Second Raid (2005), the third and darkest season of Full Metal Panic!, picks up about two months after the first adventure (and ignores the farcical Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu). Sousuke tries to juggle active duty with the ... more »Mithril mercenary corps, high school assignments, and protecting Kaname. Gauron, the bloodthirsty terrorist he battled during the first season, reappears in China. Director Yasuhiro Takemoto stages hand-to-hand combat and a major mecha battle in a claustrophobic tunnel beneath the Yangtze River to great effect. As the crisis deepens, the Mithril commanders order Sousuke to return to piloting the super-mecha Arbalest, leaving the sinister-sounding Wraith to protect Kaname. For the first time in his life, Sousuke is torn between obeying orders and genuine emotions. Kaname uses every trick she can come up with--and a few she learned from Sousuke--to outwit Wraith and expose the assassin who's been stalking her. Alone in a largely deserted Hong Kong, Sousuke confronts the sadistic Gauron and his own weird upbringing. After Kaname knocks some sense into his head--figuratively and literally--Sousuke acts like a proper hero: he arrives in the nick of time, in a mecha that crushes everything in its path. When he's not engaged in deadly combat, Sousuke remains as clueless as ever, and Kaname has fits at his excesses. As the voice of Sousuke, Chris Patton shifts from despair to righteous fury to hilarious confusion; as Kaname, Luci Christian matches him mood swing for mood swing. The extras include footage of Takemoto and Shoji Gatoh, the author of the novels on which the series is based, scouting locations in Hong Kong and studying the equipment of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces; commentaries from the Japanese voice actors; and a 30-minute OVA in which Tess Testarossa tries to reconstruct what happened the night she got drunk. (Rated TV 14: violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, tobacco and alcohol use, nudity with suggested lesbianism) --Charles Solomon« less