Full Metal Panic! 15
So this is like my fifth or something time through the series and as I'm older I can see some areas of the show more clearly than I did as a wide eyed teen when I first fell in love with the show. The Gonzo animation isn't so hot (but still better than any other Gonzo show I've sat through), and the first two major story arcs (the Khanka and Behemoth) are a bit rough compared to later ones in the story. It's not that any of it is bad, its just that, like many mecha shows, it takes awhile for it to really find its footing.
That said, this arc, which was made up for the anime, is the first of the show I ever saw, and I see now why I fell back then for it so completely. There are no high school hijinks or egregious upskirts, there's just this story about Sousuke and a really screwed up team on a mission in a desert to first, kill Gauron and second, get out with their lives.
As I watch this now, I can't help but wonder if the whole damn mission wasn't a set up. The squad, unlike Sousuke's much smaller squad, is far less tight knit. Andy and Jackson don't get along well with Grace at all, and Bill is a pretty apathetic leader, willing to let all manner of shit slide without comment. In spite of this, the team falls into shambles quickly without him. More to the point, though, the whole team meets on the airplane (as in there is no briefing, nor even a moment of official introduction. I get that this is a rush job, but that Sousuke is just tossed onto the plane without any real introduction by anyone is still sloppy.) and most of them flippantly disbelieve the information they have going into this. When Grace points out that, if all that information the report gave them is true, they're underequipped, the team just seems to laugh it off.
And so I just sort of wonder, you know, because they are. M9s are state of the art mecha that even super powers like the Soviets and the Americans don't have easy access to, yeah, but against units equipped with the Lambda Driver that doesn't mean much. The tech is still sort of unknown at this point in the story, but then there's the fact that the team has no back up, and no contingency plans. When things go south, they're stranded a long way from anywhere, no means of calling home, and utterly reliant on Sousuke's memories of his childhood to get them through it. To me, at least, the whole thing smells fishy.
