Full Metal Alchemist
Story:
Full Metal Alchemist (or in short FMA) is an anime about 2 brothers, called Alphonse and Edward Elric, who practice Alchemy. When you watch the first episode, you’ll find yourself in the middle of the story, not knowing anything about what happened before. Later on, you’ll eventually find out what happened exactly and what were the results (hope I didn’t spoil anything here). What happened in short is this: Their mother died due to an illness, and Edward and Alphonse decided to resurrect her by using alchemy. Well, you should know that there are 3 rules in alchemy, which are the following:
- You can only transmute something of the same mass
- you need transmutation-circles in order to transmute something
- You may never, ever, transmute gold nor humans
As you might have guessed, the 2 brothers broke the 3rd rule, which meant they had to pay the price. Alphonse lost his body and is now stuck in a metal suit, and Edward lost his arm and leg by putting his little brother in that armour (in order to save his soul from disappearing). Alphonse carries his wounded brother to the grandma of a friend of his, and she makes him a metal arm and metal leg, in order to make Edward once again. Now, the 2 of them are searching for something rumoured to be the only thing that can bring back their bodies: the legendary philosopher’s stone…..
Extra information:
Number of episodes: 51 + 1 movie
Genre: action
Most important characters:
Edward Elric: The Full Metal Alchemist, desperately searching for a way to get his brother’s body back: little, blond and very impulsive.
Alphonse Elric: in complete contradiction, Alphonse trusts people a little too quick, and always sees the good things in people, which basically means he gets in trouble rather a lot.
Roy Mustang: The flame Alchemist, and the boss of Edward. His goal, or so it seems, is to get higher and higher in rank as soon as possible. And I suppose that’s why a lot of people don’t like him. He has however a few friends always willing to do whatever it takes to complete Roy’s mission.
Own opinion:
After seeing all kinds of animes about love for some amazing girl, I found myself watching an anime with another kind of love: brother love. Like most of you, I didn’t really wanted to see this anime since there were no pretty girls (at least, not at first glance). So somewhat sadly, I started to download the first episode. That first episode decided my future regarding watching FMA: my addiction began……
I truly enjoyed the series until the very last second, and I will definitely never forget this anime. 51 episodes look a lot, I have to admit, but when watching, you forget the time and just go watch another episode, despite what you actually should do. The main body for this great anime is it’s huge originality: what looks like some quest for some super stone, results in a very deep, but interesting, story, about which I definitely don’t want spoil anything about. You’ll just have to find out on your own.
Now I should be telling you something about the animation: well, there’s not much to tell about except the fact the faces the characters sometimes make to express their emotions. This very well done, but you’ll have to get into it. The animation isn’t bad, but you shouldn’t expect enormously spectacular actions all the time.
As last, but not least, the subbing and the music: about the subbing I can’t really say that much since I didn’t watch all subs completely (I would be crazy if I did something like that), but I don’t recall that the subbing was bad. On the contrary: when I have to put it next to subs of Naruto and more, it is actually quite good. Next part is the music: it simply rocked. You have a simple choice: either you’ll sing along, or you have a really bad taste of music. With songs like ‘’Kesenai Tsumi’’, ‘’Tobira no mokou’’ and ‘’Undo’’ you want them to continue forever (ok, now I’m exaggerating a little, but still). If there’s one idiot who would then ask, and what about the music aside from the opening and ending songs?, I could talk for hours and hours about it. But I’m not going to do that, since I don’t have that many hours. In short: it was just perfect for that particular part of the anime.
Judgment:
As anyone could have just read, I’m just fond of this anime: even if you would hold a major grudge against animes, I still would suggest you watching this anime, simply because it’s so great. Just the fact that there is a movie and like 5 games made about this anime would support my judgment. This anime truly has everything it takes to be a great anime: a great story, good humour, a little drama and music that truly rocks. If you didn’t get the message: watch this anime NOW, since it’s definitely worthy of your time……
Audio: 7,8
Drama: 7,3
Dub: 7,6
Humour: 7,3
Originality: 9,3
Visual: 6,6
Overall: 8,2
[Made by Feniks]
