T w e n t y S i d e d
The grand finale!
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More thrills!
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More fanservice!
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More romantic tension!
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More clichés!
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More Engrish!
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More gigantic robots punching each other!
Pretty much everything that I’ve read about the series is true: The ending is weak because of the limitations of the source material, the important mysteries are never explained, and the bad guy has all the personality and depth of a black-and-white cardboard cutout of Paris Hilton.
But I got my mecha fix, the good guys won, and the series didn’t commit any horrible crimes. It’s odd observing my reaction to the ending of this series as compared to Last Exile. Exile was a failure in my book. The production values were incredible and the world was facinating, but in the end the story didn’t work and so it all flew apart. They aimed high and missed the mark. Full Metal Panic aimed way, way, lower, but they did manage to hit their target. The result being that I’m coming away with a more positive view of FMP than I did of Last Exile. That doesn’t seem fair, but that’s how it worked out.
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Plus you get two more series of FMP afterward: the comedy series and the one that people seemed to generally like except said of the ending “the rest of the show should have been like this”.
Rather than Gonzo, the second two FMP were done by Kyo Animation, which is the studio that people like to fanboy over in a sickening way. FMP’s quality of production helped that reputation greatly.
I apologise: I didn’t lengthen “KyoAni” into “Kyoto Animation” as I should have. Somewhere, a zealot is loading his shotgun …
I think you’ll like Fumoffu, as well. They aimed still lower there – no serious content at all – and hit the mark very solidly. Rugby forever!
Damn. All I was going to say was, I thought it was cool when John Candy recited the H2O poem-thing on SCTV. That was a long time ago, though, so maybe stuff wasn’t all that cool then.
I didn’t know that bit was from SCTV. I swiped it off a tshirt at ThinkGeek.
The thing that made me roll my eyes about the ending was the “15 seconds” on the timer that lasted two and a half minutes. Some time padding is ok as you bounce around various viewpoints, but that’s just overboard. I totally lost my sense of tension, going, “Is it over yet?” several times.
Full Metal Panic:Second Raid was somewhat better, but still mostly unsatisfactory. There were ideas that were nice, parts that shone nicely, but many things just didn’t quite click.
Kaname, for example, is a stock archetype of anime. Violent – check. Tomboyish – check. Quick to anger and responds way out of proportion – also check. The relationship between Sosuke and Kaname develops in 2nd Raid and is a lot less obnoxious than the Ranma-Akane dynamic in several respects, but follows the same script a lot.
Teletha designed and built the Tuatha De Danaan. She’s the captain because her knowledge of keeping it running and abilities as a Whispered are integral to it, as far as the plot goes. i think the real reason is author steamrollering – she’s captain to make sure that the rank-conscious Sosuke will always consider her off-limits.
There is a strong tendency in anime for the nice girl (Teletha from FMP, Shinobu from LH, Hinata from Naruto, etc) to finish last and fail at their romantic attempts. Aoi being one of the few exceptions.