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EP 28: spoiler[I still believe that a more deep and dry voice for Father would have been more suitable for him, but surprisingly, it still work despite that. I was pleased that they managed to make him right because i really like Father. He is a much more interesting character than Dante, i think, even though i liked her too (although, neither of them is my favorite Shonen-villain, which lately became Uchiha Madara from Naruto). I'm still very disappointed about Envy's true form though. He could have been so cool and frightening but they make him look ugly (and not in a good way Confused

).]

I was never fond of Arakawa spoiler[making Ling a new Greed]. While spoiler[Greed] is my favorite character, I didn't want to see him come back in such a way, and Ling is probably my least favorite character. The idea itself is pretty questionable, since it makes little sense Father spoiler[would willingly bring back an openly rebellious element like Greed, even with his memories wiped. His nature is to strike out on his own, since he's so greedy. It seemed to me, when I first read this in the manga, that Arakawa simply ran out of ideas for Ling. While I have since changed my mind on it, I'm still not certain whether or not it was a good move. But hey, I should feel better that Greed has returned, right? If anything, Greed inhabiting him improves him, right?]

The scene where he becomes spoiler[Greed] is a little underwhelming though, at least musically. spoiler[I did enjoy the bit where Ling talks to the spirit of Greed. ]When I read that in the manga, I pictured blackness with white spirits floating around, not red, but with the Philosopher's Stone, it makes more sense. I just felt like it didn't seem as dramatic as in the manga.

Also, what is it about spoiler[Greed's] ouroboros tattoo? I thought it was the other way around on his hand. Maybe that was just for the first anime. I thought it looked better there.

spoiler[At least we get Yuuichi Nakamura again. I thought he made a good Greed beforehand, approaching the quality of Suwabe in the first series. Hearing him again as Greed made me smile. He knows how to deliver. ]

Why does Scar seems so damn overpowered? Angry or not, he shouldn't be able to get away with half the things he does. The look on his face spoiler[when he couldn't kill Father] was priceless.

I still have to re-read the chapters that were covered with episode 28, since I don't perfectly remember them, but I have to said that I loved the latest episode even if it wasn't as good as 26.

By the way, my boyfriend, who doesn't read the manga but watched the first anime, is quite impressed but the real FMA plot and characters. Very Happy

At first he wasn't really convinced about it since there were many similarities in the beginning of this new anime, but now he really likes Brotherhood. ^^

P.S. penguintruth, I bet every FMA fan on internet has understood that you don't like Lin by now, you don't need to say it every time on every forum / journal. Anime hyper

P.P.S. I love the OST. I like listening to it more alone than with the anime though, since the music placements could have been better, as someone already pointed out.

I really didn't like episode 28, to be honest - it wasn't as bad as the earlier episodes, but I think following such good episodes made it seem worse to me in contrast. It all just felt extremely anticlimactic to me, I didn't really get the sense that this was one of the big turning points of the story, it just felt like more typical action, didn't seem like anything extraordinary. Like I said, I feel like the last few episodes had a lot more impact to this, so, yeah, it kind of stinks when the rising action leaves a bigger impact than the actual climax.

I realize that the manga does kind of move about this whole part quickly, too, but I guess the advantage to the manga is that it only moves as fast as you want it to, and it never moved quite this fast for me. It just seemed like everything got pushed together, and nothing in particular really stood out, whereas there were a lot of great panels in the manga that had a lot of impact to them. I just didn't sense any sort of dramatic timing here, especially not with the dialogue. And I think they underestimate the extent to which the dialogue helps to set up the atmosphere. Seemed like they were relying purely on visuals for that, but when the dialogue is just kind of rushed along so they can fit spoiler[Ling being transformed into Greed] in by the commercial break, it kind of falls flat.

