Trivia / Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)

• All-Star Cast: Purposefully invoked for the English dub. The ADR directors, Mike McFarland and Colleen Clinkenbeard, sought out to give the series the respect they felt it deserved by going out of their way to cast as many big names as they could. Most notably, they managed to grab Dameon Clarke for Scar and Scott McNeil for Hohenheim, two actors who normally only perform in either Canadian or Los Angeles-based works.
• Approval of God: Due to a mix of not wanting to tell the same story twice and the risk of overtaking the manga, Arakawa encouraged and approved of the changes made to the story in the 2003 anime, even designing several characters for it. Heck, she liked some of the Canon Foreigners so much that she added them to the manga!
• Children Voicing Children: Alphonse in English is voiced by Aaron Dismuke who was only twelve at the time.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Ed and Al are voiced by women in Japanese, but not in English. Envy, however, is voiced by a woman in both versions. It contributes to his/her/its/their creepiness quite effectively. Wrath also has a female voice actor in both Japanese and English.
• Cut Song: "Melissa" (the first opening song) and "Undo" (the third) were unused in the North American airings of the series; "Ready Steady Go" (the second opening) replaced them instead, with the opening finally changing once "Rewrite" (the fourth) comes along in the final stretch of the series.
• Development Gag: Travis Willingham originally auditioned to play Armstrong, and uses the voice he took on for that role in the line "I love dogs!"
• Enforced Method Acting: Done a lot in the dub:
  • Vic Mignogna on many occasions was not actually shown the entire script, and his lines were all recorded in chronological order. As a result, his surprise at what was on the other side of the Gate of Truth and what originally happened after the Shou Tucker incident, and Vic's sadness in the last few episodes, were legitimate reactions.
  • When Al was hit with a teacup in one episode, a teacup was tossed at Aaron Dismuke's face.
• God Never Said That: Quite a few members of the manga/Brotherhood fandom seem to think that the changes in the anime were made with no input from Hiromu Arakawa and that she disapproved—if not disowned—the whole thing. In reality, Arakawa not only greatly approved of the changes, she actively encouraged them (mostly because she knew the anime would overtake the manga and the anime wouldn't have enough time to keep up).
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Funimation lost the rights to this series as well, on July 31st, 2016. Luckily as of January 1st, 2018, it returned to Netflix along with Brotherhood.
  • The original French dub which aired on Canal+ is the one fans tend to prefer, as they feel the abundance of coloquialisms and curse words made Ed's dialogue (among others) feel more natural and lively. It's become unfindable legally ever since the DVDs came out (with a lot of lines redubbed to make them tamer), but some people still managed to dig it up and make it available again on torrent sites.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • Quasi-example: the Licensed Game, Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel, was released in the US just two and a half months after the anime's [adult swim] premiere, but was localized before the dubbing of the anime began; thus, all of the US voice actors were cast for and recorded the game before starting on the first episode.
  • Broken Angel also played this straight with Alex Louis Armstrong, as the game featured him a full month before the episode with his first appearance in the anime aired on U.S. television.
• The Other Darrin: In English, Robert McCollum fills in as General Hakuro in Episode 14, depicting the military's subjugating Liore, for Phil Parsons. It was likely an eleventh hour choice since Phil was still listed as his character in the English credits of said episode.
  • In the Premium OVA Collection, dubbed in 2009, some of the English cast were unavailable to reprise their roles and most of the side characters' sole lines did not warrant the cost of getting those respective performers back in. Therefore:
    • While Aaron Dismuke had gone through puberty, he still voiced the now-human Alphonse Elric for the OVAs. The kid version of Al that appears in OVA #4 was instead played by Brittney Karbowski. Brittney also replaced Tierney Titus as Elicia Hughes’ laughter in OVA #3 as the latter had also grown up and was focusing on her education to become a child life specialist.
    • Dameon Clarke had come along with his live-action career in Los Angeles, so Scar was instead played by J. Michael Tatum. Tatum would go on to become Scar’s definitive voice in Brotherhood since the Ishbalan was slightly older in the latter version plus Dameon still wasn't available to repise.
    • Charles Baker replaced Josh Berry for Heymans Breda's sole line in OVA #1 as Berry had moved to New Mexico. His childhood self in OVA #4 was performed by Leah Clark. Clark also replaced Zarah Little as Selim Bradley for some vocalizations as Zarah was winding down her acting presence and was in L.A.
    • Gracia Hughes went from Lauren Goode to Lydia Mackay, Trisha and Sloth's performer, since Goode was based out of Chicago, Illinois and couldn't make it out to Texas on short notice.
• Overtook the Manga: A somewhat unusual case, in which the creator of the manga specifically asked the people making the anime to do this, since the manga was nowhere near being completed at the time the anime came out.
• Recast as a Regular: Cindee Mayfield voiced the black librarian lady who appeared twice (when Shou Tucker merged his daughter and dog into a chimera and when Scar and the Homunculi's battle destroyed the Central Library) and the Xenotime pharmacist that kicked out Alphonse before being cast as Dante, who goes on to be revealed as the series' Big Bad. Dante's second body, Lyra, voiced by Monica Rial, also appeared as a voice-only cameo during the Blue Squad Train Heist alerting Mustang of the situation, plus the little sister of the paperboy who Scar held hostage while tracking the Elrics.
  • Sonny Strait played an angry citizen of Liore chastising the Elrics for attacking Cornello in the second episode before he voiced Maes Hughes. Similarly, R. Bruce Elliott voiced a grizzled civilian at the pub Ed was gathering intel at in episode one, who reappears in the second, before being cast as Basque Gran.
  • Before voicing Jean Havoc, ADR director Mike McFarland voiced the cockateel chimera that Cornello had masquerading as Rose's late boyfriend Cain.
  • Wrath's actress Luci Christian had already played Marin in episode five plus Clara i.e. Psiren in episode ten. Bob Carter, before voicing Sig Curtis, had already voiced Cornello's Number Two Cray in the opening episodes.
  • Eric Vale appeared as a military negotiator in episode fourteen before debuting as Zolf J. Kimblee in the very next episode, though he wouldn't appear proper until episode twenty. Frank Archer's voice Troy Baker also had several throwaway parts in the first half of the series.
  • Meredith McCoy was Kyle in episode nine plus a bar maid in episode 14 before playing Lt. Maria Ross and Jim Foronda appeared as a Liore bar patron in the series premiere before playing Sgt. Denny Blosh.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Despite still owning the rights to it at the time, [adult swim] never aired the series after Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood premiered.
  • [adult swim] has also rarely, if ever, aired The Movie.
• What Could Have Been: The series was originally planned on having a second season with Arakawa's input. However, as staff at Bones were itching to start on Brotherhood, the plans for the second season were reworked into the movie, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa.