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Fullmetal Alchemist
Today I started watching Fullmetal Alchemist. I have no idea what it's about, but recently saw ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
likeadeuce mention it, and thought, "Hey, I always meant to watch that." I did a little research re: FMA vs FMA:Brotherhood, and decided to watch Brotherhood. As I understand it, FMA was begun before the manga was completed, and Brotherhood was begun after and follows the manga more closely. I really should actually read the manga, but I'm better at reading just-text or watching things than I am at comics and manga, and I felt like watching would probably be a lower investment of time and money (in case I don't get into it).
Anyway, I feel like many manga are written with A Plan and a vision for the characters. Meanwhile, anime based on unfinished manga are often cashing in on really popular manga. Asmy_daroga points out, this does mean that there are some anime that have a fanwork feel, but when it's a commercialized work that's being produced to make money off of something popular, I'm more leery of the content. Also, there's just a lot of filler stuff in anime based on unfinished manga. I'd rather have the full experience of the manga in anime form, so I picked Brotherhood.
Most of the research I did said Brotherhood is better anyway, though one person I talked to said she likes FMA better. She did admit that that might be because she watched FMA first. Also, she said that Brotherhood is darker. While I don't like dark for dark's sake, I really like things that take tough concepts seriously, so that's why I picked Brotherhood.
Near the beginning I toldmy_daroga that I was excited about watching this, because stultiloquentia really liked it. I told her that the last thing I watched because of stultiloquentia was Avatar: the Last Airbender. Partway into the first ep of FMA:B, my_daroga said, "Maybe stultiloquentia just really likes elemental-based powers." I'm trying to figure out whether this is the case . . .
I'm also hoping to post about this show ep-by-ep, because I always love reading those for shows that I love. I have no idea whether I'll love this, but I do know a bunch of cool people who love it, so here's hoping? Please, please, please don't spoil me for future eps. I really have no idea what the series is about or what will happen.
So, here's what I know about FMA:
1) Cool people, such asstultiloquentia, like it.
2) There's a guy called Roy Mustang
3) There's a girl called Risa? Riza? Something. She's cool.
4) Everyone ships Risa? Riza? with someone but I don't remember who.
5) It's about young people with Great Power? Or something. I thinklikeadeuce said something like that recently.
6) There's alchemy? And I didn't find this out until I was researching which version to watch. You'd think the title would give it away but really for some reason I thought there were a lot of guns and not a lot of magic in it idk.
I'm honestly not clear on anything else.
Okay, so here are my thoughts after Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episode 1:
Forgive any misspellings, or if I have names wrong. I'm trying not to look at any wikis, so I don't get spoiled.
Much like Neon Genesis: Evangelion, I have no idea what this world is or what is happening. But from what I can gather, there's a nation with a capitol city and in the city there's a capitol building, and the nation is run by Fuhrer Something-innocuous-that-begins-with-a-B. He has an army or squadron or something like that of state alchemists, who can control certain elements. The state alchemists are the "dogs" of the army. They're not well respected? I'm not sure who said that.
So Roy Mustang gets put in charge of something. And his name is Roy Mustang, which is hilarious, and I always thought it was hilarious, even before I started watching this show. And he's a fire alchemist. The absolute best part of this episode, bar none, was when the girl-soldier said that Mustang was useless on a rainy day. This was the only part where I a) felt like I knew what people were talking about, b) laughed aloud.my_daroga said, "I hoped she was going to be cool!" And I was like, "I know nothing about this woman!" Because I was afraid she was the Risa/Riza/someone character everyone thinks is cool, and I didn't want to be spoiled. But then my_daroga said, "I don't either! I just saw her in passing and hoped she would be cool!" So if this is cool girl neither of us know anything about her. But she's a girl soldier person so I'm intrigued.
