Full Metal Panic!-Mission.05 (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Credits-Clean opening (1:31) and closing (1:31) Gallery-Production sketches (1:54) Unseen Footage-Japanese piracy warnings (1:04) Trailer-ADV Previews (5:32) Reversible Cover DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	71:19 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Kôichi Chigira
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Satsuki Yukino Tomokazu Seki Yukana Nogami Michiko Neya Shinichirô Miki Akio Ôtsuka Masahiko Tanaka Luci Christian Chris Patton Hilary Haag Allison Keith Vic Mignogna Mike Kleinhenz
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Toshihiko Sahashi

    This is Full Metal Panic! Mission.05. As hinted at in the title, this is the fifth volume in the series, and it comes after Full Metal Panic! Mission.01, Full Metal Panic! Mission.02, Full Metal Panic! Mission.03, and (surprise!) Full Metal Panic! Mission.04. A military precision to the naming scheme seems evident.

    The episodes on this disc are:

    This disc, once again, has only three episodes, which is rather disappointing, coming immediately after a three-episode disc — you'd expect them to try to space these out. Three episodes just isn't satisfying.

    This disc starts with a voice-over from a recognisable male voice (Vic Mignogna — the English language voice for Kurz) speaking over the copyright warning statement. He talks about not copying this disc, even for a pretty girl. These crazy copyright warnings are so much better than the regular ones.

    The first two episodes on this disc follow on from the last one on the previous one — a three-episode story about Sousuke on assignment with an AS team in Helmajistan. This is good, in that it gives us a much-needed insight into Sousuke's past, and how he acquired such military skills despite being only seventeen. Although this story is thrilling, and well worth watching, it does go on a bit long — I'm glad to get back to the humorous mood of the third episode on this disc, although the very end of episode 17 is touching.

    The third episode begins with Sousuke supervising the construction of a festival gate for the school — you can imagine the kind of design he produces. But he makes it up to Kaname by offering to take her, alone, to a sunny southern island. Kaname, even though she doesn't admit her feelings for Sousuke, is rather excited by this idea. I was wondering how he would manage to upset her with what sounds like a romantic idea — you'll see.

    This series continues to be high-quality, both well-plotted and well-realised. I'm very much looking forward to the last two discs in this series.

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. This is the original aspect ratio. The opening credits are letterboxed, but the show itself is full-frame.

    The image is clear and sharp, just as good as the fourth volume. There is no film grain, and no low-level noise.

    Colour is rendered well. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are no film artefacts. There are a couple of things that look like film artefacts on first glance, but looking at them closely reveals that they are rather clever simulations of camera optical artefacts, to give the impression that this is being filmed by a real camera — cute.

    There is some minor aliasing on most scenes with panning, or large-scale movement, but it's not troublesome. There is no moiré and no MPEG artefacts.

    The usual two subtitle tracks appear: both are in English, with the first being a "signs and song lyrics only" track while the second is full subtitles. These subtitles are yellow, attractive, and easy to read. The subtitles are improved on last time — I didn't spot any errors.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered. There is no layer change, but I'd happily have a layer change if it meant four or five episodes on a disc!

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English (both 5.1 and 2.0) and Japanese (2.0 only). The 2.0 soundtracks are Dolby Digital, not surround encoded, at 192kbps. The 5.1 soundtrack is Dolby Digital at 448kbps. I watched all the episodes in English 5.1, then again in Japanese 2.0. I didn't listen to the English 2.0 soundtrack at all — it could be in Swahili — perhaps I should check that next time...

    The English dialogue is easy to understand, well-acted, and synced well with the animation. The Japanese dialogue sounds clear enough, and looks to be as well-synced to the animation as the English.

    The score is well-suited to the show, and we can thank Toshihiko Sahashi for that. I just wish the DVD authors had chosen a longer fragment to play under the main and extras menus — it gets tedious rapidly.

    The English 5.1 soundtrack provides occasional directional sound effects, and makes good use of the subwoofer at times. The Japanese 2.0 soundtrack offers some decent stereo imaging, and is full range with some decent bass, but it can't stand up against a full 5.1 track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menus are animated with music, with a neat introductory transition. They are easy to use.

Reversible Cover

    The cover slick can be removed from the case and reversed. The inside image has completely different cover art (this one featuring Grey, one of the members of the AS team who go into Helmajistan with Sousuke), and the front cover and spine are (mostly) in Japanese. It has episode summaries instead of an overall blurb.

Clean Opening (1:31)

    The opening theme, in letterboxed form, without credits. Now where have I seen this before?...

Clean Closing (1:31)

    The closing sequence without credits. I think I've seen this before, too.

Production Sketches (0:54)

    This is not a gallery — it is a free-running montage of images with music. These are rather good images, some in line drawing form, others fully coloured.

Japanese Piracy Warning (1:06)

    Two warnings here: one from Gauron, and one from the teacher of Kaname's class.

ADV Previews (6:10)

    As seems common for ADV Previews, this is a series of trailers shown one after another:

• Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
• Bubblegum Crisis AD 2040
• Gasaraki
• Gunsmith Cats

    There are some older titles there — I wonder if they are about to be released in some way?

DVD Credits

    This page lists the American team, presumably the people at ADV, who were responsible for assembling the DVD.

    The Region 1 version of this disc was released late 2003. As far as I can tell, their disc is essentially identical to ours. They get an insert that we don't, with some notes about various kinds of AS, but that's a small detail.

    The R1 is reported to have a very good transfer, and I'd estimate that the two are pretty much equivalent.

    Looks like another draw between the Region 1 and the Region 4. I'm continuing to buy the R4s.

    Third-last volume of this series already? A high quality anime series that blends comedy and drama in waves, on a good quality DVD.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is excellent, particularly on the English 5.1 soundtrack.

    The extras are limited, but the copyright/anti-piracy warnings (both the English and the Japanese) are fun.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall