Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the most respected and well loved anime in the whole entire genre with its visceral imagery to its hilarious and fist-pumping moments to its emotionally powerful scenes. A show with this magnitude having a page like THIS is sort of shocking. But since the series had its fair share of flaws, these are the moments where not even transmutation wouldn't make them better and would be better off in the Gate Of Truth.
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- Baronobeefdip: In Fullmetal Alchemist, Greed's 2nd death in the manga. It just felt like nothing more than a major Ass Pull, especially since Greed had just gotten a major dose of Character Development in the previous chapter when he stated he wanted friends above anything else. Oh, and just to rub salt in the proverbial wounds, they let Pride live... but use the flimsy excuse of "Amnesia". Why couldn't Arakawa just pull a Scanners and make it ambiguous as to whether or not Greed was still inside Ling at the end instead of killing him off?
- Styx D: The show's worst moment for me was, often considered a Moment of Awesome, Alphonse sacrificing himself to restore Ed's arm and the subsequent fight with Father. To me it looked like a huge contrivance for the sake of drama and allowing the protagonist to land the final blow on the Big Bad. Father in his shambling, deprived of Philosopher's Stone state was no danger to anyone. There were more than enough strong characters standing around to take him down, even without getting close to him, like Roy or May, who instead seemed to be content just cheering for Ed. Hell, even a regular soldier would do, as proven by the fact that Father didn't manage to retaliate against Ed's blows even once. But no, we had to have forced dramatic tension and then a boring Curb-Stomp Battle. Fortunately, this didn't manage to ruin the great series for me, because it ended soon after that.
- cricri3007: Seconded. No matter how you stretch it, a soul isn't worth just an arm and I spent the few pages of the end of the fight wondering why were they all cheering on Ed and not just shooting the Big Bad.
- Fluffything: The fact that Scar's real name was never revealed is a huge DMOS for me. Not only was this one of the biggest mysteries of the series, and one that the fandom in large wanted to know the answer to since, well, since Scar first appeared. But, Hiromu Awakawa herself said that she would reveal Scar's real name at the end of the manga. Guess what? She didn't!? His real name isn't revealed in the actual manga, it's not revealed in any footnotes, it's not even revealed in any side material. If that's not a slap in the face to the fandom, I don't know what is.
- Pren: Al's period of existential Wangst over whether he's just an artificial being Ed created. Not a single person who reads the manga or watches either series could possibly believe it's true for a second, yet we still have to go through an extended period of him moping about the possibility just because an Ax-Crazy lunatic told him it might be true. The 2003 series takes it up to eleven by having Al interrupt Winry's speech about how stupid the idea is and go on to keep whining about it for several more episodes until he gets the truth slapped into him by Scar of all people, incidentally also forming part of the show's apparent determination to remove each and every bit of agency Winry had in the manga, likely forming a big reason for the character's
Hatedom that the original version doesn't deserve at all. - Anime King 1108: The 2003 anime, while a great series on its own merit, has one aspect that grinds my gears: Fuhrer Bradley's defeat. While he actually put up a decent fight, he pretty much dies from his own Bond Villain Stupidity by giving Selim the key to the safe holding his skull. 1. Why did he think keeping his own weakness in his house was a good idea? 2. Why did he think giving Selim the key to it without explaining why its contents are important was a good idea? I get that he's supposed to be the Sin of Pride, but even proud people know when they're basically causing their own deaths.
- Shrimps: I didn't care much for the anime version of FMA, but it hit a new low with the scene when Roy shot Winry's parents and becomes all suicidal because of apparently immense guilt from killing two people. Wait, hasn't he and his army killed a couple of hundreds already? Sure, this time it was his own kin but that just makes it worse.
- CJ Croen 1393: Even though I quite like the first anime, I'm not particularly fond of "The Phantom Thief". First off, Psiren (the titular thief) was hoisted as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, yet because practically every attempt she made to help someone turned out to be a lie and the excuse of her wanting to give the dying, Venice-like notoriety is dubious at bestnote , she comes off as a Designated Hero. Second, Ed gets the brunt of the abuse in the episode, despite being the only competent person who wants to catch the thief; he gets kicked around a lot by Psiren, he gets treated like a heartless jerk for wanting to see her arrested (despite the fact that all he's basically doing is what he's been doing for the majority of the series up to that point; doing the right thing simply because he knows it's the right thing to do) and even gets food poisoning at the very beginning and has to get a really unnecessary looking shot. Third off, Psiren flirts with Ed relentlessly. It's supposed to be sexy, but the age gap, her creepy insistence on it and Ed repeatedly telling her that he's not interested makes it really, really creepy instead. And lastly, Alphonse is holding the Idiot Ball because he's got a giant crush on Psiren. Why is he crushing on her? Because she reminds him of his mother. Umm, ewwww? Pretty much the worst episode ever for FMA, and to make matters worse, Psiren escapes and gets no punishment in the end.
- RAHDRON: while my problems with the 2003 anime didn't begin in episode 46, it turned the rest of the anime in an almost masochistic experience, as everybody became puppets to further the plot, rather than actual characters. Long story short (from what I remember), Al has the great idea of well... asking help in how to use his Philosopher's stone ... to Shou Tucker. Obviously he only wanted to use him to resurrect the daughter that he turned into a chimera (if you didn't want to do that to her, why did you even do it, genius) and was killed by Scar. Problem 1: Alphonse acts like a dumbass in asking Shou Tucker help, after everything he did. Problem 2: Correct me if I'm wrong, but here Tucker is supposed to be somewhat sympathetic? What the hell? If this isn't Glurge, I don't know what it is. Problem 3: This is a really cheap method for drama that doesn't really contribute anything to the plot, as I wouldn't find it that bad if Tucker had simply kidnapped him or set him a trap - by not telling him who he really was, for example, and afterwards they beated him up, then I wouldn't mind that much (but it didn't happen). Problem 4: If the idea was to make Al act more like a boy of his age; there's a massive difference between being naive and being an IDIOT. Finally the result is that... Nina doesn't come back to life (apparently because Tucker's will wasn't strong enough) and Tucker goes nuts or something... And that's it for his character. So yes, he isn't fought or confronted in any way at the end of the series. At least it's not Karma Houdini , as he goes nuts and doesn't succeed in what he wanted, but even then... Why did we have to keep this jerk alive in the first place, 2003 anime?