(Speaking of girl soldiers, at one point during watching thismy_daroga mentioned we need to finish watching Rose of Versailles. This is true. Oscarrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)
Okay, and then there's this baddie, McDougal, who's a water alchemist. And he breaks into this prison to get the Crimson Alchemist's help, but the Crimson Alchemist is just like hahhahaha no. I don't really remember why. I assume the Crimson Alchemist will have a bigger role. He's snarky and has a cool mouth, so I assume he's A Sexy Villain, except there was also a tag with a girl Sexy Villain, who seems like she may be the main baddie? Who knows. She was cool, though, and creepy.
Speaking of creepy, the credits. I love credits in anime. They're so often really overdramatic and emotive, and these were so, so good. Plus there were people getting pulled apart like ribbons. It helped reinforced the idea that the show was going to be dark, which was interesting considering that so much of this ep was trying to be comedic.
So anyway, McDougal or whoever, the waterbender I mean water alchemist, causes some trouble and then there's Edward Elric and his kid brother. Edward Elric is apparently the titular "fullmetal alchemist", and so far he's pretty uninteresting. Alphonse was way more interesting. I assumed he had some kind of story for why he was in the metal armor, and I thought it was because he was a girl. But as it turns out he doesn't have a body and his soul is bound to the armor, which is quite interesting. It was really creepy when they did the flashback to Edward performing human alchemy (so, is that what really happened?) and he didn't have a leg or whatever. Anyway McDougal said that Alphonse's soul is bound to the armor, and then he pointed out Edward's missing arm, and said this was a result of human alchemy. I assume there will be more backstory there.
Edward being over-the-top annoyed at being called "little" is annoying. The most interesting scene involving him was when he and Alphonse are talking about they're "real" bodies--does this mean Edward belongs in another body, or is he just referring to his arm? Unclear.
They have to stay with Colonel (Major? Something?) Hayes (Hayne? can't remember) and his family. They had a tiny girl child who was there for the purposes of amusement. Where were the Alrics before this?
Anyway, McDougal-the-water-alchemist says he's fighting for the good of the nation, yadda yadda. This is only interesting in light of the fact that the leader of this nation is called Fuhrer, which isn't such a good title. McDougal says he's trying to take down the capitol for the good of the people, so I assume there will be some political machinations at work. Whether McDougal will be proven right or whether he and Crimson guy and Lady Person with her Sidekick Gluttony are really the good guys remains to be seen, but it was interesting that it was the Fuhrer who took down McDougal in the end. It suggests that the Fuhrer is more than just a figurehead.
When they first mentioned the Crimson Alchemist,my_daroga said, "Does this mean he alchemies . . . crimson things?" And I said, "Well, there's blood." We decided that this could get interesting, but meanwhile we were stuck with this waterbender who was very Dragonball Z, and some big guy (a major?) with a 'stache, who said he was a Strongarm Alchemist, and I have no idea what that means. But anyway, just like in Dragonball Z, everyone announced their powers and what they were going to do and how many levels they were going to gain (figuratively) and that was boring.
And then, Water Alchemist dude started bending blood and that was not boring. That was very dark and violent and wtf, and I was all, "I don't know what to do with this!"
I was conflicted because until that point, this show was very silly. Even when it shouldn't have been silly, all of the little "sweat!" and "tears!" and "thought bubble!" anime conventions were quite over the top, and not at all like the very-classy (-yet-sometimes-still-silly!) anime I was used to. A:tLA and Touch (an 80s anime about baseball) have some of these conventions, but you can look over them. In this episode, I couldn't really, until all the sudden we were doing blood-bending and someone was dying, at which point I became conflicted and confused.
So far, I'm interested in the world-building. I'm interested in the violent and serious aspects. I'm interested in the villains and the politics. I'm not really interested in Mustang or Edward, but I'm moderately interested in Alphonse and girl!soldier. We'll see where this goes.
