The last two seasons are so outstanding that it is worth trying to attract new fans to this anime, so I decided to write this summary of all episodes. When about a year ago, I made a bet with my friend and proofreader Karol that I would watch the entire FMP, if he watched "Dark" from Netflix, I did not expect that I would be so delighted. Although we sometimes have similar opinions, we have quite different tastes and often pay attention to different things. In short - the titles that delight me are often meh or "well, quite good, but I didn't like it that much". For this reason, I doubted I would be as delighted as he was, but luckily I was wrong. The first season was very good, the second a bit worse, but I enjoyed it a lot. The third was almost exemplary, and the 4 literally blew me away. Each episode was like a punch to the face, from the first minute to the last. His only drawback is that the anime is very slow to write ... Eh, for the first time in a long time, I regret that the Japanese are not able to create a season faster, as the Americans do with their series. I realize that it takes a long time to draw and animate a dozen episodes (4-6 months, if I'm not mistaken), but I don't believe they wouldn't be able to do one season, e.g. every 3 years. Well, unfortunately we have no influence on that.
A brief summary of the plot and a presentation of geopolitics in this universe. The world looks more or less like ours - we have two dominant forces (Americans, Russians), strong countries, but with a clearly weaker power (although they still count on the international arena, such as France). Behind them are Mithril and Amalgam, two organizations operating independently of global politics, with a great deal of freedom to act, but both too weak to win against a country or be fully independent of them. Especially Mithril, because the latter are terrorists, so they are not subject to stronger powers. Mithril are the good ones - the group that has the best submarine in the world (which has great firepower, and at the same time is a gigantic, mobile HUB for their soldiers, allowing for a relatively quick response in any part of the world). Such a sheriff in our world, kind of like the US for the last few decades, only much weaker. Amalgam is the bad guys, a terrorist organization with a dispersed structure with no hierarchical chain of command. They are similar to ISIS - there are dozens of groups that sometimes have coherent interests. On their own, they are much weaker than Mithril, but if they coordinate their actions, they pose a great threat to all countries and organizations in the world. However, they are more difficult to defeat due to their unusual structure, the main commanders and centers of power do not exist and are scattered all over the world. In a standard situation, it is enough to simply destroy the head, and the rest will be easier (I am deliberately simplifying), here you do not know what to expect. Besides, they have the same technology and in some respects they are even better equipped than the Mithril.
The main difference between our world and the one in FMP is that they have mechs (known here as Arm Slaves). It is a technology that suddenly appeared in our world, and with it the people called Whispered in this world. In short, these are people who were born thanks to the experiments of the Soviets. These are people with encoded extraordinary knowledge that manifests itself in various forms - psionic powers, the ability to create technologies that drastically exceed their learning capabilities. One of the Whispered is Chidori Kaname, a regular Japanese high school student. After Mithril found out about her abilities, he assigned her bodyguard - Sagara Sousuke. He is a war orphan, a man who has participated in hostilities since childhood. He comes from a country that can be compared to Afghanistan or Pakistan. He is an exceptionally gifted soldier with above-average skills. The initial friendship between these two turns into love. Crisis situations bring them closer together and gradually cement the relationship. And there are many of these, because as it is easy to deduce from what I wrote, Chidori is the object of interest of many organizations and countries that want to use it for their own purposes.
As I have mentioned many times, this is an anime focused on the subject of war with the use of giant robots. It has some typical elements for Japanese comics (a bit more than "Mobile Suit Gundam" or "Legend of the Galactic Heroes"), but few enough that they shouldn't be disturbing for people who don't really like Japanese animation. And even if it is, it is worth surviving the first season (the second one can be ignored, it does not have such a big impact on the plot, and its comedy atmosphere of spice of life may scare you away), because the third and fourth season are already at such a high level that it is difficult to pass around them indifferently. If I had to place this anime in my ranking, I would put it in the top 3 of the best war titles, next to the above-mentioned titles (although this may change, because when you read these words, I finally watch "Kingdom" - supposedly a sensational historical manga, but set in completely different times). As I wrote, unlike the two above-mentioned titles, you can immediately see from FMP that this is anime, but it's worth giving it a chance. Even if you are put off by the style, cringe jokes etc. in my opinion their number is acceptable (similar to action movies). When necessary, it is serious + there are many elements that fans of war climates will notice. This is also compensated by the excellent directing of each episode - aside from the short moments to catch your breath, each episode is stuffed from A to Z great action, a very good story with a perfectly balanced amount of content to absorb and a strong cliff hanger at the end of each episode. A great story-telling that is not often seen and well ... You can see the difference in level between the titles created on the basis of a good book (there was no other type of medium than manga - with some limitations to comics, but superior in other aspects) , additionally with the active author of the prototype, and a regular manga. Don't get me wrong, it's not about elitism, it just seems to me (and correct me if I'm wrong) that anime based on books is a bit of a higher level? There aren't enough of them to compare with those based solely on comics, but I think so. Though it might as well be misjudgment and sheer rubbish. Besides, speaking of the author, he has created many solidly created heroes.
