A lot of good news today. Harmonia, Key's latest kinetic novel (along the same lines as Planetarian), is coming out in English soon.
Kud Wafter, Little Busters EX, Angel Beats: 1st Beat and Rewrite Harvest Festa still haven't been fan translated yet, so Harmonia getting an official English release is a big relief. Translators can't keep up with Key's production rate and at this rate we'd just never get to read anything more by Key if we leave it up to the fans.
Meanwhile, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is getting an anime adaption of its 4th part, diamond is unbreakable. This section of the manga is considered by fans to be the best, or near the best, so I'll be looking forward to it. Stardust Crusaders was only mediocre, but maybe the 4th time is the charm?
Jojo's was a huge success commercially, so it was inevitable, one would think, that this anime would be announced. That's why this is good news, but nothing we didn't already expect.
Full Metal Panic getting a new anime, however, is an entirely different breed of awesome. Abandoned for ten years, the FMP anime has been gathering dust as its story remained stuck in the middle of a cliffhanger forever.
The question is, what, if anything, will FMP be covering? The next book in the main line of the series the anime should be on is Dancing Very Merrily Christmas -- a great book that stays true to the formula of half action, half comedy/romance. But that's just one book. After that, FMP goes full grimdark and becomes a saga of death and redemption and struggle. This section of the novels is also fantastic, but animators have been leery of switching 'tone' so severely from all the previous FMP antics that they've never dared to animate any more of the story. The new FMP announcement could be, then, just an ova or a movie covering Dancing Very Merrily Christmas, and we'd be right back where we started with a cliffhanger ending just a few minutes moved forward in the plot.
Unless it's a season 4 that promises to go all the way to the ending, I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about this FMP announcement. It just feels like it will reopen old wounds that I thought were healed. It will leave me with the burning desire to see more just like I had a decade ago, which I'd finally managed to get over, except it will be just as fierce a craving again. Is that really a good thing? More like a torture device.
Even worse than a short movie or ova -- what if it's an original story? What if it's just random filler? What if it's a spinoff based on some FMP short stories, or FMP: Another light novel series? It could disappoint us in so many ways. It could be as horrible as that new haruhi anime was.
We need more details on this announcement before celebrations are truly in order. Like that SAO movie, it could be more of a 'thanks for nothing' than 'hallelujah' moment.
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