#fmpivFull Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04
フルメタル・パニック！Invisible Victory episode 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Kaname uses her Whispered powers to upgrade the software Sousuke’s ARX-7 Arbalest AS mecha. Sousuke communicates with Kurama about the hostage situation, claiming to not care if Kurama blows up the school or not. Sousuke contacts Hayashimizu to stage a believable reason to evacuate the school. When Kurama attempts to blow it up, he and his Amalgam people discover they are being jammed. They locate Sousuke’s Arbalest and attack it while Sousuke heads to the roof to free Kyoko.

Meanwhile, Kaname abandons her place of safety after having a vision of an AS unit attacking Sousuke. Back at the school, Sousuke frees Kyoko, but Kurama catches him. A teacher shows up, but Kyoko doesn’t recognize her. She’s from Mithril (Wraith) and kills an Amalgam guy as does Sousuke. Kurama flees and takes several shots in the back without flinching. Arbalest warns of three enemy AS units approaching, so Sousuke has Arbalest come to his position. Kyoko gets hurt, so as soon as he gets Kyoko at Wraith to safety, Sousuke goes on a rampage to kill the other three AS units.

Leonard orders Kurama to try to keep Sousuke in a more stable environment as Leonard is about to enter the fray. Leonard is airlifted to Sousuke’s location. His Plan-1055 Belial AS unit is far superior to the Arbalest. As such, he begins beating down Sousuke. Kaname happens upon Wraith, who’s tending to Kyoko. Kaname is upset at all of this and blames herself. She comes upon Sousuke’s AS battle with Leonard in time to see Leonard’s AS decimate the Arbalest.

Leonard telepathically communicates with Kaname, who promises to give herself to Leonard, including sexually, providing he saves Sousuke. Leonard takes her up on the offer and leaves with her. Sousuke vows to bring her back. He then pays a visit to his old classroom, where he issues an apology to his classmates and tells them the truth of his mission to their school. Ono-D is enraged by this. Meanwhile, Tessa barely makes it to the Tuatha de Danaan. A Behemoth AS stands in their path, but a sniper shot from Kurz takes it out, allowing him and Clouseau to be rescued.

Thoughts/Review:

Wow. The “party” certainly isn’t showing any signs of stopping with Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04. Not only that, but it appears we had some NTR action as well. ?

The Whispered Kaname

I’ll admit, I was hoping for something a bit more team-oriented when Kaname agreed to use her Whispered ability to help Sousuke come up with a plan to save the students at Jindai High School. Instead, we saw her upgrade Arbalest’s software so that Sousuke could be in danger, while she remains hidden and in safety. I get the strategy as Amalgam is after Kaname for her Whispered abilities, but I had still hoped for something more.

That said, we also got to see Kaname experience a vision with her Whispered abilities, though I suspect that Leonard may have helped trigger that. Further, she was able to communicate with Leonard telepathically. So I think we’ve seen Kaname use her Whispered powers more here than we have in the past.

NTR Route?

Speaking of Leonard and Kaname, it appears that we have an NTR moment going on in Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04. For those who don’t know, NTR is the acronym for the Japanese word “netorare.” People often say that netorare is the term for cuckold, but netorare is where one man steals a woman from another man. Even though the woman deeply loves her man, Male 2 usually has some method to coerce the woman into sleeping with him (usually to protect Male 1, whom she loves). The end result is that even though she loved Male 1, Male 2 is the superior male and she stays with Male 2, often apologizing to Male 1 as she does so.

For Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04, Sousuke is Male 1 and obviously Kaname is the woman who loves him. Leonard is Male 2, who has already let Sousuke and Kaname know he wants Kaname. Heck, he gave Kaname a long kiss in one of the previous series. And now, to bring an end to her friends getting hurt, and to save Sousuke’s life, Kaname is now willing to give herself body and soul to Leonard. And yes, that means sexually as far as I’m concerned.

The sad part is that I actually think Kaname will have sex with Leonard, even if it is only implied and we don’t see it onscreen. (And frankly, I do NOT want to see that as that will fuel an NTR rage in me.)

Sousuke Unleashed and More

Before Sousuke got the NTR treatment, I loved seeing him go on a rampage against Amalgam AS units. This was the only part of Amalgam’s war on Mithril where Mithril had much success (I’ll speak of their only other known minor success in a bit). Kyoko was his friend, but more than that, she was Kaname’s best friend. So that elevated Kyoko’s status with Sousuke. So I completely understood his rage when she was severely injured. It is just a shame he couldn’t do more against Leonard.

After the NTR treatment, Sousuke did something even more brave. He faced the wrath of his classmates and took the responsibility for everything bad that had been going on, including the loss of Kaname and Kyoko’s injury. I think back to the funny moments Sousuke had with Ono-D and company, so telling them the truth had to be very difficult. And Sousuke took the abuse like a man, yet continued to bow in contrition.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

OK, time to wrap up my review of Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04, since I’m already behind.

• I didn’t like that after showing Tessa as a bad arse, this episode showed her as a helpless waif needing to be saved. Yes, I get the circumstances, but I would have preferred Tessa to have been strong.
• I’m glad Kurz and Clouseau were rescued. I wonder if Kalinin survives, or if he bites the bullet. As things are going now, it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw some long-time characters bite the bullet.

In the end, Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory 04 continues its non-stop push on story, where things get darker and darker for our heroes.