I guess I just would've really loved to have seen this portion of the manga given a slow, methodical approach. Even just some simple silence at the right points could've really helped to raise the tension, and I think a lot of what happened could've been stretched pretty easily, still without being slow by any means, but I guess a lot of people love the more fast paced nature of this show, and I'm just kind of pining for the steadier pacing of the previous show. Ah well.

I definitely thought spoiler[Ling's transformation into Greed] was rather underwhelming, too, and I also pictured it in black and white, which I think would've looked better, honestly. I just wasn't too crazy about the red there, whether it made sense or not. I also thought spoiler[his transformation in general was a little too quick, I think rushing it in before the commercial break hurt it. It was like, "Ohoho, he's a bad guy now!" and I just didn't really buy it, for whatever reason. Seemed almost hokey, made me very aware that I was watching a show, rather than drawing me in. And then Scar and May Chang bust in and you lose focus on him for a little while anyways, I think it was all just badly timed.] That's kind of how the whole episode was for me, really. Underwhelming, no proper focus.

I was a little thrown by spoiler[Ling's voice changing once he turned into Greed, too - like, Greed replaced his vocal chords, or something, heh. Didn't make sense to me, but I'll get used to it.]

Scar is pretty overpowered, but he kind of needs to be to survive, heh. At least he actually got shot in episode 23, in the 1st series, it always seemed like he could just magically dodge bullets, or outrun them, or something, which always kind of irritated me more than his just being so good in physical combat.

Why spoiler[Father would bring Greed back is also a good question - you might just be able to chalk it up to his arrogance. You'd think he would've at least employed some kind of fail-safe, though. Definitely not the brightest move he ever made. Also, why does he bother bringing Greed back, but not Lust, who was actually loyal? I can only assume that it takes some amount of time to create a homonculus, unless you use a human like with Ling and Bradley, which is probably why it was so alluring to him. He probably figured that it'd at least be a while before Greed revolted, and that it'd be more beneficial to have one more pawn for that period of time. That's the only way I can really make sense of it.]

I'll give this episode another spin once Funi puts it up, since I watched a really low quality version of it, which may have influenced my feelings about it. Perhaps I'll like it more the 2nd time around. I just don't think it had the right atmosphere, or the proper bang it needed.

I always assumed the reason father brought back greed was because when each hommunculus dies, he takes them back into his body, and he brings them back in order to purge himself from the negative emotions, habits or whatever that the hommuns represent. That's why they were named after the seven deadly sins. The reason he couldn't bring Lust back would be because he didn't take her back into his body when she died because he didn't have her philosopher's stone. I may be completely wrong but it's made everything fit for me so far.

RhymesWithEmpty wrote:

Also, why does he bother bringing Greed back, but not Lust, who was actually loyal? I can only assume that it takes some amount of time to create a homonculus, unless you use a human like with Ling and Bradley, which is probably why it was so alluring to him. He probably figured that it'd at least be a while before Greed revolted, and that it'd be more beneficial to have one more pawn for that period of time. That's the only way I can really make sense of it.[/spoiler]

Wasn't spoiler[Lust killed off for good? I mean, with the old Greed Father took his stone out of him and fed it back into himself or something like that. Same with Gluttony. But with Lust, the stone was completely destroyed, and so was never absorbed back into Father. Which means that he'll have to make a new one, which is probably a lot harder than recycling the old one.]

Edit: Yeah, what Blackpeppir said.

Aaah, yeah, I totally forgot about that one important detail, haha. Still, you'd think spoiler[he'd have more motivation to try and recreate Lust, but, again, we can only assume that this is a complex process, if even possible at all - I always kind of figured their names were more symbolic, and not that he was literally removing his emotions, but if that is in fact the case, then, yeah, I guess it'd be hard for him to recreate Lust now that she's kaput, stone and all.]

