Full Metal Panic! IV TV Anime Revealed for Fall 2017

A special stage for the Full Metal Panic! franchise at this year's "Fantasia Bunko Daikanshasai" event on Saturday revealed that the new Full Metal Panic! anime project is titled Full Metal Panic! IV. The new anime project is a television anime series that will premiere in fall 2017. The event also revealed the show's main staff and a teaser image for the series.


Katsuichi Nakayama (series director for planetarian, assistant director for Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo,Bodacious Space Pirates The Movie: Abyss of Hyperspace) is directing the series at studio XEBEC. Full Metal Panic! original novel author Shoji Gatoh is handling the series composition and writing all the scripts. Osamu Horiuchi (Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid) is the character designer and chief animation director, and Aya Yamamoto (animation director for My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU TOO!) is the sub-character designer. Additionally, Takeshi Yoshioka (chief animation director for Classroom Crisis, Valkyrie Drive -Mermaid-) is the small arms designer and animation director, Kanetake Ebikawa (Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid) and Toshiaki Ihara (Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid) are the mechanical designers, Takayuki Yanase (Ghost in the Shell Arise, Gundam 00 mechanical designer) is the set designer, and Masanori Nishii (Star Blazers 2199) is the mechanical director.

Additional staff members include:
Prop Designer and Mechanical Animation Director: Takuya Matsumura
Mechanical Animation Director: Yu Kato
CG Director: Shōsuke Uechi
Color Key: Chiaki Kitabayashi (XEBEC)
Special Effects: Shin Inoie

The schedule for the stage had teased in August that the event would have an "important announcement" for the franchise.

Voice actor Tomokazu Seki (Sōsuke Sagara), voice actress Satsuki Yukino (Kaname Chidori), voice actress Yukana (Teletha "Tessa" Testarossa), producer [Atsushi] Itou, and original novel author Shoji Gatoh appeared at the stage event.

The stage event also announced that Odoru Very Merry Christmas (Dancing Very Merry Christmas), the sixth Full Metal Panic! novel, is getting an audio drama. The onstage guests also revealed a key visual for the audio drama.

Last year's Fantasia Bunko Daikanshasai event announced that plans for a new anime adaptation of the Full Metal Panic! light novel series were underway.

Full Metal Panic! centers around a mercenary group called Mithril on a parallel Earth in which the Cold War did not end in 1991.

The original Full Metal Panic! light novel series debuted in 1998, and Fujimi Shobo published the series' 12th and final novel in the main series in 2010. The novels have more than 11 million copies in print. Tokyopop published the first five volumes before the company shut down its North American branch in 2011.

The franchise inspired the 24-episode Full Metal Panic! TV anime series in 2002, the 12-episode Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu TV anime in 2003, and the 13-episode Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid TV anime series in 2005. Additionally, the light novels inspired the Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid video anime episode in 2006. Gonzo animated the 2002 anime series, and Kyoto Animation animated the two sequel series and the video anime.

Funimation has released all three TV anime series and the video anime on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, and ADV Films released the first two anime series on DVD before Funimation re-licensed the series. Kadokawa released all three television series and the video anime on Blu-ray Disc in Japan with an English dub in 2013 to celebrate the franchise's 15th anniversary.

The original novel series has also inspired several manga spinoff series, as well as several light novel spinoffs (including Another) and short story collections. Naoto Ōkuro published the Full Metal Panic! Another spinoff novel series from August 2011 to February 2015. Shikidouji illustrated both the original Full Metal Panic! series and Full Metal Panic! Another.​