フルメタル・パニック? ふもっふ

FULL METAL PANIC? FUMOFFU

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
October 18, 2003
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

It's back-to-school mayhem with Kaname Chidori and her war-freak classmate Sousuke Sagara as they encounter more misadventures in and out of Jindai High School. But when Kaname gets into some serious trouble, Sousuke takes the guise of Bonta-kun - the gun-wielding, butt-kicking mascot. And while he struggles to continue living as a normal teenager, Sousuke also has to deal with protecting his superior officer Teletha Testarossa, who has decided to take a vacation from Mithril and spend a couple of weeks as his and Kaname's classmate.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Sousuke Sagara
Tomokazu Seki
Kaname Chidori
Satsuki Yukino
Teletha Testarossa
Yukana
Melissa Mao
Michiko Neya
Kurz Weber
Shinichirou Miki
Bonta-kun
Tiffany Grant
Kyouko Tokiwa
Monica Rial
Andrei Kalinin
Akio Ootsuka
Atsunobu Hayashimizu
Toshiyuki Morikawa
Richard Mardukas
Andy McAvin
Mizuki Inaba
Jessica Boone
Pony-Man
Vic Mignogna
Shinji Kazama
Mamiko Noto
Ren Mikihara
Rie Tanaka
Yoko Wakana
Akiko Hiramatsu
Eri Kagurazaka
Rio Natsuki
Issei Tsubaki
Jun Fukuyama
Masatami Hyuga
Junko Noda
Mr. Mizuhoshi
Jason Douglas
Ena Saeki
Kira Vincent-Davis
Mari Akutsu
Mayumi Asano
Shiori Kudou
Hiromi Konno
Kozue Nishino
Hiromi Konno
Dana
Kazusa Murai
Maya Mukai
Shiho Kikuchi

Episodes (12)

Episodes are being prepared. Check back soon.

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REVIEWS

YuiHirasawa39
64/100
Genius and garbage - and a welcome relief from the rest of the series
I’ll try to keep this short and may revisit this as I have time.

Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu is an interesting anime because it marks the beginning of an era. As the first work from the groundbreaking Kyoto Animation studio, it represents the studio’s initial stretching of its legs and discovery of their signature style. FMPF features so much of the KyoAni feeling that we experience even today, from the music to the art style to the characters to the comedy. It’s almost its own history lesson into my favorite animation studio.

First – the bad. This show leans very heavily on fanservice, which I find to be really off-putting in a show that is designed to be comedic. It definetely finds its audience in those to whom crudeness is an appealing trait. What’s most frustrating is that there is very rarely an instance where this sort of use is actually beneficial to the comedic purpose of the show. Some of the most memorable episodes are those that lack any sort of fanservice and rather draw their magic from the character interactions. I found myself skipping almost entire episodes due to how frustrated I was with how heavily Fumoffu relied on sexualizing its characters and story. To be fair, however, as Kyoani’s very first work it’s conceivable they were attempting to not overstep the source material, and Shoji Gatoh’s work definetely targets a certain demographic in its crudities. However, I still found the sheer prevalence of fanservice in FMPF to be incredibly distracting, particularly when Kyoani demonstrated so well in the first two episodes that they could write an excellent comedy without such tactics.

Next comes with some of the characterization. One of the MCs, Kaname Chidori, draws far too deeply on the raw tsundere stereotype. I realize that this is the main purpose of the show – to contrast the two MC’s polarizing personalities – but there is so very little to redeem Chidori’s character in my mind that she almost becomes a drag on the series on the whole. While this is a pretty obvious carryover from the original Gonzo-produced series and is definetely dealt with in The Second Raid, her constant presence in Fumoffu is almost irritating. Meanwhile, almost the entire rest of the cast (with some exception) is quite forgettable.

Secondly – the good. When this show is good, it’s actually fantastic. The first half of the second episode is my favorite 15 minutes in just about all of anime, and is something I’ve rewatched an embarrassing amount of times. The humor, while some may find it slapstick or banal, is just the right amount of ridiculous that you almost can’t help but laugh. Kyoani leans heavily on their use of well-placed one-liners and repeating shots to really hone in a certain type of humor that’s hard to describe. If we are talking about humor, then we will need to talk about the single greatest part of the entire series (and while we’re at it, the anime as a whole), the MC.

