Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid Anime DVD Box Set Review

Having just recently watched the fantastic Full Metal Panic! for the first time, I dove into The Second Raid with great anticipation, and I am glad to say that it mostly lived up to what the first series brought. Good action, a lot of intrigue, and some really nice twists in the relationship of Sosuke and Kaname.

After the death of Gauron and the end of the immediate threats to Kaname, life goes somewhat back to normal for Sosuke, and he returns to Jindai High School to continue his vigil watching over her. But he is starting to be spread a little thin; watching over her and keeping up with his school work is enough to be a full-time job, but Mythril keeps pulling him away to assist on other missions and he is starting to fall behind in all areas.

Sosuke’s stoicism refuses to allow him to see this as anything other than part of his duty, but Mythril quickly notices a lessening of his effectiveness. So when the order comes down from up top that Sosuke is to quit guarding Kaname, he is forced for the first time to reexamine what is more important: his desires or his duties. 

What I enjoyed the most in the first Full Metal Panic! was the relationship between Sosuke and Kaname because they acted as foils for one another. And one of the most interesting parts of that was the slow humanization that Soskue went through as he learned to live in normal society. So when this series started, and he was not quite as militant as he was in the beginning of the first series, I found the dynamic of their relationship a little less interesting. Sosuke reacts to her outbursts more the way that typical anime protagonist would rather than in his usual robotic manner.

But in the end, I think it helped as the main purpose of this series was to rid Sosuke of his reliance on his orders and his duty. His humanization lessens the comedic value of his experiences in real life, but heightens the dramatic value of his soul searching. When he hits rock bottom in the later stages of the series, it is all the more crushing because he knows he can no longer accept his orders, but he does not know how to break the cycle.

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