January 04, 2004
Full Metal Panic! Episode 19
"Engaging Six and Seven"
The CG submarine is looking worse and worse as this series goes on, but I think that might have something to do with the fact that it is being used in more scenes, doing different things.
New opening and closing credits in this episode, though it's nothing really to write home about. Just different collages of pictures and scenes.
In this episode we get to flashback to a topic that didn't occur to me to explore. While the ladies of Full Metal Panic! lounge in the women's bath on the submarine, Mao tells the story of how Sousuke and Kurz went from rookies to full-fledged members of Mithril. Apparently, they were both toiling in obscurity because they refused to acknowledge their actual skills (Sousuke purposefully getting mediocre scores, and Kurz lying about his shooting ability). I suppose that's kind of interesting, but it's never really explained why they did that (after all, who would want to stay in training?).
With only a few more episodes left in the show, I think that this (and the previous episode) are the calm before the storm, a last chance for some humor and silliness before we go into a serious mission.
A fun (slightly fanservice-laden), filler episode. It was supposed to flesh out Sousuke and Kurz's characters, but doesn't really do all that much. (We already knew that Kurz was a womanizer and most of the series has been fleshing out Sousuke's character.)
Rating: B+
Posted by Kei at January 4, 2004 06:30 PM