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Friday, July 20, 2018

Full Metal Panic! Back on my Wishlist:

The disappointment didn't take long.  FMP! IV is over, with no announcement of a season 5 to assuage our loss.  This means we're still missing volumes 6, 10, 11 and 12 from anime adaption.  Obviously a season 5 of FMP takes priority over Ad Astra per Aspera, so I kicked Ad Astra off my '100 anime I wish were made but haven't been yet' list and put FMP! back on.

FMP! IV was a good season marred by uncontrollable outside forces.  First there was the 11 year gap between seasons 3 and 4.  Then there was the six month delay after it had been announced for a fall 2017 release.  Then when we finally got it in the spring of 2018, it didn't include an adaption of volume 6.  Then came the endless delays and recap episodes, which meant endless disruption to the flow of the story, continuously breaking immersion.  And now we're left shattered with no ending to the story, just yet another awful cliffhanger that puts us right back to where we started.

The actual episodes were great, and Xebec did a fine job conveying their ruthlessness and energy.  Once it comes out in blu-ray and we can watch it all at once in a steady binge it will be great.  But the lived experience of the tv season was horrible.

For now I encourage everyone to go read the missing books the anime left out.  Everyone deserves to know the ending to this story, one way or another.  But I also feel like they shouldn't have even revived this series if they didn't have the dedication to see it through to the end.  Why wasn't this a 24 episode series with a proper ending?  Would it have killed them to take some responsibility and actually see things through?

At a time when many other series, much worse than FMP!, are getting 24 episode seasons, why wasn't FMP! given the same amount of leeway?  What on Earth is going on over there in Japan?  FMP! is one of the most popular and beloved anime series of all time.  Why would you give 24 episodes to shit like Juushinki Pandora but not FMP!?

Oh well.  Who knows, maybe season 5 will be announced eventually.  There's a new release date for the 4th Evangelion remake movie, 2020, so even things that have been delayed since 2012 are being given new life.  There's always hope.

I'm about halfway through Index NT volume 20 and so far it hasn't been any good.  Index is so long, it's bound to be a hit and miss affair.  Sadly volume 20 seems to be in the 'miss' column.  But you have to keep reading anyway, because who knows, maybe volume 21 will be a 'hit.'  You're stuck until the very end.

It feels like the only medium that hasn't let me down recently is my music hall of fame.  I've so thoroughly vetted my music that only perfection remains.  (Or if it there is a problem, it's swiftly removed, so it's never a big deal either way.)  Whether I'm reading Index or playing WoW, all I'm really doing is listening to my itunes playlist.  Everything else is just an excuse to stay at the computer so I can listen more.  The music is always the main draw.

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