Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU The Complete Series is a two-disc set that includes all 12 episodes of the series, as well as bonus features. The release has both the English dub and the original Japanese audio with English subtitles.

Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU The Complete Series
English Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
Format: Blu-ray
Release Date: September 10, 2019

Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU is a companion series for the Full Metal Panic! anime and is considered the second season of the series. Compared to the other entries in the Full Metal Panic! franchise, this series ratchets up the comedy more. The stories included in this series are adaptations of short stories written by Shoji Gatoh, the creator of the light novel series.

Most of the stories in this series focus on Chidori and Sosuke and their time at school. During the two-part episode, “A Goddess Comes to Japan,” Tessa, Kurz, Mao, and Mardukas make an appearance, and the story revolves around Tessa taking some R&R and posing as an exchange student in Sousuke and Chidori’s class. So while these other characters do appear in the series, it’s still in a story that focuses on Sousuke’s civilian life cover and not on the military side of the series.

The “FUMOFFU” in the series’ title seems to come from a flaw in a personal armor suit that Sousuke develops that’s based on the series’ fictional mascot, Bonta-kun. The only syllables the suit can say are “Fu,” “Mo,” “Ffu,” or “Ru,” and the operating system crashes if the pilot tries to deactivate the voice changer. When Sousuke uses the suit, Kaname has to serve as a translator, which is part of the humor of the series.

As someone who has seen the other three seasons of the Full Metal Panic! anime, I have to say that I appreciated the humor in this series. It perfectly captures the essence of the main series but ratchets up the comedy without coming across as too “over the top.” However, a viewer will need to have some familiarity with the main Full Metal Panic! series in order to get the most enjoyment from the comedy, since it relies on already established relationships and interactions between various characters. Overall, I enjoyed Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU, and it makes for a nice break in the main storyline of the Full Metal Panic! series.

The Blu-ray video for this release has 1080p High Definition 4:3 (SD Remaster), while the audio includes Dolby TrueHD: English 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 2.0. I had no complaints about either the video or the audio quality for this release.

The first bonus feature included on this set is the original Japanese television spots for Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU. Unfortunately, these spots were rather repetitive in nature. The exact same footage is used in each one, and only some of the dialogue at the end changes between the three spots. Fortunately, there were only three spots included, so the feature ended before it could get too obnoxious.

Clean versions of the opening and ending credits are included, as well as trailers for releases that FUNimation Entertainment was promoting at the time that this Blu-ray set of Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU was released. Considering what kind of series this is, it’s not surprising that there weren’t a lot of bonus materials available from Japan. It’s also the kind of series where FUNimation wouldn’t have bothered to go to the effort to produce content to includes as bonus features.

If you’re a fan of the Full Metal Panic! franchise and want to own everything that’s been released for the anime in your collection, you’ll have to get a hold of this release of Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU. Even though there may not be much in the way of bonus features, this release is worth it for the 12 episodes of the series.

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