Full Metal Alchemist Discussion

TLC

@RobbyBevard:

His friends were in danger, and he was 12. Being thrown into the military after one test and the travelling around the country is NOT the same as years and years of military training and hardening up during a war.

And he was tougher when he needed to be. We start the series with him a couple years older and more experienced than he was then.

Anyway, agree to disagree on the homoculus' origins.

I really did not care about Ling. Or the fact that he became Greed. Or that there was "another kind of alchemy… thats exactly the same in every way but its different." Making the world bigger and throwing in another couple of arcs does expand the scope of the story... but it doesn't necessarily reinforce the narrative or the character's story arc at all. The entire part of the story up north just felt like filler to me. Like the story was close to its end, but then needed to add another 30 chapters.

It was kind of like Skypiea in One Piece... basically a large unconnected arc to everything else and not really needed for the ongoing storyline... without the reassurance that later its going to be more important to the actual main plot. Armstrong's sister was kick ass, sure... and I'm glad she exists... but was she really needed?

Because she wanted to be immortal... and their father Ed was just a plaything afterthought that came with her newest body, he wasn't what the entire hundreds of years of planning was based around.

True but then he started crying when he killed Greed…when manga Ed tried to crack Greed's head open first time he saw him...

But it's really an agree to disagree thing. We just look for different things in a story. You want a tightly knit narrative, I prefer a more branching story with plenty of world building and a wider scope. The anime focused on just Ed and Al while the manga focused on the world as a whole and how Ed and Al fit into it and I just prefer that far more.

Also Olivia kicks ass, nuff said (and she was kinda important in the revolution, her subordinate of all people softened up Wrath).

Edit: Again, one old lady's ambitions to be immortal are just so stupidly cliche and generic. Father's plan was too but at least they justified the level of conspiracy and murder that was going on to the point that even the top military was in on it.

Cyclone_Baroness

I loved FMA when I first watched it and rewatched it. Then I read the manga, and I loved that. Then I watched FMA Brotherhood and I was just so blown away. I loved the way they incorprated more of the world and other races. (Always wondered where Roy was adpoted from >_>). I really really liked the way the Hommunculus were handled. Especially the way their origins were handled. I liked the new Sloth, I liked Bradely being Wrath and his "son" being Pride.

And probably my most favorite, Roy Mustang was such a BAMF. The Lust scene, the Envy show down, Ahhhhh! So much awesome. Oh man I'm gushing over this too much lol. So I'll just list more things I liked:

Olivia.
Hughes Funeral.
Kimbley.
Miles.
Hoenhim back story.
Government conspiracy.
The last fight.
The ending.
Al being able to transmute like Ed.

Gliblord

I've said it before, but I used to think the first anime was a masterpiece–it's what got me into the whole otaku business in the first place. But now that I look back on it, I can't see it as anything other than mostly retarded.

A rehash of major gripes:

*Dante was a shitty villain whose plan made no sense. Start wars on the off chance desperate people make a Philsopher's Stone, then swipe it in order to keep body surfing. Gag me with a spoon.
*Human transmutation more or less works! And they get immortality and neat (arbitrary) powers to boot as long as you happen to be around to feed them PS cubes. (Dante was around to feed Trisha because ???)
*HOHENHEIM. He's so fucking lame in the first anime it makes me cry, since he's my favorite character. Manga Kimbley is also way more interesting, and manga Al and Ed are more badass.
*Remember "Psyren"? She can make flowers wither with her boob circle! I... don't get it.
*Shou Tucker comes back, whyyyyyyyyy
*And of course, NAZIS WTF

Okayish things:

*A couple of the very beginning episodes are probably more impactful than early Mangahood, like the Barry the Chopper episode.
*The Al turned into a PS thing was good.
*Scar's romance with Lust.

maxterdexter

The fact that the Homonunculi were the successfull human transmutation cheappened the whole "Life is Priceless" thing, they were alive again and could go and build a new life (as their old one was most likely destroyed by the transmutation that brought them)

They weren't the literal personifications of their theme naming, just random people who came back wrong, what if they were more than 7? Why didn't they keep their old names if they remembered their old lives? Why use a complete set of theme naming if the last 2 spot were open for over 100 years?

Yeah, Sloth and Gluttony should have been more different.

