FULL METAL PANIC! INVISIBLE VICTORY

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NOVEL ActionFull Metal Panic!
ANIME ActionFull Metal Panic! The Second Raid

REVIEWS

• 

  maptop1029

  85/100
  Imagine having giant robots anime having a fourth seasons after 8 years , pog

  oh boy a fourth season of full metal alchemist panic!

  I'd be a lie if i said ''i've been waiting for this season forever'' since i watched this series not too long ago but it's still amazing to imagine that this series having a fourth season after 8 bloody years and by a different studio at that .

  This season is about Amalgam not kidding around anymore and shit be getting real. Mithril and Amalgam goes into a full on clash.
  On the other hand Kaname is in danger . Because she is a Whispered , amalgam is attempting to capture her . Therefore she can no longer live her peaceful nichijou life in her highschool .

  As always , the romance between Kaname and Saucekey is growing , evolving and is as charming as ever. Seeing their romance develop throughout the very first season until now make their love seems pretty genuine.
  Aside the romance ,they also receive a good amount of character development as well .
  I really liked Kaname showing signs of fear and regret when seeing some military members hurting themselves , sometimes even dying in the process trying to protect her . Seeing her trying to cope with it during this season was really interesting.

  We are also exploring , in this season , a new land . NAMSAC. Which is a small but corrupted country ,principally ruled by money over order . There we meet new and really cool characters , like nami (orange haired kaname lol).

  As always , this season is really freaking hype ,not wasting any time . The amount of stuff that is going on , the plot twist , and the run of the mill action makes this season a really great entertaining binge .they also foreshadow quite a bit throughout the season which makes the plot twist not feel like asspulls .

  This season is being animated by studio Xebec , famously known to animate i can't believe this hentai is in shounen jump ; to love ru ,rather than kyoto animation this time . The animation quality is still pretty good .Albeit , compared to the previous seasons , the robots are in cgi now (ah hell no , not cgi , me and my homies hate cgi ). But the cgi for the robots is decent to good , it's surprisingly not horrible and you get used to it after a while . But except the robots , everything is still good old 2d and the art for the 2d parts looks really good and clean , the art quality is maybe the same or a little bit better than kyoto's animation but this is natural due to the time of both the production of both anime The animation is overall not as good as second raid ,there's not really any noteworthy sakuga moment , but it is still good .It isn't really a huge downgrade like you'd expect because of the change of studio.

  The dub is pretty great , in fact , the whole dub of full metal panic is in my opinion better than it's sub counterpart and experiencing it in dub is also better due to the nature of the series . The scripting incorporates well english slang that it seems that this series was just made to be in english , the dub is just that good. And even after multiple years , funimation brought the whole squad back for this dub and it was really good.

  The opening ''even.. if'' and the ending ''yes'' both performed by Tamaru Yamada are both bangers .Especially the ending song which i have one word to say for it ; yes. They also reuse some of the old classic ost of the previous seasons , which might be a nostalgic touch for a lot of people. I know for me , i really liked it .

  Overall this season is really good , seeing bowser (Amalgam) trying to capture princess peach(Kaname) with mario (sausoukay) trying to protect her is really cool . This season is labelled by full metal panic fans as''the beginning of the end' or whatever .Insinuating that shit goes down harder in later seasons and this was just the introduction. This really makes me look forward for the next season (that will probably not happen seeing how fmp is no longer as popular as it was) . Really cool. Pretty great series as well.

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• 

  YuiHirasawa39

  60/100
  An upgrade from the first season and a downgrade from the other two. I hope you like CGI.

  Note: SPOILERS below.

  This review is a continuation of my discourse regarding the animated adaptation of Shoji Gatoh’s best-known work. The first season, the original Full Metal Panic! from 2002, was created by Gonzo and suffered from various issues in terms of art, characterization and pacing, redeemed only by a good soundtrack and excellent MC. Kyoto Animation took over the project for their inaugural work, FMP Fumoffu, in 2003. This show departed drastically from the military themes of the original adaptation, preferring instead slapstick humor portrayed through the daily lives of the protagonists. Kyoani also took on the subsequent season, The Second Raid, in 2005. While this season suffered from some of the weaknesses of its predecessor, I found it far preferable to the original Gonzo offering, particularly within the final few episodes. Now, 13 years later, a fourth season is released, this time produced by Xebec. Full Metal Panic! The Invisible Victory would have been a season long-awaited by fans, but I’m honestly not sure if any fans of this series really exist in this day and age. Unfortunately, I don’t see this season as changing that any time soon. For the purpose of this review, I’ll be referring to this show as S4, with Panic!, Fumoffu and The Second Raid comprising S1, S2 and S3 respectively.

