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REVIEW: Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid DVD 1


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britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2618
Location: Out.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:07 am Reply with quote
this review was right on the money. I grabbed this the day it came out and wasn't disapppinted.

maybe a 16 and up rating would be better.
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Raven Shinobi





PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:25 am Reply with quote
I absolutely loved this DVD, the best four FMP episodes that I've seen so far Cool I didn't care for Tessa, but the awesome scenes provided by Melissa, Kruz and the twins made up for the lack of Sousuke/Kaname moments that I've been looking forward to.

I liked the opening song, but I didn't find the ED one to be that great -both better than the first season's, not as good as Fumoffu's. I've listened to some of the dub and I ended up liking Hilary Haag's voice for Tessa better than Yukana's, Haag made her sound more like someone in control and fitted her character alot better, Yukana made her sound too innocent which I personally think she isn't Razz
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Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:53 am Reply with quote
Raven Shinobi wrote:
I've listened to some of the dub and I ended up liking Hilary Haag's voice for Tessa better than Yukana's, Haag made her sound more like someone in control and fitted her character alot better, Yukana made her sound too innocent which I personally think she isn't Razz
Hey, hey, hey! Let's not be saying such things about my Tessa! Wink

I haven't listened to the Japanese cast for Full Metal Panic!, but I'm surprised to hear that Yukana sounds too innocent as Tessa. I'd have thought she'd play the character more like the Dominura role in Simoun. Regardless, Hilary Haag's portrayal has always felt dead on to me, so I'll stick with the English cast.

I was a little surprised at the rating for The Second Raid. It seems kind low considering the sheer detail of the violence. (I winced a little at the neck cutting and I'm the kind of guy who can watch Hellraiser while eating.) Not to mention the sisters. . . is my mind totally in the gutter or do those two seem just a tad spoiler[incestuous]?

These first four episodes have a real feel of foreboding to them. It's like, you can feel that something more is coming, that something terrible is just on the horizon. (I waited for this to come out here in the US so I haven't seen the fansubs and I've kept away from spoilers.)

Another excellent Key review.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:56 pm Reply with quote
Richard J. wrote:
Not to mention the sisters. . . is my mind totally in the gutter or do those two seem just a tad spoiler[incestuous]?


It's not just you. After their intro in episode 2, I don't see how you couldn't think that. Between that and the graphic violence, the TV-14 rating does seem too low.

Interesting note on the twins: In the original novels, they were guys.
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Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:20 pm Reply with quote
HitokiriShadow wrote:
Interesting note on the twins: In the original novels, they were guys.
I'd read that on another thread, I'm glad they changed them to females. Two male mercenaries like them just wouldn't be nearly as creepy.

Take this scene Key mentioned:
Review wrote:
one scene in particular where a gun is stuck in Yu Lan’s mouth, and she has a bored expression all throughout the scene, is even a little unnerving.
I guarentee that if the character had been a male, the reaction would be different. It would seem far less surprising since military males tend toward the stoic.

Plus, it's easier to buy a female pulling off the whole spoiler[fake hostage thing.]
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whoisfriend



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 369
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 5:06 pm Reply with quote
TV-14? The Japanese brodcast was rated R-15! For comparrison, Battle Royale and the episodes of Shuffle! where nudity appeared were rated R-15 as well.

As for Kaname screentime, well, let's just say she gets a full episode to herself (somewhere in the 8-10 range) and it is probably my favourite episode in TSR.

Also, it's REALLY obvious who the (incestuous lesbian) twin's teacher is isn't it? I've read the fan translation of the novels and it's definitely more vague.

I've already preorded it from the Funimation sale at Right Stuf, so I just have to wait until February for it to ship (also got Rumbling Hearts v2, which comes out then).

As for the dub, I definitely was not too fond of Haag's performance as Tessa at first, but it was probably just because I was majorly dissapointed at her Rossette in Chrono Crusade. It's not that bad when I think of it. I'm glad to hear the dub's still going strong though.
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RayV



Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 5:35 pm Reply with quote
The only real bad part of the Dub is the VA of Kalinin. His voice kept changing as he was talking.

The editor was real fond of Echoes and sometimes took them too far especially in the Briefing room scene.

I forgot who wrote this artricle but he/she made one mistake, It's Mithril (As in the metal from LoTR) not Mithral (Which is a metal from D&D and the name of a Final Fantasy Race). I do believe in the Extras it's the Mithril Report.
If not, oops.
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MorwenLaicoriel



Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 1617
Location: Colorado
PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:30 am Reply with quote
I've always had a weird love/hate relationship with this series. I've been watching it since I got Anime On Demand (which was really the start of me watching TONS of different anime, besides just Adult Swim stuff), and...I just don't know what to think of it. Anime hyper On one hand, I'm in love with the dub, the animation is great, I think the Sosuke/Kaname pairing is one of the funniest I've seen in anime, and I really enjoy the romantic comedy mixed with the action. On the other hand, the action I've seen so far hasn't been nearly as exciting as other series I enjoy (but this is only after seeing a little more than half of the original series and about a volume or two worth of Fumoffu), and sometimes the fanservice sort of grates on me.

