Melissa Mao

Melissa Mao (メリッサ・マオ) is a fictional character from the light novel, manga, and anime series Full Metal Panic! Her voice was provided by Michiko Neya in the original anime and by Allison Keith in the English dub.

Overview
Serving as the SRT's second-in-command next to Gail McAllen, she serves in Mithril under the call sign Uruz-2. Her expertise in electronic warfare is valued by the Pacific Battle Group Tuatha de Danaan. Her rank was Sergeant Major, but by the novel Dancing Very Merry Christmas she has been promoted to Second Lieutenant, making her a commissioned officer. She is 25 years old.

Melissa is very proficient in use of an Arm Slave, however she lacks exact control. She tends to use fast and furious methods in her firearm use. Later in the series she usually does not pilot an Arm Slave, but she can still pilot excellently, although her capabilities are nowhere near those of Sousuke Sagara and Kurz Weber. Aside from English, she can also speak fluent Cantonese due to her time spent in Hong Kong, particularly in Kowloon.

Melissa is a ruthless insulter and an extremely heavy drinker, somewhat reminiscent of Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion who is also voiced by Alison Keith. She is shown once having many cigarettes and a minimum of 20 beer cans sprawled out on Tessa's coffee table. She is extremely rude, preferring to use heavy language when talking to someone angering her or someone she can not stand. During the Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! episode Warcry of Excessiveness, she provides Sousuke with a training manual left over from her Marine Corps drill instructor days, which advocates the use of extremely heavy language inspired and quoted from R. Lee Ermey's lines in Full Metal Jacket. She also enjoys a practical joke or two. In the two-part Fumoffu episode A Goddess Comes to Japan, she teases Sousuke by giving him permission to do advances on Tessa while she's staying at their safehouse, obviously aware of her feelings for him. She would later handcuff herself to Tessa after she catches her trying to sneak into Sousuke's room.

Relationships
Mao's strongest relationship in the series is with her fellow SRT member Kurz Weber. Kurz and Mao's relationship was flirtatious and unrequited, until they finally enter into a relationship later in the novel series. Her relationships with Sousuke Sagara, Teletha Tessa Testarossa, and Kaname Chidori are largely that of a "big sister" or den mother.

Fictional Character History
Melissa Mao is born on May 11, 1976, to Chinese-American parents in New York City, New York. She was brought up under strict Chinese traditions that included her supposed arranged marriage. However, on her wedding day, Melissa escaped the church and went to the nearest United States Marine Corps recruitment office while still in her wedding gown. She signed her recruitment papers on the same day. She was eventually given a dishonorable discharge several years later, but Melissa is still bitter at her father, who served in the Air Force. After leaving the Marines, Melissa went to Hong Kong, then under British control, and stayed with some of her maternal relatives. While in Hong Kong, Mithril agents sought her out and recruited her.

Given her service in the Corps, Melissa was given the command of her own team until two of her comrades were permanently injured while on active duty. She went head to MITHRIL's secret training camp in the forests of Berutarube to scout for new replacements. An Israeli, a Peruvian, and an Italian soldier emerged as her most probable candidates after days of studying the recruits.

Kurz Weber also had his eyes on her, but his womanizing attempts and poor marksmanship turns her off. Sousuke Sagara also had low test scores and seemingly overall mediocrity, but gets Melissa's attention after an AS battle drill. In the drill, her Israeli candidate, who piloted an M6, was badly defeated by an old RK-92 Savage AS. She discovers that Sousuke was its pilot.

After the Berugan president had called MITHRIL personnel in Berutarube to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Maria, and eliminate a communist rebel cell, she was left with Sousuke, Kurz, and Jimmer after a first strike attempt had netted the capture of most of the MITHRIL instructors and recruits.

Realizing that Sousuke and Kurz were hiding their skills from her, she forced them to come clean and ordered them to battle with the guerrillas, overpowering their ASs and forcing the rebels to surrender. She eventually decided to let Sousuke and Kurz enter her squad as the new members. Afterwards, she was sent into Tokyo with the rest of her squad to guard Kaname Chidori. Nearing the end of the first series, she was wounded by Gauron during AS combat at a U.S. chemical weapons disarmament facility on Berildaobu Island, Republic of Perio. Although she was mostly incapacitated, she managed to assist Kurz in killing Guen Bien Bo by tossing surgical scalpels into him, a skill that she did not show until near the end of the anime.

Melissa is a friend to Tessa and as such, has access to her office.

Early on in her MITHRIL career, Mao was good friends with Gail McAllen and Belfangan Grouseax, both soldiers who later became commanding officers of Tuatha De Danaan 's SRT unit. This friendship has helped her maintain a good working relationship with both men, although Grouseax asked her to hide his friendship with him and McAllen from the SRT troops.

With the heavy losses suffered by the Special Response Team in the defense of Merida Island, Mao has become the second in command of the SRT.