  I’ll go through as always. For a season plagued with weak characters and mediocre plots, the soundtrack has always been one of the high points for me. I’m not exactly sure why, but I continue to return to S3’s OST, which I felt captured the military intrigue and daily life of Sousuke and his friends in a way that the storytelling never really did. Even the first season’s soundtrack still holds up decently well almost 20 years later, with a particularly memorable opening. Fumoffu, in particular, does so even better, with one of the best OP/ED combinations that Kyoani has ever produced. Unfortunately, S4 has what I believe to be by far the weakest soundtrack from the entire series. I think this is partially due to the mediocrity of the opening and ending, both of which really failed to capture me in the same way. The departure from Mikuni Shimokawa, whose voice I always associated inadvertently with Full Metal Panic, was probably the most surprising to me. Frustratingly, it’s the (overused by still welcome) return to the original OP, “Tomorrow,” at the end of S4 that I found most memorable, and that’s a shame.

  There’s no use putting this topic off any longer, so let’s just jump straight into it here. The animation is definetely the most polarizing aspect of the whole series, and for good reason. If you’re like me, and the excellent art and animation of S3 is still fresh in your mind, the gratuitous use of CGI in S4 may seem excessive, even distracting. Now I know the topic of CGI in anime is a much wider matter of debate, so I prefer to use this test – does it help to tell the story? Drive the characterization? Engulf the viewer? Unfortunately, in the case of The Invisible Victory, I can say it does none of these. I found myself looking at the animation more than watching the show, at least for the first few CGI-heavy scenes. I will admit that while I got used to it fairly quickly, this was less due to seamless integration and more due to just how many of them there are. If you’re a true CGI-hater, I’d avoid this series, but it’s worth saying that my taste is based on a fairly limited sample size. The rest of the series is…just OK. I think my biggest problem with it lies in the fact that it was aired a full 15 years after the preceding season, but I would still choose S3 art and animation any day. Oh, well.

  So, the soundtrack is lackluster and the art is alternatively lackluster and distracting in my mind, so what does this series have going for it? I’m not going to make this review another Sousuke-centric fest, but I’ll give him a fair share. The military kid is back and back to his old tricks, albeit this time at arguably higher stakes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love Sousuke, and I watch this series almost entirely for him. While his character development in S4 doesn’t live up to the latter portion of The Second Raid, he does get some good moments in this series. Unfortunately, most of these are centered toward the beginning – this is really one of the only times in the series he admits to being scared and needing help from others. While Xebec doesn’t really show these significant moments in a particularly meaningful way, I appreciate that they exist, and how they are at least some continuation of his revelation at the end of S3. The bulk of the show, however, remains limited in Sousuke explicit development, which isn’t a bad thing, but I will admit that the subtle aspects of his “suggested development” are less obvious in this season than any other (excepting, maybe, S1). I’m OK with it, though as Sousuke somehow manages to be more of a badass in this season than any other. Leave the country and travel the world looking for even inklings of his charge’s whereabouts? He’s got that. Get mortally wounded and still set up an ambush for his assailant? He does that too. Literally invoke the power of the United States to procure military assets? A bit hard to believe, but yeah. If nothing else, Xebec realizes who the real main attraction of FMP is, and they’ve given him majority screen time accordingly. Can’t complain about that.

  Unfortunately, and in character for this franchise, the rest of the characters fall more flat. I’m pretty sure that you can’t write a worse antagonist than Gauron, the villain in S1 and (arguably?) S3, and thankfully he didn’t make another appearance in this season. The new antagonist, Leonard, is a slightly more nuanced baddie, definetely preferable to his “evil just because” predecessor. However, he’s fairly distant from the events of S4, preferring to leave the active villainous roles to Kurama, who somehow manages to be even more generic than the whole bunch. I suppose that Kalinin’s defection is supposed to be the series’ major pro/antag twist, but I found it so incredibly predictable I kept scratching my head as to why they portrayed it as some big surprise. Indeed, most of the villainous activity in S4 seems just to antagonize Sousuke and get more opportunities for epic battle scenes rather than actually pursue a motive. It’s for this reason that I really wish they had dug deeper in to Leonard’s character – we get a brief snippet of this in the graveyard scene in the very first episode and again in the final episode, but relatively little in-between.

