Review: FULL METAL PANIC!

Let's take a look at another notable mecha series from the 2000s that made a much more graceful transition into manga.

FULL METAL PANIC! (Furumetaru Panikku!), based on the light novels by Shouji Gatou with art by Retsu Tateo.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

Kaname Chidori is a popular, smart young girl who keeps busy with her duties as class representative.  Everything would be perfectly normal for her if not for the new boy in class: Sousuke Sagara.  As far as she knows, he's a weird military otaku who follows her everywhere and treats everything like a major threat.  What she doesn't know is that Sousuke isn't just some gun nut, but an actual sergeant for the secret military organization MITHRIL.  He and his teammates believe Kaname possesses a strange power that malicious forces want to exploit for their own purpose, and he is determined to protect her at all costs.

STORY:

Much like the light novel that inspired this (and the anime that followed hot on its heels), Full Metal Panic! is a bit bipolar.  Most of this volume could be considered a wacky high-school comedy, so much so that a couple of the stories here would end up in the explicitly comedic spinoff series Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu.  Yet that comedy is grounded by the MITHRIL elements and the more serious political drama that comes in tow with it.  

The comedy bits follow a familiar formula: Kaname does something normal, Sousuke overreacts (usually to the point of whipping out a gun or blowing something up), Kaname gets angry, repeat as necessary.  You'd think that this dynamic would get very old very fast, but Full Metal Panic! throws in just enough variety to keep things fresh.  Sometimes the threat is very real (if not quite as dire as Sousuke imagines), and Kaname does show genuine gratitude when Sousuke saves her.  Other times the focus is more on building the relationship between these two, even if Kaname remains reluctant to admit how she feels.  While there's not much here as far as actual mecha content, it's still a strong first volume thanks to the support of its leading pair.

ART:

Tateo's take on the characters strikes a nice balance between down to earth and goony.  I particularly like his take on Sousuke with his harshly lined eyes that really draw the reader's eye to his face at the rare points where his standard taciturn expression breaks.  He plays thing fairly safe when it comes to content (such as action or fanservice) and more technical elements such as panel layout and detail.  It's good solid work.

PRESENTATION:

Like a lot of ADV manga releases, this is presented in an odd size - not quite as small as your standard tankobon, but not as big as something you might see in something like Viz's Signature line.  My copy did have a printing error, where the majority of the first chapter was repeated after the first few pages of the second one.  

RATING:

The Full Metal Panic! might lean more on the comedy than the mecha at this point, but the main characters and the comedy itself is strong enough to merit some patience on the part of the reader.

This series was published by ADV Manga.  This series is complete in Japan with 9 volumes available.  All 9 were released and are currently out of print.