Full Metal Alchemist General

Scar brought so much pain and misery, upon people who didn't deserve it, some of whom weren't even involved in Ishval, just because of revenge. We got to see it very clearly that it made him just a monster to everyone.

I do like this series so much just because of how clever it is! Seriously the Alchemy is consistent and a lot of real world physics. Like Envy being heavier than he appears.

Exactly. Scar's revenge was portrayed negatively, as was Winry's attempted revenge on him. Thus, Arakawa couldn't have suddenly portrayed Ranfan taking revenge positively.

And COL Mustang's revenge on Envy.

Silly tropers, everybody knows that revenge only works if your name is Shikamaru Nara.

edited 13th Jun '15 8:56:34 AM by TheAirman

Ah yes Roy's revenge. I think the Brotherhood anime handled it well with Roy's face twisting into pure rage and his motion being less human as he burned Envy.

Envy deserved to die, considering he was sadistic, hell all the Homunculi deserved it since a philosophers stone is a moral event horizon and they did it... how many times?

Anyway, despite Karma dictating that yes Envy deserved this, Roy was not in it to stop a monster from harming anyone else, but rather because of his own feelings.

I think I figured out why I didn't like Brotherhood!Edward. I guess it is just me and not Edward himself that bothers me, he is something of a jerkass but it is mostly because of my negative thoughts projecting him to be much more of an assshole than he actually is.

It was a neat twist on the classic "If you kill him, you'll become him!" message because nobody was disputing that Envy needed killing, and nobody was worried about Mustang becoming him, yet a lot of the message was similar. It was more, "If you kill for pleasure and personal satisfaction, you'll become Wrath, and we've already had a leader like that."

I have to say one thing about this story is that towards the end in order to prove that humans weren't beneath the homunculi just because they human that homunculi are beneath humans just because they're homunculi. Humans Are Special annoys me almost as much as Humans Are the Real Monsters.

The message should have been "We're better than you because you're evil, sadistic pricks who care about nothing but yourselves and your aimless, thoughtless, ambition" not "We're better than you based solely on what you are and what we are"

I'm sure that wasn't what she was going for, and it didn't feel that way all the time, but when it did I found it really off-putting.

edited 13th Jun '15 4:02:08 PM by LSBK

Yeah those are my pet peeve human tropes.

I interpreted it differently, Greed and Wrath were homunculi in human bodies, yet what made them different is that Greed had compassion while Wrath had none. The deciding factor was the empathy for others, at least to me.

Yeah we don't have selfish ambitions or do horrible things like you homunculi...yeah!!!

My point was that's why the people fighting were better than this particular group of homunculi, if someone else happen to make others who weren't like that then the message the show was pressing weakens a bit and that's a problem.

Weren't the selfish military generals also displayed as pretty much less than human because they were willing to sacrifice innocent people for immortality?

edited 13th Jun '15 7:28:56 PM by EchoingSilence

Yep. The 2003 anime did the sam thng with its military leaders.

I guess that is another reason why I had a hard time with Brotherhood and its 'fuck yeah humanity' thing but I will give this to the author as most writers are human. Diito for attack on Titan.

edited 14th Jun '15 2:55:51 PM by GAP

So who would you all say is the most sympathetic antagonist, from either the Anime or Mangahood?

We were just talking about sympathetic villains on anothr site and this topic got brought up with Gluttony getting a lot of pity. I personally always felt sorriest for Father, if we were going to discuss the saddest out-and-out villain, as opposed to Anti Villains like Greed or Anime Lust.

Father he I can see it, but he did too much to deserve pity considering well he did take the souls of countries. I feel bad for Wrath he seemed human even if he did horrible crimes, but before he became Fuhrer he was nobody.

Anime: Scar, then either Sloth or Lust. Mangahood: Gluttony. Sloth could have competed if he had more screen time. Wrath is too dignified to pity.

Speaking of '03, Funimation has the Blu Ray/Collector's Edition up for preorder.

edited 17th Jul '15 8:21:59 PM by TheAirman

BLU-RAYS???? Imma buy that shit! (When I have money!)

Still need to get my Yu Yu Hakusho BR's too....

Wait, I'm looking at their site right now, is it just the stupid movie? I'm not gonna waste money on that.

edited 17th Jul '15 9:00:54 PM by Nikkolas

No, they sent me an email for the series' BR Collector's Edition. Says it won't be available until September 15th though.

Oh well, that's cool then. I'll keep an eye out for that.

Most sympathetic Homunculus is definitely Gluttony. I actually remember wanting him to live.

Me too, sadly it was unlikely from the start.

Eh, never really cared for him. I suppose he is the most sympathetic by default...although Envy definitely earns something vaguely resembling pity by the end.

Greed was pretty sympathetic too.

Gluttony is the most sympathetic as Envy and Pride are the most pitiable. Envy is pitiable because he really is pathetic despite making himself out to be better than humanity nad actually envies them for their ability to change. Pride because he puffs himself to bigger than he is but he is repsonsible for his own fall as his folly is literally pride.

I didn't count him, as he was hardly a villain in the end anyway.