FULL METAL PANIC! EPISODE 1

very interesting start! But i'm treading lightly because one of the main characters of this anime is a highschool girl and i can already see that episode 3 is called "Lingerie Panic".

before we meet our main characters, we're treated to a chase scene taking place in the soviet union's great outdoors! there's a redhead lady riding shotgun in a little armored vehicle. she's biting herself and the guy driving the car to the point that it draws blood (because she's very scared). they get attacked by a helicopter and the car is destroyed. Then a fucking mech shows up And FIGHTS THE HELICOPTER.


the mech wins the battle! and some 17 year old guy gets out of the mech. And takes this lady in his arms and administers... something to put her to sleep.

she asks to know this guy's name pretty pretty please? he saved her life after all! but he doesn't tell her until she's asleep.

"Souske Sagara."

and now we CUT to a completely different day where we meet melissa mao (black haired lady) and kurz weber (blonde guy). mao and kurz FUCKING hate eachother and it's really funny to watch. (i will be referring to melissa as 'mao' for the purposes of having less letters to type). kurz also has some of my most favorite expressions LOL. the first picture also gives you a look at what souske looks like



their commander assigns a new task to mao, kurz, and souske. they have to act as the bodyguards for a highschool girl, because she's under threat of being KIDNAPPED BY THE KGB. And also they are NOT ALLOWED to tell the girl that she's being guarded. her name is kana!

they decide to forge documents for souske to act as a 'transfer student' to kana's school, so that they have a guy on the inside. and also he's 17 the other two can't do it theyre straightup adults LOL

its around this time that kurz starts making some Comments About Kana that i do not like. its nothing EXPLICIT but its just annoying shit like "she's sooo pretty i love her. my idol!" Shut UP!!!

finally, we get to meet kana (blue hair) for realsies. she's a 16 year old girl And oh my god she's a TOTAL BITCH and it RULES. her friend (brown hair. she was named but i forgot it) keeps setting her up on shitty dates and she HATED her last one because he was so SHALLOW and just kept talking about his WORTH and-


its about this time that souske arrives to school. he gets stopped by the teacher for bringing an entire fucking AK-47 to school.
kana's reaction to this ("Oh my gosh, he's a military maniac.")


so anyway kana's friend immediately begins plotting on how to set souske up with her.


class is starting!!! souske gets to introduce himself to kana's classroom


it is now very clear that souske has never interacted with kids his own age. he had to do prep work the day before with mao and kurz looking over things that teenagers are into (popular CDs, magazines, etc.), with souske being incredibly confused why in the world they need this stuff.

the class asks him some questions to get to know him more.

"where did you move from?"

"what are your hobbies? i bet it's model guns!"

then he is asked what he likes to read. Souske then spends a full minute explaining in detail the exact military, mecha, maritime, and gun magazines he is subscribed to and what he likes about each one. and then he catches himself and cuts himself off! NOOO! SOUSKE!!!


as he's talking about his favorite magazines it keeps cutting back to this kid holding the exact magazine he's talking about and its so funny


the rest of the day, souske is acting Strange by kana's definition. during recess, he patrols between the hallway and classrooms. kana for some reason HATES this.

she's complaining about this to her friend, and when she gives the solution "well why don't YOU just stop looking at HIM?" she goes


then she complains about him making eye contact with her. and it's PISSING her OFF. "He pretends as if it were just a coincidence, and looks in a different direction, but it's too obvious. Oooh, yuck!"

and then it cuts to this shot of souske which almost made me choke the first time i saw it


"it seems youve been complaining about sagara-kun for a while, kana."
"is that so?"



