
telephones, as the “voices on the telephone” all had an ear piercing
quality, and was quite uncomfortable. The most painful lines to listen to
were delivered in a phone conversation at the end of episode 2.
TRANSLATIONS:
The translations in the subtitle script were done well; however,
there are some lines that sound awkward or are grammatically incorrect.
Additionally, there were several sequences that were simply
translated out of context. The
word play in Full Metal Panic is one of the enjoyable aspects of the
excellent writing of Shimo Fumihiko and it’s a shame it couldn’t have
been subtitled better. Overall, the subtitle script maintained the story
well and aside from these errors and changes, was thoroughly enjoyable.
The
ADR script was a disappointment for several reasons.
The ADR script managed to change many lines in many scenes in such
a manner as to either spoil the scene, or sound simply out of character
with the rest of the script. Just
as I would think, “OK, this isn’t a bad scene”, a poorly written
sequence of lines would follow. Is
it worth watching? I would
have to say yes, just because it is a great story, the downside is the out
of character lines and dips into hood-speak.
I will go into more detail on these errors shortly. Oh, and
chickens cluck, ducks quack…
EXTRAS:
The omake content on volume 1 is excellent.
Inside the case is a fold out mini-poster with character and
equipment data on the reverse side. The
poster is rather dull; the well rendered M9 AS is simply stuck on a bland
dark background. The character bios and equipment information on the reverse
side is much better and even includes the class 4 seating chart.
While you peruse the information on the back of the poster, take
the time to turn the cover art around.
The fan-art quality cover art of the M9 begs to be replaced with
the studio quality picture of Kaname.
The on-disk omake content is well rounded and includes clean
opening and closing animation and production sketches.
The most entertaining omake addition is the Japanese copyright
warnings given by Kaname and Sagara.
Sagara sternly warns, “The packaging and contents are not to be
used as weapons”. Other
A.D.Vision previews round out the omake. The XL tee shirt included in the box appears to have decent
artwork on the front. I have yet to open it, and probably won’t until I
secure an additional one, ne.
WIDESCREEN
REVIEW
STORY:
In the 21st century, the mercenary group known as Mithril
fights terrorism and helps maintain the balance of power throughout the
world. Technically more
advanced than any one nation on Earth; Mithril has a vast array of
hardware at its disposal.
One piece of equipment that gives Mithril soldiers
the advantage in a fight is the Gernsback M9 Arm Slave, or mobile armored
fighting vehicle. Although
not listed in Jane’s Arm Slave Recognition Guide, the M9 surpasses the
capabilities of all known production Arm Slaves, such as the Russian built
RK92 “Savage”. With the
addition of customizable heavy weapons, flight boosters, and submarine
launch and recovery, the Gernsback M9 provides Mithril with global force
projection.
This might be what a Mithril recruiter would point
out to a prospective soldier; but for Sagara Sousuke; no sales pitch was
necessary. Growing up in low
intensity war zones, Sousuke is a veteran of guerilla warfare and
clandestine operations. With
no need to understand what a “whispered” is, Sousuke accepts his new
mission to protect Chidori Kaname with the same determination he has
always had. But nothing in
his tumultuous past has prepared Sousuke for life as a high school
student. Jindai Municipal
High School could prove to be Sousuke’s most difficult mission yet.
As much as Sousuke is a fish out of water in high
school, Chidori Kaname could be described as a rose with big thorns.
Perhaps the fact that Kaname spent several years living in New
York, or that she now lives alone has something to do with it, but one
could best describe Kaname as a very
open person. If it’s
necessary, Kaname will whip out a bat to make her point.
Quite a contrast to a typical introverted Japanese girl, Kaname
clearly is something special, but just how special?
Many people want to find out.
ACTING: The
seiyuu in Full Metal Panic easily match the quality of the animation.
