Full Metal Panic!

 Time for a mecha fix again, and this time with a series that aired back in 2002, Full Metal Panic.

And at first glance, for animation style think Gundam Wing.  It doesn't help of course that the hero looks like Heero Yuy, and in the dubbed version has the same voice actor...

Mithril is a special organisation dedicated to fighting terrorism, powered by the "Whispered", people who can create objects.  Sousuke is a sergeant assigned to protect high school student Kaname, a Whispered kandidate and targeted by the KGB.  Being raised on the battlefield, Sousuke has a lot to learn about normal school life, like not publically wielding his gun for one...

 

 

When they are ambushed during a school trip, Sousuke and his companions set out to rescue Kaname from her captors, and having to make their way back with limited resources, making them get closer and a bond of trust forming.  His Mecha suddenly powers up with an unknown power though, for which Kaname might be the source... through the Lambda Driver.

When CO Tessa is send to meet with Takuma, who is also suspected to be able to operate the Lambda Driver but suffers seemingly from PTSD, they are attacked by terrorist group A21.  Cpt Testarpssa and Kaname are kidnapped, and as they try to rescue them, Takuma takes control of the huge Behemoth mech, raining destruction around him.

As Kaname gets placed in a safehouse, Sousuke has to face a demon from his past as he goes on a mission with an experienced squad of soldiers.  But even with the ultimate sacrifice by some of them, they just can't seem to overpower him.  Upon his return, Sousuke decides to help out Kaname with the organisation of the school festival, but then asks her to go with him to a southern island.  But a ghostly sub nicknamed the Toy Box, or Tuathe de Danaan as it is named, is roving the area.

Captained by Testarossa, it's a prototype for Mithril.  Kaname learns she was taken along for a meeting, but as a chemical attack on a small country threatens, Kaname and Sousuke are welcomed aboard the ship... after jumping out of their plane.  Melissa tells Kaname more about how she got to recruit Kurtz and Sousuke during a trainingcamp as a hostage crisis arose, and what they where really capable off.

Testarossa confesses to Kaname she is a Whisperer as well before the operation starts, but as Melissa gets injured by Gauren Sousuke is tormented even after Gauren turns himself in as his mecha seems to have overheated.  But it is all a ploy as he has bystanders in the ship, and the goal was to capture the Danaan all along.  During this, he initiates an evacuation drill to force all the crew to the front of the ship, rising oxygen levels in a goal to poison them.  Curtz and Sousuke stayed in the other half though, and run a guerilla action to try and figure out what is going on.  Testarossa and Kaname come up with a plan to overide the hijack software, making Kaname interface with the ship's AI and so regain control.

Gauren is overpowered in the end, but he plans to take the submarine and Sousuke in particular with him as he activates his self destruct system, but Kaname saves him at the last moment... and finally managing to go to the beach with Sousuke in the aftermath.

 

Now, it wasn`t a bad series at all, but it lost a lot of it's charm for me due to being only able to find an english dub version.  And sorry, but to me personally that's horrendous...  Not judging those that do like that, but I can barely watch dubbed series.