  Next, to move on to a character I’ve been plenty vocal about in the past. I think this season is definetely the best for Kaname Chidori, who is touted as a main character but is anything but. This is really the first season where she manages not to be the most annoying figure in the entire show, though arguably because she’s quite literally missing for the bulk of it. I will admit that she actually manages to show some maturity in the first few episodes – I’m grateful for this, as it shows that her character development in the latter part of S3 hasn’t gone to total waste. Her initiative to actually work together with Sousuke, rather than berate him endlessly, is a far step above what we saw in all of S1 and S2. However, I’m pretty unsatisfied with the way that her powers as a Whispered seem to be manifest here – in S1 and S3 they’re shown as a subconscious knowledge of Black Technology, here they show up in a sudden ability to create perfect RF-jamming algorithms. It’s almost as if Gatoh, finally realizing how weak of a female character he wrote, decided that making her a sudden god-tier programmer would solve everything. Again, while I like her better this season, I can’t help but think it’s kind of telling that the show is better with her mainly absent.

  The rest of the characters are equally confusing for me. I don’t dislike Testarossa, and appreciated some of her good moments this season, but she seemed only tangentially connected to the main story in S4. Do I prefer following Sousuke rather than her and the rest of the Tuatha de Danaan? Definetely…but I think that the show could have really benefited by using her relationship with her brother to draw out the villain’s characterization more. It’s also pretty funny that she doesn’t seem to gain deity-scale coding skills here, as that would be the logical conclusion from being a Whispered too, right? As for the rest of her crew, I really don’t have much of a comment. As usual, Mao and Weber really only show up for opportune battle moments, somehow staying alive as their fellow mecha pilots constantly die around them. What can I say, this is a mecha show.

  With that, I’ve said all that I want to about S4, with the final remark that I do appreciate how it does a better job than most of its predecessors at keeping fanservice and crudities to a minimum, and it really isn’t until the Americans show up that this becomes a real problem. In essence, The Invisible Victory is just another installment. The soundtrack is average, the animation is a bit polarizing, and the characters are generally so-so. But it is another season of Sagara Sousuke, and for that reason alone, I liked it. At this point, I’m seriously doubting if any other studio is ever going to touch this franchise, and surprising even myself, I do hope we get a final season.

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• 

  IsNotAChar

  80/100
  It was a good half of a season

  I have conflicted feelings towards Invisible Victory. There's a lot that really works in it, but at the same time there are a few major issues and some minor ones, as well as one point that's not really the show's fault but is still something that impacts how much I can recommend this show.

  I'll start by getting a couple of potential deal breakers out of the way.

  The CGI elephant in the room

  If you really don't like CGI, then you will be disappointed. Unfortunately the mecha (and some other stuff) is CGI this time. I found the CGI wasn't terrible, but wasn't great either. It definitely detracted from the experience, but wasn't a deal breaker for me personally.

  In my opinion the CGI reaches its lowest point in episode 2, so if you're not sure how you feel about it then maybe give the show 2 episodes at least. If you can tolerate it at its worst, it should be fine.

  Do you like reading?

  Invisible Victory adapts volumes 7-9 of the light novel, leaving 10-12 still to be adapted. Without spoiling, I'll say that the ending of IV is not very satisfying as a conclusion. Unfortunately as it's been 8 years since IV released and I'm not aware of any next season in the works, it's looking less and less likely that we'll actually get an anime follow up. If you want an actual conclusion, you'll basically have to read either the light novels or the manga adaptation.

  If you really don't want to do that, then Second Raid is honestly more of a satisfying stopping point.

  What did I like?

  Considering that IV adapted 3 volumes (for reference, FMP 1st season adapted 3 with twice the episodes, and Second Raid adapted 2 with the same amount of episodes), it's pretty impressive how well it all fits together. Can you tell it was a bit rushed at times? Yes, especially in what was adapting what I assume to be the middle volume of 3 adapted. But at other times that lightning fast pacing really worked for it.

  Now I'll just go over each of the 3 segments/arcs and whatever I have to say about them.

  The first third

  The first 4 episodes are probably my favourite bit of all of Full Metal Panic. That's even with me thinking the CGI on episode 2 was a bit bad.

  The premise of the season is effectively: "Now Amalgam are taking the gloves off, it's getting serious", and IV 100% delivers on this premise. Leonard walks in, reintroduces himself as our new main villain, and immediately has 10 times the presence of Gates.

  Even despite my general distaste for the decline of 2d Mecha in favour of CG, the action could be pretty good at times.

  Now for some more spoilers talk:

  The two parts that make up the first third are the Tokyo battle and the island battle. I like them both for some of the same and some different reasons.

  Starting with tokyo. The tokyo battle is kinda the culmination of the running theme in FMP of Sousuke (and to a lesser extent) Kaname being caught in between two worlds. The military conspiracy mercenary world and the world of an everyday highschool student.

