Shouji Gatoh

One of the best combinations of comedy, action, and romance I have ever read, though the romance is admittedly the lesser of the three in this volume. The "fish out of water" comedy of Sousuke Sagara, a boy trained to be an assassin, then raised in a war zone after he failed to assassinate the general he was sent to kill trying to adapt to living as a normal high school student in Tokyo is very funny. The extremes to which he goes to guard Kaname Chidori, the beautiful girl who is being targeted by terrorists, without letting her know that she is being targeted or that he is guarding her, make for good humor as well.

The fact that the humor is as good as it is only makes the fantastic action sequences better. The descriptions of the Arm Slaves, humanoid mecha that are the product of "Black Technology" that changed the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the detailed combat sequences are second to none.

The villain, Gouran, who has a history with Sousuke, is extremely effective, if a little over the top in terms of his level of "evil". However, the story makes it clear that the mercenaries who work for Mithril, the private anti-terrorism organization that Sousuke works for, are not necessarily that much better than the "bad guys", they just work for a better employer. Other than his sneering enjoyment of his work, Sousuke and the other mercenaries are not that different from Gouran when it comes to being willing to kill in order to carry out their mission. In fact, it is heavily hinted that Sousuke has a long history that most likely includes questionable acts that would shock most normal people.

The world building is also exemplary. Gatou-sensei paints a world close to our own, but twisted by the introduction of advanced technology at least a generation or more earlier than it should logically occur, including some that shouldn't logically occur at all. The result is a world with as much, if not more conflict between nations and terrorist organizations bent on achieving their goals by trampling on the lives of innocents as our own, but with tools that lead to far greater devastation, but also allow those that want to end the madness to fight them effectively.

The confusion brought about as young Sousuke deals with unfamiliar feelings as he begins to fall head over heals in love with Kaname is precious. His inexperience with the emotion of love in any form is restricted to the camaraderie he shares with his fellow mercenaries and it is made perfectly clear that the current group of comrades is one of a select few groups he has felt even that level of friendship with. That pit-of-the-stomach feeling when Kaname is angry with him, the longing to see her, and other feelings are completely foreign to him. At one point his fellow mercenary Kurz Weber tells him he is feeling this way because he's in love and "has it bad". His reaction is that it can't be true, because he has heard that love is a wonderful feeling and he feels awful. It makes the commonly used trope of the completely oblivious male protagonist not only funny, but believable, which makes the FMP! series a unique creature in the Japanese manga/anime/light novel world.

A fine and complete story, Full Metal Panic! Fighting Boy Meets Girl… (more)

So far, this is the book I've enjoyed the least. After the events on "Continuing on my Own", Sagara is a "man with a mission". He has a target and he has a plan, or so it seems.

The truth is that I found the book lacking in plot advancement and much slower than the previous ones. So much as to not being able to oversee the evident flaws in this saga, this is mindless fun, nothing more.

Accompaning Sagara there are a couple of new characters. A lively girl quite similar to Kaname Chidori but no so engaging and deep -if that can be said from the stereotypical characters we find in these books- and a french journalist that in the end is not that much interesting either. I found myself missing not just Chidori, but also Weber, Mao and even Tessa, more and more. On top of that, Sousuke didn't feel like himself and more than once I thought, "Really? After all that's happened!"

So, I guess this is the book I would skip if I ever read these saga again.… (more)

This volume contains the story arc covered by the second season of the anime and the fourth and fifth volumes of the Japanese edition, which is quite fortunate as after the first volume you are literally left in the middle of the some battles.

This is the first time I have read a light novel and I don't know if other light novels are the same, but it feels like reading a manga or watching an anime. The strange situations or the characters interactions are not what you expect from a novel but from a more visual media and specifically, Japanese animation or manga. This is just to say that a series such as this would not probably appeal to someone who is not already into all these.

The story is action packed and very swift. Although I already knew it from the anime, I couldn't keep my eyes from its pages, I read it in one afternoon, not that it is too long, but I usually are too busy to being so deeply oblivious of time passing.

This is a "guilty pleasure" for me, something a bit silly, very fun, mechas, battles and just a bit of odd japanese-style romance between and awkward boy and an outgoing girl. Recommend just for fans.… (more)