Stanford Newtype Anime

We are finally given what we always wanted: a closer look at the chemistry between Sousuke and Chidori.  I just wish that the circumstances could have been better.
We open up on Sousuke reporting in for his exams (late).   Despite having previously dismantled his sensei’s automobile, he is allowed to take the tests.
At some point Kyouko, in her Japanese school girl style, notices that Sousuke’s hair has grown remarkably long. So, Chidori and her take the poor guy to a salon.  Sousuke tries hard.  Reeeeaaaallly hard.  But the scissors put it over the top, and he ends up pulling his gun on the hair-stylist.  However, the guy is smooth, and informs Chidori that his main duty is to protect her, nothing else.  She reacts as any woman would, and invites him to her apartment, offering to cut his hair herself.
What follows is a rather touching scene where we see how comfortable Chidori is with Sousuke and how trusting Sousuke is of Chidori (he actually falls asleep while she’s cutting his hair).
Sousuke returns home to find something horrific.  Opening his laptop, he discovers orders from HQ, informing him that his mission to protect Chidori has ended.  He is to have no more contact with her.  His fist immediately goes through the laptop screen… arguably an overreaction.
Chidori’s protection has been placed in the hands of Wraith, who at this point has yet to make a real appearance.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the mountains… Xia Yu Lan and Xia Yu Fang manage to steal an AS from Gates.  Gates is not pleased.  Gates is wearing no clothes, and is surrounded by furry animals.

It’s just like old times as the episode opens on Sousuke ravaging a car in the school parking lot, trying to find a bomb that obviously isn’t there. Chidori arrives on the scene, but Sousuke immediately receives a phone call from headquarters. Without cluing Chidori in on anything, he takes off, leaving the poor girl all alone to explain the wrecked car to her teacher.

Meanwhile, Tessa is at headquarters, taking a bunch of crap from high ranking officials. Eventually she is left alone with the admiral, who kindly brings up the topic of resignation. She immediately refuses.

Now we arrive in Sicily. But apparently, Blueno has beaten us there. The guy’s all chillin’ at a fancy-pants party when he spots a very sensuous looking woman. Unable to contain himself, he approaches her, puts on the ole’ Blueno charm, and ends up together with her in a bed. Before he can take part in the nasty dance, though, the sensuous woman reveals herself to be Mao *gasp*. Needless to say, tonight is not Blueno’s night (in oh so many ways). In fact, Mao almost kills the guy, until Kurtz stops her. She ends up being satisfied with an unconscious Blueno rather than a dead Blueno.

As they are about to leave, Mao makes a blunder, and only escapes because of Sousuke’s help… and his car. Fortunately for everyone involved, Sousuke was the one who obtained the car (ie it is crammed full of every weapon known to mankind).

Now we are taken back to Chidori’s class, where everyone is hard at work on their exams. Chidori becomes worried about him, and her friend Kyouko somehow is able to get ahold of him on her cell phone. What happens next is a very amusing sequence of scenes where Sousuke is expertly driving the escape car while he simultaneously attempts to avoid Chidori’s wrath. Let’s just say that even Sousuke can’t win when it comes to women.

Unfortunately for our heroes, three Savages jump into the fray under orders from Gates. Things look dim until a mysterious black AS takes all three of the enemies out, stares at Sousuke for a while, and then departs. Who was that masked (wo)man?

A helicopter arrives to extract Sousuke, Kurtz, and Mao. Onboard, Mao talks about Sousuke’s current situation, noting how rough it must be on him to have so many duties at one time. She brings up the question of why he’s still protecting Chidori. Sousuke is left to ponder his future, and his feelings.

I loved this episode. The fight scenes are quite literally breathtaking. Mao is cornered by one of the twins, Xia Yu Lan, who turns out to be a spectacularly skilled dual sword wielder.  Despite her own admirable skills, Mao is a bit out of her league, and lucks out when a large number of other foot soldiers show up and force Xia Yu Lan to retreat.

