== Letting my memories be: on not rewatching *Full Metal Panic!*

Back in the days, I watched all of *Full Metal Panic!* and I remember
enjoying it pretty well (although the original *FMP* more than
*Fumoffu*); I still stand by what I said in [[my memorable anime from
2002 Memorable2002]], including there being good reasons that people
have always wanted more of it. Then this spring when everyone finally
got their wish for more, [[I completely bounced off of the new season
Spring2018Midway]].  For whatever reason, *FMP! Invisible Victory*
didn't click with me.

That hurt, and in the aftermath of that hurt, I thought about going back
to rewatch the original *Full Metal Panic!* for the first time since I'd
originally seen it. Part of me wanted to enjoy its magic again to make
up for *Invisible Victory* not working for me, and part of me wondered
if my fond but vague memories of the original would hold up in the light
of a rewatch or if they'd been selectively gilded by the passage of time.

(I'm sure there are shows that wouldn't be as good as I remember them
if I saw them again, where today they'd be far less novel and new and
I'd be more attuned to their flaws and limitations.)

After toying with the idea a bit, I didn't. I decided that I was better
off leaving my fond memories be, as they were. If my fond memories are
gilded, I don't need to shatter them by a rewatch. If my fond memories
are true to what I'd feel today, the honest answer is that *Full Metal
Panic!* is still not something I think of as a compelling classic,
and realistically the first season was a 24-episode 2002 production,
so if nothing else I'm sure that parts of it were slow. My wish for a
rewatch is more a product of nostalgia and my disappointment at *Invisible
Victory* not working for me than of any fundamental interest in seeing
*Full Metal Panic!* again.

It is, I think, a good thing to be able to leave things in the past.
I definitely enjoyed *Full Metal Panic!* back when I saw it, and that
is sufficient in itself. I don't need to revisit and critically reassess
it or in fact anything, to re-judge it by my standards today. Nor is my
enjoyment of *Full Metal Panic!* in the past injured by my feelings about
*Invisible Victory* now. Nothing is wrong with enjoying one then and not
the other now; it is just that things change. The Sousuke, Chidori, Tessa,
Mao, and the others that live in my heart are still there, as fondly
remembered as always. I had fun with them back in the days and nothing
now changes that unless I let it.

I don't think this is quite nostalgia, I don't yearn for the past
when I enjoyed *Full Metal Panic!*; I just appreciate that I did,
and find it sufficient without further questioning of it.

(There are some things where I might want to take a critical look at
what I uncritically swallowed back in the days, but I don't think *Full
Metal Panic!* is a show like that.)

(This is part of [[@appropriant
https://twitter.com/appropriant]]'s [[12 Days of Anime 2018
https://perpetualmorning.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/12-days-of-anime-2018/]].)