Scar also was handled better in the manga, there's no such thing as forgiveness, the best you could hope to do is to keep working to balance the world, him dying was oposite to the message that was built, life is priceless, even life itself can't buy it.

The comedy/Drama balance was ok all through, they joked in tense situations, because that's what humans do. Only Arakawa in the extras of the volumes were… tasteless sometimes. There wasn't a moment like "Oh, they killed Hughes, now they are making a joke about peeing".

Gliblord

The omake were tasteless? Lol they're the best thing about the manga

maxterdexter

@Gliblord:

The omake were tasteless? Lol they're the best thing about the manga

They are fun, but sometimes they go too far.

Nobodyman

@maxterdexter:

The fact that the Homonunculi were the successfull human transmutation cheappened the whole "Life is Priceless" thing, they were alive again and could go and build a new life (as their old one was most likely destroyed by the transmutation that brought them)

That reminds me, why did the homunculi want to become human anyway? I'd think being immortal and having superpowers would be a pretty sweet deal.

Robby

@Nobodyman:

That reminds me, why did the homunculi want to become human anyway? I'd think being immortal and having superpowers would be a pretty sweet deal.

They couldn't feel the world and their senses were dulled.

And being immortal is only as good as the company you have.

Nobodyman

@RobbyBevard:

They couldn't feel the world

Unless you mean that they literally lost their sense of touch, could you be a little more specific?

and their senses were dulled.

Well, that's certainly worth killing 1000's of people for.

Robby

Well, when you have no soul, you can't really enjoy anything.

Cyclone_Baroness

Greed seemed to be enjoying himself. :ninja:

Hiroy

Baccano! did a much better job with that kind of plot. Yup.

Gliblord

Their senses were dulled? Where are you getting that? If anything they were better, what with regeneration and body morphing. Also they had plenty of emotions, so you can't say they were soulless automatons. There was basically no reason for them to want to be human. The homunculi in Mangahood recognized that and had Homunculus pride lol

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@maxterdexter:

They are fun, but sometimes they go too far.

An example please.

Will

Now I know this is probably the most outdated discussion that could be brought up on the thread but since I don't have a Delorean travelling at the speed of 88 miles per hour with 'The Power of Love' blaring in the background I might just ask it now.

Was anybody else a tad underwhelmed with the final confrontation in Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood?
I mean sure, this was really the only was that the series could have ended without going full "The Heart" and making your antagonist stronger than god but there were so many concepts that really didn't seem fleshed out.

Honorable mention goes to Roy Mustang's 5 seconds of blindness, souls out of nowhere developing their own free will and Father just standing their defending for what seemed like decades while he used up his philosophers stone.

Maybe I haven't seen the series in a while but something didn't connect at the end but maybe that's just me.

Crossword

@Gliblord:

An example please.

Off the top of my head there was one in the penultimate volume (I think) that was making fun of Roy's blindness (eg. Ed and Al yelling stuff like ''there's a whole bunch of bikini-clad women coming this way!!'').

As for the finale, well, it was okay overall, though there were some punches that I feel shouldn't have been pulled.

Gliblord

Roy's blindness? Really? That's a pretty weak example of something that would be tasteless to make fun of.

Sai-chan

I think Arakawa just wanted to make light of the situation so as to not worry her readers. Something to say that 'Mustang is still Mustang.' And how else do you make fun of a now blind womanizer that constantly picks fights with the protagonist? lol It wasn't to belittle the blind, I think, just to reassure her readers.

Gliblord

It wasn't to reassure readers, it was to be funny. That's all that's needed.

Sai-chan

Yes, but what better way to reassure the readers then to be funny? ;)

Gliblord

Fair enough.

One of my favorite omake is the one where Father's super beam circumnavigates the Earth and blasts him from behind. Technically such a thing would kill countless people, but I think we can give her a break there, too, as it's a freakin' 4-panel gag strip.

maxterdexter

Or like when Matel was killed by Al's cat horde, inside him, if Martel would survived it would be hilarious, but that was after she died so it was more "I'm uncorfontably laughing at this".