(the expressions in this anime really crack me up LOL)

So anyway then souske fucking breaks into the girl's changing room.

all of the girls throw all objects ever at him but he is UNAFFECTED. he grabs kana, yells "GET DOWN!" and POINTS A GUN AT THE OPEN DOOR.!?!?!?!??!!

kana: WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID YOU DO THAT? YOU SCRAPED MY ELBOW.
souske: I can't tell you that. You don't have a Need to Know.
kana: WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW???

and then she starts choking him out.


kana's friend: what did you come in here for, sagara?
souske: *chokes, clears throat*
souske: at my old school, i was active in this same kind of sport. i'm proud that i did a good job there.
souske: i have confidence in my physical strength. i don't think you'll lose anything if you hire me. how's that?

camera cuts to the outside of the building and all of the girls go "Here we go!" and the sound of GLASS SHATTERING starts playing.

then it cuts to show a "softball club" sign. and then it zooms out to reveal "girls' softball club"

im really fascinated by how he worded it. I don't think you'll lose anything if you hire me.

it turns out also that kana, at some point after the dressing room break-in, handcuffed souske behind his back and he had to walk back to his fake home/base of operations like that. he had to buy a train ticket while handcuffed.

mao is listening in on a phone conversation that kana is having with her friend. she says that souske is "an interesting guy!" it seems like she's a lot nicer at home than she is at school. and also one more screenshot of her because this is like top 10 anime artstyles for me. End of episode!

do i want to watch more?

yeah! im interested to see Why the actual fuck is kana at risk of being kidnapped by the KGB. Huh? the mecha aspect is like eeeehh? i dont feel too strongly about it but mainly i really like the characterization of souske. another #autismwarrior. But again im really scared by episode 3's title. so i'm TREADING.

favorite screenshots

this book in kana's bag. the teacher called it weird.

intimidation tactics are being used

okay i change my mind i dont have it in me to watch kanon tonight.

KANON EPISODE 1

i don't like their mouths. this is unrelated to the actual plot of the episode i just. i just. the mouths. i have to talk about them before i go any further. whys the mouth so close to the nose??? genuinely, i really like the rest of the art style! the hair is fun, the clothes are interesting, the body proportions are fun, BUT WHY ARE THEIR MOUTHS LIKE THAT?! their heads are drawn with PLENTIFUL amounts of space to allow them to just. move them down a little bit! BUT THEY DON'T.

this is one of the very first shots that you see of any characters' face in the opening and i just. i can't take it seriously.


Move it down. Please. It's so small. She is a pug... i WILL say that the mouths look a lot better when they're more wide-open but when its like a half-open mouth or a profile angle it really looks.... not good.

And that's all im going to say about the mouths. now we can move onto the actual episode

actually no the fuck it's not i lied. It'd be so pitifully easy to make the mouths look normal. Why. Why aren't they? (first is original, second is edited)



Okay. Now i'm done. Onto the show itself.

this episode opens with ms. purple hair walking alone in the snow, talking to herself and reassuring herself that "he'll remember... he'll remember!" and then it plays the intro.

and then we get to meet brown hair boy (yuuichi)! yuuichi is the he in question.

yuuichi's parents are pursuing their dreams off in africa, and because he's staying behind in japan - where have i heard this before...? - he has to go live in his aunt's house with his cousin that he used to visit alllll the time 7 years ago. but then one day, they just stopped contacting each other.

it turns out that yuuichi straight up does NOT remember literally any of the time that he spent in his cousin's neighborhood. "he'll remember!" he does not. at least he remembers his cousin's name! nayuki!

during their walk home, nayuki points out a park that they'd gone to when they were kids.


He Forgor 💀

anyway they make it back to nayuki's house and we get to meet her mom that looks exactly like her but taller. she has the dead anime mother hairstyle but i don't think she's in any danger so it's fine


she's actually the very first anime mom that i've encountered on my quest to where she looks the exact same as all of the other teenage characters. kanon has certainly set some precedents for the future and i dont really like them all that much.

this is a very slow paced episode 1 im having trouble describing it in a way that's not just a literal play-by-play of every single event LOL

yuuichi moves in and starts unpacking his things in his room. somehow he has a LOT of fucking boxes maybe there was a moving van involved? he was just carrying a heavy bag before.


we also learn that yuuichi really really did not want to come live with his aunt and cousin. why? probably cause he can't remember any of the last time he was here.

while unpacking, he finds a red hairband that definitely does not belong to him, and it bothers him so much he falls asleep staring at it. Remember this hairband for later!