To match the intense visuals, some pretty intense seiyuu were cast
in main roles. Voicing the
role of Chidori Kaname is Yukino Satsuki (Sylia Stingray in BGC2040 and
Milly Thompson in Trigun). Yukino-san
gives Kaname great presence and will make your jaw drop as she moves from
one end of the school girl spectrum to the other.
Fans may not recognize the intense performance of Seki Tomokazu as
Sagara Sousuke from his more zealous performance as Daikouji Guy in Kido
Senkan Nadeshiko (Martian Successor Nadesico).
Seki-san imbues Sagara Sousuke with intensity, naïveté, and a
forthright character that seamlessly matches the images on the screen.
In the role of Teletha Testarossa is Nogami Yukana (debut role as
Oozora Mirai in Moldiver). Nogami-san
portrays the young Testarossa with excellent subtlety and her inflection
is exquisite; her talent is fully illustrated as she reminisces on deck,
and quickly corrects herself and gets back to business. The rest of the
seiyuu are outstanding as well, but details on their performances will be
covered in volumes 2 through 7.
The English Voice actors give performances ranging
from great to downright boring. In
what appears to be her debut anime role is Luci Christian voicing the role
of Chidori Kaname. A search only turned up a stage review of one of Ms.
Christian’s performances from 2000, and one bit of information indicates
Ms. Christian is only 16 or 17. While
this has nothing to do with her performance per se, it’s an interesting
bit of trivia I found. Regarding
her performance as Kaname, Ms. Christian did an excellent job, especially
if this is her first voice acting role.
While Ms. Christian did fall short of some of the expected
intensity of Kaname, she provided good range and emotion and the only
negative aspect of her performance was due to bad scripting.
Allison Keith (Katsuragi Misato in Evangelion) also turned in a
very good performance as Sergeant Major Melissa Mao.
Ms. Keith portrayed Melissa well, however I can’t help but feel
she didn’t inject the right “bite” like a tough ex-marine.
Ms. Keith has a great voice, and that’s the problem; I couldn’t
place that voice behind a HK 9mm pistol.
Chris Patton (Kamina Ayato in RahXephon) voicing the role of Sagara
was disappointing. Mr. Patton
never had the intensity or conviction that the character of Sagara
demands. Mr. Patton’s haughty or almost glib inflections didn’t
come close to portraying the emotion drawn into the character; his
performance sounded more like an overconfident schoolboy.
And unfortunately, when Mr. Patton was paired with Vic Mignogna (Gawl
in Generator Gawl) voicing the role of Kurz Weber, the scenes sounded like
something from a bad 80’s movie. Mr.
Mignogna voiced the role of Kurz with a borderline surfer dude/playboy air
that just didn’t come across as a highly skilled mercenary/playboy.
Sure, the character of Kurz is playful, but he is also confident,
which is one trait that I feel Mr. Mignogna didn’t portray well.
The real disappointing performance was Mike McRea as the bad guy
Gaulin. McRea never gave more than a monotone performance and sounded
like he basically read his lines and went home. There are still other
performances to comment on, but as with the seiyuu, the other voice actors
will have to wait until the next volume is released.
FAN SERVICE:
The fan service in the series itself is excellent.
The story and details of the characters are delivered well and in
context and keeps everything interesting.
Details of mecha hardware are woven into the story during
techno-geek conversations and are very humorous, and certain details are
left in the shadows, which drives the suspense factor even higher.
The best fan service is excellent writing that has you in fits as
the last episode of the disk finishes; the humor and cliff hangers in Full
Metal Panic delivers this like electrodes and a bucket of water.
There is little ecchi content in Full Metal Panic.
The series has plenty of action and humor to make it appealing to
almost everyone and doesn’t need to entice viewers with jiggles and low
angle shots. However, there
are the school uniforms, a humorous locker room scene, and a ground level
shot of Kaname. Now I just
need to decide if I liked that shot, or the one looking down the inside of
her thigh better…
::cough::
Let’s move on shall we?
