Full Metal Panic! Sigma

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

With very little hope of a new anime announcement, this manga is the only form of adaptation that the 2nd half of the light novel series has seen. It hasn't covered the final novel, yet, but it has covered everything up until that point in the story line (though, Dancing Very Merry Christmas is played out as a flash-back before the manga's adaptation of the final 2 novels, which still have yet to be adapted as of yet). Personally, I think its really well-done and shouldn't be looked down on as inferior to an anime adaptation of the novel just because its being presented as a manga. Its extremely accurate to the events in the novel (I might actually recommend someone read it over the novel, in fact, to continue the series, but only if they were opposed to reading light novels in the first place), and the artwork is pretty solid as well. It does feel a bit weird to have a lot of the story narrated by Sousuke in panels, but to be fair its the only way the manga can make up for the lack of being able to vividly describe everything like the light novels have the advantage of doing. At any rate, only the first 9 volumes have been translated in English (the series starts by retelling the story from the Day by Day novels, which the anime already covered as TSR), and with the exception of some short stories in-between covering the various side-stories from the short story compilation light novels, the majority of the manga is focused in the main story-line.

I've thoroughly enjoyed what I've read of it so far (though, I personally skipped over all of that previous mentioned filler, so I don't know how that stuff is), and I'd say its a good manga to read after someone has finished all of the seasons from the anime. I will say, though, that its adaptation of TSR is inferior to that of the anime, but its still a decent adaptation nonetheless. It does a much better job of adaptin everything after that, IMO, but maybe that's just because I don't have another adaptation to compare it to.

[Foggle]

I've taken a look at the raws (back before any of them had been scanlated), and I have to say that the art is pretty cool. My only complaint is that some of the robots and battle scenes don't look quite as awesome on paper as they do in my head.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've taken a look at the raws (back before any of them had been scanlated), and I have to say that the art is pretty cool. My only complaint is that some of the robots and battle scenes don't look quite as awesome on paper as they do in my head.

To be honest I kind of found the robot battles to be kind of boring to begin with, and I really only liked seeing them in TSR because the action scenes had really fluid animation. But that's why I like FMP so much: it really doesn't rely on its mecha action to hook people in, but most of the enjoyment comes from its characters and overall plot. If nothing else at least the manga totally nailed the on-ground, hands-on mercenary action scenes, which counts for 10 times the value of any of the mecha action scenes in my book.

[Foggle]

I've taken a look at the raws (back before any of them had been scanlated), and I have to say that the art is pretty cool. My only complaint is that some of the robots and battle scenes don't look quite as awesome on paper as they do in my head.

To be honest I kind of found the robot battles to be kind of boring to begin with, and I really only liked seeing them in TSR because the action scenes had really fluid animation. But that's why I like FMP so much: it really doesn't rely on its mecha action to hook people in, but most of the enjoyment comes from its characters and overall plot. If nothing else at least the manga totally nailed the on-ground, hands-on mercenary action scenes, which counts for 10 times the value of any of the mecha action scenes in my book.

Yeah, the on-the-ground action of TSR and the following novels was amazing and easily better than any of the mecha battles.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've continued reading this manga, and I honestly have to say that its a damn good adaptation. Maybe there may never be another anime adaptation, but so far I'm honestly very content with seeing this all in the manga. It follows the novels almost word for word, and the few changes that it does make are honestly for the better, IMO. I've also really grown to like the artwork. I'm not sure what it is, but I find the character designs in this manga to be much more appealing than what I've seen in any of the anime seasons or in the light novel illustrations, or even the various other manga incarnations of FMP.

Overall, I'm really enjoying it, though I still would love to see the rest of the story adapted into anime form, mostly because I would love to see it dubbed and get to hear the awesome English cast once again (though, sadly, we'll never get to hear Kalinin's awesome English voice again ).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Some more chapters finally got translated and I basically read most of the manga's adaptation of Nick of Time, so far (well actually its about half-way through it, I believe). Once again the adaptation is really solid and the artist takes extra care to really try and visually emphasize the exact descriptions of the scenery and characters and their facial expressions as written in the novel's text. I was able to draw so many parallels between a character's visual representation in the manga compared to how the books described they were feeling at that exact moment, so I have to commend the mangaka on being able to capture the feeling of the novels so accurately. I'd honestly recommend this as a good alternative to anyone who didn't want to read the rough translations of some of the later novels (which are nice enough since they are the only way an english-only speaker can read them, but they do hurt the experience quite a bit).

Overall this is an FMP adaptation done proper. Its not at all like that shitty manga that adapted the first 3 novels. This one actually has solid writing and superb pacing. My only gripe with it is that it skips DVMC almost completely to go onto COMO, but then it apparently features DVMC in a flashback after adapting NOT, which just strikes me as being strange and feeling out of place.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just finished reading up to the end of NOT (the 10th volume) in Sigma, so all that's left for me to read of the adaptation is DVMC (covered in a flash-back, from what I've heard from other fans who have read ahead in the manga in Japanese) and the final book (which was split into 2 volumes, so it'll probably take a few more chapters to adapt it). From what I hear the manga is almost done adapting the final novel, so once it finishes up I'm sure that it'll get translated soon.

Overall the manga serves to me as a good indication of what a potential anime could be like, if it were to use the manga as a guide-line for how it sets up its scenes.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just read volume 15 of the manga. It adapts most of the 6th main novel in a flash-back since that story was inexplicably skipped early on in the story. As usual, though, its a good adaptation. Even though we'll likely never see the rest of FMP in animated form, its good to know that the whole thing will get adapted in some visual medium. I just hate that its getting snuffed by the anime industry when we are getting so much crap in place of it, and with pretty decent budgets behind them as well. It just makes me wonder where the priorities of that industry lie.

Actually, I wouldn't mind if the series got a proper adaptation from scratch. While TSR was awesome, I've come to see the many flaws in Gonzo's adaptation of the first 3 novels (I still like the first anime, though, to be honest). It'd be good for it to get a reboot akin to the one that Hunter X Hunter got (and I LOVE the 1999 anime adaptation of the series, despite it being a rather different entity from the manga which changes up the characters and plot points to some extent).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I recently just finished reading volume 16 of this manga. It basically covers the 2nd half of the DVMC novel (which is presented as a flash-back in this adaptation since it was inexplicably skipped between the DBD/TSR adaptation and adaptation of COMO). Now all that's left is for the manga to cover the last novel in the story-line (which is technically split into 2 volumes, so you could say that its the last 2 novels). Currently in Japan volume 17 has already been out for a while and I believe that it covers at least the first 3rd of the final light novel if not the first half, so it would seem that the release of the next 1 or 2 manga volumes in the Sigma series should finally finish adapting the light novels into the manga format. Its at least the closest thing that we'll ever get to see to these novels being adapted into some full picture form, since I highly doubt that FMP will ever get another anime by this point in time, even though it deserves to have the rest of it adapted more than most shit that get an anime adaptation these days, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I forgot to pos about this, but I finished reading this about a month ago. For some reason, despite being completely faithful to the light novels, the manga's ending somehow felt a bit rushed compared to the books, but overall it was still good stuff. I'd still recommend reading the light novels before the manga to finish up the story, though. The manga is still a good way to see the story visualizes, though, and it's a very accurate adaptation. It's pretty much the best we're ever going to get in that regard. As long as KyoAni still holds the rights to the FMP anime license, that pretty much guarantees that we'll never get to see the rest of the series animated. They just flat-out don't care about it.