Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (フルメタル・パニック? ふもっふ, Furumetaru Panikku? Fumoffu?) is a companion series to the anime series Full Metal Panic! by Kyoto Animation.
Markedly different in tone to the first series, Fumoffu emphasizes the high school romantic comedy aspects of Full Metal Panic! and focuses on the romantic tension between Sousuke Sagara and Kaname Chidori. It sometimes parodies itself on other anime stereotypes, and features none of the mecha combat and political intrigue which characterized much of the original Full Metal Panic!.
There is little ongoing plot, also contrasting with the first Full Metal Panic! series: most Fumoffu episodes can stand alone, needing very little recap if any. The only breaks from this pattern are a handful of two-part stories told over two episodes. Many of the stories in Fumoffu are adaptations of plots in the original Full Metal Panic! short stories that ran on the Dragon Magazine.
The name "Fumoffu" is the sound made by Bonta-kun, a fictional mascot in the series who resembles a giant yellow mouse. During the series Sousuke designs and places into production heavily modified Bonta-kun suits for the purpose of aiding in tactical situations. Except for only being able to move at normal walking or running speeds for a human, the suit is essentially a miniature Arm Slave - however, the suit's "voice changer" renders all speech into either "Fu", "Mo", "Ffu", or "Ru", and the F.M.M.F.O. OS will immediately crash if the pilot tries to deactivate it (as referenced in Episode 10). This results in Kaname needing to act as a translator via headset radio if Sousuke needs to make himself understood.
There were 12 half-hour episodes created, but only 11 were broadcast on Japanese television. The omitted stories are said by ADV's "Mysteries of Fummofu", --on the first American DVD-- to have not been broadcast because their plots deal with kidnapping and similar child kidnapping events happened in Japan in real life shortly before the planned broadcast.
The television series was animated by Kyoto Animation, replacing GONZO from the previous series. The English version was produced by ADV Films. The original broadcast in Japan aired from August 25-November 18, 2003, ran for 11 episodes, and 2 volumes of videos were released on DVD. To coincide with seasonal change of the last three broadcasts, the ending song images which were of summer at the beginning were changed to that of the fall.
- From
Wikipedia