  Whereas second raid explored this by forcibly separating these worlds, with Sousuke ordered away from tokyo and back into being a full time soldier, Invisible Victory takes the opposite approach. The Mithril/Amalgam conflict bursts into Sousuke and Kaname's school life and destroys it. This is kinda perfect as there was always this general idea that things continuing as they were was just not sustainable and that eventually someone was going to get hurt, so when it happens (and Kyoko does get hurt) it both feels completely expected and like a sudden tragedy.

  Neither Sousuke or Kaname take this well of course, and Kaname surrendering herself is partly caused by this. Kaname kinda just gives up, to the point of openly contemplating suicide later in the season. This whole battle in tokyo, everyone who got injured (kyoko and Sousuke especially), it's all over her. It's unsurprising, but still sad, that she starts to think the world would just be better off without her.

  For the island battle, it was just good action with some good character moments. The behemoth's showing up felt like when an early game boss comes back as an ordinary enemy, but seeing as there was no lambda driver on their side the behemoth's (and all of amalgam's forces really) still posed a significant threat.

  The island being under assault (and also the school in tokyo) were also good, similarly to Gauron's submarine takeover in season 1, because they took a safe place (school, island base) and made it into a battlefield, which just automatically raises the stakes.

  I also just like desperate feeling or losing battles, they are fun to watch and can have great tension.

  The middle bit

  The second set of 4 episodes were generally good, but a bit rushed.

  
  I get what they were going with, but it was still such a sharp tonal and mood shift to go from episode 4s defeat in tokyo to episode 5s mech arena fighting. Reminded me a bit of going from the end of Zeta to the start of ZZ.

  The main thing I'll say regarding this set of episodes is that I think it needed 2 more episodes to really pull off what it wanted to do. That, and the whole arc feels a bit like a "side quest" and kinda interrupts the flow a bit.

  As it is Nami gets just enough to make her death hit you, but only barely just enough. In fact all of the characters from this section kinda just have "just enough" setup and characterisation to work. Considering how few episodes they had to work with, they probably did the best they could.
  

  The (not) end

  As mentioned previously, the ending is not satisfying as a stopping point. This is the main reason I'm conflicted over this section. Otherwise I found the final third to be good, but a bit unfocused (and a bit rushed). It honestly felt more like a setup, then a resolution, which makes it kinda awkward as an ending.

  
  While section 2 was focused almost entirely on Sousuke, everyone gets some screen time here. This is mainly why the section feels both rushed and a bit unfocused. There's a lot of people vying for attention and a lot of them don't quite get enough.

  Kaname, as mentioned, is not feeling great. Her focus is mainly on feeling like she'd just rather not exist and feeling a mixture of hope and despair as Sousuke comes to rescue her because he's again putting himself through hell on her behalf, she feels his suffering (and the suffering of his comrades, innocent bystanders and even enemies) is a direct consequence of her continued existence.

  However she eventually regains a will to live and it works for me. I like her arc this season. It was good.

  Sousuke goes through less dramatic character changes this season, but I still really like him as a character.

  I also like Tessa and the TDD mithril remnants in this section. I don't have much more to say about them, beyond that their initial scheme with Tessa and the hospital was great.

  The groups who needed some more screentime possibly was Wraith and Co resurrecting Al, and Amalgam. As it was Wraith and Co were another recipient of the bare minimum amount of time given for their role in the story, it was enough, but barely. Amalgam, or rather the leonard faction within amalgam (including Kalinin/Kalium), just didn't get enough screentime. I think that even 1 more episode would've been enough for part 3 in order to resolve this issue for me.

  Now, my big issue, how unresolved it all is. I was thinking that we'd get more of an interaction between Sousuke and Leonard than we did. We get one brief exchange of words, that's it. Then leonard is out of action after getting shot by being an overconfident dumbass trying to prove a point (he succeeded in proving that point though).

  Instead our final exchange of Sousuke vs behemoths end up being more of just a demo of what his new AS and Al can do. Like ending with a tutorial level, it's just not satisfying.

  I do like Sousuke and Kaname's ending conversation at least, but that's a consolation prize compared to having no real resolution.

  Sousuke's whole quest this season was to rescue Kaname and by the end she's still in need of rescue. The whole third third feels like setup for the grand final battle to come. A grand final battle that at this point I'm not expecting to see an anime (although I would love to be proven wrong on this point).
  

  Conclusion

  While I really enjoyed Invisible Victory, for the reasons stated above I can't 100% recommend it. That said, if you've enjoyed FMP so far and are willing to read to see the conclusion, I would recommend watching Invisible Victory.

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