Xia Yu Fang, the other sister, shows her own skills off through an AS fight with Kurtz.  Like Mao, Kurtz finds himself at a disadvantage to Fang, and eventually has his M9’s arm cut off by Fang’s giant AS sword.  He does manages to throw in a couple of his own punches, though, but eventually makes a retreat.

Sousuke, of course, works his way out of Gates’ ambush.  Unfortunately, he finds that he is unable to harm Venom, due to the enemy AS’s lambda driver.

Mao takes it upon herself to lead the captives to safety, and both her teammates try to help out.  The problem is that the enemy obviously knows Mithril’s moves before they are actually executed, and all around just makes life difficult for our heroes.  It turns out that Vincent Blueno has been rerouting communications to Gates through a transceiver.  Tessa begins to suspect foul play, and decides to use a random statement that an officer had made during the briefing for this mission as a clever code:

“All Cretans are liars”

With the help of her second officer, Tessa manages to relay the exact inverse of her true orders to the Mithril troops, a ploy which really confuses the enemy.  Blueno understands what is going on, but can’t believe it, because it sounds so difficult to do. Tessa sends troops to check up on him, but Blueno manages to escape before he can be caught.

In the meantime, Gates finds himself cornered by the Mithril AS’s, but doesn’t have a problem due to his damn lambda driver.  Sousuke jumps directly into the fray with his Arbalest, but can’t get his own lambda driver to work.  Luckily, Venom overheats, and Gates is forced to retreat (which he does by flooding the tunnels with water).  Everyone makes it out safely, but Sousuke is obviously very upset about his inability to handle the lambda driver.

The Xia Yu sisters comfort each other on the top of a distant building.  They talk about how disappointed they were about not being able to capture the Arbalest, and also mention their “sensei” again.  (They did this before in episode 2).

Sousuke receives a call from base, and is forced to leave Chidori while he goes to report in. Apparently Gates and his underlings are holding hostages in Nanjing, China. The problem is that they are holding these prisoners in an underground labyrinth. Luckily, for the sake of plot development, the underground tunnels are just large enough for the AS’s (Arm Slaves = Giant Robots) to pass through. When the three elite members of the Mithril forces arrive, they are briefed by a man named Vincent Blueno.

Mao, Kurtz, and Sousuke work together to dispatch the enemy and get to the room where the hostages are being kept. They all notice a lack of resistance, and begin to become worried.

With the help of some foot soldiers, Mao manages to make it into the room. Even though the hostages are present, as expected… there is no sign of any enemy forces holding them. Suddenly all communications give out, and one of the hostages reveals herself to be Xia Yu Lan. She manages to kill all the foot soldiers and shoot Melissa before she even really blows her cover.

The episode ends with Sousuke being surrounded by enemy AS’s, including Venom (Gate’s Arm Slave).

This episode shows us how different TSR can be from its two predecessors.  However, we’ll save that tidbit for later.  The episode opens up on Chidori, who’s fumbling around in her bedroom, trying unsuccessfully to wake up for school.  She doesn’t notice, but there is a man standing on the top of a distant building, taking photographs of her.

Later, in school, Sousuke finds out from a classmate, Kazama, that pictures are being taken of Chidori and posted on the internet.  Sousuke is as overprotective as ever, and eventually gets beaten up by Chidori.

Next, Full Metal Panic! explores new territory as it ventures into the realm of full-frontal nudity… well maybe just partial frontal nudity.   At any rate, in this new spirit of things, it introduces two characters, female characters (wheee!).  It also so happens that these two ladies are sisters.  They are only distinguishable by their hair length.  The one with the long hair is Xia Yu Fang, and the one with the short hair is called Xia Yu Lan.  Apparently these two characters were portrayed by males in the manga (personally I’m glad that this was modified… really glad).  These two are extremely close, and appear to be lesbians… I mean they’re REALLY close.

