Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (TV)

On episode 10, when the Mikihara Group thugs once again confront Kaname, she tells them she can summon Bonta-kun on them by blowing her whistle three times. A mosaic-censored image of a robot appears. The robot and the three whistles are references to Osamu Tezuka's classic manga/anime Ambassador Magma. Of course, due to "copyright reasons," Magma is censored.

Police officer Wakana Youko (the crazy lady obsessed with catching people) is played by Hiramatsu Akiko. Hiramatsu is better known for her role as main character Kobayakawa Miyuki on the long running franchise "You're Under Arrest". Both character drive mini-pats and catch off the wall criminals. The irony in this is while officer Wakana is nuts and very dangerous, Miyuki is known for being the calmer, smarter and more level headed officer at her station.

In the first of the 2 unaired episodes. Two punks who were dealt with by Sousuke incorrectly identifies the weapon used on them as a Steyr SPP (Special Purpose Pistol), which they incorrectly claim is an automatic weapon with a 900 rounds per minute rate of fire. However, the SPP is the semi-automatic version of the TMP (Tactical Machine Pistol), which Sousuke also owns. And wasn't the SPP confiscated by Sousuke's teacher in April?

Episode 3: While on the beach, the first book Hayashimizu-sempai is reading is "The Prince" (or II Principe) by Machiavelli. The Prince is known as the Devil's guide to ruling, as it's ruling type is centered on tyrany. The book's method of ruling is heavily based on being cruel and deceitful to one's subjects. It is a bit of an odd book for one in his position to be reading in his spare time...

Episode 3: the second book that Hayashimizu-sempai is reading at the beach is "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This book is a "homoerotic" story of an older man who is mezmerized by a "stunningly beautiful boy..." The story is about this man that follows this boy around while he is on vacation. The story symbolizes the older man's fleating youth and the homoerotic desires he never acted on. In the last scene of the book, the man is at the beach watching the boy swim out on the ocean as their gazes meet... Yet again, another odd choice for him to read in his spare time...

Episode 3: The third book that Hayashimizu-sempai reads at the beach is "The Elementary Particles" by Michel Houellebecq. This book is about two half-brothers and their lives in society. One brother grows up to become a Mollecular Biologist who discovers the ideal way to eliminate sexual reproduction, aka cloning. Thus the overture of the story is about using cloning as an alternative to sexual reproduction... However, this is juxtaposed by the other half-brother who has a troubled life and ends up being a crazed sex-addicted teacher who ends up in a mental hospital after a failed attempt at seducing one of his students (it is more like sexual assult then him seducing the student). Yet again, another very odd choice for one in his position to be reading in his spare time...

Episode 3: The fourth book that Hayashimizu-sempai is reading at the beach is "Five Women Who Loved Love" by Ihara Saikaku. This book is an erotic story about five women and their illicit sexual lives. Each of the women have their own story but the two that stand out because of their connection... One woman who has to compete with young boys for her (bisexual) lover's attention, and one woman's story of been "schooled" in the ways of sexual love at the age of 16 (which Sousuke explains to be Chidori's age in the next scene, hence all of the sempai's students are around that age)... Again, these books are extremely odd choices for a "normal" person to be reading carelessly at the beach while surrounded by his subordinates/classmates...

Episode 3: The fifth (and final) book that Hayashimizu-sempai is reading at the beach is "The One-Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka. This book is a farming philosophy book, which is centered on the author's belief that humans should not interfere with nature. His thesis is such that we as human beings have overcomplicated our lives and that every scientific break-through only creates more problems then it solves (or, every "step forward" is 10 steps back). The author also portrays a witty-sarcastic perspective on modern society's over-complication on simple matters, and thus critisizes the modern culture. Though this isn't really an odd book for one to read in one's spare time, it is a rather radical "green-party" type argument which one could get the ideal of starting a true revolution and overthrow the futuristic technological society that exists in the FMA! universe...

Episode 3: There is a scene which is a tribute to (or parody of) the American film "The Matrix." In this scene, the character is seen dodging a grenade round in slow motion (this particular shot is known as "bullet-time") much like the character Neo on the rooftop when he fights to rescue Morpheus.

Episode 3: The second guard, Sameshima, gives a display of his aggression and swordsman shift by fiercely spinning about his blade, this is a homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sousuke replies the same as Indiana Jones' (Harrison Ford) in the somewhat comedic act of easily dispatching him with his gun.

The three macho brothers, from episode 5 have unexpectedly adorable names: Maron (chestnut), Waffle and Chocolat.

Episode 3: the third bodyguard is a homage to Oddjob, the bodyguard in Goldfinger, in that he uses his hat as a weapon (and is of similiar appearance). His hat subsequently sticks in a column, much like Oddjob's.

The ending theme "Kimi ni Fuku Kaze" borrows instrumentals and arrangement from the song "The Game of Love" by Santana featuring Michelle Branch.

Ep10: Sousuke's Fumoffu suit runs on Human68k! cf. 16:04 when the voice changer comes on. even has a 72mb SASI harddisk. lol. Human68k is the OS for an old Sharp computer the X68000

The character Bonta-kun is a parody of Gonta-kun, a famous character from a educative TV series for kids named "Dekiru Kana" (Can I Do it Myself?) broadcasted in NHK in Japan from 1967 to 1990 and it was very popular not only in Japan but also in Latin America, since NHK sold the series as a part of a Japanese cultural exchange between Japan and many Latin American goverments.

