Fullmetal Alchemist Review
By Odeena
Fullmetal Alchemist Review
Review Statistics
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- Comments
- 25
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Plot Synopsis
"You can't gain something without sacrificing something else of the equal value. This is the principle of the equivalent trade."
The story takes place in an alternate world from ours in the early 1900's. Two young brothers, older Edward Elric and younger Alphonse Elric, live with their mother Trisha in the small village of Resembool. Their father left home when they were still very young, but Ed and Al inherited his passion for alchemy.
1909. On a fine day, Trisha dies of an unknown illness, leaving her two sons orphans. Ed blames his father for Trisha's death and wants to find a way to bring her back to life. At this time, Ed was 10, Al 9. When Edward finds out about flesh forging in an alchemy book that belonged to his father, he engages in an intense training with Al in order to be able to perform a human transmutation.
On February 1910, the Elric brothers cross the forbidden line trying to resurrect their mom. The attempt ends in a complete failure. In the process, Ed loses his left leg and Al his whole body. In a last try full of despair, Ed uses alchemy to restore his brother's spirit putting it in a suit of mail, at the further cost of his right arm. When Al wakes up in the armour, he suddenly realizes what happened and takes his unconscious injured brother to the neighbours, the Rockbells.
After that day, the two decide to embark on a journey to find the legendary Philosopher's Stone, rumoured to create anything from nothing, in hopes of getting back their original bodies.
Story & Characters
In my view, the story of Full Metal Alchemist is quite complex and very well put together. Each character has their definite part and nearlly all the events (with a few minor exceptions) follow up naturally. I particularily liked the way that this show combines humorous moments with extremely dramatic scenes, and manages to do so without starting to seem ridiculous or false. There were a few questions and issues that were left unsolved at the end of the series, but since the Full Metal Alchemist movie is supposed to clear them out, I suppose that isn't such a major impediment.
The main protagonists are characterized quite well, with Edward being the child
who is forced to grow up all too early and comes face to face with a moral
dilemma that goes way beyond his age, and Alphonse being the younger brother who
always trusts his elder sibling to find a way out of any problem. Most of the
other characters have their distinct personalities, too. Each of the military
fits more or less into a typical stereotype. On the other hand, the Hommunculi
have very different (and somewhat unpredictable) personalities, but not all of
them are singularized well enough.
- Rating
- 9 (very good)
Art
The artwork of the series is good enough, but doesn't stand out in particular. Most of the backgrounds have a pretty low level of detail and some of them are downright sketchy, especially the outdoors ones. There aren't too many notable visual effects, either. On the other hand, the character designs are are extremely variated; unlike other series in which the only things that made the difference between protagonists were the eye color, hair color and clothes, in Full Metal Alchemist each character has their own stature, build, face, particularities etc.
The openings and endings are dynamic and well put together, each one of them fitting with their respective song. One thing that I like about them is that they use very little footage from the actual episodes (actually I'm not sure if there is any at all).
- Rating
- 8 (good)
Sound
When it comes about OSTs, the Full Metal Alchemist OST is one of my all-time favorites. The four openings and four endings are performed by famous Japanese bands like L\'Arc~en~Ciel, Cool Joke or Asian Kung-Fu Generation, which adds to the quality of the audio. Also, the background music is very variated, ranging from the somewhat classic 'action', 'drama' or 'funny' themes that can be encountered in nearly every anime of this sort to parts of consacrated symphonic plays such as Beethoven\'s 9th Symphony. The music is well chosen according to each scene and has a significant contribution in creating a certain mood during some scenes, especially in the last few episodes.
The voice acting is simply brilliant, especially for Edward, Alphonse, Maes Hughes, Wrath and Envy. Edward's "WHO are you calling short yo goddamn jerk?!" sort of lines always made me crack up, while on the other hand I've had some trouble getting used to Alphonse's gentle voice coming from inside that somewhat menacing-looking armor.
- Rating
- 10 (excellent)
Presentation
is series has everything it takes to be a great one - a dynamic and easy-to-follow story, complex characters, plenty of humorous moments, a touch of philosophy, decent visuals and last but not least an awesome OST. One impediment would be that the beginning is a bit slow, with plenty of flashbacks and many things that may seem strange on first sight, but everything is cleared up later in the series. If you have the patiente to endure through the first five episodes, I assure you it will be well worth it, so you should definitely watch it if you have the chance.
