Fullmetal Alchemist is one of my favorite manga of all time. That does not mean I recommend watching the anime.
I won't get pulled into the debate about whether or not the 2003 anime was good or bad, even if I do have strong opinions on the subject. For the purposes of this review it's irrelevant because it's not the same story as the manga and after a certain point isn't even bothering to pretend to be. And Brotherhood is hobbled by its existence because, in their haste to zip past the part of the show they assumed everyone already knew from the 2003 anime, they completely shot the pacing and so any recommendation of Brotherhood has to come with the asterisk that the first part of it isn't very good.
So don't. Read the manga. If you just can't stand sequential art, well, that's hard for me to understand but I generally druther not have a thing than a really bad version of it that'll probably color your opinion of the rest forever, and in their own ways both anime are bad adaptations of the manga.
But, with that out of the way, as a fantasy comic, Fullmetal Alchemist has a ton to recommend it.
The setting is a World War II-esque age of guns and armored vehicles, far from the standard fantasy setting, married to some genuinely tragic ruminations on the humanity of soldiers of fascist powers who probably thought they were joining the military to protect their country, only to end up pushed into dirty, even genocidal wars. The magic equivalent is just detailed enough to be cool and reward a bit of thinking and scientific knowledge without being detailed enough to require pages of boring exposition or add too much science to the pseudoscience and raise too many questions.
The action is often intense, with creative use of the series' many concepts, and characters' particular skillsets. Speaking of, the characters themselves are almost never one-note (well, except for some of the villains anyway, and half the time that's the point), showing off shades, nuances, and depth far beyond simple archetypes and jokes. The humor is actually mostly pretty good, but knows when to scale back and let the tragedy and tone of a scene speak for themselves, and the plot is surprisingly intricate, with lots of little callbacks to reward you for paying attention and noticing things.
It's all really good and I really recommend it... but again. Just read the manga.
Probably my favorite manga of all time... but just read the manga.
Fullmetal Alchemist is one of my favorite manga of all time. That does not mean I recommend watching the anime.
I won't get pulled into the debate about whether or not the 2003 anime was good or bad, even if I do have strong opinions on the subject. For the purposes of this review it's irrelevant because it's not the same story as the manga and after a certain point isn't even bothering to pretend to be. And Brotherhood is hobbled by its existence because, in their haste to zip past the part of the show they assumed everyone already knew from the 2003 anime, they completely shot the pacing and so any recommendation of Brotherhood has to come with the asterisk that the first part of it isn't very good.
So don't. Read the manga. If you just can't stand sequential art, well, that's hard for me to understand but I generally druther not have a thing than a really bad version of it that'll probably color your opinion of the rest forever, and in their own ways both anime are bad adaptations of the manga.
But, with that out of the way, as a fantasy comic, Fullmetal Alchemist has a ton to recommend it.
The setting is a World War II-esque age of guns and armored vehicles, far from the standard fantasy setting, married to some genuinely tragic ruminations on the humanity of soldiers of fascist powers who probably thought they were joining the military to protect their country, only to end up pushed into dirty, even genocidal wars. The magic equivalent is just detailed enough to be cool and reward a bit of thinking and scientific knowledge without being detailed enough to require pages of boring exposition or add too much science to the pseudoscience and raise too many questions.
The action is often intense, with creative use of the series' many concepts, and characters' particular skillsets. Speaking of, the characters themselves are almost never one-note (well, except for some of the villains anyway, and half the time that's the point), showing off shades, nuances, and depth far beyond simple archetypes and jokes. The humor is actually mostly pretty good, but knows when to scale back and let the tragedy and tone of a scene speak for themselves, and the plot is surprisingly intricate, with lots of little callbacks to reward you for paying attention and noticing things.
It's all really good and I really recommend it... but again. Just read the manga.