When Fujisaki-sensei is looking at the chainsaw to punish Sagara and Tsubaki for cooking his koi, he says the fish's name was Catherine, "referring to a famous French actress". He certainly was talking about Catherine Deneuve.

Episode 8: The construction equipment at the beginning of the episode has bright green and purple coloration, which is likely a reference to the Constructicons from the original 1980's Transformers cartoon.

Episode 5: in the original novel, Shôji Gatô said that the frightening laugh emanating from the janitor looked like the one coming from Jack Nicholson, in Stanley Kubrick's "Shining". It may be the reason why the producers chose Takeshi Aono to play this character, as that man performed Jack Nicholson in this famous movie.

In the title of episode 4-A, the expression "Hamburger Hill" refers to a place where happened some fights during the Vietnam War, in 1969, which caused around 700 deaths and 370 wounded.

In episode 1 "A Hostage With No Compromises" One of the gang members sent to fight Souske speaks in a very thick "delinquent" dialect. The dialect is so different from standard Japanese that Souske is unable to understand, but Hayashimizu-sempai is able to translate it into an "overly eloquent" standard Japanese dialect. Likewise, he translates Souske's standard Japanese to the gangster's thick accent. This is a reference to the 1980 movie Airplane, when the elderly lady on the plane acts as a translator between the heavy Ebonics (aka Jive) dialect of two passengers and the standard English dialect of the flight attendant. In Japanese, the gangster's speech is difficult to understand due to his overly-exaggerated rolling of his R's, in English, the difficulty comes from his extremely colloquial vernacular, making it more far more akin to Ebonics.

In episode 7 ("Overdone Warcry"), when Sousuke shouts at one of rugby club member at the training camp, he mentions the name of this member favourite idol. Idol's name is Miki Matsuura which is a reference to 1994 TV series "Marmalade Boy", where two main characters are Miki Koishikawa and Yuu Matsuura.

In episode 7, the "Training" scene in which Sousuke is verbally abusing the Rugby Club is a reminiscent of scenes from the first half of the movie "Full Metal Jacket" in which the drill sergeant, as part of the training did the same to the troops. Also from Full Metal Jacket, the scene when the club is shining and talking to their rugby balls (after their "transformation") is similar to what Private Pyle did in the movie.

In episode 7, approx 7.13 minutes in the episode, Police officer Wakana Youko is holding a gun very similar to Train's Hades, from Black Cat.

In episode 8, when Tessa mentions that getting wet is her specialty, she says, "I'm a person of the water trade"; the word she uses for "water trade" (mizu shoubai) is a term for the porn/adult entertainment industry in Japan.

In episode 8, while Tessa is putting her high-school-girl sailor uniform, there is an imaginary scene, while Cdt. Mardukas is about to scold Sgt. Sagara, when Tessa is seen, naked, having a shower. Then, a Bonta-kun slowly comes, pulls the curtain and is about to kill Miss Testarossa... using a banana! There actually may be a double reference: - that famous crime scene with a woman stabbed in the shower obviously refers to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" ; - the banana used by Bonta-kun to kill Tessa may come from the "Monty Python's flying circus" show, that Shôji Gatô said to be a fanatic of. In one of those clips, a military is teaching his pupils how to face an aggressor whose weapons are fruits, included a banana. It is said that Japanese producers would have liked to include that whole scene as a reference in the episode, but it was said to be too harsh to be shown in an anime. Subsequently, the banana was the only item left as a "private joke".

In Episode 9, when Kazama "awakens" by seeing the underwear in his head and defeats the traps set by Sousuke, it is a reference to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, in which the main character; Kira Yamato, awakens in a similar form where he sees a seed in his head. His "I can see the enemy!" quote comes from the original Mobile Suit Gundam's main character Amuro Ray.

In episode 10, Bonta-kun was firing the T-54 pistol at the Mikihara gang and told them that's the enemies were using. He also told them to remember the sound when it was firing. It is the reference to Clint Eastwood's charactor of Sergeant Thomas Highway from Heartbreak Ridge. Clint Eastwood's charactor was firing an AK-47 at the Marines he was training and told them that's the enemies' prefered weapons, and to remember the sound when they fired at them.

In episode 12, when the pupils have to "elect" who shall be the only one to get the vaccine, Tsubaki's paper says "Atatatatatata...tatata", which refers to Kenshirô's fighting scream, is "Hokuto no Ken" aka "Fist of the North Star".

In episode 12, when Kaname is so angry that she can't help struggling, when she is giving very fast a large number of fists and kicks, her fighting scream looks like Star Platinium's one, i.e. Jôtarô's stand in "Jojo's bizarre adventure".

Omitted trivia from Episode 9: Kazama's "I can see the enemies, Kurz!" echoes Asuka's "I can see the enemies, Mother!" in the movie End of Evangelion; he even has the psychotic glance and equally bizarre tone. It can also be replied that in Episode 73 of Saint Seiya, the main protagonist also said the same words before defeating Gemini Saga. Plus the scene when Sousuke is playing ping pong against the wall and the part when Kurz says to Kazama "Run, Kazama, run" are all parodies of the movie Forrest Gump.