Full Metal Alchemist General

It's a matter of tone. Mangahood tends towards optimism while 2003 is remorselessly cynical, which makes it inevitable that fans of one are going to clash with the other. Lior itself is a pretty good example of this distinction.

In 2003, after Ed left Lior, it immediately fell back in line with Cornello and revolted. The military occupied the city and put down the revolutionaries, then started committing war crimes and raping people because...well, no reason, really. It was just because people suck and soldiers are evil. Then Scar sacrificed himself to murder a thousand people and create a Philosopher's Stone, which is treated as a heroic moment.

In Mangahood, after Ed left Lior, parts of it were seduced back in line with Cornello and revolted. The military was sent in deliberately to massacre people with extreme prejudice in order to create Father's Blood Seal. After the initial violence re-established the pecking order, however, things started to improve and by the time Hohenheim visited, it was no worse for wear.

Mangahood had a stronger justification for a more brutal series of violence against the people of Lior, but 2003's version of the events ended up more horrific anyway. 2003 took the concept of a staged genocide, removed the "staged" part from it, then ramped up the violence and horror just to send a message about how people are super shitty. As a result, 2003's Rose is a traumatized rape victim while Mangahood's is still upbeat and peppy.

edited 2nd Dec '15 8:27:26 AM by TobiasDrake

I've never seen the first anime (it's something I've been meaning to get around to for awhile) but I liked the movie Mystery of Shambala or whatever it was where Ed was in Nazi Germany. I hear it's pretty hated though.

Anyway, as far as Ed and Al's idealism goes, I was okay with it mostly because they didn't turn everyone to their way of thinking. People could still be good guys without agreeing with them. The Briggs troops still showed no mercy and no one else really had qualms with using the already created Philosopher's Stones. Their ideology is treated as just that, theirs, without everyone else being wrong for not adhering to it or seeing the light about it eventually.

edited 30th Dec '15 4:14:18 AM by LSBK

Exactly. Ed and Al were kids still, and in the world of adults who had to kill, that was seen as them just being kids.

Yeah. Ed and Al never converted anyone, but neither were they unduly punished for having the outlook of children. It cost them a fight or two - Kimblee leaps immediately to mind - but the show never treated it as something they had to be broken of, nor did it make them the moral center. It was just a character trait.

edited 4th Dec '15 9:13:46 AM by TobiasDrake

So do you dislike that they weren't punished more for their idealism, and the childishness of their no kill rules?

I'm a little confused on that point.

Nah, their morality fit them and they learned some harsh lessons, such as what their morality is gonna cost them if they wanna keep it.

Besides Ed gave up his own power just to bring Al back so he did make sacrifices for his beliefs and they were tested. Which is fine with me.

I don't think that's Tobias' stance at all. He seems pretty on board with the whole thing.

Overall, I thought it was handled well too.

Right. I was lauding, not criticizing.

Ok cool.

I guess I just misunderstood you.

Plus, most series would viciously punish them for such seemingly naive ideals as well, so I'm glad things turned out as they did for them.

As I once said before, in the first anime, they didn't really accomplish anything, except constantly sacrificing themselves, only for the other to do the same and make the effort meaningless (at least to me), and then they're separated from everyone.

In this, there was an end game. There was a point to it all, and while it took some time, and there were a lot of bumps along the way, in the end, it was all worth it, even with the loss of Ed's alchemy, and him still missing a leg.

Incidentally, I love that he's still missing his leg in the end. It seems fair. Ed was the one pushing them both to try human transmutation. It was his plan, his idea, his egotistical determination to do what couldn't be done.

He gave the arm to save Al and that set them on the road to where they are now. From a narrative perspective, the arm was the ferryman's fare for their journey and the development they would undergo in their search. It's a fitting reward in the end when Al gets his body and Ed gets his arm back.

But the leg is the price of his hubris and that's something that should stay with him forever.

edited 4th Dec '15 12:23:22 PM by TobiasDrake

@Tobias Drake

You know I originally had contempt the manga and Brotherhood because I thought it fell into same trap as some of the shonen I read about but the way you analyzed the story and explained your points actually cause me to reconsider the series. I really had contempt for Ed because he seemed to similar Touma Kamijou and Eren Jaegar but that was only my first impression of Ed and the series in geenral. While the 2003 anime has itsown without merit I think the manga and Brotherhood maybe a little better in some regards. Also, I wnat o know what you think about the Laboratory Five seen with the criminals trapped in armor who wanted to kill themselves to free them from their prison?

i find the idealism in brotherhood a bit easier to swallow because i feel like it's contrasted by something meaningful, i.e the absolutely dreadful and horrific things that happen. what happens to nina early on in the story is such a horrific punch in the gut i never forgot it. it doesn't feel nearly as juvenile as a lot of shounen in that regard.