It's not "OMG she's so insensitive" it's more "I'm unconfortable laughing at this"

Tsukishima

@Gliblord:

Their senses were dulled? Where are you getting that? If anything they were better, what with regeneration and body morphing. Also they had plenty of emotions, so you can't say they were soulless automatons. There was basically no reason for them to want to be human. The homunculi in Mangahood recognized that and had Homunculus pride lol

It's been a long time since I watched this anime, but I remember that only Lust and probably Gluttony wanted to become human. The other didn't seem to care, Greed was completely satisfied even in the first Anime. I thought that most of them were actually trying to resolve a sort of existential crisis which was a consequence of their condition of monster with human memory.

Anyway, in Lust's case, it seems the transformation changed a lot of things in her psychology. She definitely had a different personality when she was human, the only explanation to this change is her transformation into a homonculus. She wasn't satisfied with her current form, I don't think they didn't have any emotions, but I'm sure they weren't as strong as what they were when she was human, she really felt too detached at some moments.

@Nobodyman:

Well, that's certainly worth killing 1000's of people for.

To keep on living as homunculi, they were forced to eat some red stones which were created with human body..

It seems I'm one of the only ones who enjoys the different version almost equally.

Daz

As far as FMA comedy goes, I wouldn't be without it. Bradleys killing spree in Greeds lair is improved several times over when we've been led to like the guy first. When I saw the cool but fun old geezer with the hawaiian shirt start butchering people, my jaw dropped.

And while I haven't seen the old series, one thing the manga has over both that AND brotherhood is the Ishval flashback. I could read that thing all day, it is just bursting with awesome scenes, quotes and themes.

@RobbyBevard:

They couldn't feel the world and their senses were dulled.

And being immortal is only as good as the company you have.

Sounds kinda like the first Pirates movie.

Robby

@Gliblord:

Their senses were dulled? Where are you getting that?

They longed to be human because they remembered love from their past lives, felt unfullfilled as they were. If they still had all their emotions, all their senses, they could just go out and start new lives, find love again, or even rejoin their old families. But something was missing in them when they came back.

Yeah, they got cool homoculus powers, but they lost their humanity at the same time. Distilled down to just one eternal emotion, one sin. Sure you might have fun being greedy or lustful, but all the time? For hundreds of years? And to never be satisfied with what you get? To always miss what you had? And to be okay with blatantly slaughtering thousands? Gluttony was able to eat anything. He might have enjoyed eating and tasting things… but he could also eat concrete and bricks. And no matter how much he ate, he was always still hungry. That had to be an affect of his powers, and a loss in some ways. When you are ALWAYS hungry, ALWAYS eating, and eating ANYTHING, how are you ever satisfied?

They lost their souls and their humanity. Eternal life ain't anything without being able to enjoy it. A couple of them wanted to be human again, rather than have "cool powers and immortality", so obviously their current forms lacked something humanity had to offer.

Al on the other hand, DID lose all his physical senses aside from hearing and seeing. He couldn't feel, taste or smell anything. I assume the homoculus' had a bit of the same, maybe not so extreme, since they COULD take endless pain and suffering and just shrug it off.

Gliblord

@RobbyBevard:

I assume the homoculus' had a bit of the same, maybe not so extreme, since they COULD take endless pain and suffering and just shrug it off.

Did the homunculi never express pain in the 2003 anime? Lol it seems strange to me, what with the never-gonna-leave-me images of Envy rolling on the floor in agony as his eyejuices boil

As for the rest of the post, even if we grant that a few homunculi had a legitimate reason in wanting to become human in the form of restoring their "souls," as it were, how would a PS accomplish that, exactly? Are you taking a soul from within the PS and slapping it into the empty-soul homunculus? Wouldn't that be an entirely separate personality/past? Or would they be using the PS as toll to bargain with the Gate for their old "souls" back? You'd think the souls of dead people wouldn't be accessible, though, regardless of whether or not that person's resurrected body still has lingering brain-memories.

Man this is a weird train of thought.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@The:

And while I haven't seen the old series, one thing the manga has over both that AND brotherhood is the Ishval flashback. I could read that thing all day, it is just bursting with awesome scenes, quotes and themes.

Couldn't agree with you more. Volume 15 is, in my estimation, one of the best single manga volumes of all time.

Robby

Presumably they'd bargain with the gate for THEIR souls and bodies' back, rather than someone else's.

Aside from the one trying to take Al's bits. Another point. they couldn't perform alchemy. Something non-human in that.

