Time to review the first season of a crazy anime that most of the time just was so 90s it hurt, literally.

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Full Metal Panic! (yes, there is an exclamation point in the title) is an absurd anime. It came out in 2002, but feels like it was made in 1995, and that is when it’s set, or thereabouts. The music, the plot, everything feels like it’s from 1995. The story is pretty absurd as well; there are people who are known as “whispered” who have knowledge trapped in their heads about amazing technologies beyond anything that could be imagined. So of course there are plenty of people who are after them and trying to unlock that knowledge. Mithril is a secretive mercenary organization that stops bad things, and is mainly focused on the drug trade, at least allegedly. They catch wind of a high school girl who is a target of these hunters who look for the whispered, and they send in a soldier to pretend that he’s a high school student to keep track of her and make sure nothing happens to her.

You can basically guess what happens from there. Sousuke, the soldier who’s sent to protect the high school girl, follows orders to the tee, and even though he’s been fighting for a long time, he’s still just a teenager. He’s put in charge of watching Kaname Chidori, a weird and fiercely independent girl who lives on her own. Since Sousuke is supposed to be on a secret mission, he has to try to follow her around without getting caught, but he takes his mission very seriously and ends up mistaking so many different things for threats. This leads to him and Kaname bumping heads, and causes many weird situations. However, when Kaname and the whole class are taken hostage by a bad guy who’s after her, Sousuke and Mithril are able to protect her, though not before her whispered memories are unlocked. Can they keep protecting her now? What’s going to happen to them? What other absurd situations will they get into? And in the most 90s way possible, will they fall in love?

This is just an odd anime. It has so many comedic moments and situations that makes it seem pretty light, but it goes to some oddly dark places at times. The main characters play off each other in many ways, the way Drax and Star-Lord do in Guardians of the Galaxy. Sousuke is very much the straight man who understands everything as a literal command, and has no idea how to interact with society or in normal situations because he’s been fighting his whole life. Kaname is a free spirit who does what she wants, and that combination is played for a laughs a lot.

It’s an anime that I would say is often less about the overarching plot, and more about the character development. How much or little does Kaname change when her whispered powers are unlocked? Will Sousuke ever be able to fit in properly and gain her trust? They do a solid job with the character development of the main two characters, and it’s interesting to see how they react to situations as time goes on. That’s what makes this anime pretty solid in my opinion.

Now, talking about gore, violence, adult situations, fanservice, and all of that fun stuff, what level is this anime for? It’s definitely a slightly more mature anime. It isn’t nearly as mature as Code Geass is, and the fanservice that there is, is always played for laughs, not sexuality. However, they are fairly often fighting various villains, and there is a fair amount of death and blood in the show. It also deals with some deep themes, especially when it comes to Sousuke and his past. It’s definitely well done in those areas, though.

So, with that said, would it be something that I’d recommend? I’m not sure — I don’t know that it has a very broad appeal. Simply because, as I have said, it’s so 90s it hurts. If you’re a 90s kid, it’ll be pretty funny, as you’ll see the 90s-ness come through in the effects, music, and situations. Just because of those things, it keeps it pretty light; however, if you aren’t into reliving the 90s and all the questioning of why you ever thought those things were cool, this anime is probably not for you. If you weren’t around in the 90s at all, probably skip it. It’s going to feel very dated — the effects are very outdated, and everything about this anime feels like it was made in the mid-90s, not in 2002.

Talking quickly about dubs versus subs: I watched it dubbed, and I tend to watch most anime dubbed, though the one I choose depends on what a series is set at for VRV streaming. I thought the dub was just fine, and Sousuke in particular worked very well dubbed. The dub will probably be easier for an English-speaking audience to relate to. Most of the voice acting in it is just okay, and a lot of it is pretty over-the-top. However, a lot of that is intentional because it’s meant to be very absurd with the 90’s motif. I’d probably recommend the dub in general, but if you go with the sub, you probably won’t have much of a different experience.

