Hagane no Renkinjutsushi

hm. what a badass series. granted, ed does cry(complain) alot, and that is slightly annoying, but this is a story of a 15 year old boy and all the shitty things that happen to him and his brother. so its understandable. it's also a "coming of age" story, which is why it's compared to naruto alot. if you follow FMA to the end you see that ed progresses pretty nicely by the end of the movie, as does his brother. and it's pretty nice that they manage this all in only 51 episodes and a movie instead of 200+ from naruto. and the fighting here is So Much Better. Heh.

The ST isn't anything to notice, but I did find one of the EP's very pretty.

so you get a pretty convoluted plot. all very nicely resolved. characters are very dimensional though not seemingly so. there's a mixture of politics, alchemy, desire, selfish and selflessness, war, love, mythology, redemption, vengeance, science fiction, historical...have i even covered it all? it's just chock full of goodies that's all i'm saying.

it's a very nice series worth watching at least once if not adding to your collection. and the ending sets up very nicely for the movie.

I would have orginally may have given this a 'buy' but watchin it for a second time I'm finding it a bit boring and I feel this series is over-rated. I also found that the story development seems to drag along for the first 20 episodes or so and it isn't terribly excitin, it's only afterwards things pick up. And I also felt sometimes equilvalent exchange was thrown out of the window when it seemed some charcters where creating something out of nothing, and studying science for so long sum parts were bothersome. There are also a few discrepencies that I found within the series.

But looking past all that this is still a highly entertaining series with suspense, twists, turns which can be appreciated at least once. Action, tragedy, comedy, FullMetal Alchemist does seem to deliver it all. Recommended for all anime fans.

Episode 25 is a real tear jerker. At least it was for me. Maes ends up getting killed from these humulkili. I'm not sure if I spelled that right. Anyway Ed and Al find out some of the secreats with lab five. Maes discovers that there is more people up top who know about this. So he heads out the door teloling his secretary to go away and don't ever return. Ed and Al are leaving again on the train and Ed sees Maes waving at him from the depot. Mustang comes to the funeral and comments how it is going to rain. Maes little girl asks why are they burrying daddy. That part really got me and I thought is very well done and written. Anime isn't always hearts and flowers but ocassionly they have one that deals with feelings of another kind. This season Full Metal is back on Adult Swim on Saturdays after Inuyasha. Now they found a small boy it the place their teacher took them. Edward thinks that the arm he has and leg were his when Al and him did the switch. Now in this episode the Humulkili showed up all of them and now I have to wait till next Saturday to find out what happens. I love this anime and along with the new episodes of Inuyasha they both keep me on the edge of my seat.

In-smegging-credible­! It is a tribute to good writing when elements of horror, humor, drama, action, darkness, light, and just a hint of romance can be blended together to form a story of any kind. Fullmetal Alchemist is such a title which combines all of these elements, gives us a gripping story, AND gives us characters with real growth.

The initial 2-part story really helps set the stage to this magical world that Ed and Al live in. We are then flashed back for several episodes to see how it is that Ed and Al arrived at the place we saw them in episode 1 and 2. The series makes clever use of the flashback. At times when the story reached a certain point, a lengthy flashback might occur. Yet the flashback isnt intrusive to the story, but builds the foundation and structure for the next phase of the story. Flashbacks might be brief, or they might last a few episodes, depending on the situation.

The supporting cast is incredibly large, yet all serve an important role in the story as a whole. I might have liked to have seen a tad more romantic elements between Wendy (which fansubbers called Winry, but Im not sure why) and Ed, but thats OK. Of the good guys, the bookworm girl is the least developed and of the bad guys, we never did learn about Gluttonys past. Still, these are minor complaints as the supporting cast gets really good development.

The use of humor is good too. Early in the series, the humor comes more frequently. As the series gets darker and darker, the humor moments are fewer. Still, the writers know when to give the audience a chance to catch its breath. In the middle of the darkness (as the story allows), the writers would throw in a lighter episode before plunging into the darkness of the story ahead. These humor episodes were all well timed and were needed to keep the series from being to dark and depressing. Excellent job!

As expected, we are given answers to everything by the time the story ends. However, these answers dont feel like they were just pulled out of the air at the last moment; rather they feel well thought out, as if the end was known before the writing started. This is another great strength of FMA. It is easy to write stories that grab the audience and make them want to know the answers, but it is hard to give answers that arent just cop outs. Fortunately, that didnt happen here. The final episode works great to end the TV series, but it also works great to set up the sequel movie thats coming out.

Bottom line: this is one incredible ride and when I next update my top-10 anime list, it will be there. Thankfully, FUNimation is doing the series so well get some great subtitles that keep in the Japanese honorifics.

Last updated Tuesday, October 12 2004.