The Slicer Brothers? Not very memorable but they served a narrative purpose. For one thing, fighting against them gave us Ed imitating Scar's Transmutation for the first time. This is important for his development as a combatant because it shows off his greatest strength: versatility. The Brothers' transmutations are slower than relying on a prepared circle but flexible; anything another alchemist can do, they can learn and reproduce given the time needed to form the motion.

In Mangahood, this is the moment when Ed first adds Scar's Transmutation to his movelist. He uses it many times throughout the series. IIRC, this is the only time he does it in 2003.

As characters, the Slicer Brothers are fairly limited more due to the small amount of time we get to spend with them than anything else. They're hardened killers and expect nothing less of Ed, but there's still a trace of humanity in them. We see it in the bond between them and in their gratitude for Ed treating them as human despite their form. While the parallel with Al is obvious, there's a subtler parallel that informs Ed's later behavior: Kimblee's Chimeras.

The Elric Brothers are extremely generous and merciful towards Darius, Heinkel, Jerso, and Zampano. They recruit them to their cause almost effortlessly by treating them as human beings and offering to help them. Through the Slicer Brothers, Ed has seen how the State dehumanizes people and the effect it can have on them, how even a remorseless killer in such a state can have his heart touched by just a little bit of compassion. It's a lesson that would be reinforced by the unshakable bonds of loyalty between Greed and his chimeras, and finally carried to its conclusion when Ed bonds with Kimblee's.

Ultimately, the Slicer Brothers didn't have much time to present themselves, but what little time we did spend with them was meaningful and would have a strong impact on future events.

And neither do the characters. It stays with them. The Elric Brothers are still name-dropping what happened to Nina as a motivating factor in their choices as late as the final episode.

In 2003, it was just one of many shitty things that happened because life is shitty and bad things happen. The impact is drowned out by the tidal wave of tragedy that comes from existing in the 2003 series.

edited 4th Dec '15 1:27:16 PM by TobiasDrake

Where life is awful and you are doomed regardless?

And alchemy is literally fueled by our souls.

The more I hear about 2003 FMA the more I wonder on how cynical it is.

I would argue that they are two sides of the same coin as while 2003 is much more cynical and jaded, it does end on a positive note.

By a really cynical definition of "positive note", sure.

Al gets his body back but loses Edward... until the movie.

Yeah.

Ed gets f*cking murdered so Al commits the taboo of Human Transmutation to bring him back to life and it works this time because it just does, don't question it. Then Ed immediately pisses on Al's sacrifice by sacrificing his own life to bring Al back to life, and this also works because it just does. End result, Al is alive and has his own body back but he's lost all memory of his adventure with Ed, while Ed is trapped in another dimension. The boys are alive but divided by fate forever - or, at least, until the incredibly shitty movie - and they're also somehow not homunculi despite the rules of the 2003 anime because you get to ignore the rules when you're the Elric Brothers.

Also, this is after the series implied that the Holocaust occurred in our world because the afterlife is a battery where human souls are stored to be used by Ed's world as fuel for transmutation, and because there were so many alchemists doing transmutations, tons of people in our world had to die. So, there's that, too. When you die, your soul will be consumed so that Ed can have a spear, and if Ed needs a lot of spears, then genocide happens.

Like I said, it's a really cynical definition of "positive note".

edited 17th Dec '15 8:05:17 AM by TobiasDrake

Ah, I liked that movie though.

Al was using the philosopher's stone of his entire body when he resurrected Ed. So that part at least is actually perfectly acceptable

edited 17th Dec '15 8:09:36 AM by TheAirman

I didn't, even by the standards of 2003.

Alchemy doesn't work in the real world except when it does. The villains are actual Nazis. The Nazis have armored suits that look like Al for no reason. Roy Mustang has completely abandoned his ambitions to go be a hermit because he misses Ed so much; I guess the Ed/Roy shippers were right all along. Despite the series repeatedly hammering in that homunculi are just soulless replicas of the person you were raising, Wrath gets to make a Redemption Equals Death sacrifice and then we're actually shown him joining Izumi in Gateway Heaven.

There's a lot of problems with it, along with the fact that they even chose to continue that stupid "The real world exists through the Gateway and everyone here dies to become fuel for alchemy" thing from the anime in the first place.

Only if it means that Human Transmutation is possible so long as you have the proper materials to make a human soul. Since 2003 still uses the principle that Philosopher Stones are people, Al effectively fabricated a soul to be Ed out of the souls of other humans. This raises all manner of question as to whether it's even Ed at all.

This also undermines the story that set them on this road to begin with, as it suggests Ed was right all along. They could have brought back their mother and were right to try; they only failed because they didn't have the right components.

edited 17th Dec '15 8:17:10 AM by TobiasDrake

Al didn't fabricate anything. Ed's soul was simply trapped in our world/the other side of the gate. What Al did was undo the damage Envy dealt to Ed's body, retrieve Ed's soul, and put it back in his body. Ed is the one who performed a straight up act of creation.