Saturday, October 12, 2013

Full Metal Panic! Sigma -Pocket Comic- Reissue

Full Metal Panic! Sigma Pocket Comic Volumes

In December 2012 Kadokawa, the rightholder of Full Metal Panic, started to reissue the Full Metal Panic! Sigma series in Japan to smaller, fewer volumes. Re-released as light novel seized books, this caused some confusion and anger with customers who expected to buy light novels instead of Manga volumes.

By now seven Pocket Comic volumes have been released. We expect that number to go up to ten. Each volume carries the subtitle and chapters from the respective FMP light novels that got adapted. Thus, they vary greatly in seize.


The Sigma Pocket Comic volumes come in different seizes

As short as 256 pages or as long as 384. All for the purpose to read each story arc without interruptions like they were written in the light novels. As for the seven individual reissue volumes, here they are:


Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 1 終わるデイ・バイ・デイ 前編
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 01: Ending Day By Day Part 1
Page number: 286
Chapters: Mission 001-006

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 2 終わるデイ・バイ・デイ 後編
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 02: Ending Day By Day Part 2
Page number: 288
Chapters: Mission 007-015

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 3 つづくオン・マイ・オウン
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 03: Continuing On My Own
Page number: 320
Chapters: Mission 017-026

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 4 燃えるワン・マン・フォース
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 04: Burning One Man Force
Page number: 384
Chapters: Mission 027-034

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 5 つどうメイク・マイ・デイ
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 05: Come Make My Day
Page number: 320
Chapters: Mission 035-044

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 6 せまるニック・オブ・タイム
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 06: Approaching Nick Of Time
Page number: 384
Chapters: Mission 045-055

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 7 サイドアームズ
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 07: Side Arms
Page number: 256
Chapters: Mission 056-060, 016


That's right. Mission 016 was left out from volume 02 and later included in volume 07 Side Arms, which borrows it's name from one of the Full Metal Panic! side story collections. As for the three yet to be released volumes 08-10, their names, page numbers and chapters should be somewhat like this:


Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 8 踊るベリー・メリー・クリスマス
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 08: Dancing Very Merry Christmas
Page number: ~290
Chapters: Mission 061-070

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 9 ずっと、スタンド・バイ・ミー 上
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 09: Always Stand By Me Part 1
Page number: ~280
Chapters: Mission 071-080

Japanese Title: フルメタル・パニック!Σ 10 ずっと、スタンド・バイ・ミー 下
English Title: Full Metal Panic! Sigma 10: Always Stand By Me Part 2
Page number: ~305
Chapters: Mission 081-090


How exactly their decision to split the last story arc will be, remains to be seen. However, we think a split like this will most likely be the case. See also the chapter list to the seven already released volumes as well as the expected upcoming ones:


FMP!S Pocket Comic Chapter List

With this said, all that's left are the cover arts. Each cover art on the Pocket Comic volumes was taken from a Sigma volume that got reissued in it. So with the first seven volumes already released we expect the three remaining ones to be something like this:

PC v08 -> cover art from Sigma 15 (because it's more a Tessa story than a Kalinin one)
PC v09 -> cover art from Sigma 17 (because Sagara only is on one cover so far, Chidori on two)
PC v10 -> cover art from Sigma 19 (because everybody loves it)


FMP!S Pocket Comic Cover Arts

This would mean, Sousuke and Kaname will both get featured on the PC cover arts three times, Tessa twice and each Kurz, Leonard and Melissa once.

Why do all this work for a simple reissue series? Because we believe that if Full Metal Panic! Sigma will ever get a official english release outside of Asia, it will most likely be those ten reissue volumes rather than the 19 shorter ones, that got released since 2005. Also it's fun ;)

Thanks for sticking with us throughout this article. We will keep you updated once updates towards the Pocket Comic series surface. See you next time.

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