Dear Internet,
Well,
there I go, all 24 episodes down for the first animated series of "Full
Metal Panic." All in all it was a
good show, but I am getting ahead of myself, and if I do that there is not much
reason to keep reading. For the most
part, the things that I went over in the last letter continued for the rest of
the series. The pacing was pretty constant
and continued to keep the tension high, short of one aspect. The characters are well developed. And every time the brass section plays in the
background music I feel that the theme from "The A-Team" is going to
start. There are only a few things that
I want to cover before moving on.
From
episodes 15-17, Sousuke is tasked with teaming up with Mithril soldiers from
the Indian Ocean division to track and kill Gauron. The story introduces about five characters at
this point. Each one is able to display
a different personality, albeit a bit shallow and lacking any sort of
depth. This is not something that I
fault the show for. With the limited
amount of time that the show gives them, it is not enough to make them anything
more than typical individuals. Not that
the show needed to with what it had in plan for them. By the end of episode 17, all the introduced
characters are dead. Even the newly
introduced sub-antagonist was killed off.
I do not mention this series of events to complain about their
unceremonious deaths or how the show minimalists their sacrifices during such
events. No, I mean to point it out about
the one problem that the show fails to overcome that is inherent with episodic
stories. The show is unable to create
tension when there is no threat to the safety of the main characters.
That
might be a loaded statement. Numerous
times Sousuke and Kaname have guns pointed at them, bullets fly near them, and they
are sometimes even injured. This goes
for the rest of the main cast. Even Kurz
gets heavily sliced violently by a combat knife at one point. Yet, no one has died. The only ones who are killed off are
introduced one or two episodes prior.
When the last arc finishes of the series, two members of Mithril are
laid to rest with honors. While their
deaths are shown to be significant to Tessa, the captain of the submarine, they
invoke little sympathy from the audience because the viewer has next to no
emotional investment in them. When they
are killed, there is a moment of suspense and twisted thrill because of the nature
of the scene, but there is little to no after effects. There is no sense of loss or even frustration
on the behalf of the viewer, only the characters on the show. Since only newly introduced characters risk
being horribly killed off, there is a protection bubble around the central
characters. The main cast then becomes
safe from dying and only risk being heavily injured. Once the viewer learns this, the jig is up.
 |
| She was so close to making "safe-zone" par, too. |
When a
character only needs to live three episodes to be in the safe zone, then the
show looses tension, something that is essential for its suspense filled
scenes. The threat of your favorite
character being killed off is a high level game to play, something that
"Panic" does not wish to play.
There is some amount of leeway allowed when it comes to this. The main two characters are allowed a free
pass because it would not be much of a story if the absolutely main characters
do not exist. But when the show does not
allow any death of a character that the viewer has gained emotional connection
to, then the times when the central cast is threatened becomes predictable, at
least to the point where the audience knows that they are going to escape. For example, Melissa Mao nearly dies two
times, and the second time is only so that she can suddenly reappear in the
nick of time. The show does a good job
of making the viewer wonder about her health, but once the pattern is
identified, then the suspense is gone before the show wants it to. Gauron, the show's antagonist,
"dies" about five times or so.
Even when he was introduced at the beginning of the show, he was thought
to be dead. Even now, I do not think he
is dead, despite his piloted robot self-destructing. Until someone identifies his dismembered
head, I will not think he is finished because people do not seem to die on this
show once they last three episodes.
And
where does he keep getting giant robots that have Lambda Drives? Is not that supposed to be some super special
rare technology that is still in prototype development? Yet the black market merchant is able to constantly
get a new one that not only has special non-explained technology that borders
on the supernatural but also is better than his last one. His goal was never really explained, other
than to mess things up to enable him to trade his illegal arms better. If he was after money, he already had enough
to buy giant robots with crazy technology.
Power never seemed to be what he was after, only a good fight. That is all he got by the end, so in a way he
got what he wanted, but I still feel that there was more to it than that.
 |
| Gauro's robot self-destructs. |
"Full
Metal Panic" is a good show worth watching, and it is difficult for me to
give this any definitive rating because there is still a second season/series that
is supposed to continue where this left off.
But the production times were obviously made far enough apart to mark
them as two different shows. If the show
ended right here, I would have to mark it 4 stars because of the lack of a
clear ending. Things are so ambiguous
and open ended at this point that there is no closure or even explanation for
many things. Who are the Whispered
exactly? Where did the Lambda Drive come
from? Where did Mithril come from? Why is a 16 year old given command of a
submarine despite her obvious inexperience in actual combat situations? I hope "The Second Raid" answers
them.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Tomorrow is "Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu."
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