Full Metal Panic Fumoffu Vol. 3: Full Metal Fervor! (DVD) - Anime Reviews - The Armchair Empire


	Number of Episodes 3 Language Options English/Japanese/English Subtitles Released by ADV Films Extras - Bonta-kun’s Eye Exam Chart - The Mysteries of Fumoffu - Clean Opening/Closing Animation - Original Japanese DVD Promo - Character Artwork
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Full Metal Panic Fumoffu Vol. 3: Full Metal Fervor! (DVD)

Bring it on! Sport is war!

At least, that’s the attitude Sousuke takes when he and Kaname get enlisted to help Jindai High’s flagging, pacifist rugby team. Against Kaname’s will, Sousuke decides to bring the spineless squad up to speed with a little over-the-top, all-out-hilarious “basic training”.

And while school may be in session for Sousuke and Kaname, vacation has just begun for Tessa. Her destination: Jindai High… and a nearby hot spring! Mao and Kurtz are there to provide backup for Tessa, but it may be Sousuke who needs it! Tessa has her sights set on him, and nothing – not even Kaname – is gonna stop her!

Sports, skirmishes, slapstick, and skin – it’s all here in the third pulse-pounding volume of Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU!

More FMPF, sweet! I’m really into this franchise – the action and comedy are done with such precision that I can’t help but be mesmerized. Enough preamble, let’s dive right into the wackiness.

Episode 07: The War Cry of Excessiveness

The Jindai High’s rugby club are model students – caring, attentive, considerate and generally nice guys. In a word: wusses. This team lacks any sort of tenacity and are a joke in competitive sports, and so the Principal has decided to disband the team. The Student Council President will not allow the Principal to overstep her boundaries and has made a compromise – if the team can win their annual friendly match, they will be considered to remain, if they lose, they will disband the club immediately. Making the situation worse is the fact that the team is even short a player, and so the President makes a decision: he’s sending them Chidori to be team manager and Sousuke as the last team member.

Taking on her new duties, Chidori comes to the quick conclusion that this team doesn’t have any tenacious spirit or any aggressive streak at all and is quick to berate them after their “no-contact” rugby practice. The jawing takes place at a local Ramen house, and the competition arrives mid-conversation and joins in on the bashing. Once the captain makes a pass and Chidori (which she rebuffs with all the lack of tact that you’d expect from her), the situation escalates into a full-on brawl… well, Chidori and Sousuke were fine, the rest of the team doesn’t do so well. The team captain decides that this sort of result is unacceptable, and wants to change, so Sousuke offers to train them.

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Enter the training montage, complete with Sousuke doing his best impersonation of Full Metal Jacket (especially the dialogue). After 3 days of training from “Mao’s Guide To Training Marines” the team is not only changed… they are officially ready for battle. The match goes much like one would expect… the now psychotic Jindai High not only dominates the game, they win the mental and emotional battles by slaughter.

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Episode 08: A Goddess Comes To Japan (Part 1: The Suffering)

The Danaan is down for some needed repairs, and so without a submarine to captain, Tessa is going to get some much needed R&R. Except her idea of rest is to spend some time with people her own age as well as Sousuke – so she intends to spend her two weeks off at Jindai High posing as a high school exchange student. Her arrival is preceded by the Commander, who arrives first to not only check on the school but to give Sousuke hell and make sure that he’s in top form to protect Tessa. The cumulative stress on Sousuke from his duties of protecting Chidori and going to school, mean that he’s a little run down anyways and the appearance of the Commander and Tessa certainly aren’t going to help any.

As one would imagine, the beautiful and quiet cute girl fits in at Jindai like she belongs there; but the presence of the competition for Sousuke has inspired the dark side of Chidori and the two girls are unconsciously competing with each other over every scenario. When the swimming section of PE comes – Tessa is poised for a good performance, but with her clumsiness, both Chidori and Sousuke are expecting the worst – and when she doesn’t appear to come up for air, he jumps into action. Except, she didn’t need saving as she is a more than capable swimmer and managed to swim the entire length of the pool underwater; Sousuke on the other hand, didn’t do as well, and needs to be dredged from the water. Tessa is quite insistent on performing resuscitation on the still conscious Sousuke, but Chidori won’t have any of that. The rest of the class calls Tessa on her closeness to Sousuke, so she uses her cover to explain their proximity and when Sousuke awakens, he is also grilled. Being under orders, his vague answer can be completely misinterpreted and is promptly so by everyone.

The completely dead Sousuke can barely stand up, and he learns that Mao won’t be in town for the evening, and so he’s going to have to spend the night alone with the Tessa (the Commander threatened him with mutilation and a Bond villain-like death if he touched her… while Mao suggests the exact opposite). The stress finally finishes him and he collapses – once again, the girls compete to take care of him to disastrous results.

Episode 09: A Goddess Comes To Japan (Part 2: The Hot Spring)

Somehow, Sousuke has managed to recover from his illness despite the help of Tessa and Chidori. With some tense moments of Tessa’s sleepwalking (I suspect that she’s a tad more alert than she lets on) and ending up next to Sousuke, Mao finally arrives and keeps the Captain on a short leash. Now that the last weekend is coming up, Tessa wants to do something special and she is taking everyone to a hot spring bath for 2 days and an evening. Their chaperones: Mao and Kurtz under cover stories of course. For the girls, this is a relaxing vacation. For the guys (not Sousuke), Kurtz is going to be their leader into perversion and is going to lead their exploits to peep on the girls while they bathe. Except, Sousuke demonstrates his amazing talents once again and not only reinforces the separation wall with armor, he sets up sentry guns to prevent the guys from circumventing the wall.

To a professional pervert like Kurtz, this is merely a minor setback and with a map in hand, he forms a new plan that will allow the boys to check out the girls from the relative safety of an overhang of the nearby hills. Once again, super-soldier Sousuke has prepared for this ploy and has set up not only sentry guns, but low-powered land mines to slow down his adversaries. But Sousuke is not the only soldier, Kurtz leads his charges on a mad plan to make sure that they get to see what they came to peep on, no matter the cost or bodily harm!

FMPF was deliciously sick this disc, especially the interplay between the normally demure Tessa trying to push herself on Sousuke and Chidori’s torn response of wanting to maintain appearance but not wanting Tessa to succeed. Excellent animation and even better comedy.

- Tazman

(November 2, 2005)

"Reverse brain erasing, now that's just science fiction."

"Kinda like the female orgasm."

- Bullock and Technician (American Dad)

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