CONCLUSION:
Studio
Gonzo has produced some technically stunning anime in the past (Ao no 6 Go
a.k.a. Blue Submarine 6, and Vandread) and I have eagerly awaited the
release of Full Metal Panic. As
I said before, the production quality of Full Metal Panic is the best
blending of cell and CG animation I’ve seen so far.
The only scenes that have anything approaching a harsh CG feel are
the underwater shots of the submarine Tuatha de Dannan.
Even these shots are rendered and filtered in a manner that looks
great. The soundtrack is also outstanding, and the opening theme
sung by Shimokawa Mikuni sounds best very loud. A lot of the background
music is done in R&B style, and while I don’t consider myself
“into” R&B, this music really sets the scenes up well.
If the Japanese production is so breathtaking, what
is it about the English dub that didn’t quite work?
The out of character voice acting was one thing, but the errors and
changes in the ADR script really lowered the dubs hit percentage.
There were too many bumbling lines, and worse, there were also
changes to lines that were completely out of character for the speakers,
and story. The painful script
is best illustrated in two scenes. In
the first, Mao says to Weber that she’d take him down (shoot him) for
his indiscretion. This was
dubbed as “I’ll pop one in your ass”.
In the second, Kaname and friends are discussing Sousuke’s
assignment to trash duty. The original dialogue of “I’m sure he really
believed the newcomer is in charge of garbage” is re-written as “…
he totally believed that stuff you made up about the new guy being trash
bitch…” Given these changes, I can only describe the script as
spanning “Pretty good to downright pathetic”.
Is it enjoyable? Perhaps some may find it so, but the dub fails to
grasp the overall feeling of the story and lacks continuity.
As I said before, the subtitles also had their share
of problems. Perhaps I’m
going to be splitting hairs here, but I feel that given the story leading
up to this example, it’s worth pointing out. In episode 2, there is a
scene where Kyoko and Kaname watch Sagara from the hallway.
Kyoko takes a picture of Sagara, and Kaname asks her why she’s
doing that. Kyoko replies to
Kaname:
“Sagara-kun miteru to, nan’ka genki ga deru jinai?”
This was translated in the subtitles as “Don’t
you think watching Sagara makes you cheerful?” And this was dubbed as
“…watching him sort of brightens my day, it’s like a breath of fresh
air”. Uhh… Nani?
These translations illustrate that the subtitle writer (there is a
separate translator), and ADR writer both failed to consider the story,
and used general meanings. Genki
is defined as “vigor; energy; vitality”.
Considering that the character of Sagara is anything but cheerful,
this scene should be translated as “Doesn’t watching Sagara energize
you?” This scene becomes
important as Kaname looks back into the room at Sousuke.
The expression on Kaname’s face is of one seeing from a new
perspective, and is excellently illustrated.
Given the connotations of the title of episode 1 (The one that
bothers me is a sergeant) and the interactions, it is in episode 2 that
Kaname realizes that there is more to Sagara than meets the eye.
Am I splitting hairs?
Perhaps, but the story has a lot of word play in it, and that
subtlety really can boost the enjoyment of the show.
I guess you could say that Full Metal Panic illustrates just how
difficult it can be to translate the Japanese language.
Beyond the language barrier the show is simply amazing. The
mechanical designs are excellent and look great; one thing I really
appreciate is the lack of uber-proportioned weaponry for the Arm Slaves.
Even the conventional machines of Mithril are highly advanced.
Technical types should note the stealth features of the advanced
Harriers in the Tuatha De Dannan hangar.
Details details!
Full
Metal Panic is appealing for what it has and for what it lacks. It packs great male characters with backbones for all,
beautiful and strong female characters that are still female, outstanding
mechanical designs, and great music into a superbly animated series.
It doesn’t have an animal mascot, a transforming schoolgirl
(well, one could argue that Kaname does transform), or super cute genius 10 year old (or 3000 year
old). If you have never seen
anime and like lots of action, this is a great place to start.
If you like robots, action and a dose of comedy with your anime,
this is a must have series. After
watching volume 1, you’ll have only one thing on your mind. When is volume 2 released!
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