These twins seem to currently be located at the Republic of Balic and under the command of a lunatic named Gates.  Gates is a crazy man and ends up killing the bad guy from the last episode with a single bullet.  It’s apparent that this guy, who is a horrible singer, will become trouble for Mithril.  After this odd scene, Gates abuses Xia Yu Lan, which obviously doesn’t make the other sister very pleased.

Back at school, for the sake of protecting Chidori, Sousuke has been busy installing some kind of crazy radar/satellite, to the dismay of the rest of the school.  The satellite nukes any nearby electronic devices.

After many amusing encounters, Sousuke finally locates the culprit of the internet pictures.  He’s some nerd who wants revenge on Chidori for winning some sort of school election.  Sousuke stops him from posting a picture of Chidori picking her nose by starting up his satellite again, after Chidori made him shut it down.

However, the man from the beginning of the episode is still watching Chidori from afar.

The series opens up on an unfortunate occurrence in the Republic of Balic.  A large number of soldiers are prepared to decimate a group of helpless civilians.  Luckily, Mithril shows up and teaches the guerillas a thing or two about combat.  Their original intent had been to evacuate the civilians using stealth helicopters, but as they are executing the mission, one of their helicopters is shot down by a missile.

The implications of a missile penetrating an ECS (Electronic Cloaking System) are rather large… it could mean that the enemy has come in possession of “Black Technology.”

Sousuke, unable to return home with the rest of the troops ends up making his way through enemy territory.  During this rather strenuous time, he runs out of ammo, but the lambda driver picks up the slack.  He’s saved by Tessa when she surfaces her submarine (the Tuatha de Danaan) by a conveniently placed bridge.

Upon returning to school, Sousuke is devastated to find that he forgot Chidori’s notes on the Tuatha de Danaan, which is now half way across the world.  Chidori, as usual, is not amused.

I’m a rather large fan of the Full Metal Panic! trilogy, and doubt I can do it justice with my written words, but there are a few of you who haven’t seen the first two series, so let me touch on those first.

The original season (Full Metal Panic!) started it all by introducing us to a young, 16 year old boy named Sousuke Sagara. Sousuke is a unique guy, having been involved in some military situation or another for his entire life. Throughout the trilogy, Sousuke is an elite member of a group known as Mithril. Mithril is an independent organization, working hard to put an end to terrorism around the globe. Under the command of a young girl, Tessa, Sousuke fights in his giant robot, Arbalest, with the help of his fellow elite Mithril members Mellissa Mao and Kurtz Weber, who fight alongside Sousuke in their slightly less impressive giant robots.

The plot, itself, of this first season is for the most part inapplicable to TSR. However, here are some things that are worth noting. Sousuke is on a mission to protect a young high school girl by the name of Chidori. In order to succeed in his mission, he must blend in with his surroundings, becoming a highschool student himself. This never works out very well, since he tends to blow everything up.

The reason that Chidori must be protected is that she is a “Whispered,” that is, her genes were modified at birth in order to implant a certain type of knowledge within her own biology. This knowledge relates to “Black Technology,” an extremely powerful technology which can be used by the Arm Slaves, or giant robots. An example of Black Technology is the “Lambda Driver” of Sousuke’s Arbalest, which he can only activate under emotional stress. The same goes for Chidori; her knowledge is useless unless she is in a life-or-death situation. The only other “Whispered” we know of is Tessa, Sousuke’s commanding officer, who captains an impressive submarine.

The second season (Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!) has no plot, it just lets us dwell on how awkward Sousuke can be during his mission at Chidori’s high school. I like it because it is very silly. Sousuke and Chidori have an odd sort of relationship… Sousuke keeps messing things up and Chidori keeps on having crazy fits of anger. They look like they would make a perfect couple.

This third season (The Second Raid) promises to combine the storyline of season 1 and the humor of season 2 into a masterpiece of Japanese animation. It takes place immediately after the events of the first season. An enemy organization has learned of “Black Technology” from other “Whispered,” and Sousuke’s mission to protect Chidori may be called off. Can their relationship last, despite these difficult circumstances?