About spoiler[Ling turning into Greed. I pictured this part to play out in a completely different way. I didn't thought that the change will make Greed's voice to actually replace Ling's, but rather that it will just be reflected by change of his vocal tone (i thought we gonna hear Miyano's evil voice [Light Yagami!! Twisted Evil

]). I think it would have make more sense, too. Especially in some parts like when we see some reaction from him about all the things that Ed make him realize. I don't think it would have the same impact when he is talking with Greed's voice]

I don't believe this? No one's watching episode 29? Yesterday, I saw episodes 15-29 in a marathon because I'm not good in following anime series that is not on television.

spoiler[On the 29th episode Wraith (aka King Bradly) allows them to continue their research but if they make one wrong move, Winry will die. Lin is slowly regaining control of his body which is basically possessed by Greed. And apparently Father can create another copies of Homunculi that had died, as Gluttony is born again from Father's body. ]

I watched it, I just never got around to commenting on it.

Episode 29 didn't blow me away, but I think it flowed better than 28, it got done what it needed to, and some parts were quite nicely done, at that.

They changed the spoiler["because inside my armor... there's a little girl"] joke around, and seemed to refocus it on Envy walking in and seeing Ed's junk, which I found significantly less funny. Not a huge deal, but I liked that joke, so that disappointed me a little bit. And I found the SD humor to be a bit frequent for my personal taste, but it's been worse. Overall, pretty minor complaints.

They moved a few things around in this episode - mainly just seems like they moved the part with Ed fixing stuff and then realizing he needed to return Riza's gun to her to the end, which I think worked quite well as the ending of the episode, so I can't complain there. Also, putting the 2nd half of spoiler[Scar and Marco's meeting] after the ED was cool. Made it stand out a bit more, and cutting the end theme off suddenly stops when spoiler[Scar grabs Marco by the face in a rage] was a nice move. And it was just done nicely all around, really. 2 thumbs up from me.

So they basically fit everything in, and made it feel natural, even though they moved stuff around - pretty good episode overall.

Just watched episode 30, too, and I thought it was pretty good, considering they were trying to do an entire volume in one episode. Obviously, they had to make a lot of cuts, but I think they were smart cuts. I can see why they moved Scar's flashback to episode 22 now, and sure, it would've been nice if they had just given this 2 episodes, or however many they'd have needed, and fully adapted it straight from the manga, but I can see why they wouldn't want to do that, too.

Basically, I thought that everything they did include was done quite well. And they did a good job of sorting out what was important and what was excess material. And they had a lot of great material to work with, too - this is easily one of my favorite volumes of the manga. So, yeah, I don't envy the guy who had to make those decisions.

I think all of Kimbley's parts were done quite well - actually, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I really like his tiny parts in the opener, too. I just really like how he looks animated, I guess, I think they got his vibe down perfectly. His spoiler[talking to Mustang, Hughes and Riza, particularly Riza's reaction when he suggested she got some satisfaction from hitting her targets(aka Ishballans),] was great. However, while I really liked all of the parts of his that they kept in, I'm rather concerned that they cut spoiler[his turning on his superior officers when asked to return the stone] - that seemed like the biggest cut to me. But there's no possible way they could just leave that out, right? It's got to show up in the future... I'll be rather shocked if it doesn't.

There were some times where it seemed the dialogue got cut down a bit, but it's hard to say after just watching a fansub. I'm happy they included the scene where spoiler[the head Ishballan cleric guy offers his life to Bradley in an effort to end the war, but Bradley's dialogue at the end seemed to fall short of how it was in the manga, to me, and that's one of the parts that really struck me in this volume. His talk about how God is an idol created by weak men afraid of taking responsibility for their own fates, and how it's the hand of man, not god, that one should be wary of - I guess I like the specific lines from the manga. And Funimation probably won't be able to just lift lines from Viz's translation, huh? A shame, I think it's an excellent translation.] Well, still a really good part that I'm glad they included.

Oh, the beginning, with spoiler[Roy and Riza's dad,] was done well, too, although I was surprised they didn't show spoiler[Riza standing in the doorway after her dad died,] like in the manga.

