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Hey, hiding in smoke is, like, Uso’s thing, man! You can’t just go stealing your dead co-worker’s gimmicks!

So I love Full Metal Panic. It’s basically like someone took the handful of unintentionally hilarious scenes from Gundam Wing with Heero Yuy and Relena in high school and made a whole series about it. Granted, in Full Metal Panic, Sagara Sousuke is in charge of bodyguarding Chidori Kaname and not telling her to go die in a hole. I’m a sucker for fish out of water scenarios, as well as action comedies, and anything mecha, so I don’t know if there’s an anime that feels more tailored to my tastes.  Full Metal Panic does tend to drop off the radar for many years at a time, but whenever it re-emerges,  I get hyped, and it feels like every new season is better than the last. The latest, season 4, titled Invisible Victory, feels like it took direct inspiration from The Winter Soldier, with fast, intense action sequences and knuckle biting tension. FMP has always been an action comedy with the tail end of each season dipping into some heavy drama, but IV just dives right into the deep end, and it might end up being my favorite anime of the year depending on how it plays out!

You can actually watch the entire first season of FMP on youtube for free!

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  • Jonathan B

    I feel obligated to start off by yelling. “First!”

  • Jonathan B

    Now that that’s out of the way….we see if Genchu’s warning comes quickly enough and is heeded for this not to be a one-on-one in short order. I am curious if the second panel is referring to Genchu’s level of skill or to a sword made of special materials in past.

    Can I natter on about something totally unrelated? I’m playing Thrones of Britannia Total War Saga now. I find myself hoping that the Total War Saga sub-brand does well enough to bring sequels, and I feel like feudal Japan might be an ideal future topic for the series. I realize Total War already has Shogun 2, which I quite like. But I feel like the loyalty/influence system from Thrones of Britannia would, with culture-appropriate modifications, actually prove an interesting foundation for a feudal Japan setting. I’m not very far in, so perhaps my attitude will change later, but I feel like it sets an unusually good balance between wanting your subordinates to be powerful and influential and also not wanting them to be so well known that they might suddenly want to be in your place. It’s certainly not the first Total War game to have a loyalty system, but so far it feels like a more intricate and realistic political simulation is under the surface than usual Total Wars. I’d be genuinely interested in seeing what they did with a feudal Japan version.

    • Little Kingsguard

      http://nn4b.com/comic/143
      Genchu has been known to cut straight through enemy swords. Honou-ko is probably making reference to that ability.

      • Wanderer

        And that Genchu’s never been the same since Hirotomo did a number on his sword arm. http://nn4b.com/comic/281

        • clogboy

          I forgot. Thought he was boasting about how much better his armor got.

      • Jonathan B

        Very good links, I’d forgotten about those scenes!

    • Kid Chaos

      Speaking of unrelated…Full Metal Panic is back, bitches! WOOHOO! How much do I love the dynamic between Sousuke and Kanami? Let me count the ways. They’re just too cute for words, and Kanami’s inability to tell Sousuke that she likes him just makes it cuter. Hopefully, they’ll finally stop dancing around each other and get down to business, “Darling in the FRANXX”-style (what, you haven’t seen the latest episode? Shame on you). 😜

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      I loved the original Shogun that started the Total War franchise, but I never picked up Shogun 2. By the time it came out, I’d kind of fallen off the RTS genre train (well, I realize Shogun is a combination of turn based and real time). Maybe if it pops up in a Total War Humble Bundle I’ll pick it up. Heck, maybe I already did and there’s an activation code just waiting to be used sitting in my purchase history.

      • Jonathan B

        If you do get back on the RTS train, take a look at Oriental Empires as well. It’s set in China rather than Japan, but I really liked it. One of the most interesting aspects was that it required you to keep balancing the loyalty of your commoners and nobles. And it went a step further than the typical unrest minus garrison math, in two ways for me:

        Firstly, if you did what I did and made the mistake of putting a garrison of commoner levies in a town that had commoner unrest, the commoner troops would not count much as a deduction to commoner unrest and were quite likely to join the uprising. I lost a half stack army and one of my best towns by overlooking that. So you had to garrison towns with uneasy commoners with noble army units and towns with unreliable nobles with commoner army units or garrison both with professionals once you could unlock/afford them.

        Secondly, the actual unrest math had a “local factors” score, which was completely unrelated to your actions. So in certain provinces that just had unhappy local events going on, you might find yourself having to spend extra money or tie down extra troops to keep them under control even though none of their unrest was your fault. The game didn’t go to the detail level of identifying what the factors were, but I always figured it was things like bandit troubles or local provincial conflicts between families, etc.

  • Spikesagitta

    Yeah, next is the solo fight we all want to see happen.

    • Not Real

      Speak for yourself! I’d much rather see the Solo fight with Greedo.

      • KungFuKlobber

        What fight? Han shot first.

