Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu

I’ll try to keep this short and may revisit this as I have time.

Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu is an interesting anime because it marks the beginning of an era. As the first work from the groundbreaking Kyoto Animation studio, it represents the studio’s initial stretching of its legs and discovery of their signature style. FMPF features so much of the KyoAni feeling that we experience even today, from the music to the art style to the characters to the comedy. It’s almost its own history lesson into my favorite animation studio.

First – the bad. This show leans very heavily on fanservice, which I find to be really off-putting in a show that is designed to be comedic. It definetely finds its audience in those to whom crudeness is an appealing trait. What’s most frustrating is that there is very rarely an instance where this sort of use is actually beneficial to the comedic purpose of the show. Some of the most memorable episodes are those that lack any sort of fanservice and rather draw their magic from the character interactions. I found myself skipping almost entire episodes due to how frustrated I was with how heavily Fumoffu relied on sexualizing its characters and story. To be fair, however, as Kyoani’s very first work it’s conceivable they were attempting to not overstep the source material, and Shoji Gatoh’s work definetely targets a certain demographic in its crudities. However, I still found the sheer prevalence of fanservice in FMPF to be incredibly distracting, particularly when Kyoani demonstrated so well in the first two episodes that they could write an excellent comedy without such tactics.

Next comes with some of the characterization. One of the MCs, Kaname Chidori, draws far too deeply on the raw tsundere stereotype. I realize that this is the main purpose of the show – to contrast the two MC’s polarizing personalities – but there is so very little to redeem Chidori’s character in my mind that she almost becomes a drag on the series on the whole. While this is a pretty obvious carryover from the original Gonzo-produced series and is definetely dealt with in The Second Raid, her constant presence in Fumoffu is almost irritating. Meanwhile, almost the entire rest of the cast (with some exception) is quite forgettable.

Secondly – the good. When this show is good, it’s actually fantastic. The first half of the second episode is my favorite 15 minutes in just about all of anime, and is something I’ve rewatched an embarrassing amount of times. The humor, while some may find it slapstick or banal, is just the right amount of ridiculous that you almost can’t help but laugh. Kyoani leans heavily on their use of well-placed one-liners and repeating shots to really hone in a certain type of humor that’s hard to describe. If we are talking about humor, then we will need to talk about the single greatest part of the entire series (and while we’re at it, the anime as a whole), the MC.

Sagara Sousuke is perhaps my favorite male character in any anime, ever, and really makes the humor in this show what it is. Sousuke is military kid taken to the absolute extreme, lacking almost any sense of how to act as a normal member of the society in which he finds himself. Sousuke is the antithesis of the show’s unfortunate crudities, an absolute juxtaposition of complete innocence in spite of his war-torn mercenary upbringing. Sousuke’s solution to everything is always in sheer contrast to what the rest of the cast expects, and his utter resolution to his duty and way of work makes the show a joy to watch beyond just its comedic merit. If you don’t watch FMP for the fanservice, you watch it for Sousuke, and rightly so. While these aren’t developed (and intentionally so) in FMPF, he also experiences some of the most outstanding character development I’ve ever seen throughout the course of the franchise, but that’s a story for another day. Sousuke turns the anime from a stupid wannabe comedy into something that’s truly funny and enjoyable.

So what else can I say? There’s no timing, no plot, no character development, just either straight comedy, weird fanservice, or somewhere in between. There’s some really fantastic frames and some really lackluster ones at the same time. Watch the good episodes in this anime, and skip the ones that don’t cut it. Enjoy the absolutely fantastic opening and ending (seriously, these were the very first OP and ED this studio put out, and they are both amazing). Love this show for what it should be, because the rest of the franchise is very different.