The characters, both positive and negative, are a big advantage of this anime. Chidori and Sagara may not be very original, but their relationship is different. In fact, it's pretty standard for most anime initially, but it gets better and better with each season. Especially in 4, where I finally felt that their plot was very well guided, like in cartoons intended for older viewers or series. When it comes to originality, don't get me wrong - the fact is, they don't differ much from most of the characters we know, but I could say the same about Geralt from "Witcher". The fact that they do not stand out from the others is not a disadvantage, especially when they have some features that slightly distinguish them + are, above all, consistently written. And Chidori, Sagara and Geralt stand out in both ways. Teletha Testarossa is also cool - the captain of this super submarine. Initially, I thought she was a regular lolita who, for reasons not specified, has such a high rank, but gains with each season, like the Sousuke x Chidori relationship. Her activity in season 3, especially season 4 (especially this episode, which was almost entirely devoted to her) gives a huge pay-off, and we can see how much appearances can be deceptive.
Well, since we've already eaten soup and other starters, it's time for the main course - Villians. I will focus here on two of them, "Collective Heroes" in the form of enemy troops, fences and semi-randoms, who do not have too much influence on the plot, I omit. I will not describe one of them, because I have no opinion on it. It's quite enigmatic, looks standard, but after a few scenes in S4, I can see that it's just appearances. Gauron is different. I don't know if the author of the manga and books was inspired by the Joker from Batman, but if so - he did it perfectly. If not, then I congratulate him even more. If you think you've seen it all about psychos, smart brawlers, or mixes of both character types, all that's left for me to say is, "You don't know anything, Jon Snow." Gauron is a piece of motherfucker - a combination of chaos, unpredictability, extraordinary intelligence and balls so big that he could destroy the Wall Trade Center with them, if someone did not do it for him. The guy sets some strategic goals, but how he will achieve them is also unknown to him. Most of his ideas and actions are pure improvisation, usually putting his head under the executioner's sword. The comparison to the Joker is not accidental - you can expect genuinely everything from him. If something is fucked up and deadly, but still feasible, Gauron will do it. The first season showed it perfectly. Although he is a ruthless and overbearing dick, he has the so-called "Rogue's Honor". This was well explained by Witold Gadowski when he spoke about General Kiszczak (the man who was one of the most important creators of my country after the communist period. Even after his death, he keeps our entire political class by the balls - mainly thanks to the hooks and information that Polish politicians would most likely forget about. .) - even though his evil is unquestionable, if he has promised something, it is verbal. The second Villian who made a strong impression on me is Kurama. He is the opposite of Gauron and Gates (I wrote about him in the review of season 3, which is why I omitted him in this text) - they both liked to play with their victims like a cat with a hunted mouse. Kurama is a methodical motherfucker, like the Nazis of the Second World War. As my great-grandmother, who participated in the war, said - "The Germans were evil and cruel like the Soviets, but at least they had a code and if you followed it, it was relatively quiet. The Soviets were ordinary animals." Gauron can be compared to a Russian from this period, while Kurama approaches killing like a German. It works as planned, it does not play with its prey, but murders it when necessary. He treats people as tools to achieve his goals and, like Gauron, will do anything to achieve his goal. Only, unlike him, will he scrupulously prepare a plan and protect himself from any surprises that his opponents may cause him (or at least to some extent).
When it comes to lines, graphics, CGI etc. as a standard I will say - I do not know about these issues and prefer to avoid evaluation. I wouldn't be able to defend it, and people who have some idea about them would have no problem disproving my arguments. What I can say is that every season looks good and 3 and 4 look the best, although this is mainly due to the fact that they are the youngest.
The soundtrack is probably the only thing that stands out from the rest. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's weak, average, or just pretty good. OST is good, I would probably put 7/10 among the "better" ones, it has a few distinctive songs that I will remember, but there was no song that stands out above that. It is different in the case of opening and ending - there has been no situation in which I would skip one or the other for a long time. Both do their job perfectly - they are great songs, they have a great atmosphere, they start and end each episode perfectly. As I wrote in the introduction - each episode is packed to the max with great content, not giving us the opportunity to get bored. When the episode slowly ends and we hear the ending begin, we get hit in the head, like Apollo Creed from Ivan Drago in "Rocky". We feel the power of the plot twist and emotions that evoke emotion or anger, because unfortunately there is not much joy this season, and we sit and watch ... Although I love bing-watching, it is thanks to watching one episode at a time for dinner every day, I appreciate the slow time watching the show again. Thanks to this, the events that take place in it hit me even more, which is slightly weaker when watching at least a few episodes in a sequence. Maybe you do not feel it with every series, but when I watch some series for the second time with Asia (she is watching it for the first time), I notice things that I missed during the first screening. I also began to understand the arguments of people who criticize bing-watching. For years I did not understand them, but for a year now I understand them better and better. I will even write some text about it soon. I will definitely watch the second season of "The Witcher" in one weekend, but this time I will try to watch a maximum of two episodes during one session. Eg Friday night, Saturday morning, evening and the same for Sunday.
Also this one, if you're waiting for my rating, it's 10/10. I would probably rate them as the best anime of 2018. Indeed, I haven't seen all the important titles from this year, but even with some comparably good ones out, I don't think FMP S4 will drop below the top-3. It's too high a standard, and it's hard for me to list many TV series that would hold the same high standard. Hopefully this year or 2022 we'll get the Season 5 sneak peak because I'm looking forward to it. Go watch, then you will thank me.