One last thing to talk about is the bad guy for the “mission.” Overall, I felt like he was a pretty weak bad guy. He was supposed to be more scary than he was, but he just kind of fell flat. He was cruel, and that was about it; you never really felt all that threatened by him or felt he had any greater objective than to just be the bad guy. If you’ve read my article on villains, you’ll know my thoughts on that. It helps that the show is really more about Sousuke and Kaname’s character development, but it felt like it was lacking in tension a lot of the time. Because of that, it has the drama of a sitcom in the wrappings of an action show a lot of the time. That does give it an odd feeling when the bad guy is just being cruel sometimes in his killing, as it doesn’t always match the overall tone, though it isn’t really ever not 90s.

Overall, this was a 90s anime. It was fun for that reason, and hard to watch at times for the same reason. There are more “missions,” or seasons, as they really would be. I’ll likely check them out later, and you might get separate reviews for those; however, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be about the same in terms of reviews. It’s fun, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The season itself is pretty short and can be watched as a stand-alone, which is nice. So if you want to sit down to some 90s fun, I’d say check it out.

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Gurren Lagann is a pretty typical mecha anime. Something horrible has happened to the world and there are monsters of some sort who are trying to take it over or kill all humans or something along those lines. It’s only those who can control these mech armor suits that have a chance at saving humanity and defeating the big bad guy. This covers a wide swath of anime, including the one that I’m watching now, Code Geass.

More specifically for Gurren Lagann, the world and humanity have been forced to live underground because it’s too dangerous to live above ground, though not everyone knows why. There are underground villages, and in one of these villages we find a digger, who drills through the ground looking for things and expanding the village, whose name is Simon. Simon is an excellent digger and one day he finds the head of a mech. The same day, the roof/earth crust collapses in on their village and while people survive a giant mech crashes through. Followed by a girl who is trying to destroy it. Simon, the girl, Yoko, and Simon’s Bro, Kamina end up in the mech head that Simon had found and are able to destroy the mech that has fallen into their village. This is Kamina and Simon’s chance to get to the surface and they take it. Up there they find a world where humans aren’t allowed to live and the Spiral King is using beastmen in mechs to kill any humans who come to the surface, and the show continues from there as Simon, Yoko, and Kamina take on mechs as they try and reach the Spiral King.

My initial thoughts are are that is a pretty typical anime. There’s a fair amount of fan service, and the plot is pretty simple at the start of it. I will say that it grows into more of a plot and does an odd anime thing where half way through the show pivots hard. The more that I think about how it pivots, the more I think it does a decent job with it. Gurren Lagann doesn’t end up having a ton of depth, but does touch on a few interesting topics to think about. I won’t go into them as it will give away how some of the story ends up going. It reminds me of how it changes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is another anime I should watch again.

Gurren Lagann is also an anime that I feel like leans into it’s tropes as well. The fan service, the mechs, everything is done in a pretty typical anime manner. Even the bravado of Kamina is very typical. For that reason I can’t recommend it all that highly, though for a standard anime, it doesn’t seem to miss that many beats with what it does. The pivot in the middle is probably the point where it is the most rough as everything just pivots a little bit too hard and overall it isn’t the easiest to follow. As compared to Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann isn’t as self aware about the tropes that it is leaning into. I don’t think that is a bad thing, as it does make it more accessible to newer anime watchers, I feel like it’s just okay because of that. However, as compared to Kill la Kill again, it isn’t nearly as over the top. Kill la Kill is an anime that I wouldn’t recommend to a newer anime watcher because it is so over the top and leans into tropes in a way that will be confusing or will be harder to read and understand what they getting at and how they are subverting things and playing against tropes as well as into them at the same time.

Overall, Gurren Lagann is just an okay anime. It isn’t long as if you want to watching something that is pretty traditional mecha anime, you won’t go wrong watching Gurren Lagann. If you’re a more seasoned anime watcher and know more of the tropes and standards for mecha anime, I’d definitely recommend Neon Genesis Evangelion over it as a more classic anime and a better done anime.

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