This is the one that drops the school comedy and holds you underwater until your ears pop. The final cut of the 2002 run trims to the bone and lands on the Tuatha de Danaan hijacking, which means Gauron back from the dead, calling Sousuke "Kashim" like it's a love letter, and Tessa having to be a captain instead of a girl with a crush. The Behemoth fight and the Arbalest's Lambda Driver hit harder without three episodes of Kaname's harisen between them, and Mao and Kurz stop being comic relief the second the corridors flood with hostiles. Sousuke's whole deal, the boy raised by war trying to protect one loud girl from Jindai High, only makes sense once you watch him choose her over the mission. The recut doesn't add footage. It just refuses to let you breathe.

Full Metal Panic!: Into the Blue is a 2018 film and the third and final part of a director's cut trilogy built from the first Full Metal Panic! television anime, which aired in 2002. That series adapts Shoji Gatoh's light novels, illustrated by Shikidouji. Fans can expect a blend of action, comedy and science fiction, with mecha combat at its center. Whether the trilogy adds new footage has not been stated.