the next day, yuuichi offers to go shopping for his aunt, and when he stands at the front door, he gets a flashback to when he and nayuki were little kids. he follows in the same footsteps from this memory, and ends up running into (present day, real) nayuki in town.

in yuuichi's flashback, baby nayuki made baby yuuichi PROMISE that he wouldn't leave first while nayuki went shopping. and in present day, nayuki pouts at yuuichi and says "i don't want you to leave first." and then she runs away to go do shopping for lunch instead of yuuichi.

i'm really confused why they don't just ... both go shopping together ...? but i guess if they did that then yuuichi wouldn't GET HEADBUTT IN THE STOMACH?!


❗ This girl is wearing a red hairband.

yuuichi is mad at this random girl for just fucking running into him, but she does NOT have TIME to TALK. SHE'S BEING CHASED. so obviously she grabs yuuichi's hand and starts fucking BOOKING IT!!!!!

❗Broken promise to Nayuki.

girl drags them into a magazine store and tells yuuichi to hide (read a magazine). they look through the window to reveal who exactly is chasing her.

... its a taiyaki stand guy. He's chasing her because she FUCKING STOLE A BAG OF TAIYAKI WITHOUT PAYINGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!


they argue for a minute about the ethics of stealing taiyaki ("its a really complicated story" "uhhuh" "i ordered taiyaki and then i realized i didnt have any money but i still wanted the taiyaki so i just fucking ran")




she convinces him to eat her ill-gotten treats. she introduces herself as Ayu Tsukimiya. yuuichi, in turn, gives her his name. ayu is so surprised by this information she nearly starts crying, but she doesn't really explain why. she just says that she hopes they can see each other again, and then goes home.

...

Oh Fuck He Forgot About Nayuki.

Too Late! she's already gone home without him. and is rightfully MAD at him for it! but she quickly forgives him. so i guess it doesnt matter

when yuuichi goes to bed that night, he has a dream, or maybe a dream of a memory? of 7 years ago... when he ran into a crying ayu in the middle of a busy town! Woahhhh!!!!!


baby yuuichi buys her taiyaki to help cheer her up, and it turns out that he's the one that gave her the advice that taiyaki is best eaten when it's fresh. alright, that's just cute. they make a pinkie promise to each other that they'll meet up at this same time tomorrow, and yuuichi will be waiting by the bench next to the train station. (this is where he was waiting for nayuki at the start of the episode, im pretty sure?)

and the episode ends with yuuichi waking up. well, THAT explains why he has a red hairband- no it doesn't. why does he have that. we know who it belongs to but that doesnt say anything about why LOL

do i want to watch more?

hmmm. i am curious as to why yuuichi doesn't remember anything, and i like the interspersed childhood flashbacks that give us (and yuuichi) more information for what it was like the last time he was in town, 7 years ago. i went against my own judgement, and looked at the genre tags on myanimelist (mainly i was worried about it becoming a harem anime because there's a lot of girls in the intro and yuuichi is literally the only boy in the entire show it seems like LOL) and one of the tags was supernatural and that does make me very curious.

but also it just seems kinda... plain otherwise? so far the only character that i'm really invested in is ayu. nayuki doesn't exist outside of being related to yuuichi, and yuuichi is just pitifully boring when he's on his own

and also i'm a little disquieted by how childlike these first two girls seem. apparently they're both meant to be 17?!?!?! i wouldve guessed 13-14!!!

this is the type of thing that i think i would only watch more of in a group setting, i wouldn't knowingly sit down by myself and go Alright, time to watch KANON! it definitely has its interesting moments (again, the memory thing, and knowing there's a supernatural element to this somehow?) but when it lulls it lulls HARD.

favorite screenshots

this one single nayuki moment was really funny and her expression is really silly to me


Notice anything else about her face there?

That's right.

HER MOUTH IS LOWER. AND IT LOOKS BETTER!!!

i literally like this artstyle so much but the FUCKING MOUTHS keep getting in the WAY OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!