Sagara Sousuke is perhaps my favorite male character in any anime, ever, and really makes the humor in this show what it is. Sousuke is military kid taken to the absolute extreme, lacking almost any sense of how to act as a normal member of the society in which he finds himself. Sousuke is the antithesis of the show’s unfortunate crudities, an absolute juxtaposition of complete innocence in spite of his war-torn mercenary upbringing. Sousuke’s solution to everything is always in sheer contrast to what the rest of the cast expects, and his utter resolution to his duty and way of work makes the show a joy to watch beyond just its comedic merit. If you don’t watch FMP for the fanservice, you watch it for Sousuke, and rightly so. While these aren’t developed (and intentionally so) in FMPF, he also experiences some of the most outstanding character development I’ve ever seen throughout the course of the franchise, but that’s a story for another day. Sousuke turns the anime from a stupid wannabe comedy into something that’s truly funny and enjoyable.

So what else can I say? There’s no timing, no plot, no character development, just either straight comedy, weird fanservice, or somewhere in between. There’s some really fantastic frames and some really lackluster ones at the same time. Watch the good episodes in this anime, and skip the ones that don’t cut it. Enjoy the absolutely fantastic opening and ending (seriously, these were the very first OP and ED this studio put out, and they are both amazing). Love this show for what it should be, because the rest of the franchise is very different.
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IsNotAChar
80/100
It was surprisingly funny
I was not the biggest fan of the comedy is season 1 of Full metal Panic, so I was a bit apprehensive about the prospect of a comedy focused spinoff. Despite this I found myself quite enjoying Fumoffu.

The comedy

Fumoffu is a comedy so the big question is: "was it funny?". Yes. Yes it was. (or at least I found it to be).

Considering I wasn't the biggest fan of season 1s comedy and found its comedy focused episodes to be weaker, this came as a bit of a surprise to me.

There were definitely episodes that were funnier then others and some that were a bit weaker, but on the whole it was just funny and sometimes very funny, the whole way through.

Comedy is subjective so that may not be the most informative point of praise. If you're apprehensive about watching the show (perhaps because you didn't click with season 1s comedy), then I'd recommend at least giving it a couple episodes to try it out.

Characters

The cast of characters is a bit uneven. Sousuke and Kaname are the main stars, and I'll get into them a bit later. Everyone else in their class is kinda meh though, except for maybe Kyouko. They feel a bit like they're just there to fill spaces when whatever the episode's comedic bit is needs a few more characters to work.

The student council president and secretary were alright, although Ren was mostly good in the yakuza episode and was otherwise kinda nothing. The other outside of class one off and recurring characters were all varying levels of entertaining.

I'll give special praise to Tessa and her episodes. I was a bit worried when she entered the picture as I'm not the biggest fan of love triangles (and even more worried when her second episode was a bathhouse episode with Kurz returning to the cast). but somehow despite her episodes containing multiple aspects that would normally not click with me, they managed to be funny.

Sousuke and Kaname

I'll just start by saying that their relationship is just flatout better in this than it was in season 1. In season 1 Kaname was a lot more tsun with very little dere if you catch my drift. As someone who's already not the biggest fan of tsundere's that was a little off putting. Here however the balance is a lot more palatable and their relationship was at times, dare I say, a bit sweet.

In general I just found myself liking Kaname a lot more here then in the main show/first season.

With Sousuke though, I feel he wasn't quite as genuine/real here. At times he felt a bit like a parody of himself almost, but not to the point where I'd say he was downright mischaracterized, more that they let comedy take priory over emotional storytelling. (a decision that worked, because he was consistently very funny). That said, he still gets some heartfelt and emotional moments - mostly to do with his relationship with Kaname.

Overall, Fumoffu did a good job on actually selling me on Kaname/Sousuke as a relationship.

Conclusion

And that's all I really have to say about Fumoffu. Being an episodic comedy spinoff, it's not really that deep. If you watched Full Metal Panic, you should definitely at least try out Fumoffu.
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