Gliblord

But like I said, those people who became homunculi died. To say that you could bargain with the Gate for those souls back is to say you CAN, in fact, cheat death. All you'd have to do is sacrifice other people's souls. Body surfing is one thing, but those dead people's souls went to the great beyond.

Compare that to Mangaverse where it's eventually revealed that it's flat out impossible to resurrect someone because that person's soul has flown off to the afterlife, essentially.

Robby

Well, the entire point of the series was basically to bring Al back from the dead. So… eventual final reveals or not, they thought the goal of restoring old souls to old bodies was possible.

Gliblord

Uhh, no it's not. Al never died. His body was taken but his soul remains, pulled back down to Earth because Ed managed to make the proper sacrifice in time. The brothers' goal was not to bring Al back to life, it was more specifically to restore his body (and later on, to restore his body without having to use a PS due to ethical reasons).

Robby

Tomato, tomato. I wanna put this spirit in that body… which may or may not exist anymore. Its the same thing.

Same goal for Al and the Homoculi, and Tucker trying to restore Nina.

They didn't know Al's body was just sort of sitting there in a magical gate (and in the first anime it really wasn't) until after they were YEARS into their quest. Where they were trying to restore Al's body, which was for all intents and purposes, gone forever, with no way of knowing if it was still possible to get back. Dead or magically dissolved, it was the same thing until they had more information. Just like they tried to restore their mother. It's the same goal, even if the specifics are different.

They were trying to find a MAGIC STONE the breaks the laws of alchemy to get around equivalent exchange. They were trying to get a body back for nothing, (Or retry the process they attempted on their mother) without knowing if there was even a body to have.

Would it have been a different case if Ed had managed to save Al's body instead of his mind? Would the goal or the result be any different then?

Hell, there was a period they weren't even sure if they really had Al's mind in the armor or if it was just something Ed accidentally created that was like his brother.

Restoring the dead or the lost, regardless of the consequences, was the entire, MISGUIDED, goal of the series.

captain usopp

it's all a pretend manga story with magical stone powers. how much detail do you need? <3

Gliblord

It's easier to conceive of ending up with your body back than it is retrieving a lost soul. I mean, they grew up on stories of artificial people, homunculi, every alchemist must have, and they DID create a humanlike form when they tried to bring back their mother, even at 12 and 11. But there's no way to build a soul from scratch. Considering Ed successfully transmuted a soul transfer, they could definitely use a PS to whip Alphonse up a series of entirely new human body containers that could function as simulacra of his original appearance–but that was before they knew Al's body was there in their Gate to take back anyway, and obviously before they discovered the true nature of the PS. It's also before they understood that a soul is attracted to its original body.

I guess my point is, they knew a PS was an alchemy catalyst that could work wonders, but I'm not convinced they thought it was some Hougyoku type thing that was literally magic, and thus capable of retrieving a soul from the unknowable abyss. And my other point is that, while it wasn't a 100% guarantee they could fetch his original body using a PS, they could definitely but definitely use a PS to "restore" his body in the sense of giving him functional human frame that looks like Alphonse Elric lol. But now I think I'm confusing myself.

Also, only Alphonse thought he might be an automaton with artificial memories, and it didn't take Ed very long to snap some sense back into him.

Cyclone_Baroness

I did like that in Brotherhood they only spent like 1 episode on Al being emo and doubty after he was questioning if he ever existed lol. I'm amazed he didn't go insane. A few years in a container where you can't use some senses…Well he was the more rational/calm one usually.

Gliblord

It's never explained how it is Alphonse is able to see, speak, and hear, so he should really count himself lucky lol

Kylor

I always like it when a story can be suitably emotional and dramatic without resorting to "oh this is sad, my situation is sad, I'm going to deal with this by being mopey and sad."

Now, some circumstances are sad enough to warrant this, and depression/loss can be a heavy issue to deal with, but it can also sometimes be more interesting to see characters have other ways of handling unfortunate circumstances. JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE, GUYS!

Cyclone_Baroness

Yeah…Al being able to function is odd, but I guess that's forbidden alchemly for ya lol.

I did like that with FMA in general the message they usually mentioned was, get over it, just move foward. Well, after the botched attempt in trying to regain their mom lol. Even the soliders that participated in the Ishval incident were at least trying to move past their traumas. Or make up for it in some way.

igetownd

I find it strange that Alchemy is a science, yet there is hardly anything that can be called scientific about alchemy.

