Reviews Manga / Fullmetal Alchemist

This review is pretty terrible. Most of this is you ranting about something that simply isn\'t to your preference.

I wouldn\'t call this \"terrible,\" but it came off as somewhat unfocused and ranty, so it\'s not all that informative.

From what I can tell, in context, Olivier denouncing her brother as a coward was a lie that she told to one of the generals in the conspiracy. She also implies disapproval of the massacre by suggesting that it\'s part of the higher-ups\' plans to General Raven, and since she kills him soon afterward, that implies that it\'s more likely to be her honest opinion.

He only said it was \"pretty\" terrible. which, when you think about it, is kind of an oxymoron.

\"Boringly predictable\".

What is that even supposed to mean?

about the gay thing - not everything is trying to be offensive, you know. Rule of Funny & all.

First of all, I agree that the definition of being human is pretty vague in a world of animated armor, sapient chimeras and artificial homunculi. And I don\'t remember any plot points where being vegeterian would have any relevance, so I\'ll just skip this part, as long as they don\'t eat fallen comrades and|or enemies.

As for LGBT and molesters, the overall global problem with gays being perceived as molesters is that many gay characters are molesters, and every yaoi character is a molester, and every yaoi fan is a molester, and many of them are straight|bi female molesters who try to pretend they\'re actually male molesters, and there are people who say they\'re both actually male and actually gay, and they are mostly molesters, and there are people who fight for equality and coming out, but they mostly look like the most disgusting anime characters, and behave themselves accordingly (as molesters). And none of those people have any understanding of actual orientation, consent, harassment, and so on, so they make any person they choose their target to join the ranks of people who, as South Park put it, HATE FAGS.

There probably are people who are just gay, but that\'s an inessential fact of their biography, among \"I\'m green-eyed\" and \"i\'m left-handed\", and they don\'t feel the need to start discussions with \"I\'m vegan\". Oh, excuse me, I meant \"gay\"..

Xenos Hg, uh, I\'m not sure I understood you. That rant seems to imply you think most gay people really ARE molesters.

...So, I\'ve engaged with Svarti kind of a lot over time, in these various reviews. I don\'t agree with him often, but he\'s definitely an okay guy, in his own way.

And I\'ll just say that, while his tastes and mine are completely different, while he most certainly has his big personal bugbears, and while he definitely lets one-off moments and self-furnished subtext completely ruin things for him more often than I feel is healthy, he\'s got the right to be offended at what offends him.

(And considering the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist is one of my favorite works of literature of all time, I\'m actually rather pleased with my ability to feel that way. Seriously, Svarti, you\'re going to out-of-hand dismiss the incredible craft with which the piece was structured just because the cast don\'t have some token asshole qualities in a ham-fisted attempt to add \"complexity?\" Also, the reason \"Father\" pushes the medium forward is that the focus is on his pathetic, human qualities rather than on his unknowable nature.)

GarnetRebeller: That’s what happens when I have a lot to say and only 400 words to say it with.

Valiona: That it wasn’t predictable in a satisfying way, which can be achieved but wasn’t here. And if that’s what she genuinely thought she should’ve said that to her brother in private. ‘You’re a coward for not massacring innocent people’ is a pretty fucking horrible thing to say.

XenosHg: Exactly. Being gay should in theory be inconsequential but is repeatedly presented as tantamount to being a molester, and when you’re on the receiving end it’s much harder to let it slide, especially, DoloresHaze, if it’s so ubiquitous it’s done matter-of-factly without intention to offend. And a discussion can more-or-less start with ‘I’m vegan/gay’ if it’s relevant to said discussion, e.g. if I want to explain why I can’t let ‘gay = molester’ slide so easily or why the morals expressed in a series create a serious case of Values Dissonance for me.

SpectralTime: Thank you for your, er, kind words, but no, that’s not what I wanted to see. I would’ve liked to see characters in actual moral dilemmas that I genuinely can’t predict how they’ll be resolved instead of going ‘of course he’s gonna refuse to kill again because “you’re human” or some shit, and of course that’ll turn out by some Contrived Coincidence to be the right choice’. It got tedious after some time. And I would’ve liked to see characters whose personality can’t be summed up and predicted within a sentence or two, who actually undergo significant change throughout the series. Also, you say I let these things ruin things for me too easily, so I have to wonder: are you a GSRM or a woman, or non-neurotypical? Do you have first-hand or at least second-hand experience with seeing these subtle messages conveyed sometimes not even with malicious intent but because they’re so normalised against you?

Another point of contention I had was that Arakwawa apparently has no idea what living in a militant country in a constant state of war is like IRL, which was incredibly jarring for me as someone who was born and raised in Israel. In real life people buy into that shit. That’s what propaganda is for. And if they don’t they are not allowed to speak their mind so freely if they live under a military government. Much like the live-action adaptation of Grave of the Fireflies, the writer clearly knew next to nothing about what war actually was like. That alone would’ve just strained my Willing Suspension of Disbelief, but the fact that she also had the nerve to preach non-violence to victims of violence disgusted me. You don’t get to beat the shit out of someone, stop abruptly, and preach, ‘Ah-ah-ah, violence is bad!’ At most you can say, ‘Please forgive me, I swear I’ll make it up to you.’ It doesn’t matter if the other person is Ishvalan or Ainu/Korean/Taiwanese/a Nanjing native, you are in no position to preach.

