'Full Metal Panic's New Anime Reveals Premiere Date

Ever since it was announced that the popular Full Metal Panic franchise would get a fourth entry to the series later this year, fans have been anxious to find out when it releases.

Luckily, the wait for new episodes of the series won't be much longer as the series has confirmed it will return in April.

Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory is set to release April 13, airing on Japan's AT-X at 8:30 PM and Tokyo-MX at 10:30PM.

The series features the returning cast of Tomokazu Seki as Sousuke Sagara, Satsuki Yukino as Kaname Chidori, Ikue Kimura as Kyoko Tokiwa, Toshiyuki Morikawa as Atsunobu Hayashimizu, Rio Natsuki as Eri Kagurazaka, Yukana as Teletha "Tessa" Testarossa, Shinichiro Miki as Kurz Weber, Michiko Neya as Melissa Mao, Akio Ohtsuka as Andrei Kalinin, Tomomichi Nishimura as Richard Mardukas, Daisuke Namikawa as Leonard Testarossa, and Kazuhiro Yamaji as Kurama

New cast members include Masaki Terasoma as Wilhelm Casper, Marina Inoue as Sabina Rechnio, Aya Uchida as Sachi Shinohara, Minori Chihara as Nami, Kenjiro Tsuda as Michel Lemon, Tomokazu Sugita as Lee Fowler, Tessho Genda as the Namusaku Police Chief, Sho Hayami as George Lovelock, and Kappei Yamaguchi as Dragonfly (the Falke A.I.).

Katsuichi Nakayama is directing the series for XEBEC, with Full Metal Panic! original novel author Shoji Gatoh writing the scripts for the series.

For those unfamiliar with Full Metal Panic!, the series was first created by Shoji Gatoh with illustrations provided by Shiki Douji. The series follows Sousuke Sagara, who is a member of an anti-terrorist organization known as Mithril. He's tasked with guarding a young school girl named Kaname Chidori, and enrolls in her high school. Since he's not good at socially interacting with others, he ends up being labeled as a weirdo when he puts a military spin on everyday life and is trying to figure out why Kaname is a target in the first place.

Originally crafted as a series of light novels, the series was adapted into five different manga series, and three different anime series. The first was Full Metal Panic! by Gonzo in 2002, the second was Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu from Kyoto Animation in 2002, and the third was Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid which was also produced by Kyoto Animation in 2005. ADV Films and Kadokawa licensed the anime series for an English language release, and Funimation later acquired the distribution rights to the series and had its broadcast premiere on Funimation's own channel in 2010.

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