Again, please, no spoilers.
likeadeuce mention it, and thought, "Hey, I always meant to watch that." I did a little research re: FMA vs FMA:Brotherhood, and decided to watch Brotherhood. As I understand it, FMA was begun before the manga was completed, and Brotherhood was begun after and follows the manga more closely. I really should actually read the manga, but I'm better at reading just-text or watching things than I am at comics and manga, and I felt like watching would probably be a lower investment of time and money (in case I don't get into it). Anyway, I feel like many manga are written with A Plan and a vision for the characters. Meanwhile, anime based on unfinished manga are often cashing in on really popular manga. As
my_daroga points out, this does mean that there are some anime that have a fanwork feel, but when it's a commercialized work that's being produced to make money off of something popular, I'm more leery of the content. Also, there's just a lot of filler stuff in anime based on unfinished manga. I'd rather have the full experience of the manga in anime form, so I picked Brotherhood. Most of the research I did said Brotherhood is better anyway, though one person I talked to said she likes FMA better. She did admit that that might be because she watched FMA first. Also, she said that Brotherhood is darker. While I don't like dark for dark's sake, I really like things that take tough concepts seriously, so that's why I picked Brotherhood.
Near the beginning I told
my_daroga that I was excited about watching this, because stultiloquentia really liked it. I told her that the last thing I watched because of stultiloquentia was Avatar: the Last Airbender. Partway into the first ep of FMA:B, my_daroga said, "Maybe stultiloquentia just really likes elemental-based powers." I'm trying to figure out whether this is the case . . .I'm also hoping to post about this show ep-by-ep, because I always love reading those for shows that I love. I have no idea whether I'll love this, but I do know a bunch of cool people who love it, so here's hoping? Please, please, please don't spoil me for future eps. I really have no idea what the series is about or what will happen.
So, here's what I know about FMA:
1) Cool people, such as
stultiloquentia, like it.2) There's a guy called Roy Mustang
3) There's a girl called Risa? Riza? Something. She's cool.
4) Everyone ships Risa? Riza? with someone but I don't remember who.
5) It's about young people with Great Power? Or something. I think
likeadeuce said something like that recently.6) There's alchemy? And I didn't find this out until I was researching which version to watch. You'd think the title would give it away but really for some reason I thought there were a lot of guns and not a lot of magic in it idk.
I'm honestly not clear on anything else.
Okay, so here are my thoughts after Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episode 1:
Forgive any misspellings, or if I have names wrong. I'm trying not to look at any wikis, so I don't get spoiled.
Much like Neon Genesis: Evangelion, I have no idea what this world is or what is happening. But from what I can gather, there's a nation with a capitol city and in the city there's a capitol building, and the nation is run by Fuhrer Something-innocuous-that-begins-with-a-B. He has an army or squadron or something like that of state alchemists, who can control certain elements. The state alchemists are the "dogs" of the army. They're not well respected? I'm not sure who said that.
So Roy Mustang gets put in charge of something. And his name is Roy Mustang, which is hilarious, and I always thought it was hilarious, even before I started watching this show. And he's a fire alchemist. The absolute best part of this episode, bar none, was when the girl-soldier said that Mustang was useless on a rainy day. This was the only part where I a) felt like I knew what people were talking about, b) laughed aloud.
my_daroga said, "I hoped she was going to be cool!" And I was like, "I know nothing about this woman!" Because I was afraid she was the Risa/Riza/someone character everyone thinks is cool, and I didn't want to be spoiled. But then my_daroga said, "I don't either! I just saw her in passing and hoped she would be cool!" So if this is cool girl neither of us know anything about her. But she's a girl soldier person so I'm intrigued.(Speaking of girl soldiers, at one point during watching this
my_daroga mentioned we need to finish watching Rose of Versailles. This is true. Oscarrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)Okay, and then there's this baddie, McDougal, who's a water alchemist. And he breaks into this prison to get the Crimson Alchemist's help, but the Crimson Alchemist is just like hahhahaha no. I don't really remember why. I assume the Crimson Alchemist will have a bigger role. He's snarky and has a cool mouth, so I assume he's A Sexy Villain, except there was also a tag with a girl Sexy Villain, who seems like she may be the main baddie? Who knows. She was cool, though, and creepy.
Speaking of creepy, the credits. I love credits in anime. They're so often really overdramatic and emotive, and these were so, so good. Plus there were people getting pulled apart like ribbons. It helped reinforced the idea that the show was going to be dark, which was interesting considering that so much of this ep was trying to be comedic.
