Full Metal Panic! (TV)

Tuatha de Daanan (or Danann)- name Tuatha de Daanan is a reference from Celtic folklore. According to the stories, the Tuatha de Daanan was a race of people who invaded Ireland. They were highly intelligent with advanced technology (for the era), and no small amount of magical abilities. Eventually they went to live underground, where folklore says they still dwell today. Some stories claim they are one of the founding races of the Celt people.

"Full Metal Panic's" airing on WOWOW was rescheduled to January 2002 in honor of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. At that time "Ayatsuri Sakon" took over its intended time slot.

Full Metal Panic is the first GONZO DIGIMATION anime to be dubbed in Tagalog.

If you pause on episode one when kurz grabs the picture and you can see the birthday and family of kaname and her address. Also her last name chidori means thousand birds

The word Mithril comes from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the rings which was the armor that was stronger than steel but extremely light which saved frodo from dying in the fellowship of the ring

In episode one as the camera pans across the pile of "things Japanese high school students are likely to have" one of the magazines’ cover has a picture of what appears to be Lina Inverse from Slayers.

In ep 13, Kurz asks Melissa if she's heard of Miyamoto Mushashi. This is a reference to Musashi's famous 1612 duel with Sasaki Kojirou at Ganryuu island. The legend states that Musashi arrived three hours late in order to rile and unnerve Sasaki... obviously Teletha has heard of him.

The mystery girl who's in photographs with Kaname is Ayame Chidori, her sister who decided to stay in New York with her father Shunya Chidori. Also regarding Kaname's relatives, her mother died from cancer in the month of August in 1998, this appears for a split second in episode one.

Sousuke, Mao, and Kurz as well as their Arm Slaves appear as playable characters in the anime/mecha crossover game Super Robot Wars Judgment for the Game boy Advance among other series such as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mazinkaiser. Other characters from Full Metal Panic! and Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, including Tessa, Gauron, and Bonta-kun, appear in the game as well.

Sousuke Sagara strongly resembles Heero Yuy from "Gundam Wing". Both characters actually meet in the video game "Super Robot Wars W", in which Sousuke considers Heero to be his senpai.

In the episode 1, in the French version, during the scene in which Melissa & Kurz are kind of spying at Kaname when she leaves her home to go to Jindai High, when we first look at the high-school girl in her uniform, Kurz happily claims: "J'adooooore les uniformes !" (= "I adooooore uniforms!"). It refers to a 2003 French comedy picture called "Chouchou", in which one of the most famous sentences is "J'adooooore les sushis !" (= "I adooooore sushis!"). This movie picture deals about an emigrate who illegally arrives in France and has to disguise in a woman in order to stay in the country, but he later meets a bourgeois man who falls in love with him as he thinks Chouchou is a real woman, and not a transvestite. And the sentence above is pronounced by Chouchou when he and the bourgeois man first have dinner together in a restaurant. To be exactly precise, at the very beginning, Chouchou is an imaginary character created in a one-man-show by Gad Elmaleh, a famous French comedian.

The "preview" music of "Full Metal Panic" is an affectionate parody of the Main Title Song of the classic 1980's TV show "The A-Team."

In season 2 episode 6 "The edge of Heaven" after Sousuke goes nuts in the hair salon and Kaname Screams at him there's a shot of people standing outside the shop scared by the noise. If you pause it (this is about 10 minutes into the episode) the people standing around are Light Yagami from DeathNote and Misa Misa, then low and behold if L doesn't come riding into the frame on a red bike.

The mechanic design of the submarine Tuatha de Daanan and of the ARX-7 Arbalest must be inspired by the PC-FX video game Power Dolls and it's adaptation OVA.

In episode 1 (the ADV dub), Miss Kagurazaka checks Kaname's bag and finds a copy of "Dolphin's Last Message to Earth: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish." This is the title of the Japanese translation of the fourth book in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

In Episode 1 of the actual series , Sousuke introduces himself as "Sagara, Sousuke Sagara". This is a reference to James Bond, who introduces himself as "Bond, James Bond". Also in episode 21, John Danigan introduced himself the same way to Gauron

In episode 6, the movie Chidori was referring to was the 1969 movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In episode 14, "Is Narashino burning?", the lead Arm Slave of the Red Dragon team performs a special move called the "Red Stream Attack". This is an obvious reference to the "Jet Stream Attack" used by the Black Tri Stars in the original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series.

Another Gundam reference in episode 14 is Ryunosuke Akagi saying that he doesn't want to admit a mistake made due to his youth. This is a famous quote by Char Aznable from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, whom Ryunosuke resembles.