I guess it's just one of my "guilty pleasure" anime. Anime hyper

(Netflix better get in volume 6 of the series, soon, I'm going to need it next.)
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Raven Shinobi





PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 2:10 am Reply with quote
Richard J. wrote:
I haven't listened to the Japanese cast for Full Metal Panic!, but I'm surprised to hear that Yukana sounds too innocent as Tessa. I'd have thought she'd play the character more like the Dominura role in Simoun. Regardless, Hilary Haag's portrayal has always felt dead on to me, so I'll stick with the English cast.


Yukana made her sound vulnerable and as though she's walking around carrying a tank of oxygen.

The dub is one of the best that I've heard so far, but the only thing that wouldn't make me switch to it is Kaname's voice -Yukino Satsuki's voice gave her a somewhat sentimental tone that went well with Kaname's empathetical side, but Luci Christian made her sound too bitchy.
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Someone_II



Joined: 02 Jan 2006
Posts: 167
Location: Right behind you, watching you as you type...
PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 2:25 am Reply with quote
Key's Review wrote:
It is also far more graphic, as this one has foul language, actual nudity, and much more intense graphic violence, including one scene (shown twice) where cutting a man’s throat is depicted in great detail. The TV-14 rating the volume carries is too low.
Key's Review wrote:
Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)


...eh?

I'm not trying to critisize you or anything. That just occured to me as odd.

Funny country you live in where Basilisk gets a TV-MA and TSR only a TV-14. Then again, our system is equally screwed up in it's own way. Up here Basilisk is PG and Bleach is 14+ on TV. Gotta love consistancy* Laughing

*albeit, they were aired, and therefor rated, by different companies, but the fact still remains...
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Deltakiral



Joined: 07 Oct 2004
Posts: 3338
Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK)
PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:40 pm Reply with quote
I can't wait for my DVD to show up, after passing on Fumoff and having the bad taste still in my mouth from the original series, I am hoping that this series can be what I thought the first season was going to be. Good review Keys, as for the actually rating isn't that just pulled off the box, because nudity and graphic violence would seem to warrant a TV-MA.

Delta
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CGord



Joined: 05 Oct 2006
Posts: 163
Location: Phoenix, AZ suburbs
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:55 pm Reply with quote
Re. the commentary tracks, are they with the English or Japnese voice actors?
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Sakura Shinguji



Joined: 09 Feb 2005
Posts: 190
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:11 pm Reply with quote
RayV wrote:
The only real bad part of the Dub is the VA of Kalinin. His voice kept changing as he was talking.

The editor was real fond of Echoes and sometimes took them too far especially in the Briefing room scene.


While I love Mike "Voice of God" Kleinhenz to death, his performance in TSR was a bit odd and inconsistent. Instead of maintaining the usual unique... whatever you want to call it that makes his voice so great and so engaging, he seemed to either be fighting to maintain it or trying to avoid it; either way, it wasn't working, and so we get a very uneven sort of delivery.

I too felt the dub audio post-production staff was oddly fond of, and somewhat inconsistent about, the echoes in large and/or metal walled rooms. If you pay close attention, the echo effect seems to have been intentionally applied to a degree proportional to where the "camera" is relative to the character speaking, so that if we're close to the speaker it's barely there but if we're at the back of a briefing room or something, the speaker at the front of the room is very echoey. This is accurate to real life, which is great, but it's been done heavy-handedly here, and isn't always consistent to itself, which just makes it more distracting than anything.

Also regarding the audio, did anyone else notice how sparse and flat both dub mixes sounded? Easy test (which will of course be far more noticeable to folks with higher-end sound systems): take any ADV-produced disc and listen to the dub, the 5.1 mix if there is one, and then, without adjusting any of your receiver's settings, stick the TSR disc in and listen to the 5.1 dub for comparison. We know ADV's capable of producing decent 5.1 dub mixes, so perhaps this is attributable to some sort of failing in FUNimation's authoring process?
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Sakura Shinguji



Joined: 09 Feb 2005
Posts: 190
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:16 pm Reply with quote
who_is_friend wrote:
Also, it's REALLY obvious who the (incestuous lesbian) twin's teacher is isn't it? I've read the fan translation of the novels and it's definitely more vague.


Having read parts of the novels myself previously (my reading skills suck, so I continue to hope for the licensing and release of the novels in English), and thus knowing about it already, I thought the whole thing was treated a bit oddly by the show. I don't know if it's meant to be a badly-kept secret that adds extra drama, or if it's meant to be a sort of "hiding in plain sight" kind of thing that nobody who's paying any attention at all would be fooled by.
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SKull_LEader



Joined: 27 Sep 2006
Posts: 4
Location: NOr CAl
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:57 pm Reply with quote
I think this series is great. Very Happy
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