- Rating
- 9 (very good)
Final Verdict
9.00 (very good)
Reviewed by Odeena, 2y 29wk ago
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nice review, but I think that the backgrounds are not that bad...any waygood work
i think that full metal alchemist is great!
a
i love it!
your review is great!congratulations
i watched allof it including the movie, the only thing i had a problem with is that in the end Ed doesn't get with Winry( tears).
I actually get inspiration from the background actually, so I'll have to disagree with you on the background.
And, yes, the OST is just awesome. I listen to it a lot, along with the themes.
On Al... yeah but it funny to see such a menacing armor to act and sound like a kid. So, I got used to it.
Well, after you see the movie, you should start the manga. It won't dissapoint you. It story runs differently from the anime, so I think it will catch your interests. Also, the stroy go deeper.
Nice review.
We shall see in the manga.
Oh, the manga is still on going, once a month. Nice long chapters.
I give FMA 10 out of 10 becasue the voices and characters rocks. I which though Ed and Winry hook up and got married. They really like each other.
Lolz not bad for writing this review and i agree with u. But i like the characters' designs and i really like their eyes because it gives a lively effect^^
id say thats the best review :-) good job
FMA is the best anime ever!
merged: 02-20-2006 ~ 02:44pm
unfortunatly i havnt seen the movie :-( ive looked everywhere. im trying not to read spoilers though.
fma is my favourite anime! its the best! i love the movie too... 10/10 for fma!:D:D. Oh and the OST is awesome
ur lucky elvisha :-( i want to see the movie soooo bad....lol
The movie is what ties everything together after the series. It was everything that I needed it to be...it ROCKED in other words. It is a MUST to watch if you have seen the series and loved it!
I quite agree with you
Nice
review - it sums it up quite well - I definitely agree with your analysis of
character designs however the backgrounds i feel were not as plain as you saw
them - I thought they were quite nice.
OST's are great too! Just a question - when you talk about the voice acting - do you refer to Eng or Jap?
Anways nice review!
I had my doubts about this anime at first, since I read a review and saw something like two dudes looking for the Philosopher's Stone so I was like no way Im going to watch some japanese Harry Potter thing, after watching the first chapter I couldn't stop watching, great anime indeed and great review!
i love anime its the best...and this is 1 of the best anime ever so i would prefer any big anime fan to watch it :-)
chidoguan same thing happened to me at first until i started actually watching the show
Good review , hmm i also think that the ost perfome by asian kungfu generation is great.
Dude man. reallly good review. I seen it myself.. N its great!
Awesome review. I just totally agree with all you said! I loved the story, I love its philosophjy, and I really think that it is one of the most original series that have been done recently (well, not ot recently
). I liked all the characters, maybe with the exception of Dante, who I hated!
But I loved Ed, Mustang, Al, Hughes, all the police, teh homunculus (wrath not
so much, and gluttony gave goosebumps, hahahha).
Fabolous Review.
Soredewa nochi hodo (see ya later)!
Interesting anime, in him i like one char, Ed. and end of anime whas wery nice
FMA was put together well, you can tell they actually thought about the Anime before making it, yah know.
Ed is a very complex character. He's still a child at heart but, he has to act like an adult. Taking care of his younger brother 24/7.
Al is a minor character in my mind. He's sweet and all, but all he does is calm Ed.
And the story behind Envy and Sloth, also wrath. Thats beyond awesome. Envy and Wrath would technically Ed and Al's other brothers.
Hmmm... I like the english better then the Japanese. Vic does an awesome job. Paku Romi's singing voice is strictly just that.
Mmmm.. The movie ruins the good anime series.
Anyways.
Thats my thought on it.
It should be a 10, but 9 works to.
yes.. well made review i specially liked the review of the story and characters... it sure does have the funny moments and dramatic ones... well done..
the characters were very complete and yeah, the sounds were l33t
the art wasn't bad, tho. well yeah, it's different, but trust me, it's loads better than the manga's initial art (which was, to put it kindly, pretty childish...but of course it evolved as well!)
then again, the developers did a good job with the alternate storyline to that in the manga, which is WAAAYYY different (but pretty cool as well) where some of the characters died differently, or new characters are introduced, and even a bit of a different character history...what are you waiting for, go get the manga! :P
Considering that the anime went in its own direction, it did really well. Usually you would expect changes from the manga to totally suck, but here this wasn't the case. ^^. Good review, by the way.
sci-fi at its best in the form of anime!
cheers!
one of the best animes i've ever seen!
i enjoyed this series alot, especially the beginning scene when they trying to get their mom back - bit freaky.
have not yet completed it only episode 25.
its extremely funny and is good for a laugh
very nice review