Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid – OVA

Words cannot describe the absolute complete and total awesomeness that this half-hour of animation contains. When I first heard about and OVA that would depict a day in the life of Tessa, the TDD-1's venerable captain, I was ecstatic. More Tessa fanservice? Yes please! The hot springs episode of FMP? Fumoffu! easily became my most favorite episode of any series, hands down ("Melissa, stop! Please don't stare at me like that! NO!" *nosebleed*). But now…

Hell yes! Read on for summary and more yummy Tess fanservice.

Tessa is on the bridge, and the TDD-1 is under attack. Just before Tessa can order countermeasures against a pair of incoming torpedoes, Mardukas interrupts her…and he turns into Sousuke. In fact, the entire bridge crew turns into a swarm of Sousukes, each and every one of them confessing their love for her. Right when Tessa seems like she's about to faint from embarrassment, the radar officer shouts that the torpedo is about to hit. When it does Tessa falls over…and finds out that the whole thing was a dream. Unfortunately for her, she was sitting in the Captain's chair on the TDD-1's bridge, wearing nothing but her underwear and her uniform's shirt. Fortunately for us, she doesn't realize this and she still thinks she's in the bizarre dream.

Tessa looks around the empty bridge demanding a damage report from the people that aren't there. She grabs her blanket and wanders off the bridge, and eventually finds herself in the hangar, where Sousuke and Al, the Arbalest's AI, are running simulations. In typical Sousuke fashion, he freaks out when he first spots Tessa. Tessa immediately runs to him and hugs him, and asks him to call her Tessa. Al continues to comment on on the simulation, but his word choices tie into what's happening to Sousuke ("The chest is taking hits." "I know that!"). Sousuke accidentally calls Tessa by her name, then corrects himself and asks her to let him go find a medic. The word "medic" makes Tessa think for a bit, and she suddenly comes to her senses. She tries to hide herself and her undies from Sousuke, bu she trips over herself (typical Tessa ) and ends up exposing much more than she ever wanted to. She eventually runs off, apologizing as she scampers back to her quarters.

I'm not the best photoshopper in the world, but damn is she still hot…

Ahem. Anyway, Tessa's next stop is the shower (as if I'd pass up pics of that ), and after a bit of primping and getting her uniform put on (and tripping on the small ledge that the bulkhead to her room has), she heads out to see her people. Her first stop is the base (not TDD-1 like earlier) hangar, where Mao listens to her story while prepping her newest project. Tessa whines that she worked hard to be free today, just because Sousuke was on base and away from Kaname, but she can't face him because of what had happened. Mao asks why Tessa was sleeping in the commanders chair, and Tessa starts to go over what had happened the night before. Tessa paid a visit to Mao in her room, and Mao was doing the usual: drinking herself to death. Tessa stayed for a while, drinking some juice that Mao gave her, and eventually fell asleep in Mao's room. Mao suggests that she wandered off after Mao left the room, and Tessa laments that she lost her "sleeping companion" (a Bonta-kun plushie). Tessa asks Mao if she had seen it, and Mao accidentally lets slip that the juice that she gave Tessa that night wasn't juice, but a cocktail. Tessa gets all pissed because she doesn't like alcohol, but Mao just shrugs and shows off her project: tangoing M9s. Tessa gets angry because Mao is misusing billion-dollar machinery like that, and when the "male" M9 throws the "female" one into the side of the hangar, Tessa says that the repairs are coming out of Mao's paycheck. Ouch.

