YMMV / Full Metal Panic!

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Kaname is one of the more violent Tsunderes out there; is her aggression justified with how outright dangerous Sousuke can be in mundane situations, or does it make her obnoxious?
  • There is no middle ground when it comes to people's feelings toward Gauron. They either love him for being a psychotic Stalker with a Crush that just wouldn't die, or hate him for being a shallow villain that doesn't have a grander purpose in life.
  • Leonard Testarossa is no better or worse off than Gauron. He gets appreciated for being an honorable, Noble Demon whose intentions, extreme as they may be, may be grander and more for the greater good than anything Sousuke would care for. But at the same time, his cockiness and Insufferable Genius, along with his superiority complex have earned him great ire among his detractors.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The very first episode of the anime series features Sousuke rescuing a unknown but relevant-looking character, whom light novel readers would recognize as Mira Kudan, another Whispered, but given that she never appears again in the entire anime series, for people unfamiliar with the novels she ends up being an unexplained, out-of-context plot point Left Hanging. This only finally changed when Mira returned in the Invisible Victory season, which premiered sixteen years after her anime debut.
• Complete Monster: These two bloodthirsty members of the counterintelligence Amalgam organization are a cut above for cruelty:
  • Gauron, aka Mister Iron, is a brutal mercenary and the Arch-Enemy of protagonist Sosuke Sagara. Having killed all of Sosuke's comrades in a war-torn country, Gauron also repeatedly attempts to force himself on the minor. In present, Gauron shows his brutality on missions he is assigned to, killing subordinates for questioning him, hijacking an airliner while threatening the high school passengers, and kidnapping one passenger to subject her to painful experimentation. Returning later working as a nuclear Arms Dealer, Gauron happily slaughters Sosuke's squad trying to stop him and goes on to hijack a submarine, intending to fire its powerful missiles lest his enemies give in to his demands. Corrupting two twin teenagers into following his twisted will, Gauron uses them to target Sosuke and his Love Interest and even when lying completely immobilized, tries to draw Sosuke into one final trap to kill them together.
  • The Second Raid anime: Mr. Gates, aka Mister Kalium, is assigned to the head of Amalgam's Execution Squad and is a lunatic who kills his own followers for any slight or just to make a cruel joke. Attempting to ambush the heroes, Gates targets a public place, uncaring for the innocents caught in the way. Sexually depraved as well, Gates holds teenage twins Yu Fan and Yu Lan under his thumb, possibly subjecting them to assault, and when one is killed, uses her body as a puppet to viciously mock the surviving sister.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Tessa, to the point where she gets her own OVA all about her day.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Kurtz's shamelessly perverted behavior, particularly when he gets inappropriate with Melissa and Tessa, gets uncomfortable when in 2019, his dub voice actor, Vic Mignogna, came under fire for allegations of sexually harassing con-goers and even his coworkers.
  • Chris Patton and Mike Kleinhenz played ex-COSMOS child soldier Yu Ominae and Fatman in the Spriggan OVA. Here they play Sousuke and Kalinin. It becomes more painful that Sousuke finds out that Kalinin has gone rogue and has to face that fact that he needed to fight him.
  • Badakhshan Province was said to be taken by the Soviet and Afghan communist forces in the FMP! verse. As of August 2021, the province has been captured and placed under Taliban control during the 2021 Taliban offensive.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Chris Patton betrays Kent Williams' group because he (Chris) won't play second fiddle to everyone. Here, since Kent Williams replaced Mike Kleinhenz as Kalinin, it's quite the opposite.
  • Greg Ayres as Shinji Kazama gets to this when he voices Kensuke Aida, a character Kazama was arguably an Expy of, in the Evangelion Rebuild series.
• Ho Yay: Gauron towards Sōsuke. It is now completely canon. Watch the TSR comedy radio show where Gauron acts as the school's "sensei." Gato is doing this on purpose. Gauron orders Sousuke to write on the chalk board "Kashim loves Gauron Sensei. Heart. ♥" as well as "Gauron Sensei's extreme attack makes Kashim's heart pound. I want to have children with him." Followed by what appears to be an attempt to rape Sousuke in front of the class. Yay for subtlety.
• I Knew It!: That President Hayashimizu secretly knew about Mithril and Kaname's protected status was a very popular theory at its day, and it was confirmed as canon in Continuing On My Own.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Sōsuke. He's been paired with pretty much all the major characters, plus some side characters. Men, women, friends, enemies, characters much older than him, you name it. (He would probably believe that "shipping" would be used in its actual sense.)
• Les Yay:
  • Mao has actually groped Tessa's breasts and spends an inordinate amount of time with her, often while inebriated, naked, and in a sexually charged mood.
  • Also, Yu Fan and Yu Lan are first shown onscreen sharing a very intimate shower scene...
  • Tessa and Kaname even share some Les Yay moments occasionally, despite being rivals for Sousuke's affections.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I'm no amateur... In fact, I'm a specialist."^note Sousuke's one line when Kaname thinks that he's a military otaku and he's risking his life to get killed after he pilots a Savage in North Korea
  • "The lone mecha fan, pictured here fighting against the tide of CG mechs, colorized 2018" ^explaination Golden Kamuy fans often relate to other Mecha (including FMP!'s) fans' dissonance to CGI-animated mecha instead of being traditionally-animated.
• Moe: Oh Lord, Sōsuke when he was young. Absolutely. Adorable. And very huggable, too. Especially when he's holding his Bonta-kun stuffed animal.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Gauron hijacking Kaname's class' plane, endangering the whole class.
  • Gates murdering Yu Fan after taunting her with the corpse of her sister.
• Squick: Wait, was Gates just whacking off, and all that was shown on screen was a picture of a kitten?
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The anime sountracks include some examples, several of which seem like deliberate homages.
  • "Tokkou Yarou" is incredibly similar to the theme from The A-Team. The title is actually "Tokkou Yarou?" / 「特攻野郎？」(yes, with question mark) which means something along the lines of "Gung-ho guys". Lampshaded when it appears as a cellphone ring tone and someone says it sounds like an old American TV show (which indeed was called Tokkou Yarou A-Chiimu when broadcast in Japan).
  • The Second Raid has "Shissou", a piece suspiciously similar to the theme from Airwolf.
• The Scrappy: Shinji Kazama. Despite his friendship with Sousuke, it gets really grating whenever Kazama points out any military machinery, especially in the middle of a serious crisis. His backstory doesn't help much, either.
• Shocking Moments: The number of jaw-dropping moments in the series dramatically increases beginning with Continuing On My Own/Invisible Victory, and it doesn't let up. To wit, we have...
  • Amalgam launching a full-scale attack on Mithril's island base — including several Behemoths— ending with multiple officers dead, the base being overrun, and Tessa and Kalinin being separated.
  • Amalgam launching a simultaneous attack on Sousuke and Kaname, turning Kaname's hometown into a warzone.
  • Kyoko being held hostage with explosives wired to her, and later getting severely injured by shrapnel from a missile attack after Sousuke disarms the bombs and leaves with her and Wraith.
  • Kaname willingly giving herself to Amalgam following an intense battle between Sousuke and Leonard, which ends with the Arbalest being destroyed.
  • Sousuke's life as a mercenary being revealed to his classmates.
  • Sousuke's new friend Nami being murdered by Kurama in an attempt to provoke him (which works all too well), which results in a later firefight between the two that ends with Kurama dead and Sousuke's severely wounded with a gunshot to the abdomen.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: As stated above, Leonard was meant to be a fairly sympathetic villain, with his mommy issues and his semi-noble goals. It didn't quite work out that way...

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