So anyway, McDougal or whoever, the waterbender I mean water alchemist, causes some trouble and then there's Edward Elric and his kid brother. Edward Elric is apparently the titular "fullmetal alchemist", and so far he's pretty uninteresting. Alphonse was way more interesting. I assumed he had some kind of story for why he was in the metal armor, and I thought it was because he was a girl. But as it turns out he doesn't have a body and his soul is bound to the armor, which is quite interesting. It was really creepy when they did the flashback to Edward performing human alchemy (so, is that what really happened?) and he didn't have a leg or whatever. Anyway McDougal said that Alphonse's soul is bound to the armor, and then he pointed out Edward's missing arm, and said this was a result of human alchemy. I assume there will be more backstory there.
Edward being over-the-top annoyed at being called "little" is annoying. The most interesting scene involving him was when he and Alphonse are talking about they're "real" bodies--does this mean Edward belongs in another body, or is he just referring to his arm? Unclear.
They have to stay with Colonel (Major? Something?) Hayes (Hayne? can't remember) and his family. They had a tiny girl child who was there for the purposes of amusement. Where were the Alrics before this?
Anyway, McDougal-the-water-alchemist says he's fighting for the good of the nation, yadda yadda. This is only interesting in light of the fact that the leader of this nation is called Fuhrer, which isn't such a good title. McDougal says he's trying to take down the capitol for the good of the people, so I assume there will be some political machinations at work. Whether McDougal will be proven right or whether he and Crimson guy and Lady Person with her Sidekick Gluttony are really the good guys remains to be seen, but it was interesting that it was the Fuhrer who took down McDougal in the end. It suggests that the Fuhrer is more than just a figurehead.
When they first mentioned the Crimson Alchemist,
my_daroga said, "Does this mean he alchemies . . . crimson things?" And I said, "Well, there's blood." We decided that this could get interesting, but meanwhile we were stuck with this waterbender who was very Dragonball Z, and some big guy (a major?) with a 'stache, who said he was a Strongarm Alchemist, and I have no idea what that means. But anyway, just like in Dragonball Z, everyone announced their powers and what they were going to do and how many levels they were going to gain (figuratively) and that was boring. And then, Water Alchemist dude started bending blood and that was not boring. That was very dark and violent and wtf, and I was all, "I don't know what to do with this!"
I was conflicted because until that point, this show was very silly. Even when it shouldn't have been silly, all of the little "sweat!" and "tears!" and "thought bubble!" anime conventions were quite over the top, and not at all like the very-classy (-yet-sometimes-still-silly!) anime I was used to. A:tLA and Touch (an 80s anime about baseball) have some of these conventions, but you can look over them. In this episode, I couldn't really, until all the sudden we were doing blood-bending and someone was dying, at which point I became conflicted and confused.
So far, I'm interested in the world-building. I'm interested in the violent and serious aspects. I'm interested in the villains and the politics. I'm not really interested in Mustang or Edward, but I'm moderately interested in Alphonse and girl!soldier. We'll see where this goes.
Again, please, no spoilers.
no subject
I was surprised by just how bad this first episode is. I think they felt pressure to do something different than the first anime, but really, the opening that anime & that manga has is good for a reason, because it was _designed_ to be an opening, and it all works so much better. Because of this, I found episodes 1-3 to be somewhat rocky in terms of exposition and pacing; episode 4 was where I thought it hit its stride again.
I love this show a lot and look forward to your posts!
no subject
no subject
The manga it is based on is, uh, 27 or 28 volumes, too lazy to walk upstairs, and this adaptation is moving at a pretty brisk clip, so I wouldn't be surprised if taking it a bit slow is useful because of the sheer density of stuff. On the other hand, that sheer density can lead to "OMG GIVE ME ALL THE PLOT" reactions, so . . .
no subject
I have this reaction so much that I'm really interested in trying to pace myself and give myself time to think between episodes. I . . . have been known to watch three seasons of TV in three days, and while that is enjoyable, when it's really good I always wished I'd given myself longer to enjoy it the first time through.