Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid - Starter Set
TheSecond Raid(2005), the third installment ofFull Metal Panic, picks up about two months after the first adventure ended (and ignores the second,Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu). Sousuke tries to juggle active service with the mercenaries of Mithril and high school assignments tied to his efforts to protect Kaname. A mysterious enemy attacks in a remote Eurasian country and in China: It may be Gauron, the bloodthirsty terrorist Sousuke battled in the first series. He's accompanied by the assassins Yu Fang and Yu Lan, sisters who may also be lovers. Director Yasuhiro Takemoto stages hand-to-hand combat and a majormechabattle in a claustrophobic tunnel beneath the Yangtze River. When he's not engaged in deadly struggles, Sousuke remains as clueless as ever, and Kaname has fits at his excesses, although the tone of the show stays darker than the lunaticFumoffu. The extras include footage of Takemoto and Shoji Gatoh, the author of the novels on which the series is based, scouting locations in Hong Kong and studying the equipment of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. The only addition in the Starter Set is a box to hold the discs. (Rated TV 14: violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, tobacco use, nudity with suggested lesbianism)--Charles Solomon