Cyclone_Baroness

@igetownd:

I find it strange that Alchemy is a science, yet there is hardly anything that can be called scientific about alchemy.

Not the way Ed does it lol.

Gliblord

Well, there is the whole understanding, deconstruction, reconstruction thing. And equivalent exchange. And experimentation.

Sai-chan

And using the energy released from the tectonic plate's movement

captain usopp

well i think it is scientific in that you can't make a fish out of cement. you need to understand the science of how things are made and what they are composed of, and the science of how to convert one form of matter into another form, whatever those scientific alchemy laws state. Kinda like chemistry I guess.

pyromonki

@Cyclone_Baroness:

I did like that in Brotherhood they only spent like 1 episode on Al being emo and doubty after he was questioning if he ever existed lol. I'm amazed he didn't go insane. A few years in a container where you can't use some senses…Well he was the more rational/calm one usually.

Doesn't he snap whenever someone called him "lucky"? I think he got over it once he realized how useful he actually was in that form.

I still don't know why Ed wanted his arm back though, a make shift weapon arm is pretty cool no matter how you look at it.

captain usopp

well by the end he couldn't use alchemy to change it anyways. and there were lots of downsides to having a prosthetic arm too. look at all the trouble when he went up north. plus that thing's gotta be heavy. a person would have to be strong just to carry all that weight around hanging off the side of their body. not to mention the weight of his leg.

Cyclone_Baroness

@pyromonki:

Doesn't he snap whenever someone called him "lucky"? I think he got over it once he realized how useful he actually was in that form.

I still don't know why Ed wanted his arm back though, a make shift weapon arm is pretty cool no matter how you look at it.

I know that arm was awesome. He really only complained about his stump hurting like twice. It made his desire to get it back seem really stupid and Al too devoted to his brother when he would bring it up too lol.

pyromonki

@captain:

well by the end he couldn't use alchemy to change it anyways. and there were lots of downsides to having a prosthetic arm too. look at all the trouble when he went up north. plus that thing's gotta be heavy. a person would have to be strong just to carry all that weight around hanging off the side of their body. not to mention the weight of his leg.

He wouldn't have a much a problem as per say having a regular arm. I also don't think lifting that automail was a problem, he beat Scar with it. HE BEAT SCAR WITH IT.

A few stump aches is far better than say muscle deterioration and joint pains that comes with old age, brittle bones, and he could always just have winry put in a detachable blade.

I dunno, the pros just seem to outweigh the cons with that situation. but different strokes for different folks. I'd have kept the arm.

Kylor

Wow, that makes a lot of sense! I mean, otherwise, one would think that the metal arm was a metaphor for the constant pain and guilt that comes from the terrible mistake he had made that he desperately wants to undo. Or not, because that's just silly, right, guys?

Robby

Ed didn't care about getting his arm back… Al did. They both felt guilt about the other. Yeah it was on the "to do" list, but it wasn't a huge priority comparitively.

And he kept the leg in the end.

Gliblord

@Kylor:

Wow, that makes a lot of sense! I mean, otherwise, one would think that the metal arm was a metaphor for the constant pain and guilt that comes from the terrible mistake he had made that he desperately wants to undo. Or not, because that's just silly, right, guys?

Yeah, there's that, but on the other hand

AUTOMAIL FUCKING RULES, like for serious

Gotta take the Winry stance on this

pyromonki

@Kylor:

Wow, that makes a lot of sense! I mean, otherwise, one would think that the metal arm was a metaphor for the constant pain and guilt that comes from the terrible mistake he had made that he desperately wants to undo. Or not, because that's just silly, right, guys?

Isn't he the same person who told Rose not to look away when he showed her the automail? Irony much?

TLC

My problem with how Ed sacrificed his alchemy to get back Al was that it was stupid. Not the idea itself but the fact that Ed only thought of it after 30 seconds of rushed thinking.

Nothing built up to it or anything, it was just "Crap, crap, crap, what do I do now!?! UGH>< Oh yeah, I could have done this all along! Doh!"

If it was something he planned to use as a last resort from the start, it would have been fine but what we got…was stupid.

(Not to mention the plot points of Ming's alchemy and Ed somehow getting Al through the door which would be opened during the ritual not going anywhere...).