        • Kid Chaos

          Damn straight! 😎

          • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

            I like where this thread went.

          • Xinef

            Isn’t it obvious Han is a descendant of Genchu?

            (or the other way around, depending how we interpret “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”)

  • Kid Chaos

    “Don’t kill him! That’s my job!” 😜

  • Nos Rin aka CTCO

    Honestly, I think my biggest issue with FMP, is well…
    there just wasn’t enough episodes. More hijinxes would have been great, and more mecha fights too.
    i’m glad the new season is finally coming out, but how long will I have to wait for a dvd with english?
    im too tired to read subtitles.

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      If your biggest issue is there should be more of it, that’s a pretty good issue to have! Hopefully a dub will come along soon, it’ll probably need to finish its seasonal run first, though.

      • Kid Chaos

        The dub is coming along slowly but surely; just check your friendly neighborhood fansub site (for all you wimps who can’t hack the subtitles). 😎

      • Nos Rin aka CTCO

        Yup. basically.
        I mean I always feel icky when characters die.
        and then you have that one bastard who never seemed to die and it’s like, fuck. die already.
        oh and that last villain. SIGH.
        but ya, overall I was quite impressed with it and am always happy to see more.

        I’ve found a lot of pilots for old animes that should have had at least 12 episodes and then I find 26+ episode animes that WASTE, UTTERLY WASTE their 26 episodes.
        Love Hina, which I honestly HATE that manga now, despite all the praise it got. (good anime theme song though. that’s the only nice thing I’ll say about the manga or anime)
        and a worse chrime of wasted potential was Louie the Rune Soldier. SO MUCH wasted potential.

    • purplelibraryguy

      I’m generally in the “prefer subtitles” tribe myself. There’s something about being able to hear them getting upset in Japanese that works better for me.

      • Nos Rin aka CTCO

        to each their own of course. I just like to focus on the visuals then on the subtitles. of course my concussion is what really ruined it for me, I used to do all of those things.

  • http://thishasbeenatest.tumblr.com Fred

    Still eagerly waiting for Cho and the other religious dudes to walk into a bar…

  • foducool

    you gotta watch fmp fumoffu too, it’s pure comedy gold

    • http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai

      I love Fumoffu!

      • foducool

        I personally loved the gundam seed parody episode
        I laughed so fucking hard my grandpa who lived on the floor below went and asked me if everything was alright XD

  • Purphoros

    Just gotta love comic time. Look how they can even hold a short conversation during the recovery frames of honou-ko’s move…

    • jwkovell

      That’s nothing!

      Before the volume 1 book re-write, Yori managed to speak an entire sentence in the time it took a beam of light to travel from Ryoku’s sword to Yori’s eyes.

      • clogboy

        Just leaving this here… y’know, for posterity and stuff.
        https://youtu.be/YOfqyCu10r8

      • Turul

        Yori is officially faster than light!

  • Sunwu
  • Tim “Azur3flame” Eldred

    WHY DOES HE THINK THAT IS AN OPENING? THAT IS CLEARLY NOT AN OPENING! Seriously, Masuhiro. You know better! Also, you were just told this guy uses special armor. Why aren’t you reading this situation correctly?!?!?!?!?!

    • Xinef

      I can only hope that Masuhiro is actually a good swordsman and right now he is trying to fool Honouko into thinking that he is about to attack, while actually he is going for a feint, to create a real opening for Genchu. Or something like that.

      • Brandenfascher

        Since there aren’t any ladies around, we could probably assume he’s competent right now.

        Unless, y’know, Honou-ko is actually a lady.

      • clogboy

        I hope that. Because right now, Honou-Ku’s strongest resemblance is that of a springloaded meat grinder. And he’s primed for mincing right now.

  • http://www1.flightrising.com/clan-profile/155294 umbrallycan

    I keep clicking on next and was confused why didn’t it take me to the next one when I realized I reached the end for now.. *sigh* It’s time for the long night..

    Or maybe this is the perfect time to go back and upvote all those funny puns and SW, Monty Python, Princess Bride, Spaceballs etc. references. XD

  • purplelibraryguy

    Could never really get into mecha stuff, myself. The only one I ever really liked was Patlabor, and it is . . . atypical. I miss Patlabor. I want to see the food episode again, or the one where they had the brawl in the bathhouse and everything was going flying including the little black “censor the naughty bits” circles. Or one of the ones where unexpected characters get development.

  • Darth Morbose

    Somehow, after that “AN OPENING!” line, I want to see his sword replaced with a giant can opener as he swings. I dunno, it feels, appropriate, somehow. I have a strange sense of humor…

  • fantastory

    We are still missing the frame when Cho points at people with a rifle.

  • RickRussellTX

    … talk during the fighting it is very distracting!

  • tinwatchman

    I like both Kaname and Sagara over Relena and Heero, honestly.

  • Frank Royce Harr

    It’s not like Uso’s using it any more.

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