New 'Full Metal Panic' Anime Reveals New Key Visuals

Full Metal Panic! was one of the most influential series in anime because of its skilled blending [...]

By Nick Valdez

Full Metal Panic! was one of the most influential series in anime because of its skilled blending of a core romance story with cool mecha action, and the series is set to make a grand return to screens with the fourth iteration of the series.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory, the May edition of Dragon Magazine revealed several full page spreads featuring the series' characters.

The greatest thing about these magazine spreads is that they encompass both the anime and manga versions of the characters which definitely bring nostalgic memories of the series flooding back to fans. 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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