Damn. I mean damn. You would think bringing back an old series like this would begin to show its age but Full Metal Panic looks to have aged like fine wine. This episode really pulled off the desperate struggle Sousuke was going through and hit hard with action and the new serious tone it’s been going for. WIth this episode we finish animating the seventh volume of the series and it ended with quite a bang. The last few episodes have been a pure destruction of the school setting and lighthearted antics of Full Metal Panic. Nothing quite makes that hit home more that seeing Kyouko, almost the symbol of that side of the series, pierced through the stomach with debri. It looks very much like she will live but the moment she turned around and seeing that wound caused an emotional reaction in me I can’t quite explain. I wouldn’t even consider her to be a character I particular cared for in the original series but seeing that was akin to seeing a child mascot get mowed down in a hail of gunfire.
It most likely is a product of the nostalgia gathered after 12 years but that moment made you feel the exact same way as Sousuke did. Almost a desecration of something sacred. Though we did get one small callback to funnier times when the student council president references the dangerous gas of Fumofu’s last episode to get the school to evacuate. In the novel the villain actually remarks that it would be impossible to evacuate a school that fast and for any other school this would be true. But this school knows Sousuke and therefore when they say he’s done something insane then it’s time to run.
This episode was a confirmation that this series will completely abandon the lighthearted tone of old as Sousuke leaves the school to chase down Chidori. It’s admittedly a bit of a cliche for Chidori to give herself up to the enemy in order to save Sousuke but in this case I allow it as we got to see Sousuke lose badly for the first time in the series. This was him battered to the brink, with Arbalest destroyed and left down to nothing but a pistol, but still firing it in vain. On that note, the mecha CGI was beautiful, Belials animation makes look remarkably cool and you can truly feel the weight of these machines in their movement. Also in this episode we got the reveal of Wraith whom, to be blunt, I completely forgot about. It’s not that unbelievable to do so seeing as Wraith never really showed up until second raid and there she didn’t reveal herself and mainly fought on the sidelines. But I certainly did a double take seeing her disguise herself as a the teacher and suddenly kick all kinds of ass. I was half believing that the teacher was an undercover operative this whole time. The Tuatha de Danaan ramming a behemoth was also superb. Overall I am very satisfied with how Xebec has handled the adaption and I hope they can keep this up.
