Full Metal Alchemist General

Elaborating now.

The rushed start, even with the supposedly logical reasoning behind it, will always annoy me. Bradley pretty much having "villain" tattooed to his forehead thanks to the Brotherhood-exclusive first episode annoys me. The Liore episode's love affair with split-screens was... um. Bad. Ling and Lan Fan's fight with Envy and Gluttony was cut.

The music is great, but the placement is questionable in too many spots to ignore, and certain tracks are repeated too often. And the dub had some issues that I probably shouldn't go into, since that version is not the one I'm most familiar with. The character designs (...fine, mostly Hawkeye's) weren't always the most consistent.

Episode 27 is useless except for making it painfully obvious that Father and Hohenheim are not the same person. Sure, it's not exactly hidden after Ed and Al's first interaction with him, but there was absolutely no reason for a flashback episode of that nature to begin with.

Ishval.

I realize that the purpose of an animated adaptation is not actually to recreate the manga frame by frame. Changes will be made. That said, I adore pretty much everything surrounding Ishval in the manga. Brotherhood did not do it justice.

...To be perfectly honest, if Brotherhood had contained a frame-by-frame version of Ishval, I would probably willing to excuse every little thing that annoyed me because I just love that volume that much. So my opinion on how it was handled could, quite possibly, be considered very warped.

Pretty much everything the anime rearranged irritated me. In a lot of cases, it felt like the writers were approaching the anime as if everyone already knew the story. The full version of the night the brothers' lose their bodies, for instance, came up way too quickly. The framing for that particular flashback was pretty terrible too. Things were arranged the way they were in the manga for a reason, and in my personal opinion, the manga's build-up worked far better than the anime's.

And Winry's parents barely counted as characters at all in Brotherhood. Kimblee is never shown getting the orders to kill them, either. Scar's backstory pretty much usurped Winry's, making the episode where she points a gun at him seem overly dramatic. That episode was Scar's when it should have been Winry's, and it kind of sucked for keeping her importance at the proper level.

Oh, and there was one panel (yep, not even a scene) that I would have killed to see in Brotherhood: When Mustang and Armstrong are in the restroom discussing how Ed will soon have to fulfill his military duties, there's a section of Ishval flashback panels. One of them pretty clearly has Mustang in the sights of Hawkeye's rifle. Without context, it's really cool. I wanted to see that!

All that said, there are some things that I seriously enjoy in Brotherhood. But the feeling that it should have been handled with a lot more care keeps me from loving it.

I see, I see...

To be honest though, I never fully read the manga, but I'm reading it right now, I'm currently on chapter 45 out of 108.

I agree that it is sad thst Brotherhood omitted lots of scene from the manga.

edited 14th Sep '12 5:23:09 PM by DavidtheMouse14

No one said anything about ether animes sucking. -_-

edited 14th Sep '12 6:25:14 PM by DavidtheMouse14

I'm sorry what is even?

Judging by the post being thumped, I wouldn't pay attention to a him or her.

Anyway, while I agree with most of Immi's points, I dont think Scar completely overrode Winry's story. It was just a really bad event that affected two people terribly. I do think they sort of dropped it a little early, and having some significant interaction between the two of them after that episode would've been really helpful.

Also, why does eveyone say the 2003 is more cynical?

edited 17th Sep '12 7:22:35 AM by polooglu

2003 is more cynical because the series end with a Bittersweet Ending, Edward idealism of not killing anyone was eventually broken, Roy's dream were crush, a lot more of are hero dies near the end of the story, and the characters are more prone to angst, and being broken multiple time. And the Homunculi are protray more of being Tragic Monster then being outright evil villians.

Just try comparing Barry, in Manga/Brotherhood he more of a Comedic Sociopathy , in 2003 he's a Complete Monster.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:23:48 PM by DavidtheMouse14

I dunno, forme it seems much mor like an example of The Sliding Scale Of Seriousness Vs Silliness, as opposed to Cynicism vs.Idealism. I don't think one's level of idealism should have anything to do with there ability to kill or not, either.. I guess to me the whole moral of the last two episodes of 2003 was "Ed's last ditched attempt to lose his cynicism is what helped save Al." and Al's idealism (which I personally think is stronger in 2003 than it is in Brotherhood) is what saves Ed earlier. Ed's whole talk with Hoenheim near the end was about not losing your ability to believe in things.

Brotherhood has the flavor of idealism where the end result is "the best happens", while 2003's is more "things could be better but you should always hope for the best". Is one obviously more cynical than the other? Yeah, but I don't think the story as a whole is to cynical.

edited 17th Sep '12 4:58:07 PM by polooglu

But the only example I gave that fit Serious vs. Silly would have to be Barry.

I believe a better example would be the Slicer Brothers, after Edward beats them the brothers told him to end them, Ed refuse and state that he believe them to be human.

There reaction after that was much different where:

In Manga/Brotherhood : They found it amusing that there being treated like humans after how many people they killed, they laugh and was about to tell Edward everything, till Lust and Envy intervene.

In 2003: They found it silly, state that if they were to go out side, and live a new life they would be hunted down repeatedly in till there killed, with the younger brother committing suicide and the older brother planning on doing the same after he was finish helping Ed.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:53:46 PM by DavidtheMouse14

Hm, you got me with the Slicer Bros. but for Barry and everything else I had the opposite reaction. The character is perfectly silly in both versions, the difference is how the different shows react to him. In a more real and serious world, a killer like Barry who has not remorse for what he does will be portrayed as evil no matter how funny or affable he is, though I enjoy watching him in both versions. Like I said, the two shows have two different versions of optimism, it's just that Brotherhood spends considerably more time treating itself like a joke.

But Barry is highly more terrifying in 2003, seeing as he almost killed Edward and Winry, back in episode 8.

edited 18th Sep '12 12:45:18 PM by DavidtheMouse14

Yes, that is correct.

Barry in 2003 reminded me of Johan Liebert.

Seriously, he was one of the most creepy and frightening things of the whole show.

Love all three, but agree, manga beats the stewpid animues.

You convinced me to read the manga. I'm serious. (first couple chapters : pretty funny so far, the Nina thing doesn't drag on so long in my opinion and Al is tougher, threatening people left and right like shou tucker )

You haven't seen Brotherhood?

Yesh I have, I'm comparing it to brotherhood.

They also go into more detail with stuff like, the explained in the manga that all state alchemists encode their notes (Marco did recipes, Ed does travel logs, and Roy does women's names as the code).

I don't remember the anime mentioning that (Maybe it did but other awesome stuff was happening so I forgot)

I get the feeling that I'm really going to like Brotherhood less than the original adaptation, if only because most of the antagonists that I really liked in the original seem to be absent, completely different, or dead before they really get interesting. The sole exception seems to be Greed, who I thought kind of got shafted in the first series and actually has a standing role in the second, but still...

(Not-evil Basque Grand sounds intriguing, too. But I digress. Also, I doubt that I will dislike the show; I'll just probably not unabashedly love it.)

Not-Evil Basque Grande get a combined three minutes of Screentime at most, tho.

Ah. Well, other points still stand.

I wonder why they made Basque Grand evil in 2003?

In the manga he was badass and had an awesome scene (that Brotherhood omitted) kinda sad that they made him a bastard in 2003.

I imagine it to be they were writing his part while his role hadn't been expanded upon in manga, and he look menacing enough to be villain material.

That, and if his first appearance in the manga is anything like the end of "Night of the Chimera's Cry"... that's pretty fishy, even giving the man the benefit of a doubt.