Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid

Information of Anime

Sagara Sousuke has been guard Chidori Kaname for a long time now & there hasn't been any activities of any organizations targeting her.  Because of this, Mithril has decided call him back since there is a new threat out there now.  There is a secret organization that has technology that is almost the same as Mithril, & possibly better.  In order to fight them, Mithril pressures Sagara in riding the Arbalest once again.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The story shows Sagara still guarding Chidori.  Most of the time, he disappears off for his mission, which causes his teacher & Chidori to worry if he can past the year.  Sagara & Mithril are fighting a new organization that has advance technology that is close or better than Mithril's.  That organization is Amalgam.  Because of it's powers, Mithril has order Sagara to pilot the Arbalest since he's the only one that can activate the Lambda Driver.  As if Sagara's problem with the Arbalest isn't enough he has problems leaving Chidori.

Because the top officials in Mithril see no threats on Chidori, they issued an order for Sagara to stop his mission in protecting Chidori & cease contact with her.  They plan to keep the other guardian code named "Hunter" that came with Sagara to continue watching Chidori from a distance.  It seems that Sagara has started to get use to a peaceful high school life & is close to Chidori.  Upset about this decision, Sagara decides to follow his orders.  When Sagara leaves, Chidori gets scared as an assassin named Yu Fan tries to kill her.  There she meets a man named Leonard Thestarossa and starts to talk negativity about Sagara abandoning her.  However, she talks back to defend Sagara.  After Leonard leaves, Chidori continues to be scared.

Meanwhile, Sagara & Mao are sent to Hong Kong for an assignment.  An arm slave Venom piloted by Yu Lan is causing destruction there, which causes the Hong Kong governments to think about splitting into two.  The two governments decided to make a deadline in order to resolve this problem.  Sagara still feels down about leaving Chidori & is no longer need to pilot the Arbalest.  Upset about Sagara's lack of enegry, Mao tells him to leave the mission if he continues to act this way.  Sagara agrees, which surprises Mao since she didn't really mean it, & abandons his mission. 

While wandering the empty streets of Hong Kong, he finds a secret message in a newspaper.  He decodes it, which leads him to Gaulm (who should have been dead a few times already) heavily wounded in bed.  He tells Sagara about Amalgam, which tests its technology in combat in various parts of the world, & how disappointed he is about him.  He tells Sagara how he looked like a Saint to him & he won't mind getting killed by him.  Ever since he joined Mithril, he's grown soft about trust & friendship.  Gauln finishes it off by telling he killed Chidori which isn't true.  Sagara shoots him & discovers a bomb under Gauln's bed.  Sagara jumps out of the window as the bomb explodes.

Feeling all hope is lost, Sagara doesn't care about what happens from now on.  His subordinates tries to get him to help the others who are pursuing the Venom with the Arbalest that was sent down to him.  Suddenly, Chidori (who was sent to Hong Kong but "Hunter") comes & knocks some sense into Sagara.  Meanwhile, Mithril tries to capture the Venom until Gates & his crew show up in Venoms & kills off Yu Lan.  Sagara suddenly appears & has complete control with the Lambda Driver & destroys all of Gates & his crew.  He manages to control the Lambda Driver as he finally solves his problems.  After the mission is over, Sagara leaves the scene to fulfill another mission.

In the end, Sagara makes demands to continue going to school while piloting the Arbalest with half of his normal salary which was accepted.  Sagara has become more loose than before & calls his captain Tessa now.  Chidori however continues with her life with Sagara as they did before in school, but still keeps her feelings to herself.

My Personal Review

Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid is quite different from Full Metal Panic!  It's more bloody & action paced.  People that don't like this stuff may want to stay away from this show.  It has necks sliced open & body parts flying off.  Plus, there is actually nudity in this.  I don't remember if nipples are drawn in.  This show really has pushed it's audience rating up.

I don't call Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu the second season since it's really a side story.  Full Metal Panic! is based from a novel.  Fumoffu is from a manga.  TSR is most likely based on the novel since it has Galam in it.  The manga doesn't have him.  The novel is more on the serious side with a plot, while the manga is pure entertainment.

Animation

Everything are the same from the past Full Metal Panic shows.  No surprises here.  The colours are bright, the background is breathtaking with dull & light colours, & the animation has those quick actions where Chidori punishes Sagara.  What's different here from the past shows is the Arm Slaves.

GONZO did the first Full Metal Panic! show & are heavily specialized in 3D animation in their mechas & machinery.  Kyoto Animation did TSR, so the Arm Slaves are a bit different.  But, they look good here.  The animation flow is good with the AS running & jumping around.  What might be missing is the 3D CGs.  The ones here are 2D designs, but they aren't bad.

Sound       

The sound effects are pretty crisp.  No fuzzes as the gun fires & bomb explosions are loud & clear  Also, the chopping & snapping of body parts give you that chill down your spine.

The voice actors are the same here, which is good.  The voices of the new characters aren't bad as well.  They fitted their characters very well.

The music was good as most of the background music are the same from Fumofu.  The opening & ending themes are nice, but I liked the ending theme bettter.  I still like the  Fumofu ones & it seems that Mikuni is starting to lose some touch in her songs.

Story

This one is strongly based on character development & I like it.  We see Sagara changing his character a lot here.  He's smiling more often.  He's gone from a Saint to a somewhat a normal civilian with feelings.  Chidori's character is still development & I felt there was a lot in this show.  You can clearly see her liking Sagara more from the past two shows.  Also, we see her wanting Sagara to be by her side more & more.

As for the pace, it was surprisingly stable.  It wasn't fast or slow even towards the end.  I was shocked to see that it was a 13 episode show when I saw the preview at the end of episode 12.  The writers probably didn't want to make the same mistake with the firs FMP! & decided to end the show at 13.  Although I want more, this is actually a good move by the writers.  The show won't drag on with episodes that would lose interest.

Overall Conclusion

Full Metal Panic! TSR is a very good series.  Aside from the high level of gore killings, it has a very good storyline.  I highly recommend watching this.  If you haven't seen the first Full Metal Panic show, I suggest you watch that first to understand what's going on.  Fumoffu won't do you any good here.

FMP! TSR receives a 9.5/10.  The excellent character development storyline is very enjoyable & interesting to watch as we see Sagara go through some changes.  Also, the pace of the storyline is very steady.  The slight problem with this series is the amount of talking it has.  The meat of  the show mostly comes from the conversations.  Although there are action & battle scenes in it, the key elements of the plot are in words.  Some people may find it boring with the amount of conversation that goes on in the show.  Also, bringing Gauln again may really piss people off again.

The way the show ended, it won't be a surprise to see another installment from the series.  It has left room to make another storyline.