...Okay, again, I won't tell you you can't be offended. Lord knows, I'm sick of people telling me I can't be offended at the naked neo-Nazi right-wing bullshit that permeates High School Of The Dead. And it's not like Gay Mechanic Guy was a great, indispensable character. And... yeah, fair enough, I am a white upper-middle-class American male who has never known genuine institutionalized prejudice of that sort in my life.

But... he's barely in the show, man. It's not a bone-deep element inextricable from the story's DNA like HSotD's Korean hate and unabashed support of the uyoku dantai. I'd forgotten he even existed until you devoted two whole sentences to complaining about him without even bothering to mention the qualities that I look for in a good story, qualities that, in my opinion, the manga really excels at.

And that's all I meant to say about that.

Ah no, the series portrayed him just fine. With stereotypical mannerisms that were portrayed as incidental while he was an earnest person (heh). It was the omake that was the problem; it was short, so even his short appearance (and I think it was recurring actually) was very prominent.

And I started off with talking about the plot and the annoying amounts of Black and White Morality (that made the story duller) and Blue and Orange Morality (that made it less accessible). But OK. Two more points:

While individual arcs were not predictable the fact that the characters’ moral choices always were took a huge deal off the series’ edge. For far too long a portion of the series Kimblee came off as an obnoxiously smug Villain Sue.

I’m not saying the series didn’t have its strong points, of course it did, otherwise I would’ve rated it much lower (I did rate it 8). But those points reduced my appreciation from ‘that’s a damn good show!’ to ‘it’s OK I guess‘.

Having read through the manga, I agree with pretty much everything, animation aside. That didn\'t stop me from making this the one comic of any origin for which I bought every volume. It works very well as an action adventure with a properly planned plot coming to an all-encompassing finale, lively cast, ingenious use of powers with no \"I\'m stronger!\", inventive designs and a wide though inconsistent backing in history. But it wants to speak of ethnic strife, militarism, and abuse of power, which all reduces to \"aliens control the government\". After they face Scar in Briggs, the good guys are all working together and everyone else is ignorant or a willing collaborator planning to kill most of the country. Its deepest ambition became its biggest flaw; Arakawa kept promising darker elements but could not deliver. And kept the cartoonish parts, giving jarring whiplashes.

(Also, why do unpowered fighters stand before their enemies when guns are common? It\'s common in the genre but still bothered me.)

You may want to see the first animated series; the studio took the early manga and rewrote half the plot, keeping to the darker parts and focusing more on moral dilemmas for the heroes.

I watched the original anime when I was in the 9th grade and loved it. I started rewatching it a while back but then my computer crashed about a third into the series, and yes, it definitely held up and I liked it better.

Based on just this review I gotta agree with Spectral Time, it seems that in your reach to portrayal of issues, looking too much into things and ironically not being satisfied with others not being blatantly clarified and absolutely adressed, you come off as asking having almost unreachable standards, were sure you may give something a high score, but give the feel that anything lower than a perfect 10 (even a 9.99) is mediocre.

As for the review itself. I\'ve always felt that while the review word count might not be the most optimal, it\'s still rather fair. However in general, I didn\'t had enough space, has become sort of the go to excuse. It\'s not my intent to sound mean however. For example, the only concrete example you gave was the Olivia one. Instead of going on about how you wanted to slap her, etc. you could had used that space to elaborate or at the very least clarify and or give examples of the other grievances.

Finally, is there a Thou Shall Not Kill message? Personally, to me the Elrics had issue with creating or even using philosofer stones because they needed to sacrifice a great number of people. Other than that their issues with killin individuals was normal reluctance to take a life rather than some DC comics level vow.

They kept refusing to kill, say, Scar, the chimerae, and even Envy.

Honestly, I don’t think my standards are ‘high’, but they’re definitely unusual. Characters pretty much make or break a series for me, which is why in many ways I enjoyed Dexter more than Breaking Bad, even though the latter was a far more polished product: Dexter and the other characters had their personalities and motivations elaborated in at length, while the latter relied a bit too much on Show, Don\'t Tell, which made some of it ring a bit hollow (especially since the Nazis kinda came out of nowhere; I would’ve liked to see Gus’ wife appear as a Big Bad instead).

The characters on Brotherhood came off as very one-dimensional to me, so despite whatever merit it might have had, I still couldn’t overlook the flaws all too readily.

(That is not to say I didn’t enjoy it at all, otherwise I wouldn’t have given it the grade I did. But there’s a difference between ‘could deeply enjoy’ and ‘found perfect in every way’.)