Mon, 22 Aug 2005
Fumoffu? Not really a Full Metal Panic!
Full Metal
Panic? Fumoffu! is a school-life comedy with bits of action and even
bits of ecchi here and there. The main character is sgt. Sousuke Sagara, 17 years old
highly experienced soldier, and member of a secretive anti-terrorist
organization Mithril.
His job is to protect Chidori Kaname, a girl with
unspecified special abilities (explained further in the original Full Metal Panic
series). The series consists of episodes of Chidori and Sagara's school
life, which is full of Sousuke's misunderstandings of the real life.
This series won the Anime Reactor Community Award as a best comedy anime of the year 2003. This fact should send a clear message to those looking for something similar to the original FMP series.
FMP:Fumoffu has the same nice animation and sound as its prequel.
I liked the opening and ending songs, and the ending animation was nice and
well suited for the series. The story and character development? Well,
there are none. Fumoffu is just a bunch of episodes from Sagara's school
life, and can be seen as a side story to the FMP series. I am not saying
that every anime should have a sophisticated story, but those who haven't
should be interesting in some other aspect.
A nice example is
Azumanga Daioh - it has no story as well (the whole Azumanga series are
based on three-panel manga strips), but the series have quite intelligent
humor and a nice peaceful atmosphere. Fumoffu also has no story, but then
nothing special either. It is just another school-life comedy.
If you like long-blue-haired hyperactive girls, and if you do not expect much more, give Fumoffu a try. It is funny, after all. And both Chidori Kaname and Sousuke Sagara won the ARC awards for the best female and male character of the year 2003. If you are a fan of the original FMP looking for a sequel, you can easily skip Fumoffu, as it is something completely different: no mecha, less action, more comedy/parody, and my favourite character from the FMP series - captain Testarossa - appears in two episodes of Fumoffu only. FMP fans, watch FMP: The Second Raid instead (the first five episodes are available on fansub, and so far it looks very well).
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