Interest

Full Metal Panic! Another Spinoff Novel's Ad Streamed

The Japanese publisher Fujimi Shobo began streaming a television ad for Full Metal Panic! Another, the new spinoff novel project based on Shoji Gatoh's Full Metal Panic! light novel series, on Monday. The story of the new novel project is set over a decade after the story in the original light novels, and it centers around a boy whose destiny is changed after an encounter with a D.O.M.S. Arm Slave robot operator named Adelina.

Shoji Gatoh, the author of the original Full Metal Panic! novel series, drafted and supervised the new novel project, but Naoto Ōguro wrote the actual text. Shikidouji reprised her role as the novel illustrator, and Kanetake Ebikawa is contributing to the mechanical designs. Gatoh had indicated in January that "a little interesting project related to Full Metal is in the works."

The first volume of Full Metal Panic! Another ships on August 20, along with the ninth collection of Full Metal Panic! short stories.

Last June, the North American publisher Tokyopop revealed its plans to publish the fourth and fifth volumes of the original Full Metal Panic! novel series in 2011. Tokyopop shipped the two volumes in one book in February before announcing that it will close its North American publishing operations this month. 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 final main volumes in the original novel series shipped in Japan last summer.

[Via Yaraon!]

Update: More information added.