I've enjoyed anime since I caught my first episode of Ronin Warriors early on a Sunday morning on one of the broadcast tv networks. I was captivated by the humor of it, the original and different art style, and the superb and otherworldly action. While much of what I used to like has aged poorly, there are still a few series to which I can go back and watch seemingly endlessly. And one of my top three favorites has to be Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
The series focuses on two brothers (Edward and Alphonse Elric) who are alchemists, which means that they can alter the substance of matter in impressive ways. The use of alchemy is governed by the law of equivalent exchange, which states that in order to use alchemy, something of equivalent value must be exchanged. So, for example, you could take a big stone and use alchemy to reshape it into a weapon. Ed and Al's mother dies, and they attempt to use alchemy to bring her back to life, which is forbidden in alchemy. Their attempt fails, and Ed loses an arm and a leg, and Al loses his whole body as the price of equivalent exchange. Ed attaches Al's disembodied soul to a suit of armor, and then they wander the globe, looking for a way to return their bodies to normal.
I watched the original Fullmetal Alchemist in college, and was impressed, but left a bit wanting. The first part of the show was excellent, but it seemed to kind of fall apart as the show went on, and ended on a seriously bizarre note. They had a decent movie after the series that kind of resolved some of the problems with the ending, so I was satisfied, at least. And I greatly enjoyed the action, music, and animation, so I had little to complain about.
Then I went through a phase in which I was checking out tons of manga from the library, and finding that I enjoyed a bunch of it much better than the anime. Dragonball, for example, is SO much better in the manga. It's paced superbly, compared to the agonizingly drawn out pace of the anime. I mean, 30 episodes for a fight between Frieza and Goku? With blatantly reused animations in each episode? Come on.
But my biggest surprise was in reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, which adhered very closely to what I remembered in the anime, but had a completely different ending. And the manga version was much more enjoyable than what I remembered from the anime.
So I went and did a bit of research to find out what exactly happened.
It turns out the original anime was begun during the run of the manga, and caught up to the most recent edition of the manga. At that point, the author (Hiromu Arakawa) requested that the runners of the anime come up with their own story and ending based on the character, so that she could continue to focus on her work on the manga.
Fortunately, in 2009, at the conclusion of the manga, they made a new series that adhered more closely to the manga, and it's one of my all time favorites. It's probably the most hilarious anime I've ever seen. The action, art, and music are all beautiful. The characters are all easy to relate to and likeable. The English dub has some of my favorite voice-over work of all time. One of my favorite things about the series is that it's written by a woman, despite being a shonen (anime for boys). As such, the female characters in the show are much more realistic and play more of a major role in the plot than in many anime, where they can tend to be objectified a bit more, or just be sort of pure badasses. The women in this are strong, but also are believable as women, not just male characters given a female body, or an excuse for teenage hormone drama and fan service.
There are stretches of the show that drag on a bit long, and the manga is a bit better for that. But if you don't fancy sitting and reading 27 tankobon volumes worth of manga, the anime is really excellent. And the music, voice-over, and animation in the anime make it worth watching even if you have read the manga.
I'd give Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood a 9.4/10. It's a fine example of anime done well, and you should go check it out. Even for non-anime fans, it'll be accessible and enjoyable.
-TRO
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