Tessa then heads to the Lost and Found looking for her Bonta-kun, and instead finds Kurtz turning in a bag of anime he found in the locker room. Kurtz runs off before he can sign the mandatory ledger (I have a bad feeling about where this is going ), and Grouseaux shows up to claim the missing anime. Grouseaux asks Tessa not to tell anybody about his hobby, as it would make him seem "sentimental" to his men (namely Kurtz. Told you this was gonna be bad) and they would loose respect in him. Tessa jokingly suggests that he stop watching, and Grouseaux freaks out before Tessa has a chance to tell him she was joking. Kinda reminds me of when A-chan suggested that Densha stop being an otaku…

Tessa hurries out of the Lost and Found to avoid telling the person in charge what she was looking for. She suddenly remembers her phone ringing the night before, and finds Kalinin was the last one that called her cell. She heads to his room, and is surprised to see him in an apron. He has been cooking borscht, a dish from his native Russia. Kalinin offers Tessa some, and calls Sousuke as well, who declines (this should have set off an alarm in Tessa's brain. Sousuke would have never refused an officer…unless it was a threat to his life). Tessa and Kalinin go over the events that had happened the night before, with Kalinin pausing every few seconds when his stopwatch beeped to stir his borscht. Kalinin had called Tessa to ask permission to start a test of the base's alarm system. Tessa had given permission, but had said that she would attend the test. Kalinin had later received a call from Mardukas that Tessa would be unable to attend so he started the test without her. After testing the borscht with litmus paper, Kalinin serves some to Tessa, who has her first near-death experience. The taste was apparently there on purpose: Kalinin's late wife made it this way when he occasionally returned home from the Russian Army, and he could never bring himself to tell her it was terrible. Poor guy.

Tessa manages to escape Kalinin's clutches, and wanders aimlessly down the hallway, pining for Bonta-kun and wondering where Mardukas went. Kurtz suddenly comes barrelling down the hallway and hides behind a bunch of boxes. Grouseaux is not far behind, and he explains to Tessa that Kurtz had replaced the "important scene" in his anime with pigs…doing something. I'm not too sure what it was that they were doing…Grouseaux runs off, and Kurtz leaps over the boxes to try and avoid him, only to be stopped by a lecture from Tessa. Before she can get an agreement out of him, Grouseaux finds them, and they get into a fight, Grouseaux with a broom and Kurtz with a grenade launcher loaded with rubber pellets (a la Fumoffu). Mardukas comes out of nowhere, and gets the two to stop fighting. He gives them all a long lecture that lasts until nightfall, and eventually lets them go. Tessa asks Mardukas who told him that she wouldn't be able to make it to the test, and he reluctantly reveals that it was Sousuke. He also says that Sousuke's plane back to Tokyo is leaving soon. Tessa's memory comes back, and she remembers that Sousuke found her drunkenly wandering the hallways. He tries to direct her to her room, but she insisted on sleeping in the commander's chair on the TDD-1. Tessa runs to the runway and finds Sousuke on the plane, ready to leave. She musters up all of her courage and confesses her love for him, which he, in typical Sousuke fashion, mistakes as a confession that she loves booze. He lectures her on the badness of alcohol (remember, he's a pseudo-Muslim), and tells her that Bonta-kun is with Mao. Tessa tries to explain, but the plane takes off before she gets another chance. Aw. Back on base, Mao asks her how her day was, and Tessa says it was horrible…but that she never wanted it to end. THE END!

Well now, wasn't that interesting? I've been aching for some more FMP! after The Second Raid ended, and the Tessa fanservice definitely helped feed my hunger. After the next novel in line to be animated (A Dancing Very Merry Christmas) Tessa takes a back seat to Sousuke and Kaname's budding relationship, so hopefully the next series (which BETTER be after the totally useless Kanon remake) will have an OVA like this to alleviate that. I absolutely loved this whole thing, but the scenes between Sousuke and Tessa at the beginning were absolutely hysterical, as was the scene where Grouseaux "comes out" as an Otaku . I need more FMP! ASAP…stupid Kanon remake and your taking up KyoAni's time. Speaking of KyoAni, the animation was superb, as usual. I love these guys, they're fast becoming my favorite studio. I might actually watch the Kanon remake just for the eyecandy. Anyway, more Tessa is always good, so hows about another OVA, eh KyoAni? Onegaiishimasu?