On the other hand, I found the ending of the episode rather awkward. You have spoiler[all of this flashback about a horrible, horrible war, and then you finish the episode with some humor between Al and May Chang, and more "Yeah, we have to get our bodies back!" stuff? Really didn't fit...I mean, I felt part of the point of this part of the story was to get away from Ed and Al for a bit, and make us realize that this story is much bigger than them, which is what so many people like about the manga...so to bring it back to them like that at the very end really didn't work well for me at all. They had the whole "Vengeance!" thing after the ED, but I really think they should've just finished with that in place of Al and May Chang, and put them in the beginning of the next episode.]

I guess that's about all I've got for now, heh. In general, I liked both episodes, thought they were both much better than episode 28.

RhymesWithEmpty wrote:

I don't envy the guy who had to make those decisions.

Luckily he seems to be a very skilled director--he also did very fine work with Kurau: Phantom Memory. I'm going to be watching Yasuhiro Irie from now on, he may be a midas touch.

Well, I wouldn't say he has the golden touch, but if I'm not counting the beginning of Brotherhood, then I'd say he's done a pretty decent job.

So, Bones took my favorite volume of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, volume 15, and stripped it of its significance and impact. It's not too surprising. Spreading parts of the Ishbal flashback into other episodes, keeping this one episode, it was bound to be watered down. I shouldn't have expected any more, but I had faith in Bones, and it was misplaced.

Is it just me, or does the war as it's depicted in this episode seem a little... tame? In the manga, it's total chaos in most of the scenes. Total hell. Here, it almost seems like merely a police action, a series of small shoot outs. You really don't get the same severe brutality you saw in the manga, in scenes like spoiler[Kimbley's with Armstrong at the wall.]

We also miss quite a bit of the heart, too. I know they already covered most of Scar's past, but they missed spoiler[the Rockbells being warned by their supplier, Ishbalan Amestrian soldiers being locked up, and Knox talking with Marcoh. ]We even lost some of the little extras, like spoiler[cameos by Lust and Envy, or Bradley's inner thoughts as he saw Roy stare up at him ("He's looking right at me... no, past me.").] The ambiguous wickedness of Kimbley at this point is somewhat lost. Hell, they even cut down his speech, and they got rid of all those other soldiers that were around them. It felt like Roy, Riza, and Hughes were fighting the war at times.

Look, the episode itself was pretty good on its own. We got most of the basics. Roy and Riza's past, Kimbley being a douche, state alchemists killing folks, Philosopher's Stones being created out of Ishbalans, and King Bradley looking down on humans (did anyone find it strange that he kept calling those Ishbalans "humans"? Isn't that suspicious behavior for somebody who is trying to pass as human himself?). Fine. So it's a good episode, but it could have been two masterpiece episodes.

Episode thirty-two.

I don't get why Scar would go from Central to East city, and then across to West City (presumably through Central again). That just seems weird.

I assume the new Armstrong (unsmiling Brigadier General chick) is related to the old Armstrong (sparkling Major dude)?

All in all the episode was a pretty slow one. Nothing in it really felt like it was necessary. And considering its title, we didn't see Selim until the half-way mark. Hmm.

Hopefully next episode will be much much better.

Well, the problem, dtm42, is that a lot of the episode was filler. They took a few pages from volume 16 of the manga and stretched them out needlessly.

Those scenes of Scar avoiding soldiers? Filler. Kimbley pointing at maps? Filler. The Fuhrer coming into the conversation? Filler.

This was pretty annoying, since they crammed volume 15 together into one episode, but felt justified in stretching a few pages in volume 16 as far as they did.

Not to mention, it makes the Amestrian soldiers look like total incompetents, because none of them ever think to shoot Scar, and they all stand by with stupid looks on their faces as he uses his arm.

I guess I wouldn't mind the filler so much if they hadn't done what they did to volume 15.

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