[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU episodes 1-3: Full Metal Pandemonium
I never could make up my mind about Full Metal Panic!. Sometimes it was a mecha drama with brilliantly animated scenes of combat in which the heroes of the peacekeeping organisation Mithril blasted the hell out of terrorists and saved the day; at other times it was a teen comedy in which one of the aforementioned Mithril agents was sent undercover at a high school to protect one of the students from an organised crime ring. I enjoyed the more serious side but even so the show as a whole was a bit inconsistent and lacked focus. Recently a spin-off series, Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU has been given a UK DVD release and promises to deliver the comedy aspects of the show without the mecha storylines appearing at all.
As much mindless as FMP!’s action scenes sometimes were the comedy element never held as much appeal to me. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that the slapstick comedy works better on its own than I ever dared hope. Maybe it’s some fresh scriptwriting or, more probably, the simpler setup, but FUMOFFU is one heck of a lot of fun. Stripped down to being a simple high school comedy it is downright hilarious: the undercover agent, Sousuke Sagara is, as he was in the original FMP series, trying to protect the fiery Kaname Chidori with precious little experience of civilian life. This ‘fish out of water’ premise is the main reason why FUMOFFU is so laugh-out-loud funny: Sousuke doesn’t know any better than to treat a high school like a battlefield, which creates a string of gun-toting, explosive-rigged misunderstandings.
As in the original series it is Kaname, the supposed ‘victim’, who has to pick up the pieces of such situations - often literally! Her quick temper that results from Sousuke’s well-meaning but totally inappropriate attempts to protect her no longer come across as insensitive or out-of-place; in fact her overreactions are completely justified. Because of this she isn’t nearly as annoying as I remember her and is much funnier for it.
Of course comedy is subjective at the best of times, and if you’re not a fan of high school slapstick as a genre you won’t get much out of this. On the other hand, it is very good as far as that sort of show is concerned and you don’t even need to have seen FMP! to appreciate it. The only downside is the low episode count but at least two out of the three eps are split into two separate stories to prevent the fast paced gags outstaying their welcome.
Overall I found this disc to be completely daft but consistently enjoyable, and will be looking forward to the next instalment. I’m not yet sure why it’s called ‘FUMOFFU’ though.
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